Mashpee July 20, 2008 Psalm 139:1-12
Matt. 13:24-30, 36-43
“Dealing with life’s relentless weeds”
In the summer of 2006, Diane and I enjoyed the great Northwest while I served as Interim Senior Minister of the First Congregational Church of Bellevue, WA. We traveled to islands, we dined at Pike Place market overlooking Puget Sound while watching the world-renowned fishmongers tossing salmon like they were frisbies, we traveled up the Space Needle, went to the Boeing Air and Space Museum, explored the Old Seattle downtown and watched amazing air shows from a nearby marina on Lake Washington.
Summer of 2006 was good, with one exception: back on the other coast, at 20 Childs Street in Centerville, MA, crabgrass decided to invade our front lawn. I mean there were not just spots of it here and there…I mean the entire lawn became crabgrass!
So once back home, in early spring of 2007, I devised a plan. I fertilized the lawn with a preemergent herbicide and I installed an irrigation system. By mid-May, our front lawn looked splendid. By mid-June, an amazing thing had happened. We had the most magnificent crop of crabgrass you would ever want to see. With the new irrigation system providing a deep watering twice a week, this crabgrass could have been a contender for a prize at the Barnstable County Fair.
By fall, I had a plan. After the crabgrass dried up, using a variety of garden implements, I scraped up every blessed piece of weed I could possibly remove, roughed up the soil a bit and reseeded-a beautiful new late fall lawn emerged.
This spring I hired a professional lawn service that came in at just the right time to apply, professionally, the preemergent herbicide. The plan all came together: the removal of all the nasty weeds last fall and the generous seeding for a new lawn, an irrigation system for those necessary deep waterings, and the hiring of a professional lawn service, following a consultation with their expert.
By June 1st, our new lawn looked great! The new grass was beginning to mature and darken, and life was good.
However, as is the case with life in general, we are not in as much control of things as we would like to believe. Yes, the crabgrass is making a comeback and with it is a fresh batch of nutsedge, which I would swear was the original inspiration for “Jack and the Beanstalk.” You see, when Jack sold his mother’s cow to the stranger for five “magic beans,” they were not actually beanstalks per se, but a variety of weeds including the English variation of nutsedge. This stuff grows overnight at an amazing rate!
So now, as we enter the dog days of summer, I am in a battle with weeds on my front lawn. The nutsedge to some extent can be pulled by hand. The first evening I went to war with them, I pulled out 200. The next night, the same. As of this morning, you would never know that I ever pulled out any of them for they have popped up all over the place.
As for the crabgrass, that’s another problem; crabgrass is in a class of its own. Like the nut grass, it too grows rapidly but it also spreads in most amazing ways and the hotter and drier it gets, the better it does. Crabgrass just thrives on hot sun and no rain! It loves distressed lawns and it welcomes bare spots. I believe crabgrass is the one thing science knows of that predates the 40 million year-old horseshoe crabs.
Into every one’s life a little crabgrass must grow. There is no stopping it. Even at the homes of the most manicured lawns, somewhere there’s some crabgrass.
And so the question becomes not one of how to eliminate the weeds in life, but how to live with them. The homeowner obsessed with having that perfect carpet of green surrounding his or her castle, will be driven somewhat crazy by the weeds. Crabgrass is relentless and knowing how much we dislike it, produces thousands upon thousands of seeds per plant to insure sufficient infestation the next year. To some extent, they can be kept under control, but they cannot be eliminated.
If we go through life focusing on all the bad things that come our way, life can become pretty miserable. By putting our energies into the weeds, we miss out on the good things. Diane and I like to sit out on our porch. We like to entertain company there. We enjoy good conversation. Outside that porch is a lawn that has weeds in it. Fortunately, I can let go of the imperfections of the yard and enjoy the summer. A yard never gets to perfect; there are weeds in the lawn; hedges need trimming; plants need attention; the bird feeder is out of seed.
That is a good metaphor for life, for it too never achieves perfection. I remember while touring one of the mansions in Providence that the owner insisted that each morning his lawn must be perfect and that his footprints and his alone should be the only imperfections in the lawn. Somehow the staff managed to mow the lawn without leaving any footprints!
This story about the weeds popping up in the wheat is really about life. The weeds represent all those nasty things that come our way and if we chose to focus on them, can make us miserable. We can expend a whole lot of energy trying somehow to eliminate the bad things that come our way. This certainly is an option.
The alternative is to center ourselves on what is good about life and decide where it is we hope to go from this point on. We all have had things happen to us during our life’s journeys that we would consider weeds and wished they had never happened. They will take over our lives just as the crabgrass took over my lawn if we focus on them. But, if we can find a way to control them and to live with them and move on, our lives can move in new and exciting directions.
And here’s the best part: in the end, God sorts everything out. God makes the final judgment as to what is good and what is bad; we don’t need to stand in judgment! We don’t need to decide the final outcome of it all. That’s God’s job! We are free to journey on with our lives, to follow the way of Jesus Christ, and to live as we believe our Creator wants to live. How it all works out in the end is not for us to decide! God will sort out the weeds from the wheat.
That’s a liberating thought! It’s a thought that allows me to let go of all those nasty developments in life that set me back a step or two. It’s a thought that allows me to occupy my mind and my soul with things positive. It’s a thought that allows me to let go and to let God. It’s a thought that lets me sleep at night while the crabgrass and nutgrass are growing in my front lawn.
A prayer I recently discovered says it well: “…sometimes while we are asleep your Mystery has taken hold in ways we couldn’t have imagined, surprising us and humbling us. For that we give thanks and take a deep breath to let that surprise take hold of us deep inside.” Seasons of the Spirit, 7-2-08, p. 93.
Enjoy the summer, forget the weeds, and expect great things to happen!
AMEN
