Weeding for justice

 

Matthew 13: 1-9, 18-23
New Ark United Church of Christ, Newark, DE
July 16, 2023

Photo of a garden sign that reads "May all your weeds be wild flowers".

In her truly seminal book entitled The Parable of the Sower, Octavia Butler wrote:



“Create no images of God.
Accept the images
that God has provided.
They are everywhere,
in everything.
God is Change—
Seed to tree,
tree to forest;
Rain to river,
river to sea;
Grubs to bees,
bees to swarm.
From one, many;
from many, one;
Forever uniting, growing, dissolving—
forever Changing.
The universe
is God’s self-portrait.”



Speaking to crowds who lived in an agrarian culture, Jesus used that imagery in his parables. God is the sower who is profligate, prodigal, lavish with God’s love and God’s word, God’s seeds of justice and hope for all, especially the marginalized and vulnerable.



Seeds will try to grow anywhere they can take root. If Jesus’ context had been a suburban backyard garden I think he would have talked about weeds. I once heard it said that a weed is a wildflower with poor public relations. In truth, a weed is something, anything growing where you don’t want it to grow. As I write this I am looking out the window into my suburban backyard garden where directly in front of me a weeping cherry tree is growing tall and lush where it decided it could grow. Whether it was the wind or birds that carried the seeds there, the seeds found soil good enough to grow into a fifteen-foot-high tree. It’s growing in a place that was not prepared for it. Its roots may end up disrupting the stairsteps and retaining wall built long before it started growing there. And yet this tree is home to birds, provides shade to small animals, and nectar to bees. As it lives, it gives life, so who am I to say it should not grow there?



Have you ever noticed that the weediest of weeds also have the most seeds? Dandelions are a prime example. Another is fleabane. Its flowers look like tiny daisies and it can grow to be over five feet tall. The other day as I was pulling some fleabane, numerous tiny white filaments came loose and flew away in the breeze, sowing the seeds for next summer’s work…or next month’s.



All life that gives life needs a place to put down roots of some kind so it can grow. This church uprooted itself from other places and set down roots here, in this place, so it could grow. Like the profligate sower, the United Church of Christ has continually endeavored to open its witness, to expand the field upon which the seeds of justice fall to include all who have ears to hear the good news.



Good news that is inclusive to all, life that gives life, is disruptive. Sometimes this good news grows in places that are not prepared for it. Earlier this month at General Synod, a young person using the bathroom in which they are most comfortable using was painfully told to leave that bathroom by a convention center staff person. Some United Church of Christ youth were teased and harassed by youth from the Church of God in Christ who were sharing space with us. And yet those UCC youth sent pizza to the Church of God in Christ youth, who then apologized for what they did.



Some versions of Christianity have a narrow reading of this profligate, prodigal sower. They limit how they embody life that is intended to give life and so feel they have the right to weed out what they perceive as getting in the way of how they bear fruit. Some even go so far as to claim they are being persecuted as God’s living word takes root in unexpected places, in people experiencing liberation and the freedom to live and give life. Yet in truth all churches have to some degree limited how we embody the living word of God, the life that is intended to give life. We’ve all tried to weed out rather than weed within.



We who have privilege are the weeds getting in the way of our trans and queer siblings, our non-White neighbors, our disabled kindred, our impoverished friends, our millennial and Gen Z beloved. They too are looking for a place to put down roots, to be life that gives life. They want to be profligate, prodigal, lavish with God’s justice and hope, which is what love looks like in public, and we need to get out of their way.



To be sure, racism is a pernicious weed but so is Whiteness. Homophobia, transphobia, and patriarchy are harmful weeds but so is centering heterosexuality and cisgender experience as normative. Not making accommodations for our disabled kindred is a neglected weed but so is the ableism in which we deny that we all are only temporarily abled-bodied. The myth of scarcity and abject greed are destructive weeds but so is holding onto wealth. Undeniably we are to work against those forces in the world that would thwart and harm the most vulnerable and marginalized among us, but we can always make more room within ourselves for love to grow.



To get to the harvest of liberation, the weeding for justice begins within us. And so Jesus offers not a message of condemnation but one of repentance, that is, a message of “Listen up! Come home, uproot that which prevents you from embodying life that gives life. Come home, where you are loved without merit, beyond deserving, with no limits. Come home and be liberated to love the way I love.” All of us want to be in community with people who witness who we really are and love us anyway. All of us are called to embody the living word, the life that gives life. All of us are on the path of change and transformation. All of us have some weeding to do. Amen.

Benediction


God, who is Seed and Harvest,
Journeys with all those who long for liberation and justice
God brings new life from unexpected places and people
May the startling beauty of this world
And the extravagant love that lives in it
Be revealed though the living of our lives
and in our life together
Now and always.

Amen.