For Sunday
Proper 11A
Collect
Almighty God, the fountain of all wisdom, you know our necessities before we ask and our ignorance in asking: Have compassion on our weakness, and mercifully give us those things which for our unworthiness we dare not, and for our blindness we cannot ask; through the worthiness of your Son Jesus Christ our Lord, who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, now and for ever.
Amen.
Reading
Reflection
Last week, we heard Jesus compare the Kin-dom to seeds falling into different types of soil. Most of it inhospitable or too challenging for growth to occur. But some soil is just right. It sounds a bit like the Goldilocks Problem.
This week, we’re hearing about good seed and weeds. But it isn’t the ground we’re being asked to scrutinize, but the growth itself.
While many of us will fixate on the Good vs. Evil paradigm that this image sets up, I’m more intrigued by the idea that we aren’t scrutinizing seeds or new growth. We aren’t condemning or rejecting (as much as some of us just love to do that). But that the separation comes at the end. For denying any along the way would imperil all.
It is hard not to think, then, of how eager many are to condemn LGBTQ+ brothers and sisters in Christ, when that act is the problem. Even if God didn’t bless some of us (and they do!), it is our condemning of some along the way that imperil us all.
In our neck of the woods, we are quite comfortable with the idea of condemning nobody on principle. So we don’t really struggle with this.
I suspect, however, that we may have a greater struggle with caring for the wheat amidst the weeds. Knowing that some of what we are doing is healthy and good and bringing the best out of people and some of it is stifling and stealing that healthy growth. Knowing that is going on and trying to keep the best of us going.
It isn’t demanding neutrality. But demands we love the best of us the best we can.