Growth is Good

"Wheatfield with Crows"
by Vincent Van Gogh (Auvers 1890)
in the Van Gogh Museum, Amsterdam

Carrying on from where I left off on Sunday with the next two parables in Matthew's account, "the Parable of the Wheat and the Weeds" and "the Parable of the Mustard Seed" (Matthew 13: 24-32). There is little doubt that Matthew, in compiling his gospel has grouped these two parables together with the previous one because they are all about seeds. However, most commentaries, sermons and indeed modern Bibles with their editorial subtitles, split these two up and group the second short parable or saying with the next one "the Parable of the Yeast/Leaven", Actually in the current RCL readings "the Parable of the Wheat and Weeds" was last Sunday's Gospel reading while the two subsequent parables, which I am preaching from on RTE, are next Sunday's. But all of these parables, with their agricultural and domestic origins are about growth, but there is a common theme in a number of Jesus's stories about growth and abundance, yet the irony is that in the modern world we have baptised a bizarre mythology of scarcity on the one hand (justifying all kinds of callous behaviours not least Conservative austerity and control of migrants) and an economic system based on conspicuous consumption doing dreadful things to the natural world. Today's dialogue uses these parables to muse on such matters and as I have done on a number of occasions, I shamelessly rip off the "Eh Jesus... Yes Peter" format developed by John L. Bell and the recently late Graham Maule. 

Peter:       Eh Jesus!?

Jesus:      Yes Peter!?

Peter:       It’s about those stories that you’ve been telling…

Jesus:      What about them Peter?

Peter:       Well, I’m a fisherman and I wouldn’t know a stalk of wheat from a weed,  but I’ve been talking to some farmers and they’re saying that you’re talking nonsense…

Jesus:      Is that right Peter…

Peter:       Yes… They’re saying that the farmer you talked about before, flinging his seed hither and thither without preparing the soil would have gone broke unless the seed he was sowing was produced the miraculous yield you were talking about…

Jesus:      Well there are some who say I know more about miracles than farming…

Peter:       Hah! That’s what I told them… But then they said the stories you told today were just as ridiculous…

Jesus:      Why?

Peter:       Well, anyone who left weeds growing alongside wheat was asking for trouble… after all you said yourself in that other story that weeds could choke the life out of young seedlings…

Jesus:      You’re right, I did… so maybe you do listen after all…

Peter:       But then one of the farmers said that maybe I was talking about someone sowing darnel among the wheat… Because they are really hard to tell apart when young, and he then went into a whole rigmarole about how you sift one from the other in the harvest… Was that what you were meaning? How are we supposed to tell one from the other?

Jesus:      You’re not, so don’t worry about it, as the farmer told his servants in the story, just leave them to grow and God will sort it out in the end… I want you to get on with the business of sowing yet how quick God’s servants are to rush to the harvest and point out those who they think are headed for hellfire…

Peter:       But my farmer friends said it was outrageous to think that anyone would sow weeds in the an enemy’s field in the first place… there are much easier ways to get even…

Jesus:      I’m sure he’s right Peter, my mind doesn’t work like that…

Peter:       But where do the weeds come from? Why do bad things like that happen?

Jesus:      That’s a very good question Peter…

Peter:       But my farmer friends really went to town on that other story about the mustard seed…  they said that there are plenty of smaller seeds and lots of larger shrubs and trees… and anyway, what farmer wants to plant any tree that will be a roosting place for birds? Birds are almost as unwelcome as weeds... 

Jesus:      I beg to differ, Peter…, I love to watch the birds...

Peter:       But you said in that other story that birds tend to come along and eat the seeds a farmer sows if he isn’t careful…

Jesus:      Again, you WERE listening… I do underestimate you sometimes Peter…

Peter:       So what’s so great about birds coming to perch in a mustard tree’s branches? One of my farmers said that they are vermin with wings. That they’re snatching food from his family’s table…

Jesus:      That’s a bit dramatic…

Peter:       Yes. But he’s got a point. There’s only so much to go around… Are birds worth more than a farmer’s family… than human beings?

Jesus:      Again, a good question… I’ve got another short story about that…

Peter:       No… deal with this one first…

Jesus:      OK… If truth be told, and I believe in telling the truth, I am uncomfortable with that idea of “there’s only so much to go around” and weighing the well-being of birds against that of farmers… I believe my heavenly Father cares for them both… And that he provides plenty for all if only we would take care of this world he has entrusted to us more carefully…

Peter:       Mmm… I’m not so sure… As a fisherman I wouldn’t want some other creatures feeding on the fish stocks in the Sea of Galilee… or some foreigners coming and fishing in our waters…

Jesus:      Is that right? Well you would know more about fishing than me… I’ll hold that in mind when I’m telling my stories…

Peter:       Just you do that… Whether it’s a story about fishing or farming the details are important if you want people to listen to you… The devil is in the detail…

Jesus:      Indeed, the devil is in the detail but God is in the growth…

Selah