“In This Time of Uprooting”
In my early days of preaching, I often
struggled with the many agricultural images found in the Bible and especially
in the teaching of Jesus. Very much a “city person,” I know little about
farming or raising sheep or fishing. Over the years, as I’ve spent time
studying and reflecting on these passages, I’ve grown more comfortable with the
imagery and, most important, I’ve come to understand that it’s really not about
the seeds or the fish, not really about the weeds and the wheat. Instead, Jesus
uses these images to speak to all of us, even if we’ve never been on a farm,
even if we live among mostly asphalt and concrete.
Last week in church we heard what is
usually called the Parable of the Sower. Jesus offers the image of a seemingly
wasteful sower, spreading seeds all over the place, mostly in places
inhospitable to new life but also in the good soil where growth and abundance
have a fighting chance. This Sunday we will hear a kind of sequel, what’s
usually called the Parable of the Wheat and Weeds. Jesus offers the image of
“an enemy” planting weeds among the wheat and a landowner choosing to let the
wheat and the weeds grow up side by side, waiting until harvest time to save
the wheat and to burn the weeds.
These parables offer so much to think
about. What kind of soil are we? Do God’s gifts find a nurturing home in us or
are they choked and extinguished? Are we wheat or are we weeds? Or, more
likely, are we some mix of the two? Do we offer food to the world or do we take
so much for ourselves that we make it difficult or even impossible for others
to live full and healthy lives? And, at the end, how will we be judged?
While in church we are puzzling over
seeds and soil, wheat and weeds, some of our local artists have been working
with similar imagery to reflect on these months of pandemic and the recognition
that our old lives, our old way of doing things, is no more. We are stepping
into a new and unknown world. We have been uprooted.
I’m so glad that our Arts Council has continued
to meet and plan (via Zoom, of course) over these past few months. And, I’m
very proud and excited that our first virtual art show, “UpRooted,” will open
on Sunday afternoon at 4:00 on Zoom. As curator Amy Neufeld writes, “We
selected this theme because for most of us the pandemic has turned our worlds
topsy-turvy. We are all affected one way or another, some drastically and
others more subtly.” In order to encourage artists to reflect on this theme as
creatively as possible, they were randomly paired and then collaborated
together. The results are extraordinary and very much worth your time. I hope
you’ll join us. More details will be posted here:
https://www.facebook.com/events/317557062969953/
There is no doubt that we have been
uprooted, realizing the hard truth that many of the institutions, leaders, and
customs we have relied on in the past are now failing us in catastrophic ways.
Too often, our trust has been misplaced. Fortunately, getting uprooted is not
the end of our story. We are being replanted in much better soil. As I wrote
last week, New Jersey Together is taking an even bolder approach to address
some of the longstanding yet still shocking inequities in our state. All across
the country, people are rising up, refusing to tolerate indifference and
brutality from those in power. And in the church, having lost all of our
familiar ways of being together, we are being firmly replanted in the good soil
of prayer and scripture. In this time of uprooting, we have been reminded to
place our trust in God, who is the best soil of all.
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