We don't much like the idea of the weeds
being pulled up and thrown in the fire
at the end of time.

But, I suggest to you that this isn't what the story is about.
The teaching here is very good news.

In fact, the complaint of the faithful,
to which this is the Early Church's reply,
is that so-called "bad people"
will be allowed to stay around at all.

The parable is again, as it was last week,
a story of God's particular agricultural methods.

"The Kingdom of Heaven can be compared
to someone sowing good seed in a field;
but, somehow, weeds sprung up amidst the wheat."

The farm workers went to the landowner.
They asked if they should tramp through the fields
and pull up the weeds immediately - right then.

Such would be our preference, I think:
get rid of those people, right away!
I know just who they are, God;
I will make up a list of names.

But the landowner says, No.
We will give it all the time we can,
until the harvest is ready,
so as not to tear up the good grain,

Then those who still choose to be weeds
shall BE weeds.

Here is a parable,
not of God burning people
who don't look and think as do we,
but rather of why, in God's infinite patience,
he allows bad people to live in his world
alongside the good.

This problem is used by many
to explain their disbelief in God.
I use it here to explain God's Grace,
for is there any one of us
who, from time to time,
has not felt like a weed in God's Garden?

I recently ran across this book by Edward Hallowell.
It is titled, Connect.

Reading it carried me back to our stewardship campaign
of 5 or 6 years ago
when our theme was, "Just connect."

Dr. Hallowell is an Episcopalian
trying to write a book of spiritual help
to secular people using secular language.

He sub-titles his work,
"12 Vital Ties that Open Your Heart,
Lengthen Your Life, and Deepen Your Soul."
So much for his attempt to sound secular.

In the book, he tells the story of Bob Tobin.
Here it is.

"One gray afternoon, in a suburb of Boston, Bob Tobin, age 41, crawled into bed and started to cry. He felt depleted, ashamed, and out of luck.

He was making no money, and had to rely entirely on his wife, Maurine, to support their family of 5 children on her small salary as a teacher.

Bob was a graduate student at Harvard, but felt worthless. He was not contributing to the financial support of his family. He was not a success in the expectations of the world.

To make matters worse, he was cross and grumpy all the time, barking at his children and his wife every day.

This man had played college football in Texas and had ridden bareback broncos for fun, but he was now breaking down, and feeling very much alone."

Bob thought he was a weed.
We each get that way sometime.

Dr. Hallowell says that we are not really surrounded
all the time by bad people, by weeds;
but that we think we are
because the Press gives the bad people
all the attention.

He says that in our culture
the faith community and its role
in making individuals and society healthy
has been forced underground.

It is our task to re-emerge,
and proclaim that the good guys
are going to win.

The way we win
is to lift ourselves out of weed-hood;
by becoming connected.

We live in a garden, he says,
and that garden is always growing and changing.

Regardless of what the Dow Jones does
or how much our raise might be,
the things that make us whole
are the ways we can be connected to others
and to that which lies beyond ourselves.

"Even when people die," he says,
"we remain connected to them in wondrous ways."
"In my garden of connectedness,
my old friend, Joe Kublichi, would be a cauliflower;
Mom a lily, John a pumpkin (don't ask, he says)."

So, there lay Bob Tobin of Boston,
crying in his bed, feeling like a weed.
His story continues.

"But, as he lay there that afternoon, something wonderful happened. His children and his wife all came and crawled into his bed with him. They must have made quite a picture, all five kids, ages 6 to 16, one mom, and one weed, weeping until they laughed, all in one sagging bed.

Then Bob said, "I feel so ashamed, I can't even give you kids money to go to the movies."

The kids said, "So what? We will get jobs;" and they did. By the next day two of them had jobs as ushers at the Cleveland Circle Cinema. Everybody pitched in. (Life began to look less weedy.) Bob found work, and he says that he will never forget that day when he came up from the depths with the help of his family and with his God."

Dr. Hallowell says that we are saved
by the force of love
which we cannot know
outside the life of connectedness.

He says that such connectedness
is most easily accessible to us
when we keep our hearts and minds open to God.

"Do it this way," he advises;
"say a simple prayer, such as,
'Please God, come into my life;'
or pray for the people
to whom you feel any kind of connectedness,
even if you don't know what you are doing.

Praying, meditating, and reflecting is good for you.
Studies have shown that people who worship regularly
experience improved health, enhanced well-being
and longer life."

God is waiting, giving us all the time he can;
"- hoping that we will get the message,"
says this book which claims secularity.

Of course, time runs out for each and all of us.
Those who choose to be disconnected,
shall have been disconnected.
It is their choice to have lived life
and to have died - as a weed.

Thus the story of the weeds and the fire
and of "Weeping and Wailing and Gnashing of teeth."
in the second part of the Gospel reading,
a part, most certainly, added by the Early Church
to comfort a people under persecution.

God is not condoning a world of evil people
who ruin things for good people.

Rather, he is providing opportunities for each of us
and what time he can
for us to receive the Abundant Life.

So, back to Bob Tobin.

"Now, at age 63, Bob has built his life on connections of many kinds and much depth. He lives in Cambridge, where he is an Episcopal Priest and Rector of Christ Church. I know his story and his love, because I and my family," says Dr. Edward M. Hallowell, MD, "have been loyal members of his congregation for over 10 years."

Sure it is difficult to live in this mixed up world.
Sure it is hard to loose most of one's retirement savings
because a bunch of jerk-weeds put themselves
ahead of the wider good,
while running some major corporations.

Sure it is hard to look at a neighbor who flaunts
everything in which we believe.

But this is God's Garden, not our own,
lest we make the same mistake as the execu-weeds.

This is God's Garden
and he is being very patient with us,

and is providing bountiful possibilities
for connectedness, and growth, and love;

even for a sometime weedish plant
such as me.