When I was a child I had the task of weeding the flowerbeds that ran along the side of our house. In the beginning my mom pointed out to me the difference between what a small flowering plant resembled and what a weed looked like. She had no desire to lose her precious flowers in their beginning stages of development!

Every week I had the job of clearing out the weeds from among the flowers. Although I was amazed at how quickly these noxious plants would reappear, this was a chore I really did not mind doing. I enjoyed the quiet time alone and felt a sense of accomplishment when I arrived at a clean and orderly garden devoid of any distracting and disruptive weeds.

In Matthew 12:24-30, Jesus tells the story of weeds being sown among a wheat field. The landowner had planted good seed in the field but an enemy came on the sly and dispersed weeds among the good seed. As the crop began to grow, the weeds appeared mixed in with the wheat. The laborers, alarmed at the corruption, approached the owner and wanted to uproot the virulent weeds that were contaminating the finer wheat in the field.
The landowner was a wise person who realized that if the weeds were pulled up, there would be a good chance of also uprooting the immature wheat. He counsels his laborers that allow the weeds and wheat to grow together until the harvest and then the two could be more easily separated.

It is a good thing that I was not that landowner. I would have been a bit hard pressed to allow such a disorder -weeds growing among the wheat! With lots of patience and determination he could have at least tried to get rid of some of the offenders, is my thought.

This story is a good analogy for our spiritual lives. Within each of us is a field of wheat interspersed with some pesky but persistent weeds. We desire to plant and harvest good things but our sinfulness seems to continually rear its ugly head. So, we end up with weeds among the field of wheat of our lives.

Most of us dislike having the weeds. (Other names we might have for weeds could be our imperfection, and even, sadly, our human nature.) We often work diligently to stamp out their existence, but to no avail. As soon as we have cleared one section and moved, on new weeds begin to appear. It is an endless battle.

Having weeds among our wheat is a quandary that we face. None of us are totally bad; yet, none of us are without the weeds of sinfulness. What do we do? I have tried at times to vigorously and continually weed out the "bad" within me but the task is much more difficult than my childhood chores. Usually I end up tired and frustrated.

God is a wise and loving landowner who can live with the weeds among the wheat of our lives. God knows that our lives get messy at times. But God is infinitely patient and merciful and does not require that we forcibly purge ourselves of the weeds. To do so would cause harm to the goodness present and growing within us, too.

As I have gotten older (read into this "wiser") I have learned to be more accepting of my weeds. I do not like them and wish that they were gone, but I have grown accustomed to their presence. I have become more comfortable with my weedy sinfulness.

Being more comfortable is not being complacent. I do not want the weeds to proliferate endlessly and choke the life out my goodness. (Remember: "Sin builds upon sin' grace builds upon grace.") But I can be more at peace with the weeds knowing that at the harvest time of my life God will mercifully and gently separate out the weeds from among the wheat of my life.

We can learn a lesson from the wise landowner. Since the weeds within us will never be totally eradicated, can we allow them to be until the harvest time when God will sift out and find the wheat? Weeds remind us of our need for God, the ultimate gardener and cultivator of our lives.

There will always be weeds among the wheat of our lives. God can live with the mixture. Can we?

~ Sr. Mary Theresa Rozga 10/23/00