Every July 27th,
I get in a kind of “funk” until I remember that it is the day my dad died in
1970 when I was still a teenager. As I
look at a picture of him today, I can’t help but remember what a brilliantly
simple man he was! He didn’t practice
any particular religion (although he was a Mormon) but as I look back at some
of our experiences together, I can see when he taught me a lot of theology
without either of us knowing it!
I was about 11 or 12
years old and we were out in the back yard working in the garden. He wanted me
to help pull the weeds. There were some pretty flowers that he took really good
care of in the flowerbeds around the house, but in the vegetable garden, he was
pulling them out! So I asked him, “How do I know which is a weed, and which
plant isn’t?” He replied, “If it isn’t what we planted, no matter how beautiful
it is, it’s a weed, because it can take over the whole garden and the
vegetables won’t grow or get as big as we want them to, so it doesn’t belong
here.” Sin is like that. It can be quite beautiful and seductive, but it is
never what God intended to be in His garden.
In the Gospels, Jesus
tells us of many ways that we have to choose between living joyfully with God
forever and being forever separated from Him, in great pain over our loss.
The special spin that
Jesus puts on this question of our choice is that we have a whole lifetime to
make it in. God provides us with all that we need to choose Him and to make
that choice concrete in our life rather than just a vague wish or orientation,
and we must make that one central choice of our life in terms of the small
daily choices that inch us closer to God or away from Him.
While
the "harvesters" are able to tell the difference between the weeds
and the wheat, we must ordinarily remain in some uncertainly about whether
we truly have chosen God enough, whether we have loved Him enough. Any
certainty about whether we are "saved" or not can be a form of
self-delusion and lead to pride, laziness, and a fatal assumption that we are
"good enough." That sort of thing can be deadly in our human
relationships, and it is no different in our relationship with God.
I simply do not know whether I am weed or wheat while I am alive, and the fact is that I am both --- but which is the dominant side of who I am? While I myself am responsible for the choice, it is up to God to decide what I have actually chosen. And that is where the virtue of hope comes in.
The Kingdom of Heaven starts small, as small as the smallest seed you can see. A still, quiet voice in the human heart, speaking and reminding us that God is always present. Sometimes there will be no sign of it on the outside. But within, there is the yearning, the striving for heaven here and now.
But no matter how small it starts, with gardening and attendance, paying attention to God and what is important, with the slightest care, the smallest amount of devotion, it can grow by leaps and bounds -- a seedling, a shrub, a bush, a tree. And when it has grown, when we've allowed it to take root, it has another supernatural property -- it summons, from every corner of the earth and sky, those who would join. People can see the blessing of it; people can feel its comforting presence. And they are drawn to it. They are drawn to the cool shade of it on a hot summer day.
When we allow grace to work, we allow the Kingdom of Heaven to take root. And this kingdom is not for us to hoard and enjoy alone. It has as its chief characteristic the need to be shared, the desire to grow to include everyone.
When you open yourself up to God, do not be surprised that others see it in you and start to want to be near you. Do not underestimate the ability God has given you to change your part of the world into a corner of heaven.
