Weeds in the Garden

Adam and I were weeding our garden (and by “our” I mean the garden that Kathleen, Evie and I planted and tended this year. Adam just came over to help because he relished the opportunity to get dirt on his hands for a change.) As we were weeding we got to talk about weeds in the garden. It is strange how apt they are as an analogy for sin. Some points that we talked over were:

• A weed is only a weed by location and activity. A plant only becomes a weed when it violates some higher purpose set by the gardener. A wisteria vine that strangles a half dozen trees in the jungle is not a weed because it did not violate anyone’s purpose. (There is room for a fascinating rabbit hole meditation about this concept of weeds in the Garden of Eden, but I will let that one go). A wisteria vine that kills a half row of beets is a weed because it violates the purpose of the gardener for that ground, namely, to produce delicious beets. So most of the feelings, thoughts, inclinations that we think of as sinful are only so by location. It is not anger that is the sin, but anger in the wrong time, place or degree. It is not sexual desire that is sinful, but sexual desire that chokes out honesty or love of the person.
• Weed is our name for a plant in the wrong time and place that jeopardizes what we want a particular plot of ground to become. “Sin” is our name for a thought, inclination, word or action in the wrong time or place that jeopardizes what our souls are meant to become.
• It is much easier to kill weeds when they are small and their roots are not established. It is also much harder to spot weeds, or to tell them from vegetables when they are small. In the same way, sins are easiest to uproot when they are small, but also hardest to spot, and there is always the danger of pulling up flower or vegetable sprouts if you get overzealous.
• Jesus seemed to be making this point in His parable about the wheat and the tares. Oddly enough, however, any gardener knows that you do not just let weeds grow willy nilly all over your garden or wheat field until harvest time. You go through and weed them out. The reason we do this is because we look at a garden as a source of produce, and rather than risk the loss of the whole field, we will sacrifice a few plants here and there to keep the weeds at bay. Jesus, however, is not willing to sacrifice even a single one of the good plants in His quest to get out the weeds.

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  Oregon grape, source: http://www.nwplants.com/

  So the best way to keep your garden healthy and producing is to get it weed-free early and keep it that way. However, even after extensive work, some of the Oregon grape that we tore out last year still has roots deep under the soil, and every once in a while they put out leaves. We can’t get at the roots so we have to be on the alert for those leaves and rip them out as soon as we see them. No one knows how long Oregon grape roots can keep sprouting, so we can’t get complacent about it either. And that is the perfect metaphor for a sinful habit, or an addiction. You may think you have it under control, but the roots are still there, and the moment you turn your back it will start sending up leaves again.

• We kept our garden pretty clean this year. However, our neighbors on two sides do not maintain their yards. One yard is overrun with hay and weeds, the other is overrun with ivy and briars, so we constantly have to be on the alert for roots, shoots and seeds creeping through the fence into our garden. Not a big deal, just something we need to be aware of and vigilant about. Just like living in the world we constantly have sinful, unhealthy images and ideas and assumptions trickling into our minds. That certainly isn’t a call to burn down the neighbor’s yard, nor is it any reason necessarily to be resentful. Just something to be aware of and vigilant about.
• The angels will sort everything out in the end. The question I should be asking myself is, am I a Concord grape or an Oregon grape?
  • After all, I don’t suppose the Oregon grape considers itself a weed.