When the harvest comes

Haiku for judging

The kingdom of God,

what is it like? A story

agricultural.

An enemy comes

by night, sows weeds with the wheat,

and then goes away

Good mixed with the bad,

how quick we are to rush in;

how quickly we judge.

Growing together,

weeds and wheat: strange companions,

until the harvest.

Take time, seek the fruits;

these alone will determine

what is good and bad.

Jesus sows the seeds,

the children of the kingdom

produce righteous fruit.

Judgement is waiting

for the children of darkness

at the age’s end.

The righteous will shine

like the sun in God’s kingdom.

Do not wait to shine.

© Ken Rookes 2020

Weeds

Haiku for a dilemma

Weeds among the wheat,

useless seeds grow with the grain;

contamination.

Good seed was planted;

where, then, do the weeds come from?

Have to blame someone.

Better pull the weeds

lest their seeds blend with the good;

be responsible.

The master says, No.

You might damage the good plants.

We shall be patient.

Wait for the harvest,

then we’ll properly discern;

sort the good from bad.

The end of the age,

(whatever that means), is time

enough for judgement.

The righteous shall grow,

shine bright, and produce much fruit

in love’s fair kingdom.

Don’t be dissuaded.

Grow strong in the grace of God.

Bear the fruits of love.

© Ken Rookes 2017

A parable about ambiguity

"At heart, this parable isn’t about the nature of evil and provides little material for constructing a coherent theodicy (if there even is such a thing). Rather, I think this parable is about ambiguity. Yes, the sower planted with good seeds. Yes, there are now weeds strewn among the wheat that puts the ideal harvest the sower had imagined at risk. Ideally, the servants could just rip out the weeds, but the sower knows that to tear out the weeds now risks ruining the maturing wheat as well. And so the sower must wait, living with both the wheat and the weeds until the day of harvest when they may be separated in due time.

How often do we not also face similar dilemmas? If not with wheat and weeds (although there may be a few gardeners in your congregation who sympathize with the sower!), then with a multitude of other difficult choices:
like between getting a job to support the family or staying at home to spend more time with the family;
or between supporting someone who consistently struggles at work and pulls the quality of your team down or firing that person;
or between choosing the best school you’ve been accepted to or one that is more affordable;
or between two different treatment options in responding to a grave illness;
or between staying in your current call where things are comfortable or choosing to move on to newer, but unknown, pastures;
or between giving into peer pressure because it just plain sucks to be left out or choosing to stick to your values and risk isolation;
or….

Do you see what I mean, dear Partner? Our lives are littered with situations where there is no clear or easy answer. And yet we rarely talk about these things in church. Maybe we don’t know what to say. Or maybe we ourselves aren’t quite sure how the faith relates to this. But I hear in this parable Jesus’ promise that in ambiguous, challenging situations we have the promise that, in the end, God will sort things out."

http://www.davidlose.net/2014/07/pentecost-6-a-on-wheat-weeds-and-ambiguity/

Weeds

© Ken Rookes 2014 

Weeds

It is too neat; this allegory-parable

of judgement, burning weeds and

the furnaces of hell.

It purports to be the words

of the itinerant teacher called Jesus.

Perhaps it is;

doesn’t make it right, though.

Does that shock you?

Feel free to pray for my soul

if it makes you feel better.

Too neat;

feeding the smug self-righteousness

of those who know themselves to be on the inside.

We are all weeds; we are all wheat.

There is no inside,

there is no outside.

We are the causes of sin,

we are the evildoers,

and yet it is not always so,

need not always be so.

May the righteous indeed shine like the sun;

let us all be reborn into truth.

And let the children of the kingdom

shine with love, with humility,

with justice and with grace.