Seventh Sunday after Trinity
READING: Matthew 13 v 24 – 30

‘No’ is a powerful word

I wonder what is the bravest thing you have ever said ? In the inspiring and thoughtful book by Charlie Mackesy book called The Boy, the Mole, the Fox and the Horse, the Boy asks the Horse, ‘What’s the bravest thing you’ve ever said?’.  The Horse replies, ‘Help’ and in his answer the horse completely reframes our understanding of bravery.

One answer we might give to the question What’s the hardest thing you’ve ever said?’ , could be ‘No’. The protagonist in the story of Jesus we hear this week says no and in doing so the farmer who sows the good seed shows great wisdom. His workers want to go in straight away and sort out the weeds that appeared  among the crop but  he tells them firmly  no.  

Jesus is quite adept at saying ‘No’. He may not always use the word, but he communicates its meaning. For example there is an occasion when he is posed with a moral dilemma and his response is to ask a question to which only one answer is possible. Who made me judge over you?’ clearly, no one.

The sower of good seed in today’s parable was right in saying, ‘No’. By refusing to pursue the enemy or uproot the adversary’s work he saved valuable wheat for threshing.  At first sight it is a very brave decision but in the grander scheme of things the right thinks to have done.

There are of course times for a ‘yes’.  Most strikingly we see this in Mary’s response to Gabriel from the story of the Annunciation. But perhaps there are more times for ‘no’ than we realise.

‘No’ is a powerful word. It can stop us in our tracks, especially when we say it to ourselves. It allows us to refuse to engage at times when the temperature of a confrontation is rising. ‘No’ can also help us not to react in an expected way and in so doing give us back our freedom.

‘No’ is an often good word to use in our prayers. Aswe keep it there in the background, it comes into its own when we have ceased to pray and begun to think. The brave word ‘No’ then acts as a mental circuit-breaker and allows us to return to focus on prayers on God.

Do you have a favourite weed? That might sound an odd question especially  to a committed gardener who might even see it as a heretical one. But weeds might be like the proverbial beauty and be all down the eye of the beholder. A plant that is regarded by one person as an intrusive weed may to another be a flower of glorious colour.

Across the world there is a growing interest in the phenomenon of re-wilding or restoring The planet is facing a biodiversity crisis, with ecosystems on the brink of collapse. Intensive farming is seen by many as a cause of this crisis. But scientists are now confirming that biodiversity loss actually destabilises food systems, worsens climate impacts, and erodes the natural capital that sustains life and economies. This brings a loss of beauty and heritage, as well as a loss of ecosystem function.

In response the United Nations has created its “Global Biodiversity Framework” which has been signed by 196 countries  and calls for 30% of land and sea to be protected for nature by 2030.

In the UK there are many examples of re-wilding. By not farming so intensively and restoring the land to nature the new ecosystem that is formed is often riche in biodiversity.  New hedgerows are created and become homes for long lost birds such as nightingales and turtle doves.

This concept of re-wilding  as a form of un-cultivating might help us to see our parable  in a different way from the way it is often interpreted. Usually people read the story to mean  that there’s good and bad in the field. God didn’t put the bad there. That was an enemy. And that leads on to feeling we can move in to sort out this imperfect world When we begin by thinking in this way this it can lead to unintended consequences and hurt. Which we then try to justify with you cannot make an omelette without breaking eggs.

Sam Wells rejects this understanding which he defines as a form of Christian realism. Instead Sam suggests that the parable is about patience. The key phrase in our passage is verse 30 when the farmer tells his workers to let them both grow together until the harvest and he will deal with it.  The parable is about patience and God’s patience with us.

Patience is one of the hardest things in life that we all struggle with. If we were to take a look at the international scene then it would not be difficult to find examples where patience has too often been lacking in foreign policy and often with disastrous consequences. And let us turn the mirror around on our selves and look at our personal lives. I am sure that there will have been many occasions when we have demonstrated a lack of patience and have given in to the pressure to deal with things now. Yet on reflection we now  notice the hurt and harm this failure has brought.

So primarily this a parable about God’s patience. About God putting up with us in our uselessness and in our stupidity and in our cruelty to each other and to Gods creation.

This patience of God is offered to and experienced by us daily. Every morning we start afresh knowing God’s acceptance and receiving his forgiveness as new every morning God shows us his love. And as we go out to live our lives we are inspired to model our patience on his example.

No might be one of the bravest thing we have to say …but patience might turn out to be one of the hardest things we are called to do as followers of Christ.

Image: Andrej Lišakov, Unsplash.com