Sunday, March 14, 2010
Weeds
We’ve heard the phrase, “Green with envy.” A phrase with its roots in Shakespeare. And there really is no better color to represent envy. For envy is a weed in our souls.
As we near spring, our lawns begin to slowly green up. And the first among the growth is the weed. It’s green and strong. And some are even beautiful in a way. Yet if allowed to grow without resistance, it will kill off all our beautiful grass, leaving us with a barren, patchy, wilderness at home.
Envy is this weed. Its roots are in seeing someone much like us with something we desire. It may be a possession. A relationship with a certain person we admire. Connections that get them whatever they want. Status or position that give them many admirers and great influence and power.
We perceive them as like ourselves. As one of us. We perceive them as having followed a similar path. So what makes them so special to get what we wanted? We hate them for having what we want. We hate ourselves for being unable to get that desired thing.
Suddenly, the winds of spring scatter the seeds, what was once a weed is now weeds. It’s an infestation of our soul. We have become so focused on ourselves and what we want that the well-being of the one whose things or position we covet is no longer a concern. We are no longer content with having what our rival has, we want them to fail.
These weeds may grow in the heart of one passed over for a promotion, who then seeks to undermine the one he or she perceives of unjustly receiving the promotion either through insubordination, spreading rumors around the office, or making false allegations against them.
They may grow in the hearts of one who sees his neighbor heaping up goods he admires while thinking, “That guy is a jerk! He doesn’t deserve what he has. He only cares about himself.” Meanwhile, it’s our own self-focused envy driving those thoughts.
It can be seen when someone gets a starting spot on the football team, the section leader in the band, or lead role in the musical. We perceive ourselves as more committed to the craft and are convinced the spot went to the coach’s or director’s pet.
Or consider the train wreck journalism that is the tabloids and tabloid television. We read and watch waiting to see the latest undeserving celebrity fall from the plateau and we almost celebrate. Paris Hilton and John Gosselin. Serves them right. We’re as talented as they are. Perhaps more so. Marie Osmond’s son commits suicide and people start looking to expose the hole in that famous families’ life that must have led to this tragedy. We envy what they had. A deep family bond that has helped them avoid much of the temptation celebrity brings.
Or we can’t wait for the latest sports dynasty to fall. After all, they keep getting lucky and keep our team from winning it all.
We start to see this weed not only infested our soul but blossomed into a phenomenon overtaking the collective soul of our culture.
And then we find envy on a global scale. After all, did not envy drive millennia of religious warfare? Of nation after nation seeking to be the global big dog in the name of their gods, basically shouting at each other, “My daddy can whip your daddy!”
Did not envy drive centuries of division within the church involving bloody persecutions and so-called holy wars as each faction of the church thought they should have the most power to prove the purity of their doctrine.
Did not envy drive the violence of the twentieth century which involved European nations struggling over who was more powerful and who would hold the most resources? A conflict that spread into Asia and the western hemisphere and dragged the rest of the world into its midst.
Was not envy involved in the conflict between the United States and Japan in the struggle over the islands of the Pacific and other economic tensions, which led to the attack on Pearl Harbor, gruesome battles, and culminated, with the nuclear holocaust of Japanese civilians?
And we must even question if envy does not drive the conflict in the Middle East. Envy over who has influence in the region. Will it be religious extremists or Western politicians who are often funded by large corporations reaping profits in the region? Is not envy the force of religiously-backed hatred of Israel of some in the region as Israel has the backing of the West while few others do? Yet, is it not also envy driving the settlement of Jewish people in Palestinian lands and refusing to acknowledge Palestine as sovereign?
We see the weeds continue to spread. They have spread across the entire world, leaving a wilderness of destruction, having choked out all life as they grew.
But again this week, in our Lenten reflection on the seven deadly sins, we again find hope. Here, the gospel of the kingdom of God as brought by Jesus speaks in Galatians 5:13-26. The first few verses…
(Read Galatians 5: 13-15)
Here, we are reminded of the result of sin in our lives, of worshipping ourselves. As we discussed with greed and gluttony last week, sin is us devouring one another instead of loving our neighbor. So what is Paul’s prescription?
(Read Galatians 5:16-18)
Paul begins by making it seem quite simple. He simply says, “Live by the Spirit.” But he makes it clear that the desires of the flesh and the Spirit are opposed to one another. But to understand this we need to understand what the relationship between flesh and Spirit is.
Some have understood it in terms of ancient Greek philosophy. This way of thinking agreed that flesh and Spirit opposed one another and that the solution was for the individual’s soul to escape from the flesh and into the spiritual realm. This led some Christians to see salvation as a mere escape from the flesh at our death or at what has been called the end times.
Another way of thinking has understood the individual completely condemned in our flesh. This meant we may never see a change in our life, but if we have professed faith in Jesus than our sins will be covered and we will be saved when we die.
Paul’s way of thinking, however, is rooted in his Jewish tradition and is quite complex. We can begin with creation in which the Spirit in the second verse of the Bible sweeps over the waters. In Genesis 2, the Creator forms humanity in its flesh but it does not become a living being until God’s Spirit is breathed into it. The significance here is that God’s Spirit created and is what gives human flesh life. Body and soul are one. Humanity does not exist without both.
But then there’s the rebellion of humanity. Humans were created and told one thing: out of all the trees in the garden do not eat of the one tree. They did and a now seemingly endless cycle of decay of the flesh began and in Genesis 6:3 the Creator says, “My spirit shall not abide in mortals forever.”
We can start to see how the Jewish train of thought is one in which it is understood that the rebellion of man results in this decay of its being. Rather than relying on the Spirit which gave it life, humanity strove to rely on itself. This is the unnatural state of being which has unleashed chaos throughout history as with Pandora’s jar. Relying on the flesh is relying on self. And relying on self divides that which was made to live as one. It separates flesh from the Spirit inhabiting our soul. It separates us one from another.
To state it briefly, to deny the Spirit is to deny life.
So now we can fast forward through centuries of alternating obedience and disobedience in which the prophets try to help God’s people make sense of the complete destruction of their way of life. Jeremiah addresses a people that sought to sustain their life through the flesh, their own strength, and says, “Cursed are those who trust in mere mortals and make mere flesh their strength, whose hearts turn away from the Lord.”
Ezekiel uses this imagery to sound a note of hope when he says, “a new heart I will give you, and a new spirit I will put within you; and I will remove from your body the heart of stone and give you a heart of flesh.” So here we can see flesh is not a bad thing, especially when one with the Spirit. The flesh was created by God and is only loses its beauty when it denies the Spirit which gives it life.
And, again, here we see how Spirit and flesh are inseparable. The prophets spoke of the kingdom of God which Jesus announced as among us. Our lives of reliance on the flesh had choked the Spirit out of our souls and hardened our hearts. When we, embracing the kingdom of God in full loyalty to the way exhibited by Jesus, the Spirit will renew us and soften our hearts and revive our flesh.
So Paul is calling us to set aside our lives of hardness of heart towards one another and remember we are to “love our neighbor as ourselves.”
This brings us back to the image of the weed. As we lean on ourselves and live for ourselves, things such as envy grow and spread within our souls choking out the Spirit. Listen to the result of this weed that spreads within us and hardens the soil of our souls.
(Read Galatians 5:19-21)
Paul understands what we wrestle with. He knows the despair that grips us when we feel like things are out of control. We start to believe we might as well enjoy all we can now because the world around us is too big to change. It’s too big to fail. And if we sit around content with being the little guy, we will become the victim. We start to believe that real happiness comes only from forcing ourselves on to victory over all others. In leaning on and providing for me. So envy sets in when we see someone else victorious. With something we must have and they must not so we will be on top. And we hate ourselves and them until we find false value in such victory.
But Paul ends the previous passage by reminding us that allowing this weed to grow and spread will rob us of the fullness that is the kingdom of God. He reminds us that being God’s people is not about amassing and hoarding riches at others’ expense to prove we are blessed by God. It is not about birthright or nation of origin. It is not about winning battles to prove our daddy can whip their daddy. It is not about religious observance.
It is about reliance on God’s Spirit which is still offered to us in God’s grace despite our continued rebellion. God wants us to rediscover the beauty within which God created us with. But it requires a faith that leads to action guided by the Spirit. Listen to Paul’s words here…
(Read Galatians 5:22-25)
The fruit of the Spirit, which will fertilize our souls, eradicate this weed of envy or other work of the flesh, and produce a luscious garden in our souls, makes us vulnerable. It is less interested in self-advancement than it is in community improvement. Less interested in financial security than in the daily security of our neighbor. Less interested in national security than it is justice between nations in which all nations’ citizens are seen as equal.
We may think it crazy. But this is full reliance on the Spirit and faith in the Creator. We can trust in our own flesh as many have done since time and life began. Or we can reflect on this cliché: “Define insanity. Doing the same thing over and over again but expecting a different result.”
We can tend to the soil of our souls in our strength and allow the weeds to grow and spread believing somehow the result will different than those before. Our we can humble ourselves and trust in the Spirit to tend to the soil of our souls and see new life sprout and spread so that the kingdom of God is revealed in the love of neighbor to neighbor and the restoration of our true humanity.
As we near spring, our lawns begin to slowly green up. And the first among the growth is the weed. It’s green and strong. And some are even beautiful in a way. Yet if allowed to grow without resistance, it will kill off all our beautiful grass, leaving us with a barren, patchy, wilderness at home.
Envy is this weed. Its roots are in seeing someone much like us with something we desire. It may be a possession. A relationship with a certain person we admire. Connections that get them whatever they want. Status or position that give them many admirers and great influence and power.
We perceive them as like ourselves. As one of us. We perceive them as having followed a similar path. So what makes them so special to get what we wanted? We hate them for having what we want. We hate ourselves for being unable to get that desired thing.
Suddenly, the winds of spring scatter the seeds, what was once a weed is now weeds. It’s an infestation of our soul. We have become so focused on ourselves and what we want that the well-being of the one whose things or position we covet is no longer a concern. We are no longer content with having what our rival has, we want them to fail.
These weeds may grow in the heart of one passed over for a promotion, who then seeks to undermine the one he or she perceives of unjustly receiving the promotion either through insubordination, spreading rumors around the office, or making false allegations against them.
They may grow in the hearts of one who sees his neighbor heaping up goods he admires while thinking, “That guy is a jerk! He doesn’t deserve what he has. He only cares about himself.” Meanwhile, it’s our own self-focused envy driving those thoughts.
It can be seen when someone gets a starting spot on the football team, the section leader in the band, or lead role in the musical. We perceive ourselves as more committed to the craft and are convinced the spot went to the coach’s or director’s pet.
Or consider the train wreck journalism that is the tabloids and tabloid television. We read and watch waiting to see the latest undeserving celebrity fall from the plateau and we almost celebrate. Paris Hilton and John Gosselin. Serves them right. We’re as talented as they are. Perhaps more so. Marie Osmond’s son commits suicide and people start looking to expose the hole in that famous families’ life that must have led to this tragedy. We envy what they had. A deep family bond that has helped them avoid much of the temptation celebrity brings.
Or we can’t wait for the latest sports dynasty to fall. After all, they keep getting lucky and keep our team from winning it all.
We start to see this weed not only infested our soul but blossomed into a phenomenon overtaking the collective soul of our culture.
And then we find envy on a global scale. After all, did not envy drive millennia of religious warfare? Of nation after nation seeking to be the global big dog in the name of their gods, basically shouting at each other, “My daddy can whip your daddy!”
Did not envy drive centuries of division within the church involving bloody persecutions and so-called holy wars as each faction of the church thought they should have the most power to prove the purity of their doctrine.
Did not envy drive the violence of the twentieth century which involved European nations struggling over who was more powerful and who would hold the most resources? A conflict that spread into Asia and the western hemisphere and dragged the rest of the world into its midst.
Was not envy involved in the conflict between the United States and Japan in the struggle over the islands of the Pacific and other economic tensions, which led to the attack on Pearl Harbor, gruesome battles, and culminated, with the nuclear holocaust of Japanese civilians?
And we must even question if envy does not drive the conflict in the Middle East. Envy over who has influence in the region. Will it be religious extremists or Western politicians who are often funded by large corporations reaping profits in the region? Is not envy the force of religiously-backed hatred of Israel of some in the region as Israel has the backing of the West while few others do? Yet, is it not also envy driving the settlement of Jewish people in Palestinian lands and refusing to acknowledge Palestine as sovereign?
We see the weeds continue to spread. They have spread across the entire world, leaving a wilderness of destruction, having choked out all life as they grew.
But again this week, in our Lenten reflection on the seven deadly sins, we again find hope. Here, the gospel of the kingdom of God as brought by Jesus speaks in Galatians 5:13-26. The first few verses…
(Read Galatians 5: 13-15)
Here, we are reminded of the result of sin in our lives, of worshipping ourselves. As we discussed with greed and gluttony last week, sin is us devouring one another instead of loving our neighbor. So what is Paul’s prescription?
(Read Galatians 5:16-18)
Paul begins by making it seem quite simple. He simply says, “Live by the Spirit.” But he makes it clear that the desires of the flesh and the Spirit are opposed to one another. But to understand this we need to understand what the relationship between flesh and Spirit is.
Some have understood it in terms of ancient Greek philosophy. This way of thinking agreed that flesh and Spirit opposed one another and that the solution was for the individual’s soul to escape from the flesh and into the spiritual realm. This led some Christians to see salvation as a mere escape from the flesh at our death or at what has been called the end times.
Another way of thinking has understood the individual completely condemned in our flesh. This meant we may never see a change in our life, but if we have professed faith in Jesus than our sins will be covered and we will be saved when we die.
Paul’s way of thinking, however, is rooted in his Jewish tradition and is quite complex. We can begin with creation in which the Spirit in the second verse of the Bible sweeps over the waters. In Genesis 2, the Creator forms humanity in its flesh but it does not become a living being until God’s Spirit is breathed into it. The significance here is that God’s Spirit created and is what gives human flesh life. Body and soul are one. Humanity does not exist without both.
But then there’s the rebellion of humanity. Humans were created and told one thing: out of all the trees in the garden do not eat of the one tree. They did and a now seemingly endless cycle of decay of the flesh began and in Genesis 6:3 the Creator says, “My spirit shall not abide in mortals forever.”
We can start to see how the Jewish train of thought is one in which it is understood that the rebellion of man results in this decay of its being. Rather than relying on the Spirit which gave it life, humanity strove to rely on itself. This is the unnatural state of being which has unleashed chaos throughout history as with Pandora’s jar. Relying on the flesh is relying on self. And relying on self divides that which was made to live as one. It separates flesh from the Spirit inhabiting our soul. It separates us one from another.
To state it briefly, to deny the Spirit is to deny life.
So now we can fast forward through centuries of alternating obedience and disobedience in which the prophets try to help God’s people make sense of the complete destruction of their way of life. Jeremiah addresses a people that sought to sustain their life through the flesh, their own strength, and says, “Cursed are those who trust in mere mortals and make mere flesh their strength, whose hearts turn away from the Lord.”
Ezekiel uses this imagery to sound a note of hope when he says, “a new heart I will give you, and a new spirit I will put within you; and I will remove from your body the heart of stone and give you a heart of flesh.” So here we can see flesh is not a bad thing, especially when one with the Spirit. The flesh was created by God and is only loses its beauty when it denies the Spirit which gives it life.
And, again, here we see how Spirit and flesh are inseparable. The prophets spoke of the kingdom of God which Jesus announced as among us. Our lives of reliance on the flesh had choked the Spirit out of our souls and hardened our hearts. When we, embracing the kingdom of God in full loyalty to the way exhibited by Jesus, the Spirit will renew us and soften our hearts and revive our flesh.
So Paul is calling us to set aside our lives of hardness of heart towards one another and remember we are to “love our neighbor as ourselves.”
This brings us back to the image of the weed. As we lean on ourselves and live for ourselves, things such as envy grow and spread within our souls choking out the Spirit. Listen to the result of this weed that spreads within us and hardens the soil of our souls.
(Read Galatians 5:19-21)
Paul understands what we wrestle with. He knows the despair that grips us when we feel like things are out of control. We start to believe we might as well enjoy all we can now because the world around us is too big to change. It’s too big to fail. And if we sit around content with being the little guy, we will become the victim. We start to believe that real happiness comes only from forcing ourselves on to victory over all others. In leaning on and providing for me. So envy sets in when we see someone else victorious. With something we must have and they must not so we will be on top. And we hate ourselves and them until we find false value in such victory.
But Paul ends the previous passage by reminding us that allowing this weed to grow and spread will rob us of the fullness that is the kingdom of God. He reminds us that being God’s people is not about amassing and hoarding riches at others’ expense to prove we are blessed by God. It is not about birthright or nation of origin. It is not about winning battles to prove our daddy can whip their daddy. It is not about religious observance.
It is about reliance on God’s Spirit which is still offered to us in God’s grace despite our continued rebellion. God wants us to rediscover the beauty within which God created us with. But it requires a faith that leads to action guided by the Spirit. Listen to Paul’s words here…
(Read Galatians 5:22-25)
The fruit of the Spirit, which will fertilize our souls, eradicate this weed of envy or other work of the flesh, and produce a luscious garden in our souls, makes us vulnerable. It is less interested in self-advancement than it is in community improvement. Less interested in financial security than in the daily security of our neighbor. Less interested in national security than it is justice between nations in which all nations’ citizens are seen as equal.
We may think it crazy. But this is full reliance on the Spirit and faith in the Creator. We can trust in our own flesh as many have done since time and life began. Or we can reflect on this cliché: “Define insanity. Doing the same thing over and over again but expecting a different result.”
We can tend to the soil of our souls in our strength and allow the weeds to grow and spread believing somehow the result will different than those before. Our we can humble ourselves and trust in the Spirit to tend to the soil of our souls and see new life sprout and spread so that the kingdom of God is revealed in the love of neighbor to neighbor and the restoration of our true humanity.
