Wheat and Weeds

By the Reverend Dawn M. Frankfurt

Glory to the Holy and Undivided Trinity;

God who is Three in One and One in Three;

Who is beyond us, among us, within us;

Who was, and is, and is to come, world without end. Amen.

A few days ago, George and Carol Taylor invited me to their place for lunch. Their home is on top of a hill, far away from town. One of the nice things about being invited to their house is the peaceful, natural setting. Another thing that’s nice is that they invited me to bring my dog, Abbey, with me. Sp, Abbey and I drove out of town with the windows down and with a few supplies. I brought a water bowl and a half dozen big green walnuts from the churchyard.

After we ate lunch, we sat on the patio talking and watching Abbey run like a gazelle through the yard. When Abbey took a break and came back to the house for a drink out of her water bowl, I remembered about the walnuts. Anyone who has picked up one of these walnuts when they are green, can tell you that they have a very strong smell. I picked one up and started rolling it around in my hand like I was getting ready to throw it. Abbey noticed what I was doing right away and every molecule in her being became focused on the walnut. I threw it out into the yard as hard as I could and she ran after it.

Carol gave me a quizzical look when Abbey was so obviously enraptured with the walnut. Whenever I hold one, Abbey puts her nose up to my fist and takes in a huge deep breath through her nose. Carol turned her nose up at the thought that Abbey was attracted to the smell of green walnuts. I explained that for Abbey the strong smell and the pleasing activity were closely linked, and that, I thought, accounted for her love of the smell. Like a Pavlovian response.

This reminded me of a book called “A Natural History of the Senses,” by Diane Ackerman. Something I read in that book nearly twenty years ago has never left me. Apparently there is a substance in the olfactory glands of all animals. It is one of the things which makes smell possible. This particular substance is yellow, so the more yellow an olfactory gland is, the more powerful its owner’s sense of smell. The color of a male human’s olfactory gland is hardly yellow at all. The same gland in female humans is much more yellow. This agrees with the general observation that men don’t have as sensitive a sense of smell as women do.

Ackerman went on to describe the olfactory glands of other animals – all of which have more acute senses of smell than either you or I. She described the olfactory glands of dogs as being extremely deep yellow indicating that they have an excellent sense of smell. She also contrasted the way animals process smell with the way humans process it. She described a dog who knocked over a trash can and went through its contents smelling all there was to smell in the can. Sometimes I see Abbey inhaling so deeply through her nose that it seems she might draw what she’s smelling into her nose. But, other than the last time you grilled a steak, when was the last time you saw a dog obsess over the smell of something you also really enjoyed?

There’s one main difference between humans and all other smelling creatures. We are the only ones who attach a value to a smell. We have all sorts of ways to describe stinky, smelly things we don’t like. Think what a compliment it is when we smell something cooking and say it smells delicious, or how sweet and poetic some language becomes when describing the smell of a rose. To us, there are some good smells and there are some really bad ones. To animals, like dogs, there isn’t a value judgment attached to a smell. When they meet someone new, they think, “Aha! A smell! A new smell! Let’s smell it!” Their response is the same whether they are smelling a flower in the garden or the inside of a garbage can. Smell is smell. No good. No bad. Just smell.

I think it’s a good thing not to be too discriminating if you go around sniffing all of the things dogs do. For humans though, there is a reason why we call some smells good and others bed. At one time it was necessary to the survival of our species to judge the smells we smelled. It was critical to tell the difference between fresh meat and rancid meat, and to discern clean water from dirty water. Our sense of smell helped us determine which things would be good to eat and which things could do us harm. Today, we make judgments all of the time – and not just about the way things smell. We use all of our senses and take in all sorts of cues to make instantaneous decisions about whether situations or individuals are threatening to us or to our families. We hardly take time to think through such judgments - hesitation can mean serious injury or death.

Because we have to make snap judgments, we learn lots of short-hand. If we smell smoke, we assume there’s a fire. When we see someone with a weapon we are immediately alert for danger. Using only a few clues, usually we can very rapidly assess whether a situation is threatening. The drawback to this short-hand system is that it can lead us to hold stereotypes and to make unjustified generalizations when they are taken too far. Think of the difficulty numerous innocent people who meet a certain description have had when flying since 09/11. How can we keep from turning helpful short-hand and informational stereotypes into their ugly kin of prejudice, bias and bigotry?

The parable Matthew tells us Jesus told about the wheat and the weeds speaks directly about who is supposed to be judgmental, and it isn’t us. It is not up to the slaves working in the field to determine which are desired crops and which are weeds to be destroyed. The master tells his people that everything should grow together until the harvest. At that time, angels of God will determine which part of the harvest will be burned, and which shall be gathered safely into the master’s barn. In other words, it is not for us to decide whether our neighbor is evil and should be uprooted. Evil or not, all are to live among those who are valuable and bearing good fruit.

Whenever I hear a debate about the death penalty – and there are all sorts of arguments for and against capital punishment – I always think about this parable. Jesus very clearly tells his disciples that judging between the good and the evil is his job, not theirs. Jesus is telling us that making a decision about what to do with someone’s life is God’s job. We often get wrapped up in judging others. We think our observations qualify us to make pronouncements. That’s not the way it’s intended to be.

We understand two things: 1) judgment is necessary for us to survive, and 2) Jesus gave specific instructions for us to leave judgment up to him. We all know that there is wheat in the world and there are weeds. What are we supposed to do as we live in the world tending the field where the master’s seed has been sown? When do we need to judge, and when should we refrain from being judgmental?

Yesterday morning I was confronted with a decision balanced precariously between these two ends of the spectrum. In the last week there have been a few clues that someone could be sleeping, or living, in the bushes near the door by the choir robbing rooms and the sacristy. Saturday morning, the altar guild arrived to do make their preparations for today’s services. As they were leaving and locking up the door, they noticed a man asleep in the bushes. He didn’t stir, and they went on their way. Once she got to her car, one altar guild member called me to tell me what they’d seen.

I faced a quandary. Isn’t the biblical imperative to welcome the stranger, to feed the hungry, to share everything we have, and if someone wants our coat, aren’t we supposed to give them our cloak as well (Matthew 5:40)? In that light, wasn’t the right thing for me to do to go out and tell the person asleep in the hedge to come into the rectory, take a shower, and make himself at home? I’m still uneasy about what I did. I called 9-1-1. A 27-year old man was arrested for trespassing, and I asked myself: should he have to go to jail and be subjected to the treatment he’ll get there because he didn’t have a home, because he didn’t have a place to sleep? He wasn’t bothering anyone. He wasn’t hurting anything.

Was he a threat? Was he wheat or weed? Was it for me to make such a decision?

AMEN!