Tender of Hearts

If you know me at all, you know that I almost always rise to the defense of the underdog. It is for the unlovable, the beat up upon, that I find myself most often fighting. One of my own personal pet peeves is watching someone struggle to do one right thing, all the while listening to others retell how good this one is at doing the wrong things. I find myself becoming so angry that I struggle with my temper. I fight down the urge to lash out and to condemn. Sometimes I fight harder than I do at others. And then, like all of us, I find myself penitent and pained, grateful for grace once again. If you have lived in this world longer than fifteen minutes, you have most likely been both the deliverer and the recipient of spirit bashing. And so I wonder, what makes it such a natural response to harm others? What makes the faults so much easier to see? What is it that makes us such willing participants in this bad behavior?

I was reading the book of Matthew and I came across the parable of the wheat and the tares. (Matthew 13:24-30) You remember this parable? The master sows good seed in his field and while he is sleeping, the enemy sows weeds (tares). They both sprout and grow producing a mixture of good and bad, a mixture of wheat and tares. The owners helpers want to rip out the weeds but the owner won't allow it. Out of concern for the tender stalks of wheat, he tells them to leave the weeds alone until harvest. Remember this one? Some parables are left to us to decide the intended application, while Jesus gives us the explanation for others. This is one that is interpreted by the Messiah, Himself. He tells us that the good seed is the church and the bad seed the world and the enemy the devil and the harvesters, the angels. It is a very cool parable about God's people living surrounded by satan's people and the end results at judgement or harvest.

I would never disagree with Jesus or make a different analogy other that what He intended. The appeal to parables like this is that they speak to the very basic of common sense. One need not be a farmer to understand that in ripping out the weeds, wheat could possibly be harmed. Easy, easy concept, right?

That same common sense applies to hearts. When we see someone with "weeds" in their heart, our gut response is to get rid of them, to purge that heart of those choking, water guzzling, food hoarding, growth inhibiting weeds. That is what we really want to do. And we just know if we pull out those massive weeds, the tender little shoots of wheat will have the nutrients and the water and the sunshine they need to grow and mature and bear fruit. Right? However, in our zeal to make this heart "weed-free", we can damage the wheat, destroy the good right along with the bad, yanking them both out by the very roots. (The roots of the weeds are usually deeper than those of the wheat).

Does it make sense that some of that weeding might be done after we have nurtured and fed and nourished the wheat? After we have helped it's root system grow and spread? Would it stand to reason that in feeding the good, the bad would begin to starve? Is it possible that in encouraging the growth of the wheat, we could at the very same time be thwarting the growth of the tares?

The age old question (almost always taken out of context), "Am I my brother's keeper" has only one answer--yes! We have responsibility for our brethren--otherwise all those "one-another" passages would be pretty silly. We are to care for, protect and nourish their hearts just as they are to do the same for ours. We are called to tend to one another, to help, encourage and mature one another. We are commanded to be kind and peaceful and treat each other with honor and respect. Just as we would tend to a garden, helping it to bloom and grow and bear fruit, so are we to tend the hearts of our brothers and sisters in Christ. We are not just seed sowers, we are also tenders of hearts. Don't you think?

Blessings

Neva