Praying toward General Assembly
June 30, 2010 by Rebecca Blackwell
Filed under Rebecca's Blog
Lord of the Harvest by Victoria Wine
In less than a week, we will gather in Minneapolis to convene the 219th meeting of the General Assembly. As I’ve been thinking and praying about this, Jesus’ parable of the wheat and tares came to mind (see Matthew chapter 13). In this parable, the master’s servants observe that tares (weeds) have invaded the crop of good wheat that the master had sown in the field, and they propose to go out and pull all of the weeds so that the wheat will not be spoiled or starved of nourishment.
I can totally identify with those servants. I am pretty good at spotting the “fly in the ointment,” and my instinct is to figure out how to remove it. Unfortunately, I’m often so focused on fixing what’s “wrong” that I compromise the things that are actually working well. What’s worse, my perspective is defined only by the negative, and I often miss the wonderful things that are happening all around me.
So, I am chastened by the master in Jesus’ parable when he tells the servants to leave the tares alone and wait until harvest for them to be separated from the good wheat.
Which brings me back to the meeting of the General Assembly… often we gather with the intent of sniffing out and snuffing out the things that are wrong more than with the intention to celebrate and encourage what is good. We look for things in the world and in the church that need to be “fixed” or corrected, and put much energy into identifying and pulling those weeds. We can then leave feeling that “things are rotten” in the church and the world. But we know that this is not so… true, there are weeds out there (and in here), but the Lord has sown seeds of the kingdom that outnumber the weeds. Those seeds are sprouting, and growing in our midst and the fruitful harvest is not threatened by the weeds.
So, how much more joy and productivity might we have as we gather if we focus at least as much on the wheat as the tares? How much more joy might a positive focus have on the life of our families and our congregations?
Please pray that at the General Assembly, and in all the work we do, we will trust the Sower and the Lord of the Harvest, and keep our eye on the wheat more than on the tares.
