Hello and welcome to WHEEL OF MIS-FORTUNE. I am your host, Sat Pajek. And I am assist by our ever vivacious Vana Weyrens. We are here to spin the amazing wheel to help us discover what weeds we have growing in our garden. As you heard Jesus say in the gospel parable, there will be weeds that grow along with our wheat.
I would like to think of the wheat as our good fruit . . . the spiritual gifts that we can offer to one another.
You know, like the gifts of the Spirit: wisdom, courage, understanding, good judgement, knowledge, reverence, awe of God. And other gifts that we offer . . . like compassion, tolerance, forgiveness. I call these our wheat.
But as Jesus said that we will have weeds along with our wheat. We all have them. And we use them at different times. So we have contestants calling in to name their life situation and discover what weed might be growing in their garden. Each number on our spinning wheel correlates to a possible weed of bad attitude.
OK, we have our first contestant, [pretend to have an ear-piece to hear someone calling in] Joan is on the line. What is your situation? “You have a spouse who won’t do as you want. You have adult kids who are throwing their lives away.” Spin it # ___ CONTROL FREAK. Listen Joan, God is in charge, not you. Of course do your best . . . don’t enable, don’t allow bad behavior. But think of this, what if in your situation, GOD WAS ENOUGH, how would that change your life?
Next caller: Hello Paul. What’s your situation? “Prayer is not working.” Let’s spin it. #___
LAZINESS. It’s not how much you pray or what kind of prayer. Just do something on a regular basis. Don’t just complain to God. Talk to God . . . about your life, about your hopes, your dreams. Fr. Thomas Merton once wrote, “Prayer is my daily appointment with mystery.” I am going to address this in more detail next weekend.
We have a number of weeds waiting to grow . . . CLOSED MINDED, IMPATIENT, WORRY WART.
Next caller. Hello Ben. “You don’t like wearing a mask.” Let’s spin the dial. Number __, your weed today is SELF -CENTERED. Mask are to help others primarily. A vaccine is the best solution to this COVID, wearing masks is the next best thing. To you, Ben. Would you have a surgeon not wear a mask if you were getting operated on? He (or she) doesn’t need it for themself, it is to protect someone else. As one person described it, “I feel like a kindergartner who keeps losing more recess time because one or two kids can’t follow directions.”
We have time for one more caller. Hello Francis, “You can’t understand why everyone doesn’t agree with you. You obey all the commandments. You never miss our Live-Streaming Mass. You love God, but you just can’t stand those who vote differently than you. Spin it. # ___ HYPOCRITE. Fran, God Jesus didn’t tell us to love only those who think like us. Again and again, we are to love all. Especially those who are different. Look for what you have in common, stop pointing out their bad qualities and look for the good.
You see, we all have weeds in us. There’s more we didn’t get to: GOSSIPY, COMPLAINER, KNOW-IT-ALL, STUBBORN. We are not called to be perfect. We can’t be. Remember last New Year’s Eve, when Pope Francis was greeting people at the Vatican and a woman grabbed his hand and wouldn’t let go . . . and he slapped her hand. Later he said, “I apologize for the bad example yesterday … sometimes even I lose patience,” He didn’t blame her, make excuses. Or just the other day, I was not real clear about an issue that I presented to the Pastoral Council, and they called me on it. We all have weeds. And if we don’t admit our failures, our bad points, we are never going to fully harvest our good points.
St. Paul wrote in today’s second reading to the Romans, “The Spirit comes to the aid of our weakness.” When we can acknowledge the whole of ourselves (wheat and weeds), that we aren’t perfect. That we don’t have it all figured out . . . then maybe when we can name the weeds in ourselves, we can understand the weeds in others.