The Jeff Cavins Show (Your Catholic Bible Study Podcast) - Don't Have a Weed Wacking Ministry! (Parable of the Sower)

Episode Date: August 16, 2019

God is the one who separates the wheat from the chaff, but we can be tempted to take this task on ourselves, especially when it comes to our parish. Jeff talks about the Parable of the Sower to explain why we shouldn’t take it upon ourselves to pull up what we may see as weeds at our parish. Snippet from the Show There are people who feel that they have a responsibility to pull up the weeds and decide who stays and who goes in their parish … but God’s desire for conversion is greater than the desire for a tidy parish. SHOWNOTES Matthew 13:24-30, The Parable of the Sower- He put another parable before them, saying, “The kingdom of heaven may be compared to a man who sowed good seed in his field, but while his men were sleeping, his enemy came and sowed weeds among the wheat and went away. So when the plants came up and bore grain, then the weeds appeared also. And the servants of the master of the house came and said to him, ‘Master, did you not sow good seed in your field? How then does it have weeds?’ He said to them, ‘An enemy has done this.’ So the servants said to him, ‘Then do you want us to go and gather them?’ But he said, ‘No, lest in gathering the weeds you root up the wheat along with them. Let both grow together until the harvest, and at harvest time I will tell the reapers, “Gather the weeds first and bind them in bundles to be burned, but gather the wheat into my barn.” 5 Reasons to Stop “Weed Wacking” They might need more time. Luke 13:6 - And he told this parable: “A man had a fig tree planted in his vineyard, and he came seeking fruit on it and found none. And he said to the vinedresser, ‘Look, for three years now I have come seeking fruit on this fig tree, and I find none. Cut it down. Why should it use up the ground?’ And he answered him, ‘Sir, let it alone this year also, until I dig around it and put on manure. Then if it should bear fruit next year, well and good; but if not, you can cut it down.’” St. Thomas More - “No one, on his deathbed, ever regretted having been a Catholic.” You can’t always tell the difference between weeds and wheat. Darnel - a slightly poisonous plant resembling wheat in its early stages of growth. Only when it is fully grown can you tell the difference. The ears of the real wheat are heavy and will droop, while the ears of the darnel stand up straight. We are not smart enough nor do we know the full story of someone else. In other words, it’s above our pay scale. God’s desire for conversion is greater than your need for a tidy parish. We would want others to be patient with us! What if St. Monica had walked away from her son, St. Augustine?

You're listening to The Jeff Kavens Show, episode 128. You Don't Have a Weed Wacking Ministry. Hey, I'm Jeff Kavins. How do you simplify your life? How do you study the Bible? All the way from motorcycle trips to raising kids, we're going to talk about the faith and life in general. It's the Jeff Kaven Show.

Hey, welcome to the show. just got off the road from our epic ride on motorcycles around the country and speaking in various churches, both in the United States and in Canada. And we had just an amazing time. And I'll give you a little bit of a recap on that. Today's show is going to be about weed-wacking ministries and people who think that they need to take care of all the problems in their parish or their diocese. In truth, they don't have a weed-wacking ministry. We're going to going to talk about Matthew chapter 13 today. A couple emails from you, and I appreciate it. Cindy writes and says, Dear Jeff, I just wanted to let you know that I heard your show about writing in my Bible.

I have a daughter who I am going to start doing this for. She just moved out on her own, and I plan on doing this and giving it to her in the future. Thank you so much for the great idea. And, of course, that idea was writing in a Bible, you know, underlining certain verses and giving messages to your kids. And when they get older, you can give them a gift. And that will be incredible encouragement. That was episode 119, by the way. So thank you, Cindy. Joan writes, I want to suggest a theme for your show, Faith Formation and Catholic Education. I got that, Joan. I'm going to put that down, and we just might tackle that in the future. Janet writes, I love your podcast. I've been involved with Bible studies at my parish several years ago. We did.

did the Bible Timeline series. I love it. I loved everything about it, especially the talk. Since then, I have studied other series, and she just kind of keeps coming back to the great adventure studies, and she's leading to this fall. So, Janet, thank you so much. If you want to give me an email, it's the Jeff Kaven show. I was just thinking, I've been on the road a lot, 4,300 miles in the last week and a half. or so. The Jeff Kaven Show at ascensionpress.com. You can get in touch with me with your ideas, your comments about the shows. Well, it was an epic journey. It was, it started back in 2016. We did 1718. This was the fourth year that we've done the ultra rides. And in the past,

we went out out west into Colorado, Wyoming. We went into New Mexico and Arizona, up into British Columbia, Bampth, and every other night or so, we will stop at a church and I'll give a message and people are waiting, just kind of like a regular speaking tour, but yet it's on motorcycles. And it's really a lot of fun. And I rode with some great guys, Tom, one of my absolute best friends from the Twin Cities and Dwight from Ankeny, Ankeny, Iowa. And of course, Sean Lynn is the leader of the God Squad, and it's really a God Squad tour. They're out of Cal Alberta, and he runs a men's ministry there, and he is one of the most generous and wonderful men I've ever met, and he organizes these every year, and we usually go over 4,000 miles in a

week and a half, so we put on a lot of miles, but Sean, you did a great job. We met up with Bishop Scott in Canada. He is in charge of all the Canadian military, and he is a Harley rider par excellence. He's really, really something. Mary as was not able to go with us this year. His mother passed away while he was in Ireland. He's a priest, and he is a wonderful, wonderful priest, and we missed him greatly this year. We're going to be doing it again next year. We haven't decided if we're going to go to the west coast or we're going to go all the way to Alaska and proclaim the gospel along the way. So pray for us. Today's show is going to be talking about Matthew Chapter 13. I want to read it to you.

the reason I'm talking about this this week is that, you know, so often I hear people that particularly laity who feel that they have a responsibility to straighten out all the woes in the world, particularly the church, and they have what I would call a weed whacking ministry. And I want to show you today that we really don't have a weed whacking ministry. If you are, you're listening to ministries and people that are constantly trying to tear up the, you know, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, um, the, the, the, the, um, the, the, the, the, the, um, the, the, the, the, the, sort of speak. It's just not the way we do it in the kingdom of God. We are praying for people and we are lifting people up to the Lord. But the last thing that we want to do is pick up a

weed-wacking ministry and decide who stays and who goes in our parish and our diocese in the church. And I'm going to read from Matthew Chapter 13. This is verses 24 through 30. 24 through 30. He put another parable before them saying, kingdom of heaven may be compared to a man who sowed good seed in his field. But while his men were sleeping, his enemy came and sowed weeds among the wheat and went away. So when the plants came up and bore grain, then the weeds appeared also. And the servants of the master of the house came and said to him, Master, did you not sow good seed in your field? How then does it have weeds? He said to them, An enemy has done this, so the servant said to him, then do you want us to go and gather them?

But he said, no, lest in gathering the weeds, you root up the wheat along with them. Let both grow together until the harvest, and at the harvest time, I will tell the reapers, gather the weeds first and bind them in bundles to be burned, but gather the wheat into my barn. So there's a great, one of the great parables that Jesus taught. And we basically have, we basically have like a big planting area. And the Lord has planted good seed. But the enemy has also come and planted a bad seed. And the apostles and those who are listening are aware of this. And they come up with a grand idea. Well, why don't we, why don't we just pull up the bad weeds? In other words, why don't we exercise our weed-wacking ministry, go in there and take out the bad, and they'll have nothing but good in our garden or in the church or in our diocese, you know?

And the Lord responds to this, he goes, no, no, no, no, no, less than gathering the weeds, you root up the wheat along with them. So clearly we have a situation, and this is similar, you know, of course, to the kingdom of God, the kingdom of heaven, where we have the good and the bad side by, side. And we certainly have that in our parishes, don't we? And we have that in our diocese, and we have that

in the United States and any other country in the world. The question is, who is responsible for separating the good and the bad? Well, on a personal level, in the book of Leviticus, God told Israel that you personally, you should learn to discern between the clean and the unclean. And so certainly we have that responsibility to discern between the clean and the unclean, that which is of God and that which is not of God. But as far as destroying that which we think is not of God, that is not our responsibility. I remember, you know, years in the past, and I'm not going to go into it, but several occasions where there were, you know, people in churches that I was involved in that were, it just wasn't going good, you know, and people were coming to conclusions about, well, we need to

kick them out, or we need to deal with this in a harsh way. And I always was drawn to this parable where the Lord seems to, you know, communicate to us that there's going to be the good and there's going to be the bad. And so the story admits the bad seed. But the natural response is, I'll take care of it. I'll take care of it. But there are reasons that we don't whack what we think are bad seeds. The disciples want to pull up the weeds right away, but the kingdom is not this simple, and that's something that we have to understand. The risk is that you will destroy some of the wheat in the process, and why is that? Well, if you have weeds and wheat growing up together closely, the root system oftentimes is intertwined, and if you pull up the

the weeds, you're going to pull up the good wheat. Now, you know as well as I do that you consider yourself good wheat, right? I hope that I'm the wheat as well, and I think I am, and I think you are too, if you're listening, most likely to this, you know, to this podcast. But if somebody's going to go into your parish and start their weed-wacking ministry, they might end up hurting you as well. So why are we not to do this? That's really the question. question. Why are we not to do this? Well, because this is not the way God is toward us personally. If every time that you did something that look like a weed in your life and God whacked you or sent somebody to whack you like a weed whacker, we wouldn't stand a chance.

And the truth is, he gives you time, doesn't he? He gives you time because there are at times in our life where we look like wheat for sure. But if somebody else captured, is one little slice of our life where we're not acting like wheat, but we're acting like a weed, well, we could be taken up by those who feel that it's their responsibility to criticize us on internet, whether it's Twitter or Snapchat or Instagram or whatever it is. And according to this parable, we have no business doing that. We really don't. And I wouldn't give my time over that to that type of thing. The gospel will have a mixed response, right? he is talking about the kingdom on earth, but they have to adjust their expectations toward

it a bit. Not everyone will be happy about it. I'm sitting here and I'm looking out the window here in the cabin in the deep woods in Minnesota, and I just noticed that the city park system came and they totally whacked all the weeds on one of the trails out into the woods. and that's what really got me interested in this, you know, when I first started thinking about, at least recently, it was somebody came and whacked all the weeds, and I was reminded of Matthew 13. Well, I'm going to take a break, and when I come back, I want to give you, I want to give you five reasons why we don't whack weeds in our parishes. And I think this will be of a great encouragement to you, and also something that you can share with other people. You know, on this last

trip, we were going, let me tell you, before I take a break, let me just tell you where we went on this motorcycle trip with these great guys that I was riding with. I mean, really, really, really great guys. We started off, two of us started off in Minneapolis, and we went out to Sturgis and rode the Black Hills. We went to Sioux Falls, South Dakota, after that, had a wonderful mass at the cathedral there of St. Joseph. And then from there, we went to, Ankeny, Iowa, and we had a great meeting. I think over 300 people came out for a barbecue, and then I spoke about being activated disciples based on my recent book. From there, we, let's see, we went all the way to South Bend, Indiana, and we had a private tour of Notre Dame,

downstairs in the museum. It was just the stadium all over campus. It was raining. We had our rain gear on and it was just a lot of fun and then we went on to lansing michigan where the nights on bikes had a rally and um we had a good time with with them we rode for a day with them and then from there we we crossed the border and uh we went over into canada to mississauga and i spoke there and monseigneur um monseigneur keenan was our host had a wonderful time Really, it's really interesting when you get to Eastern Canada, the number of Indian, not Native American Indian, but Indians from India, you know, in Pakistan, were there and just a great turnout. And we really appreciated that and had a wonderful time of discussion with Monsignor at his house afterwards. And then we went on to Montreal. And my wife and one of my good friends, Tom, his wife, Mary, they drove in the car and they medicine, Montreal. And my wife, who wrote the book, Lily of the Mohawks on Kateri Tecahuita, she got an amazing tour of Kateri's tomb, went to Mass there. We went to the shrine of the

North American martyrs. Oh, wow. Talk about an amazing, this is outside of Ottawa on the way back. Talk about an amazing, amazing experience. If you have never studied the North American martyrs. Wow, Isaac Jokes and the rest of them, talk about inspiring. It was really, really something. And then I met with brother Andre. He's a good brother in the Lord. He started the kind of the United States counterpart to focus, CYO. And we had a wonderful time with him. And then we ended up coming back to Sue St. Marie and then Wisconsin and back home. That was our track, and we spoke many times, witnessed to people at gas stations, told people that God loved them, and had an amazing plan for their life. Well, I'll be back in just a moment.

When I come back, I want to share with you five reasons why we don't have a weed-wacking ministry. You're listening to The Jeff Kaven Show. I'm Jeff Kavins. I wrote The Activated Disciple because I know how easy it is. to practice the faith and to study it, but what if we lived our entire lives without doing what we learned? God doesn't just call us to be students. He calls us to be disciples, to look and live like Jesus. If you yearn for a life that moves beyond just studying and believing, if you yearn to become an activated disciple, then this book is for you. The activated disciple teaches you. The activated disciple teaches you how to take your faith to the next level so you can become an instrument for God

to transform the world. To order the activated disciple, visit ascensionpress.com or Amazon. Thanks for coming back. There are five reasons why we don't have a weed-wacking ministry. In the parable in Matthew 13, there was good seed and bad seed. The disciples thought, well, do you want us to pull up and you want us to deal with the bad seed? And the Lord said, no less than gathering the weeds, you root up the wheat along with them. And then that's a real danger. So let me give you real quickly here in the next few minutes five reasons why we don't have a weed-wacking ministry in our parish or in our diocese. Number one, number one, the seed might need more time. It might need more time. Luke 13 and 6, and I'll put this in the show

notes. He told this parable, Jesus told a parable, and he said, a man had a fig tree planted in his vineyard, and he came seeking fruit on it and found none. And he said to the vine dresser, look, for three years now, I have come seeking fruit on this fig tree, and I find none. Cut it down. Why should it use up the ground? And he answered him, sir, let it alone this year also until I dig around it and put on manure fertilizer. Then if it should bear fruit next year, well and good. But if not, you can cut it down. In other words, in this parable, he's asking for more time, maybe more time in this person's life in your parish that you're bugged with. You get impatient and you think, wow, they're just causing problems. They're in your diocese. And you think, well, I should, somebody should whack that weed.

The parable says, no, maybe more time and more fertilizer in prayer. Maybe that is what will bring about the true nature of that person. And so, number one, we might just play need more time. Thomas Moore said this. St. Thomas More, a really great quote, by the way. He said, no one on his deathbed ever regretted having been a Catholic. And I think that's a good quote, don't you? No one on his deathbed ever regretted having been a Catholic. In other words, in other words, there's hope and there is always the possibility that somebody is going to come around even on their deathbed at the last minute. And so they might need more time. Don't fire up that weed whacker and go after so-and-so because they might need

more time. We are patient with others, right? That's what we're all about. We're patient with others, and we want people to be patient with us. Number two, and I think this is one of the most powerful of all, why don't we go about whacking weeds in our parish in our diocese? Well, number two, there, you might mistake it. You might, you might mistake a wee, a piece of wheat or a grain of wheat for a weed. What do I mean by that? Well, this is really interesting. In the time of the Bible when it was written, there was a noxious weed called the Darnell plant. And the Darnell plant was a noxious plant resembling and looking very much like wheat. In fact, some people can't even tell them apart. They can't tell them apart, the wheat and the weed, and particularly in its early

stages of growth. So this Darnell plant in the early stages of growth looks almost identical. to wheat. And only when it is fully grown, can you really tell the difference? That's when you will really tell the difference when they're fully grown. And so if you're, you're encountering someone in your parish or your diocese that you think is a, quote, unquote, weed and need to be whacked, you're not, you might be dealing with wheat, right? Because it looks so much in the early stages. and when people come to the Lord, just like you and me, when they come to the Lord, oftentimes they haven't made tremendous growth, and some people may think that they're a weed, but in fact, they are not. The ears of the real wheat are heavy and will droop,

while the ears of the Darnell stand up straight. But this is only seen as they mature. And so second reason why we don't have a weed-wacking ministry is because you might mistake wheat for weeds. And that would be terrible, right? That would be absolutely wrong. Okay, number three, number three, why don't we have a weed-wacking ministry? Number three, we're not smart enough, nor do we know the full story of someone else. In other words, it's above your pay scale, right? It's above your pay scale. It's only the Lord that judges these things, and the Lord will send the reapers, and he will take care of it. It is not a part of our job description to weed whack. It's just not. By doing this yourself, you can cause more damage in your church. You can cause more damage in your diocese by taking it upon yourself to whack the weeds. Not even the bishop wax the weeds in the diocese, does he? No, it's the Lord's responsibility. Now, that doesn't mean that we don't protect the flock and that we make decisions, but we are incredibly patient people, and it's above our pay scale to run around

judging, and so that's not something that we do. Number four, why don't we have a weed-wacking ministry in our parish or diocese? Well, God's desire for conversion is greater than your need for a tidy parish or world. Let me say that again. The reason we don't go around weed whacking is that God's desire for conversion in those that you might want to deal with, his desire for conversion is greater than your need for a tidy parish. You know, this is something that I remember when I was a young pastor in my 20s before I came back to the Catholic Church, and I remember thinking, man, this would be a great job to be a pastor if it just wasn't for the people. you know the problems that we face and the decisions and all of that and the truth of the matter is

is that is that god has a desire for the conversion of the people that you want to weed whack and so we that's not our ministry let's go on the side of conversion let's pray for them let's let us join with god and be patient and fertilize and pray for these people your need for a tidy perish says more about you than it does about the kingdom of God. And the truth of the matter is, in the kingdom of God, we do have messy situations. And if you're going to leave and you're going to go to an independent church where everybody, quote, unquote, believes the same, oh, my friend, trust me, been there, done that, you're going to be back. Because the world isn't that way at all. And number five, I got to give you this, number five, we would want others to be patient with

us. In other words, we want people to treat us the way we, right? We want to treat others, I should say, the golden rule. We want to treat others the way we want them to treat us. And so we would want others to be patient with us. Let's be patient with them. I'm reminded of St. Monica. St. Monica was the mother of St. Augustine. Let me ask you a question. What if St. Monica would have walked away from Augustine. What if she would have said, you know, this kid isn't going to go anywhere. This kid isn't going to amount to anything.

This kid doesn't have a heart for God. And she gave up on him. And she said, he's a weed. Somebody should whack my son. No, she didn't. Did she? She was a mother and she prayed for him. She interceded for him.

She stood in the gap. And today, today we have, have a saint because somebody prayed for someone that looked like a weed, Augustine. Let me ask you this. Do you have kids that have left the church? Do you have kids that seem to have walked away from all that Catholic education and schooling and your family and you feel sad about it? Would you want someone to do their weed-wacking ministry on your kids? Or would you say, no, please, give them time. Put fertilizer on. pray for them, be patient. I think that's what we would all want. And so let's treat the people in our

parishes, in our diocese, in the church, the way we would want our children to be treated. And again, I see in social media so often Catholic leaders and their whole ministry now is whacking. And the Lord says, I'm the one that will make those decisions. And let me conclude with this. what if you were targeted in your parish by someone? What if you were targeted by someone in your diocese? Would you want them to be patient with you? We're all capable of looking like a weed at any given time in our lives. So I want to conclude this by just encouraging you, and I want to pray with you,

encouraging you to be patient with those in your parish and your diocese. and don't take it upon yourself to try to remove them or send letters to the bishop about weeds that you see, you pray for them, you be patient. It's amazing what that can do in the life of a parish and your diocese. Again, it's good to be with you, and if you have any prayer intentions or any comments, you can write me at the Jeff Kaven Show at ascensionpress.com. We read them all, and we take them all seriously, and we really look forward to hearing from you. But let me just kind of conclude by encouraging you to be patient and to go about life in your parish as one who recognizes that everybody's at a different stage, and let's commit to praying for them.

Let's pray. In the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit, Lord, I thank you for my friends, and I thank you, Lord, for their life in the parish. and I pray, Lord, that all those that we recognize as possible weeds, that we would re-look at the situation and put these principles into practice and let you do what you do and we do what you've asked us to do. We pray this in Jesus' name. Amen, name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit. By the way, before I go, just a quick note, there's still some room, good room in the June trip next year. Father Mike Schmitz and I are going to Israel.

with young adults in June, it's epic. It's going to be incredible. Allie Aaliyah, Taylor Tripodi, brother Isaiah. We've got Andrew and Sarah Swofford. We've got so many people going. It's going to be a wonderful time. You can get the information on my website, jeffcavens.com. And there's also some room, just a little bit of room on the January pilgrimage to Israel. You can also find that information there. God bless you. Please know I love you and ask you to pray for me. You have a great week.