People are fundamentally unique in that we continuously look at the way things are and imagine how they could and should be better. That drives us to seek change. People tend to pursue social change in two ways; persuasion and force. In today’s Gospel, Jesus introduces a third way. While Jesus certainly taught and persuaded, the Kingdom ultimately spreads because people encounter him personally.

Persuasion involves generating ideas and positions, then sharing them so that they can be evaluated, improved and enacted. For example, “We take our shoes off when we enter the house,” or “You can only drive 15 miles per hour in a school zone.”  We hope better ideas win out over time and progress follows. We hope.

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Last week we heard Jesus describe God’s extravagant sharing of the Word of the Kingdom as scattering seed on all sorts of soil. This morning’s Gospel touches on one of the most challenging issues of our existence. There is other seed. Not only do we see a lot of evil, there are, apparently, evil people in the world. This is more than flawed people making bad choices. It’s real evil, evil seeds sown by the evil one, the enemy, the devil, Satan himself.

Weeds are a great analogy because we all get that. They are a persistent issue everywhere from our landscaping to the cracks in our sidewalks. Weeds are a real problem in agriculture, and the problem can cut several ways. If you don’t control them, then they can hurt the crop yield, which not only affects the farmer but also the consumer. The lower the yield, the higher the price and the more people go hungry.

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This weekend we celebrate the 250th anniversary of the Declaration of Independence. The thirteen British colonies were barely a year into the Revolutionary War that would continue another seven years. The founding fathers and the people they represented had faith in a vision they could not see, ideals they thought were rooted in God although they were yet developing.

These built upon their conviction that all men were created equal with inalienable rights to “life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.” “All men” meant all people, but of course that wasn’t true in 1776. Almost 4 million people, about 12.5% of the population were slaves. Native Americans were being steadily pushed out of their lands. Women couldn’t vote.

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