Matthew 6:25-34
Now I know Jesus’ words were: “Look at the birds of the air; consider the lilies,” and they are fine to consider, but for this morning, I invite us instead to consider the dandelion!
A remarkable species of vegetation, also known by its scientific name, taraxicum, this bright yellow flower/weed. In early spring, if you don’t look too closely, dandelions make a brilliant blanket of color against the newly greened grass. Some use the dandelion in salads; others make wine from the plant, and who of us didn’t ever pick a bunch with pride to hand lovingly to a parent or friend? Who of us didn’t also with great glee blow the milky white seeds all across the yard, oblivious to the fact we were just making the dandelion infestation even worse?!
However, for as beautiful as dandelions are to a child’s eye, they are an eyesore to an adult, a bane to the gardener’s existence and to the homeowner who is prideful and fanatic about a pristine lawn. Fiercely we adults attack the dandelion with tools, chemicals and back-breaking labor, trying to rid them once and for all, only to have them appear again almost immediately in the spot we were sure we had just cleared.
Consider the dandelion, for this wily weed, this tenacious bloom of yellow, favorite of children and feared by grownups, offers a few helpful lessons for life and faith.
Lesson #1. Pay attention to perspective.
You wonder how it is that one small item like a dandelion can produce two diametrically opposed reactions? Well, it all depends on our perspective, our point of view – what we value as opposed to what someone else prefers.
One of the biggest mistakes we make in life is to forget that while another person’s view may be radically different than our own, that does not make it wrong! There are always at least two ways, if not more, to look at any issue, and there is always something we can learn from a person who disagrees with what we hold true. Differences make life exciting, interesting and ever new while helping us clarify and deepen what it is we believe in relation to the other point of view. I don’t have to change your mind; you haven’t failed when you don’t change mine; but we both lose if we cannot even hear or see another perspective, let alone appreciate it.
So, consider the dandelion, how it is the weed adults love to hate but the flower children adore, both picking it and playing with it. And let that dandelion remind us of the importance of perspective and learning from others. (Or, to use an entirely different image – when my paternal grandmother would hear my father arguing with his children about differences of preference, she would laugh and say: “That’s what makes horse races.”) Without differences of perspective, life would be awfully dull. Without diversity, the richness of life would be diminished.
Lesson #2. Consider the dandelion both in its yellow bloom with its roots firmly entrenched and its ethereal beauty when it has gone to seed. And remember that life is simultaneously well grounded and fleeting.
This is not a new lesson. We’ve heard it many times before, still it seems to be one of the hardest to master. You and I can get so caught up with busyness, with worries, and be entrenched with what isn’t working or going right that we lose the moments as they slip by. Moments of beauty and fragility, which paradoxically by their brief and precious nature, remind us that life is all too soon over, even though at any and every point we are firmly rooted in God. And in God is where we need to stay grounded rather than being blown about by the winds of popular opinion, or our fears of failure, our worries about not measuring up. Life is meant to be a mixture of stability and motion, a delicate balance of figuring out when to stand still and when to move on, when to conserve our energies and when to let our good works be scattered to the greatest need. And like lesson #1 on perspective, it’s not a question of either/or but a matter of both/and. Life and faith require the solid nature of the yellow dandelion and the ephemeral quality of the dandelion gone to seed.
Lesson #3. Consider how the dandelion is the first bloom to appear in the spring, the last to leave in the fall. It pushes its head up through the tiniest cracks of hard, dry asphalt; it can withstand a hard frost and even an early snowstorm. Regardless of how we feel about the dandelion, the one thing we can agree on is that it is tenacious!
I cannot think of a better quality for life and faith than this tenacity. Hanging in there, even thriving through the daily grind, the tough, weather-beaten, world- wearying times of life, against difficult odds and efforts to do harm. Even when life is going well, we need tenacity to keep us from boredom, from apathy, or from being less than enthusiastic and grateful for all our blessings in life.
So, dear friends… consider the dandelion. Like many of God’s gifts to us, the dandelion may not, at first, appear to be a blessing. Still, this flower, this weed, has much to teach us. May the dandelion invite us to keep looking for God’s wisdom and presence in unexpected yet quite ordinary ways.
Amen.