Dandelions...Part II

The other day my mother shared a picture of the current condition of her childhood home.  This was the same home that I knew as Grandma’s house.  Ironically, Grandpa’s house was the house next door.  Before you draw any conclusions about my grandparents being some separated Hatfield-McCoy marriage debacle, let me reassure you that my parents grew up as next door neighbors.  This made it exceptionally convenient as a young grandson.  For example, if I found, while visiting my grandfather, that he didn’t have any sweet treats to my liking, I could run across the driveway to Grandma’s house and scope out the confections.

Grandma’s house was a magical place, filled with candies, treats, mysterious rooms and a smokey blue haze from my other grandpa.  It was hard to tell if his marshmallow cookies had actually been “smoked” to perfection or if you just tasted the flavor of the air. 

Grandma’s house was the kind of place where sugar plums truly danced in your head.  Though honestly, even on Christmas Eve, I never had sugar plums dancing in my head.  My head was usually filled with bows and arrows and guns and gophers two stepping between my ears. 

As I grew older, I found myself helping Grandma with a number of things around her candy filled home.  I would cut the grass, paint the walls, haul in wood and swing from her weeping willow in attempt to relive the adventures of Indiana Jones.  The weeping willow really wasn’t strong enough to make swinging viable, so when the long branches snapped off, we continued the adventures using the long soft branches as whips.  This game was frowned upon by the lesser dominant siblings and cousins. 

I also remember the dandelions.  Grandma’s lawn was a perpetual battle of green and yellow and cotton white puffs.  We would often pick the yellow flowers and rub them against our skin giving each other “butter burns.”  The yellow mark left on our skin would linger for days.  Grandma always encouraged us to pick the dandelions.

“Keep going boys! Get rid of all of those stubborn weeds!”

I never fully understood how a bright yellow flower could be considered a “weed,” but, despite that, I picked them.  Additionally, I would pick the white puffs and blow them, unwittingly, spreading the seed for the noxious weed to expand even further and broader across her lawn and to the neighbors.

“Oh! Don’t blow those! That spreads even more dandelions!”

Nearly every homeowner struggles to control the aggressive spread of the yellow bane.  In fact, in 1935 Minot ND threatened all homeowner with arrest if they failed to immediately cut or remove dandelions before they became the fun white puffs.  I must admit, that Minot took their dandelion issue very seriously.

In a similar fashion, Jesus takes the spreading of false teachings seriously.  In Matthew 16:1-12, two groups of proverbial “weeds,” the Pharisees and the Sadducees, join forces to confront Jesus and disprove his truth claims.  Jesus uses this moment to speak of the severity of the “yeast” that they are spreading that will affect all it comes in contact with.  This passage confronts us with the choice, will we accept the truth of Jesus? Or our own truth systems?  Jesus wants to crush our own truth systems, in order to draw us to him…the real and perfect truth.

May we come to see and cling to the truth of Jesus alone.