It's time to whack our weeds

I'm ready to pull up at the farmers' market, drop the tailgate and sell my weeds. Why, I can set out whole baskets of dandelions, wild onion, crab grass, quack grass, thistles, wild mustard -- and even throw in some sassafras sprouts for free!

Americans buy pornography, violence, and all kinds of sin from Hollywood, so I might as well peddle poison ivy.

America has a sin problem and I've got a weed problem. I've tried to go to the root of my problem, but some of my dandelions have deep, deep roots.

I'd be better off if I'd never allowed the weeds to take root in the first place. The same is true for sin. We'd all be better off if we'd nip sin in the bud -- never flirt with the person who's not our spouse, avoid filthy Web sites, keep our virginity until marriage and pay all our taxes.

Weed-whacking's work, but it beats living in the cover yard for Worst Homes and Gardens. Saying "no" isn't always popular or easy, but it beats sexually transmitted diseases, divorce, addictions, abortions, living a lie and jail time. Once sin takes root, it's about as Roundup-resistant as some of my weeds.

Something else I've noticed -- after I look at weeds long enough, they begin to look OK to me. I think those little yellow dandelion blooms are kind of cute on the lawn. Sin is like that. Hang around sin a little while, and it won't look nearly as ugly as it first did. We all know that a lot of the language and scenes we watch now on television would have shocked us 10 years ago.

We're used to watching violence. We're used to watching unmarried people in bed together. We're used to hearing cuss words and God's name taken in vain.

We're getting so used to the idea of homosexuality that some churches are discussing ordaining gay clergymen. And don't tell me homosexuality's not a sin because I've read Romans 1:24-27. In fact, God lists a whole long checklist of sins in Romans 1:24-32 that ought to drop all of us Christians to our knees in prayer for our country. Read it and weep.

In "Romeo and Juliet," Shakespeare wrote, "That which we call a rose by any other name would smell as sweet." A weed is still a weed. Sin is sin. It's easier for us to excuse sin and our disregard for God's commands, though, when we call it something else -- a poor choice, pro-choice (not God or baby-choice), personal problem, mistake, alternate lifestyle, weakness or freedom.

God calls sin what it is -- sin, wickedness, evil-doing, rebellion against him, ungodliness. God expects us to get honest, get sorry and get out. We need to quit pouring Miracle-Gro on our rebellion and read the book of Proverbs over and over and over.

Why Proverbs? Because it tells us what fools we are when we live sinful lives. Once we've realized we're dumber than Balaam's donkey (it spoke up), we can flip to I John 1:8-10, confess our sins, receive forgiveness, and start building better lives.

While we're praying for Hollywood to become Holywood so it stops peddling trashy movies and TV shows around the world, we can clean up our own spiritual yards.

Instead of figuring out ways to make money off our weeds at the farmers' market, we can produce good fruit in our lives. People just might see our good fruit and want what we have. That would be the berries!

June Seabaugh is a member of Christ Church of the Heartland in Cape Girardeau.