Weeds in the garden

I have just finished weeding my garden for the (I don't know how many) times. I love to plant a garden and I love to harvest. There is an excitement about planning what one wants to plant and laying out where one is going to plant. I am blessed with people in my congregation who have helped till the land preparing for planting. We planted two tomato plants, one hot pepper plant, one bell pepper, lettuce, radishes, green onions, beets, and carrots. We had a wonderful growth of the plants. I always anticipate the time of harvest and enjoying the fruit of our labor. Somewhere I don't remember planting weeds. Yet they grew and if not pulled or howed would have taken over the garden. This despite the heat and the dryness until recently. Now is the time we are harvesting.
When I read about God planting the vineyard in Isaiah, I am reminded about my experience in gardening. When God planted the nation of Israel, God expected that the people would be fruitful in justice and righteousness. Instead of harvesting the grapes of justice, the people became wild with bloodshed and unjust. God's expectations did not happen and the weeds prevailed. Anytime that a garden or field or vineyard becomes so infested with weeds the only thing one can do is to pull everything and start over. God presents that to the people of Isaiah's time. That it is not God but rather the bad fruit that creates the need to redo. Later in Isaiah God does promise the return of the people and the new covenant.
I wonder about the gardens that we live in today. Are we producing the grapes of justice and righteousness? Jesus often used the metaphor of vines and that to produce fruit sometimes we need to prune the vine and to remember we are rooted in Christ. Like weeding my garden so that I can have a more abundant harvest, I need to weed my soul. I need to reach out to others with justice and mercy. I need to love God and worship God in all of what I do and what I think. I need to repent and to ask for forgiveness from God and from those to whom I have harmed in thought and deed. As I am able to do that, I can live a more fruitful life in Christ.

I also received a comment about the rich and their ability to enter the kingdom. There is nothing that states that just because we are rich that we cannot enter the kingdom. Jesus talks often about money and possessions because it can be a stumbling block in our lives. He says that it is easier for a camel to grow through an eye of the needle than for a rich man to go to heaven. He says that it is not impossible but difficult. In the book of James, the author states that "it is the love of money that is the root of evil." He does not say it is money but whether we begin to worship it.