Kingdom Parables: Matthew 13:24-30; 36-43
“'DEM PESKY WEEDS!”
A blessed and memorable Mother’s Day to all of you Moms here today, here in house and those of you joining us from home! Thank God for you! Blessings....! Let’s give it up....!
My mom and I had a special relationship. It was somewhat reminiscent of Calvin and his mom.
(mom comes up, pantamiming 'cleaning the house' as Don exits, then returns)
Don: Hey, Mom! I got a part in the class play! I get to say a line and everything!
Mom: That's wonderful, Don!
Don: It's a great dramatic role! My character will have everyone in tears at the second act!
Mom: Sounds exciting, dear. So what's the play?
Don: “Nutrition and the Four Food Groups”. I'm an onion. (walks away)
Mom: Of course you are. (Sighs, & then to the cong....) Type casted already!
Don: (returning) So, Mom, can I learn to parachute out of an airplane?
Mom: (as she sweeps the floor) Why don't you just play 'chicken' on the railroad tracks? It'd be a cheaper way to toy with death, I'm sure.
Don: (walks away) Mom's so practical. (stops & returns) I'm bored. I don't have anything to do.
Mom: Well, then, why don't you go clean your room? (walks away)
Don: I was bragging. (walks to chairs and covers himself with a blanket) MOM!! I'm thirsty!
Mom: (groans) Don, it's after midnight! Get a drink of water yourself.
Don: I can't! There are monsters under my bed! I'm scared! (mom returns) AAUGH!! A monster!
Mom: Very funny. (hands him the water) Now, Don, go to sleep.
Don: Do you think love is just a biochemical reaction designed to make sure our genes get passed on
Mom: Whatever it is, it's all that's keeping me from strangling you right now. (exits) Good night!
Don: ….Nothing like a little maternal reassurance to help you fall asleep.
Actually, my mom's reassurances were just that...! She also read us stories at bed time, stories like: “The Kingdom of Heaven is like a man who sowed good seed in his field.” (Mt 13:24) Jesus launches there yet another agriculturally based parable to further describe the kingdom... My mom would've loved that. She loved Jesus and she loved gardens. She and my Dad grew lots of....nasty green things. My Dad was always a big help. He saw to it that the garden got plowed every spring and the fertilizer spread. I went with once to pick it up. All I can say is that I'm not a big fan. I couldn't believe that my father paid the guy for what we shoveled! Dad helped with the planting and weeding and kept a wary eye out for hungry furry critters. (rabbit pic) Yeah, like that one. Thieving scoundrel!
One day one of these villains was in the garden, having a grand old time. Little did that varmint know that my father is a skilled hunter with a keen eye and that he had his eye on that carrot-chomping-little-varmint. Before you could say Peter Rabbit the boom of my father’s shotgun was followed by a cloud of dirt, smoke and who knows what all that ascended to the heavens as an eerie silence fell over our garden. We noticed though that there was something odd about the cloud of smoke…
It was then that we heard my Dad utter a word I’d never heard him say before. It was a naughty word, a word we had been told never to say. Do you know why my father said that bad word, in his moment of perpetual triumph? It’s because that wasn’t Peter’s carcass laying in the crater where carrots once grew. The varmint my father shot was a far more distant cousin than we’d realized...
If my parents felt that strongly about the varmints that stole from our garden they felt even more strongly about the weeds invading it. They sure put a lot of blood, sweat and tears in removing them!
-2-
Here in Washington weeds take on a whole new life. Not only do we have dandelions that grow the size of small trees, if you let them but we have the most moss this side of the Mississippi! Perhaps the nastiest of the undesireable green things in question are wild blackberry bushes. They’re like aliens!
The weeds in Jesus' parable are indeed invasive aliens! These weeds don’t just grow up naturally – they're planted by an evil enemy: “The Kingdom of Heaven is like a farmer who planted good seed in his field, but that night, as everyone slept, his enemy came and planted weeds among the wheat... ‘An enemy has done it!’ the farmer exclaimed.” (Matthew 13:24-25, 28)
Anyone who tends a garden, or tries to grow anything outside, has had to deal with weeds. At some point there begins to feel like there is an insidious plot afoot! Weeds – who needs 'em! They compromise the health of the garden, they're an obvious eye sore and steal away vital water and nutrients from the planted plants. I wonder if Claudia will mind if I get me a shotgun!
So question: why is Jesus talking about seeds and weeds anyway? And what kind of strange advice is this? “Don't pull out the weeds” the farmer replied, “you’ll hurt the wheat if you do. Let both grow together until the harvest...” (Matthew 13:28-30a)
So..., Jesus is saying, the weeds stay. Okay..., I hope you like dandelions in your guacamole! Knowing how people feel about weeds growing in their garden Jesus paints a picture of the kingdom of heaven on earth in which wheat and weeds grow together, intentionally. It is not the job of the servants or farm hands to weed out the undesireables from the field, Jesus says, because that job has already been taken. The parable should serve as a wake up call to our national and ecclesial leaders today!
John Burke, in his book, Perfect People Not Allowed, reflects Jesus’ parable in his approach to engaging a post-modern and largely unchurched culture: “I have seen so many seekers soak in grace, begin to grow, and truly change over the years because God’s Spirit is alive and working in their hearts, through his Body, the community of grace, but it takes time for those tiny shoots of faith to grow fruit. How many leaders get impatient and yank up good wheat because it looked like a weed to them? Jesus says, ‘Don’t do it!’ No, it will not be a pretty, tidy garden, but if the Lord of the Harvest is okay with letting it all grow together in a tangled mess and sorting it out later, can we be okay with it too?”
(from John Burke’s , Perfect People Not Allowed)
So on the one hand, Jesus’ story is a challenge to his church, (to his followers), to welcome the undesireable and ungodly, to be as grace filled as the one whom we seek to follow. On the other hand, Jesus’ parable here points to an even bigger picture – that of the cosmic significance of our actions and of our calling to walk in the footsteps of Jesus, that we too may one day shine like the sun!
After telling a couple of other kingdom parables, also agricultural in their imagery, Jesus is asked by his disciples to explain the parable of the wheat and the weeds. Here, then, is one of only three parables in all of the Gospels in which Jesus explains its meaning.
That underscores the importance of this parable. Jesus ends it with the same prophetic litany he provided at the end of the last parable: “Anyone with ears to hear should listen and understand.” (Matthew 13:43) It’s another way, another literary device, to emphasize the cosmic significance of the parable at hand. It recalls the stubborn history of the Israelites and becries that this time we listen!
Why cosmic? Well, listen again: “The Son of Man is the farmer who plants the good seed. The field is the world, and the good seed represents the people of the kingdom....
-3-
The weeds are the people who belong to the evil one. The enemy who planted the weeds among the wheat is the devil. The harvest is the end of the world, and the harvesters are the angels.”
(Matthew 13:37-39)
Kingdom people, the evil one, angels, the end of the world - sounds pretty cosmic! Jesus' word picture of the kingdom culminates in a scenario that Jesus describes in apocalyptic terms...:
“Just as the weeds are sorted out and burned in the fire, so it will be at the end of the world. The Son of Man will send his angels, and they will remove from his kingdom everything that causes sin and who do evil. …Then the righteous will shine like the sun in their Father’s Kingdom.” (Matthew 13:40-1, 43)
Wait - did you catch that? The Son of Man will send his angels, and they will remove from his kingdom everyone that causes sin and who do evil. Jesus is saying that there are those from within his kingdom that will need to be removed? Why? Apparently some will do evil, and cause others to sin.
The disciples didn’t have to wait long. Ever read Paul’s letters to the church in Corinth? Paul addresses all kinds of ways that those within the church are causing others to sin. Some are eating food that was used in pagan rituals and then sold at the market. Others are sleeping with prostitutes.
Others are busy watering down the gospel saying, in effect, that sin is not sin: “When you sin against other believers by encouraging them to do something they believe is wrong, you are sinning against Christ. (As for me), I don’t want to cause another believer to stumble.” (1 Cor. 8:12-13)
Jesus’ weedy parable points ahead to judgment day, implying that all we do has eternal, cosmic ramifications. On one hand, it speaks to the reality of our mortality, that we have a limited window in which to make our mark for Jesus’ rising kingdom, and that we do so by passing on to others what we have been taught, and in doing so, we may come to shine like the sun.
On the other hand, it speaks to the approach we are to take with those who come seeking to belong or to connect with God but as yet do not share our faith or values or morality. Jesus paints a parabolic picture of a kind of odd cohabitation of weed and wheat, of those who are at odds with God and those who are at peace. It's the original come as you are approach!
In the beloved film, Treasure Planet, a mutineering pirate befriends a cabin boy named, Jim, in spite of the pirate's reluctance to be perceived as soft. One day Jim is falsely accused of messing up. Jim is devastated until his pirate friend comes along side of him…:
“Now you listen to me, James Hawkins – you got the makings of greatness in ya. So when the time comes when you get the chance to test the cut of your sails and show what you’re made of – well, I hope I’m there…catching some of the light coming off of ya that day.”
[from Robert Louis Stevenson’s Treasure Island)
Jesus has given us His Spirit so that we can have our hearts of stone softened, and to inspire us to grow into the kind of Jesus followers that will prompt those on the outside, scoundrels and cabin boys alike, stop and take note, drawn to His unconditional love embodied in us. As we do so, being former scoundrels and weedy characters ourselves, we’ll shine like the sun in our Father’s kingdom! All I can say is that I hope I’m there, catching some of the light coming off of you when you do!
“Anyone with ears to hear should listen and understand.” (Matthew 13:43)
...Especially, we weedy ones!