June 1, 2008: Josh Whiteside: The Weeds Among the Wheat

The Weeds among the Wheat
Joshua Whiteside
June 1, 2008

I greet you in the strong and powerful name of our Lord Jesus Christ. It is with real fear and trembling that I stand before you as a feeble and most often soft spoken pastor. It is a fearful thing to stand before a crowd of people and attempt to proclaim truths about the word of God, especially in regard to our selected parable today. Yet, I do find confidence in the knowledge that our strength does not come from ourselves, but it comes from God working in and through us as weak and humble servants. So today, let us boast in nothing but the name of the Lord and open our hearts, minds, and ears in such a way that we are transformed by what is given to us today.
We began our journey through the parables of Matthew 13 last week with the parable of the seeds. This week we enter into another parable, the Parable of the Weeds found in Matthew 13:24-30. Let us listen together:
Read: Matthew 13:24-30
Shortly following this parable, Matthew shares that Jesus told the crowd two more parables likened to the Kingdom of Heaven, as well as inserting a break in the narrative to proclaim that as Jesus taught in parables he was fulfilling a prophetic word of God. This parable is already unique, for although Matthew is part of the three synoptic Gospels who share a lot of the same material with one another, it is only found within Matthew. Yet, what also sets it apart from many other parables is that it is followed by an explanation.
Read: Matthew 13: 36-43
I’m not sure if this explanation comfort anyone else, but I am far from content with just accepting this and saying “ok, that sounds good” and moving on with a happy-go-lucky lifestyle. Even after reading and studying about this passage I feel as if I have no real conclusions about this passage for us today. To be honest, it really seems the more I read through this passage, the more numerous and bigger the questions become. Especially since the explanation of this parable is give in the symbolic form of allegory, which my seminary professors taught me to greatly fear…Yet, we must recognize that it is here and perhaps in the midst of all the agonizing questions the parable takes us right where we need to be.
For as pastor Josh taught us last week using Brian McClarens Secret Message of Jesus:
Jesus: “Anyone with ears to hear should listen and understand” (13:9). “Don’t just listen with your ears, listen with your heart. Don’t just hear my words, hear my deeper meaning. Don’t listen for the literal meaning accessible to your rational mind; seek deeper for a meaning that requires you to make a personal investment of your sincere effort and your imagination” (44).
Parables “hide the truth so that we need to do more than simply ‘hear with our ears’ or ‘read with our eyes’ on a literal level; we have to invest ourselves in an imaginative search for meaning – a meaning that will surprise us when we discover (dis-cover or unhide) it for ourselves” (45).
“Parables entice their hearers into new territory. … When a parable confounds them, it invites them to ask questions” (45).
Parables transform us from experts, know-it-alls, closed-minded adults who have life and God all figured out … into little children. The parable makes us teachable again.
Why is this important?
When Jesus talks about the Kingdom of God, he wants the transformation of hearts and minds. He does not want to pass on information. He wants to cause transformation. (46).
I will continue to borrow the words of Pastor Josh, not simply because I have been sick for the past two days and am cheating my way through a quick sermon, but because I do believe that he has given us some true words of wisdom in our journey through Matthew. I believe that we cannot move on through an examination of this parable now without taking account of where we have been in the recent past. Likewise, I have begun to understand the entire Gospel of Matthew in terms of recapitulation. This is a literary term that describes a brief summary that is given at the beginning of a story, which is then explained in greater detail throughout the rest of the story.
This is how the Gospel of Matthew is constructed. Repeated time and time again is the call for the hearers of the gospel message to “Repent for the Kingdom of Heaven is near.” This was the message of John the Baptist in the desert, the first words of Jesus during the Sermon on the Mount, and the first words of the Commissioned Disciples. Similarly, The Sermon on the Mount calls for us, the hearers, to plunge our souls deep into the heart of God’s torah, especially as revealed in Jesus. And there, deep in the heart of God’s dream for the world, we need to discover together how to live in our world. This parable, as with the entirety of Matthew is an explanation of how we are to live Torah in such a way that we not simply ‘hear it’, but ‘do it’ in the practical conduct of our lives. As we enter into the story today we must recognize that this and all other parables call for special attention and openness if we are to enter the Kingdom of Heaven.
I first took interest in this story because it involves plants. I spent the latter two years of college studying botany. Most specifically in one of those classes I studied the plants of the Bible and their literary usage in scripture. As seen in the Bible, the use of plants is a most significant way of explaining the unknown, especially to this First Century audience. This weed is most likely a plant called darnel, a plant that resembles the color and shape of wheat with the exception of their black and often times poisonous seeds only noticeable in the maturing stages of its growth. Darnel was and still is a hated nuisance plant in Palestine and I have read people take great care in of eradicating it from their fields of harvest. Likewise, this horrific story of an enemy sneaking onto the property of a farmer and planting darnel among the wheat was not completely uncommon either. Many parts of the Roman Empire outlawed and severely punished those caught of such a crime. What does become shocking to the original listeners of this parable, and perhaps us today, is the method of separation and the interpretation of the wheat and weeds that Jesus gives.
In the given interpretation it is made obvious that one who sows good seeds is the Son of Man (Jesus), the world is the field, the good seeds are the children of the kingdom, the weeds are the children of the evil one, the enemy is Satan, and the harvesters are the Angels of God. Simply put, at the end of this age the angels will separate the sinful and the righteous and give each their appropriate reward depending on who they are and what kingdom they are part of.
I love my grandmother with all my heart, and I have had extensive conversations with her concerning the end of the world and the second coming of Jesus. Knowing that I am a seminary grad she is eager to share with me the latest evidence of how the signs are coming together and pointing us to an immediate and climactic end to the world we know it. She’s good at it too, she shows me scripture and from a literal glance what she says makes sense; she’ll show me various countries, natural disasters, and even the twin towers that fell on 9/11. I graciously listen and simply tell her, “Grandma, I’m just not sure that it’s going to happen that way, and no one knows how long we have to wait for or how Jesus is going to return, we just have to wait.”
Nevertheless, my grandmother is not alone in her thinking. The doomsday predictions about the end of the world are popular. I’m not familiar with specific groups in Asia and Korea, but in the U.S., Americans have witnessed the cults of David Koresh and the Heaven’s Gate Community come to tragic ends because of their end-time beliefs. Likewise within the faithful Christian community there is popularity regarding end times, made evident in the Left Behind series. I do not want to bring about shame to you if you have found enjoyment in these books, but repeated predictions of apocalyptic endings of human history and the subsequent failures of those predictions do often erode the credibility of Christians and confuse people about Christian ideas.
I say this in hope of bringing some perspective into understanding a biblical concept of the end of the world. Theologians speak of God’s work in the world as Eschatology. In eschatology there is the expectation of a future in which God will be reveal to the entire world and the faithful of God’s people will be made blameless.
The first of these is prophetic eschatology, through which the expectation is that God will work within human history to accomplish his purposes for humanity. As with the expected Messiah, God will work within the structures of human history and transform them in a new and working way. The assumption in prophetic eschatology is that the evil in the world lies within the people of God. The main problem that stops God’s work in the world is the unfaithfulness and sin of God’s people from a failure to live out the principles of Torah.
The second view is apocalyptic eschatology, which also has the expectation that God will work to accomplish his purposes. Yet, it is different for it sees human history as becoming so contaminated that it is basically unredeemable and there is nothing worth saving. This assumption in apocalyptic eschatology is that the evil in the world is external to the people of God.
It is important to note that both perspectives are biblical, but each arises from a particular historical and social context. Prophetic eschatology is used when God’s people are free from external opposition and have the capability of making choices in how they live as God’s people. It arises from times of relative stability in which God can be easily marginalized because there is no real pressing need for him to defend his people. Apocalyptic eschatology arises from times of crises where there is no indication that things will get better, there is no vision of a good future.
Apocalyptic Eschatology arose out in the Old Testament as a theological response to Israel’s oppression by other world powers. Beginning with the Assyrian domination in the Eight Century up until the time of Jesus in the Roman occupation this was a dominant way of expressing hope within the scattered community.
What made Jesus’ message unique to the original audience of Matthew was his method of countering the apparent apocalyptic thinking of his day. Even with the occupation and oppression by the Romans, a scenario that did fit perfectly with everything that had developed in apocalyptic thinking, Jesus pushed for the people to return to a prophetic way of thinking. While the people may have expected the Messiah to overthrow the world order of the Roman Empire,
Jesus talked most about Justice and righteousness, about fulfilling the essential requirements of Torah expressed as loving God and neighbor. Jesus did not advocate the total destruction of the Romans in order to help God destroy the evil empire. Instead, Jesus talked about loving enemies and turning the other cheek, of carrying a soldier’s pack two miles instead of one, of giving Caesar what is his while also giving God what belongs to him. He even healed the servant of a Roman Centurion and commended him for his faith. Time and time again, Jesus emphatically pushed for people to return to a prophetic way of thinking through which they were to be faithful to a lifestyle of Torah, even while living in a world of evil and domination from foreign powers.
Still, while apocalyptic theology is not the norm for Christianity, there are places for it in the world today was expressions of faith. In the Chinese uprising of the Tiananmen Square massacre in 1989 or in the underground churches of Northern Africa where Christian are often the targets of gunfire, there needed to be some hope that God is God beyond the hopelessness of present history. There is a need to express a faith in God that the world will someday reflect his purposes for his creation beyond the hopeless of the present moment.
Nevertheless for us today we live in an era of unprecedented prosperity and stability. Should we, who have the freedom to shape the world we live in resort to apocalyptic ways of thinking which takes on pessimistic ways of thinking that denies that history can be changed? Or should we hear the prophetic message that challenges us to practice justice and righteousness and be the people of God in the world in order to be a light to the nations.
I believe this is where today’s parable is calling us to go today. In v. 43 it says at the end of this time “Then the righteous will shine like the sun in their Father’s kingdom. Anyone who has ears should listen!”
It is the prophetic message that calls us out of judgmental expressions of our own self-importance and arrogance. It’s a prophetic message that recognizes that although we may be strangers on this earth looking to a heavenly kingdom, we are not estranged to the earth around us. We are still part of it.
This parable tells us strangely, yet realistically that the kingdom of heaven and even the Church will have both good and evil people in it. Though God would only plant good wheat, Satan, his enemy causes the church to be infiltrated with sinful people. This is a warning against overzealous condemnation that some people like to issue about sin in the church and the world. The allegorical interpretation acknowledges that our human efforts to uproot the sinners often do more harm than it does good. As we wait for the full realization of the Kingdom of Heaven, when God will reign sovereignty in the hearts of all people, we must live in the ambiguity of the time where good and sinful remain together.
This does not mean that we can never determine that a church member is sinning. What is does mean is that we need to be extremely careful about our judgments and our desired efforts to create a perfect church. We must be careful as to not allow our judgments and harsh attitudes mark us as the sinner who are in need of being thrown out.
We must be hearers of the Gospel. We, the children of God, must join in the mission of God and become agents of redemption of reconciliation. It is the message of Christ that says “Live as God’s people in the world! Feed the hungry. Clothe the naked. Visit the sick and those in prison. Preach the Gospel to the poor. Bind up the broken hearted. Give cups of water in Jesus name. Proclaim the Good News of reconciliation of God. Love God with all your hearts, and others as dearly as your own life.”
We should hear this parable as a prophetic word that is for guidance and direction to bring us into a right relationship to God. As C.S. Lewis said in the Great Divorce, “Only Christ could make himself tiny enough to enter into this hell to save a fallen humanity.” It here we see that God took what was ordinary and he invested himself into us. He took the name “Son of Man and made it into the glorious name as it was intended to be. So what we do matters, for in our practical lives as Chrsitians we are practicing to be brothers and sisters in Christ. For at the end of the day we sit at the table as adopted members of the family where our name is on his palm and his name is on our foreheads.
We have been empowered by God to change the world by being faithful to his call through the prophetic word that sees God at work in human history. We should therefore not retreat to an apocalyptic mode of thinking which denies both God’s ability and our own to redeem nothing less than even the darkest moment in history. To do so is to squander a precious treasure. I think God expects more from his people.