KNU International English Church
Josh Broward
June 8, 2008
COCKROACH THEOLOGY
Read Matthew 13:31-33
Most of us probably miss the strangeness of these two little stories. Mustard and yeast seem pretty basic to us. Add some flour and some (American) beef, and you’ve got a good sandwich. But once again, Jesus surprises us here.
Mustard seeds were not just something to put on your hotdog or to use for a gourmet dip. For Jews mustard seeds were dangerous. Sure, they were little bitty seeds, but they were dangerous.
Jewish rabbis even had a basic rule: Never plant a mustard seed in your garden. If you want mustard, plant it in some out of the way place where you don’t care about what happens. The mustard seed looks small and innocent, but it keeps growing and growing and growing, and it will completely take over a little garden.
There’s another thing about mustard seeds that’s worth noting. Mustard is strong. It is potent! There’s a lot of power inside those little seeds. If you don’t believe me, just go home and eat a whole spoonful of mustard. It’ll make your nose burn!
Jesus says the Kingdom of God is like a mustard seed planted in a garden. It grows and grows and just takes over the place.
In a way, we are like those little mustard seeds. We are small people. None of us are very important or very big in the world, but the Kingdom of God lives in us, and we have power.
The point of these two little stories is simple: We are small, but we are powerful. The Kingdom of God starts small, but it is has powerful potential to take over the world.
But I want you to get involved in this. It’s not enough just for me to say it. You need to say it, so when I say, “What’s the point?” You say: “We’re small, but we’re powerful!”
Ready? Let’s practice.
“What’s the point?”
People: “We’re small, but we’re powerful!”
Then, we have to ask ourselves a question. If we’re so small and powerful, what would happen if God planted us? What would happen if we let God invest us in the world? So here’s the question: “What could God do with us?”
What’s the question?
People: “What could God do with us?”
The Kingdom of Heaven is like a little plant called carpetweed. When I was a teenager, it was my job to mow the grass at our house. We had some great big trees in our back yard, and in Texas, there is a special kind of weed that loves shady areas. It’s called carpetweed.
I hated carpetweed. It looked kind of innocent and small at the beginning. It was just start out small as just a patch in one corner of the yard. It was only about 6 inches (20 centimeters) high.
It had these little round seeds with little fuzzy hair on them. They would stick to anything that touched them: socks, shoes, shoelaces, leg hair. When I finished mowing the yard, they were all over me.
Mowing down carpetweed didn’t even help. It just spread the seeds all around the yard.
To make matters worse, I discovered that I am allergic to carpetweed. One time, I decided to defeat the carpetweed, and I spent an hour or two pulling up every last piece in our yard. By the end of the day, my arms, my neck, my legs, my hands were all covered in an itchy red rash.
That’s when I started calling it “devil-weed.” I hated it. I hated it with a passion. When I saw the first picture of carpetweed when I was doing my research this week, I actually felt bitterness in my heart. I hated it, but there was nothing I could do to stop it. It just kept growing and growing and growing.
The Kingdom of God is like carpetweed that takes over an entire lawn.
What’s the point?
People: “We’re small, but we’re powerful!”
That’s right. We are powerful, so we have to ask a question.
What’s the question?
People: “What could God do with us?”
The Kingdom of God is like a crazy monk named Telemachus. Telemachus was living a peaceful life in the desert, when he heard God call him to Rome. That was the first sign that he was crazy!
He obeyed God and went to Rome. The second sign that he was crazy!
You remember, Russell Crow in Gladiator? Well, the gladiators were still fighting in Rome, when Telemachus got there, so he went to the stadium. What’s a super-spiritual monk doing in a Roman Coliseum where tens of thousands gather to watch people kill each other? This is the third sign that he was crazy!
Well, old Telemachus couldn’t take it. He got up out of his seat, and he climbed into that arena, right into the middle where the gladiators were fighting. He stood between the two gladiators and begged them to stop. They pushed him aside again and again. But he was stubborn. He kept coming back. “Stop in the name of Christ! How can you just kill each other? Stop! Stop!”
OK, so this was the final sign that he was officially crazy.
The people were furious that he was stopping their show (and maybe that the gladiators didn’t just slice him open). The thousands of people had gathered there in the stadium to see people kill each other, and somebody was going to die! They picked up stones and stoned Telemachus right then and there in the middle of the Roman Coliseum.1
That was New Years Day, 404 A.D, and that was the last day the gladiators ever fought in Rome.2 When the Roman Emperor heard the story of the crazy monk who tried to stop the gladiators, he banned all gladiatorial fights throughout the Roman Empire.
The Kingdom of God is like a crazy little monk who stops the gladiator games in the world’s largest empire.
What’s the point?
People: “We’re small, but we’re powerful!”
If we are as powerful as Telemachus, then we need to ask a question.
What’s the question?
People: “What could God do with us?”
“The Kingdom of God is like yeast a woman used in making bread. Even though she put only a little yeast in three measures of flour, it permeated every part of the dough” (Matthew 13:33).
Yeast is almost always bad in the Bible. Yeast became a symbol for some small bad thing that corrupted the whole batch of dough. Jesus told the disciples to be on guard against “the yeast of the Pharisees, which is hypocrisy” (Luke 12:1). Paul compared yeast to sin (1 Corinthians 5:6-8) and to false teaching (Galatians 5:9), and both times he warned them: “A little yeast works through the whole batch of dough.”
So this story about yeast is kind of scandalous. Jesus says the way the Kingdom of God works is very similar to the way sin works. Just a little bit of Kingdom goodness can work through the whole batch of dough. And just like sin, the Kingdom changes everything it touches.
And there’s one other surprise to this story. The woman mixes the yeast into “3 measures of flour.” These aren’t 3 little cups. This is enough flour to feed a small army. 3 measures of flour is nearly 40 liters of flour! It would make 50 kilograms (110 pounds) of bread! A little yeast really does go a long way!
What’s the point?
People: “We’re small, but we’re powerful!”
If we are as powerful as yeast, then we need to ask a question.
What’s the question?
People: “What could God do with us?”
The Kingdom of God is like cancer. It starts out small. It’s almost impossible to notice at first because it is so small.
Cancer can start with just one cell that becomes different, abnormal, counter-cultural. Usually, when this happens, our bodies push out that different cell and eliminate the rebel. But cancer cells are different in two ways.
First, they resist elimination. They resist the body’s normal immune system. They’re different and dangerous, but the body just can’t get rid of them.
Second, they multiply, and they spread. That’s the biggest problem with cancerous cells. There’s just more and more of them. The cancer reproduces faster than the body can deal with it.
Cancer can even jump from one part of your body to another. This is called “metastasizing.” Cancer that starts out in your stomach can jump to your liver. Cancer can start in your lungs and go to your bones.
The Kingdom of God is like cancer that starts out with one little cell that dared to be different and multiplies and grows and spreads until it takes over the whole body.
What’s the point?
People: “We’re small, but we’re powerful!”
If we are as powerful as cancer, then we need to ask a question.
What’s the question?
People: “What could God do with us?”
The Kingdom of God is like a colony of roaches.3 I grew up in Texas, and everything’s bigger in Texas – including our roaches. We have these huge tree roaches, and they’ll come into your house at night. When you try to stomp on them, they’ll start flying around the room.
But in Texas, we have a saying, “Big roaches aren’t bad. Little roaches are.” The big roaches live outside and look really gross, but everybody gets them inside sometimes, no matter how clean your house is. It’s the little roaches that really mean you have a problem. If you don’t keep your house clean, or if your neighbors don’t keep their apartment clean (like not doing your dishes often enough, or leaving crumbs on the floor), you can get an infestation of the little roaches. Then, you’re in trouble.
One roach can live up to 18 months, and a single female can lay 300-400 eggs. They’re hard to find because they live in the walls, under the floors, in the backs of cabinets and under the furniture. Once they take root in a home, they can just keep reproducing. They multiply and multiply and multiply.
Roaches may be small and easy to stomp, but if you get enough roaches in one place, they can drive the owner out of the home.
The Kingdom of God is like a colony of roaches. It starts out small, and one by one, it’s easy to squash. But just give it time, and it will take over the house.
What’s the point?
People: “We’re small, but we’re powerful!”
If we are as powerful as roaches, then we need to ask a question.
What’s the question?
People: “What could God do with us?”
You are small. But you have so much power. The Kingdom of God lives in you. What could God do with you? What could God do with us? What if we let God plant us in our world like a mustard seed or a bit of yeast or a bit of Kingdom Cancer or a little roach? What would happen? What would happen?
Sunday, June 8, 2008
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.
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.
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