Matthew 13:24-43 "Growing Together" Scott Hoezee

Imagine that you are at home some evening watching one of those TV police dramas. And imagine further that the story is a cracking good "whodunnit" kind of mystery. Various clues have been scattered about and the suspense has been building as a result. Then imagine that just about the time when things are reaching a kind of fevered climax, the show breaks for some advertisements (as such shows actually tend to do!). But then suppose that when the commercial break is finished, what comes back on is not the police drama but a segment of an old I Love Lucy episode.

Specifically it's that classic episode where Lucy and Ethel decide to make some money by baking and selling their own homemade bread. But in typical fashion Lucy decides that if a little yeast makes a good loaf than a lot of yeast should make even more and better loaves of bread. Of course, when Lucy and Ethel open the oven to take out their bread, what emerges is a giant, out-sized loaf which keeps coming and coming and coming until finally Lucy is pinned to the back wall of the kitchen by this culinary monstrosity!

Well, if that did suddenly come on the TV, you might find it amusing and all but you would surely be tempted to ring up the television station to ask what happened to your mystery program. Suppose that you were then told, "Don't worry, it's coming back on," and then, sure enough, it does and you finally learn the solution to that show's mysterious puzzle. So the I Love Lucy segment would seem like an odd interruption, a quirky tangent that had nothing to do with the mystery story which surrounded the comedic detour.

But what if it turned out that the two were connected after all such that the apparent side-track into the antics of Lucy and Ethel ended up tying in with the resolution of the whodunnit mystery? What if it turned out that this had all been planned to provide yet another clue designed to tip you off that in the mystery the guilty person was the local bread baker? Granted this is a bit of a strained analogy, but if such a thing were done, it would be quite clever and ultimately rather memorable, too.

Something very similar really does happen in Matthew 13. First, Jesus tells a very interesting and rather mysterious parable about a wheat farmer who has an enemy--an enemy who stealthily sows weeds in the dead of night. That alone is very intriguing but things get even more interesting when the story concludes with a rather surprising twist in terms of how the farmer reacts to the agricultural mischief of this mysterious enemy.

The story raises so many questions. What does it mean? What do the weeds stand for? Who does the enemy stand for? And why not weed the wheat field the same way many of us will be weeding our flower and vegetable gardens next summer? All these issues are hanging in the air like giant question marks when suddenly Jesus launches into two, totally unrelated stories about a mustard seed and a woman baking bread. In a way, it's like seeing Lucy and Ethel smack in the middle of a police mystery show. It looks like Jesus is going off on some tangent, pivoting from the darker imagery of threatening weeds to some bright, sunny image of birds twittering in treetops beneath an azure sky. We shift from an enemy who lurks among the shadows of the night to the homey image of grandma baking some fresh bread. It seems like a diversion.

Not surprisingly the disciples react in verse 36 by essentially saying to Jesus, "Um, those are really nice stories, Master. But could we please get back to the mystery parable? What was that one all about? We're not terribly interested in mustard seeds and yeast but that business about the enemy farmer and the weeds was really interesting. So can we talk about that one again and forget about the mustard seed and grandma's bread?"

Ah, but how clever Matthew is in presenting these parables just the way he does. Because as it turns out, the excursion into mustard seeds and bread is not a detour but is instead a key by which to unlock the mystery of the first story. But to see why we need to delve into these stories a bit more specifically.

The first parable we heard this morning contains that twist of an enemy purposely sowing weed seed in the same field where the farmer has already sown his wheat crop. All farmers, of course, have to deal with weeds. Even those of us who have lawns must contend with things like dandelions. Of course, sometimes you may have a neighbor who just lets the dandelions grow with abandon and you just know that once those dandelions go to seed, the wind will blow those spores onto also your lawn, thus perpetuating your weed problems. But in the case of Matthew 13 the picture is more pernicious and malicious: in this case the weeds don't show up for all of the usual reasons. This time they were intentionally sown.

The farmer and his crew recognize this immediately when they notice that the weeds end up sprouting in rows that are nearly as uniform, straight, and neat as the wheat itself. A few weeds here and there in a field is one thing (and is to be expected) but the farmer smells a rat when just one particular type of weed is flat out everywhere. In fact, there is some evidence that the type of weed Jesus had in mind in this parable is one which bears striking resemblance to wheat, which makes the task of weeding it out all the more difficult as you really could end up grabbing wheat by mistake.

Again, however, the striking feature of this parable is not only that this enemy does this act of counter-sowing but that the farmer ends up saying in verses 29-30, "Just leave it be. Just let them co-exist until everything is ready for harvest. We'll deal with it later. For now let's just go about our normal business." Based on this reaction of the farmer there are three conclusions we can at least tentatively draw.

First, the weeds and the wheat can co-exist. This is not a situation in which the weeds threaten to choke the wheat. The farmer lets them co-exist because they can. The wheat will be just fine--in this vignette of the kingdom it is obvious that whatever else you might want to say about the presence of those terrible weeds, one thing is certain: they cannot stop the wheat from growing, maturing, and so ultimately serving the farmer's purpose for his crop.

Second, although a counterfeit presence and an undesirable spectacle, there is also a hint here that sometimes our perspective and vision is limited enough that we cannot always sort out the good from the bad, such that by trying to attack what we believe to be the problem, we may end up damaging something good. There are some acts of judgment which we simply need to leave to God. God will get around to sorting things out in the end. But even then, notice that it is not we who will do that sorting out but only the Son of Man and his angels. They will be active in the end, not we. Meanwhile we sit tight, realizing that we may well be prone to mistakes in such matters and so we leave it to God.

Third, according to this way of presenting the kingdom, the danger for us, the temptation we need to resist, is trying to do something about a problem that is apparently not ours to solve. The weeds by themselves will not damage the wheat. But if we try to tackle the weeds on our own, we might end up damaging the wheat. Worse, it appears that even if we could avoid directly damaging any wheat, there is something about the very act of attacking the weeds which itself compromises the kingdom. In other words, if the wheat ends up getting damaged it will not be because of the weeds but because of our reaction to the weeds! Our job is to nurture the best wheat crop we can for God's glory. So when it comes to dealing with some of the rotten stuff around us, we are to let it be, to let it drop.

Robert Capon once pointed out what he thinks may well be the most potent word in this parable, though in English translations you tend to blow right past it. It is that little word "let" in verse 30. The reason it jumped out at Capon is because in Greek the word there is the same word which gets translated as "forgive" about a third of the times it shows up in the New Testament. If you were to pray the Lord's Prayer in Greek, then when you got to the line "Forgive us our sins as we forgive those who sin against us," the Greek word you would say for "forgive" would be aphes, which is the same word found in verse 30.

To forgive in the New Testament is to let something drop, to leave it lie, to set it aside and never deal with it again. So how interesting it is that this same word gets used in Matthew 13:30 for what Jesus wants our attitude to be toward the bad stuff around us in this present world. We are to forgive, to be gracious, to be loving even toward our enemies, even toward those whom we are pretty sure represent some of the nettlesome weeds of life. God will deal with them eventually and in some cases the way God will deal with them will be via his judging of them. But that is not how we are to behave for now. Because contained in that tiny word "let" is the gospel's heartbeat of grace, love, mercy, and compassion.

Ah, but we tend to be impatient. We find it difficult to leave certain things lie. Like the disciples we want to run on ahead, get to the fire-and-brimstone stuff. Fighting a culture war, duking it out with the forces which seem to fight against the Christian faith, that feels a whole lot better to us. At least it makes us visible. Shouldn't we stand tall for God? Shouldn't we be leading the charge for all things moral and good? Shouldn't we take out our spiritual garden spades to root out those who represent the weeds of life?

Well, no, at least not if doing so means we lose sight of the fact that the way of the gospel is first of all the way of compassion, grace, and gentle love. We must not lose sight of those precious gospel commodities. Equally vital, the world also needs to see those characteristics on shining display in us. The moment we start to look more tough than tender, more judgmental than willing to forgive in grace, more violent than peaceable, more harsh than gentle, more proudly self-righteous than humbly graced sinners--the moment any of that starts to happen, that's when the nature of God's kingdom gets eclipsed. If so, then it is not because the weeds damaged the wheat. Rather, it is our reaction to the weeds that ends up harming the wheat! We do it to ourselves, in other words.

And that then is why Jesus immediately turns to the parables of the mustard seed and the yeast. Further, that is why those two little verbal portraits, far from being a distraction or an interruption, appear where they do. Jesus drops in these images at precisely this juncture in order to highlight who we are to be as God's people in this world. The reason we are to forgive evil and leave the judging to God is because to act in any other way is to be inconsistent with God's kingdom! God's kingdom, as could be seen in Jesus' ministry, looks small yet grows large like a mustard tree. God's kingdom mixes into the world and indeed, like yeast in dough, all-but disappears from sight, and yet somehow manages to permeate and then dramatically change the lump of dough into which it is mixed.

Verses 34-35 say that Jesus spoke in parables so that he could utter things "hidden" since the creation. Ironically, the mustard seed and the yeast imagery are also about "hidden" things. The power of God's kingdom is power incognito for now. It does not operate quite the way you'd expect. It is not about being flashy, it is not about the wielding of brute force, it is not about fighting tooth-and-nail with a world which knows no other way but to fight bloody winner-take-all contests.

Instead the kingdom of God is about the amazing but quiet power of love and grace. It's about forgiving and letting things drop as God's way of snapping otherwise endless cycles of retribution and revenge. It's about a God so fiercely committed to salvaging a creation gone bad that instead of breaking down the front gates to this world's kingdoms God snuck down the back staircase of history to deposit a baby in a cow's feed trough--a baby destined to grow into a man who would end up impaled on a cross. It could not have looked less effective, and yet it changed history. It saved us.

A flurry of questions perhaps has come to your mind by now. How can we be people of truth and yet not also stand up for that truth? Are we to do no acts of judgment or of discernment, of at very least figuring out and distinguishing right from wrong? What does this do to the whole enterprise of church discipline? If ever there were a process designed to root out weeds and toss our ecclesiastical bad apples, church discipline is it. So has that been wrong-headed all along? Also, is it wrong to fight for justice in society? Are our efforts to combat abortion or racism or hate crimes likewise the equivalent of trying to root out weeds which we are really supposed to just leave alone for now?

Those are tough questions. If Matthew 13 were the only place where Jesus or the apostles talked about our Christian relationship to one another and to the wider world, it would be very difficult to answer those questions. But, of course, this parable needs to be seen alongside many other passages which call us to decry injustice, to give voice to the voiceless people, including the unborn, the poor, those who are discriminated against in society. We have to see this in the light of Paul's advice on dealing with wayward members of the church as well as in how to counteract those who teach false versions of the gospel.

In short, Matthew 13 is not calling us to be empty-headed, passive people who tolerate anything and everything in the name of just leaving this life's crop of weeds alone. But even when fighting injustice, even when criticizing false teaching, we need to remember the two most salient and vital lessons that emerge from Matthew 13: one, the weeds alone cannot damage the wheat. We need confidence in God, in Jesus Christ, and in the Holy Spirit who is at work in us and in the church to nurture a bumper crop of good stuff. There is no need for panic, no need for shrill rhetoric, no need for the kind of hostility fueled by fear that so often attends those who feel threatened. That kind of calm confidence leads to the second thing we need to learn from Matthew 13: although the weeds cannot keep the fruit of love from ripening and maturing, by our reactions to the weeds we can corrupt our own love!

Are we to be discerning? Yes. Are we to steer clear of weed-like evil practices or false teachings? Of course. Are we to witness to this world about the hope that is in us? Of course! And will that now and again require that we point out what is wrong in society, in the church, in the lifestyle of someone we love? Yes. But in and through it all we need to work on the mustard seed plan and try to be effective the way yeast is effective. If we cannot change things through gentleness, love, mercy, grace, and compassion, then we just cannot change them. That's an unhappy and perhaps frustrating fact but switching to the violent, strong-arm tactics of the world won't do us or Jesus any good in the long run.

In Matthew 13 the disciples leap-frogged over the mustard seed and yeast stories to force Jesus back to themes related to fire and brimstone and judgment. Jesus obliged them by predicting God's judgment of this world. But even so it is God's judgment, not ours, that Jesus talks about. Meanwhile we are called to keep on quietly growing, quietly permeating this world and leavening it with gospel hope and joy.

We get impatient, though. We want to fast-forward through the I Love Lucy-like interruptions of yeast and tiny seeds to get back to judgment. But the only thing that will happen if we act that way is that more people may get judged in the end. And if so, maybe the reason will be that the harsh and hostile way we behaved prevented some of those folks from seeing in us the one thing that could have saved them all along: the love of Jesus, the love of that gentle farmer whose advice for now is simply, "Let it be, so that you can just keep on growing to my glory." Amen.