It has been a busy day for Jesus. The religious leaders demand a sign, and Jesus calls them wicked. His mum and brothers come to see him, and he says, “Who are they?” He’s been busy offending everyone.
Then Jesus goes out to lake Galilee. He is swamped by the crowd, so he gets in a boat, and goes a little way out. Jesus is in the boat, and the people are on the beach, standing there, listening. The disciples are there, too.
And Jesus teaches. Extracts of his teaching that day are recorded in Matthew chapter 13. And Jesus has a topic and a method. Jesus’ topic is ‘the kingdom of heaven’ and Jesus’ method is ‘the parable’. And to understand Jesus’ teaching, we need to understand both his method and his topic.
First, we will deal with Jesus’ chosen teaching method, the parable. Jesus deliberately and purposefully adopts this mode of teaching this day. So verses 34 and 35, we read:
Jesus spoke all these things to the crowd in parables, he did not say anything to them without using a parable. So was fulfilled what was spoken through the prophet: “I will open my mouth in parables, I will utter things hidden since the creation of the world.” (NIV)
The parables look to us like homespun, rustic illustrations. Many are drawn from life by the sea, life on the land, or life in the marketplace. They are set in situations familiar with the hearers. They have ‘homey touches’, if you like. They illustrate eternal spiritual matters from everyday life. And clearly many of them at least have this quality as an aspect.
But if we think that’s all that the parables are, we haven’t understood what Jesus is doing, because the parables don’t just make clear—they also make foggy. The parables make Jesus’ message harder to understand, at least at first. The meaning of the parables doesn’t come easily for anyone, and for most, they are too hard, and those people walk away. So the parables divide Jesus’ hearers.
Therefore, the parables work as riddles or cryptic puzzles, like crosswords or soduku. Some people give these puzzles a go and get hooked. The harder the cryptic crossword, the more they like it. And other people, like me, think, “Life’s too short. I don’t have brain space to spare on this. It’s too much like hard work.” And they leave them alone.
That’s what the parables do. They suck some people in, who ask and receive, seek and find, knock and door is opened. They solve the puzzle and become disciples. And for others, well, it’s all too hard. “I don’t have the brain space. Life’s too short.” And they walk away from Jesus. And that is Jesus’ intention.
Look at what Jesus says about parables: Chapter 13 verses 10 to 13:
The disciples came to him and asked, “Why do you speak to the people in parables?” He replied, “The knowledge of the secrets of the kingdom of heaven has been given to you [i.e. disciples], but not to them [i.e. the crowds]. Whoever has will be given more, and he will have an abundance. Whoever does not have, even what he has will be taken away from him. This is why I speak to them in parables: “Though seeing, they do not see; though hearing, they do not hear or understand.”
The secrets of the kingdom of heaven have been revealed. Jesus has spilt the secret. “The knowledge of the secrets of the kingdom of heaven has been given to you [disciples], but not to them.” In other words, the parables are meant to be understood by the disciples. It is as if Jesus is saying to his disciples, “Think about what I’m saying.. And if that’s too hard, just ask me. If you have, you will be given more.”
What a great promise! They will actually get to understand everything that Jesus is communicating by the parable. They just have to stick with it. That’s why Jesus still uses parables to teach about the kingdom, even in private with his disciples. This shows that the parables as a method do indeed help understanding—its just that you need to be a disciple. When in verse 36, Jesus leaves the crowd and goes indoors, he gives his disciples four more parables: the parables of the hidden treasure, the pearls, the fishing net, and the owner of the house. And Jesus expects his disciples to understand them. See verses 51 and 52:
“Have you understood all these things?”, Jesus asked. “Yes” they replied. He said, “Therefore, every teacher of the law who has been instructed about the kingdom of heaven is like the owner of a house who brings out of his storeroom new treasures as well as old.” (NIV)
Jesus expects that his disciples will understand his parables. And the disciples do in fact “get it”. And because they “get it”, Jesus then gives them a last parable. It’s a parable about them, their job, their role in the kingdom of heaven. This last parable looks to the disciples’ future: “every teacher of the law who has been instructed about the kingdom of heaven is like the owner of a house who brings out of his storeroom new treasures as well as old.” (NIV) The disciples will be teachers of the law, too. They will be much better teachers of the law than the Jewish teachers of the law. The Jewish teachers of the law do not understand about the kingdom of heaven, so all they can do is bring the same old things out from the Old Testament. But now Jesus’ disciples do understand about the kingdom. Jesus has told them the secret about the kingdom, so, in time, they too will be called on to teach. And they won’t just trot out the same old stuff from the Old Testament that the Jewish teachers teach. They know the secret of the kingdom of heaven which unlocks a richer understanding of the Old Testament. They know the King, Jesus Christ. They know the kingdom of heaven has broken into the world, because the Spirit of God has come. And so, when Jesus sends his disciples out to teach—when Jesus will say, “Go and make disciples of all nations […] teaching them everything I have taught you”—then these disciples will go into the Old Testament storeroom, and they bring out new things from the old book. They will bring out the king of the kingdom, Jesus Christ. “Look who we’ve find in your Old Testament: King Jesus! Look, here he is, there he is! King Jesus, here, there and everywhere, in your Old Testament. We bring new from old.” And so the apostles will bring out the message of Jesus’ kingdom from the Old Testament. In other words, they preach the gospel, the proclamation of Jesus Christ, according to the Old Testament. In doing so, they reveal a mystery hidden for long ages past, but now, with the coming of Jesus, and particularly with his death and resurrection, revealed by and found in the Old Testament law and prophets (Rom 3:21ff, 16:25-26). And this key to the Old Testament, the kingdom of Jesus Christ, this secret is what the disciples get from Jesus via the parables.
But none of this comes to the crowd, nor the casual hearer. It is not received by the one who goes to the beach on a hot sunny day and happens to stumble upon Jesus sitting in a boat. Neither does the religious expert from head office in Jerusalem get the secret, for their brief it is to keep a dirt file on Jesus, so they can get rid of him when the time is right. Ones like this who hear Jesus’ parables just get a story about farming, or a story about fishing, or a story about the market place. All they get are little bedtime stories, told by Jesus to lull them into spiritual sleep. And they will walk away. And what little insight they happened to have casually picked up from their incidental connection with Jesus will be taken away. And the next morning, they will be no different for it.
The parables are sieves. They keep the crowds from the knowledge of the kingdom, but they let the disciples into the secret. So the parables function differently for outsiders and insiders. For the crowds, they exclude and conceal. For the disciples, they explain and reveal. For the insider, they illustrate and illuminate. For the outsider, they frustrate and obfuscate.
So how will you leave these parables? Will you leave them lulled to sleep? Will they become for you little bed time stories which leave you no different the next day. Or will you leave them as a disciple, with understanding, equipped to bring new things out of the Old Testament. That’s Jesus’ method, the parable.
Now we turn to Jesus’ topic, the kingdom of heaven. Jesus’ parables are all about the kingdom of heaven. They give insight into the kingdom over which Jesus is the King.
Previously, we have seen the big mamma parable, the mother of all parables, the ‘parable of the four soils’. There’s one seed, but four soils: one word of God, one gospel, but four responses to that gospel. But even of those four responses, three of them are really the same. So the ‘parable of the four soils’ really talks about the two responses to the gospel, the two ways to live! Hey, there might be something in that. There is the fruitless response and the fruitful response. The fruitless response has three varieties: immediate rejection; falling away under persecution and trouble; and choked by worldly worries and deceived by money. In the case of each, there is no fruit. But the fruitful response comes from in first instance from understanding.
The parable of the soils is a parable about how the kingdom of heaven grows. The kingdom of heaven does not grow through the sword, as Mohammad’s kingdom did, nor through invasion or free trade, as the US kingdom does, nor through sea power, as the British Empire once did. But the kingdom of heaven grows through the word of God.
We need to expect rejection of the message. It will come in three types. But there will also be fruit, abundant fruit, as we saw in the parable of the soils.
The second parable for the crowd is again set on a farm. It’s only found in Matthew’s Gospel.
It’s a simple story. The farmer sows good seed but an enemy at night sows weeds amongst the wheat. Such treachery of course is only discovered when it’s too late. When the wheat has emerged, so have the weeds. The weeds probably looked like wheat in the beginning, and only later can the wheat and the weeds be distinguished.
But in the parable, the master prevents his slaves from pulling the weeds up. He commands his servants to let the weeds grow, lest the wheat be disturbed. They will grow together till the harvest time, and then they will be separated.
At different times I have had buffalo lawns to look after. But whenever I have had the buffalo lawns, there have also been some little pockets where kikuyu or cooch grows up through the buffalo. And of course there are other bare patches were paspalem grows. By the way, this knowledge is the difference between boyhood and manhood. The paspalem is the same colour as the buffalo, so it’s hard to distinguish the two. And so it’s hard to see, and thus it grows up. The kikuyu I can tell. It is lighter green. But no matter how careful I am, when I try and take out the kikuyu, I will occasionally pull up the buffalo with it. It is very difficult to pull up one and not the other. So it was with the weeds and the wheat.
Well, back in the house, away from the crowds, the disciples ask about this parable. So the parable has pushed the disciples back to Jesus, as it was meant to. And Jesus obliges with the answer (vv. 36-43). He will always tell them what the parables mean, if they don’t get it by themselves.
This parable is an allegory of the kingdom of heaven. Each element in the story represents a player in God’s world. Jesus is there himself, as Daniel’s ‘Son of Man’, represented by the sower. In Daniel’s vision, he sees one like a Son of Man coming to the Ancient of Days, and there receiving all glory, authority and sovereign power (Dan 7:13-14). All nations worship him and his kingdom will last forever. So with the very first mention of the Son of Man, we know that his side is the winning side. There is no doubt about the outcome. Jesus will be victorious and reign unchallenged forever.
But, for the time being, there is the devil. He acts at night, because he deeds are dark. He acts out of enmity towards Jesus, the Son of Man.
The field is the world, not the church, as it is sometimes interpreted. The weeds are the devil’s children, and the good seed are God’s children. The angels harvest at the end of the age.
This parable, you see, enables us to persevere when we see evil abounding and prevailing. In our world, which is God’s world, and in our time, which is the time before the harvest, it seems that evil predominates. It is the time when the master tells the harvester to allow the weeds to grow. This is true, isn’t it? God allows wickedness to continue, and the growth of evil seems to outstrip the growth of God’s kingdom. God’s children live side by side with Satan’s children, and all with God seemingly standing back and not acting. At least in our perception, we think that the number who reject and ignore Christ grows, and the number who love and long for Christ diminishes.
The reality is that both groups are growing together, the weeds at their pace, the wheat at their pace, all under the superintendence of God. For we must remember that the world is God’s world, the field is God’s field. The outcome is certain. The weeds will be thrown into the fire, for Jesus Christ will indeed weed out of his world, the world that he has made, everyone that does evil and causes sin. Nothing evil will remain in God’s field. Nothing that will cause to stumble will be left. And the righteous will then shine like the sun in the kingdom of their father.
After September 11, and those images of the towers coming down were broadcast on our televisions, Colin Buchanan wrote a song for his children to explain what was happening.
“You might have seen bad things happening on the TV news. You might be worryin’ about the world and wonder what’ll happen to you. Well put your trust in God alone, ‘cos he’s still sittin’ on his mighty throne. The Lord is King. He’s gonna look after everything, everything. […] ‘Cos this is his world.”
God’s field is the world. Why does God not do something now and act to destroy evil? The answer is because God withholds the judgment on the weeds for the sake of the wheat, lest they be uprooted together. The wheat has to been given opportunity to bear fruit. It is not harvest time yet. And so God has graciously given us opportunity to bear fruit. God withholds judgment not for the sake of the weeds, but for the sake of the wheat, so they can come to full maturity, and so that not one will be lost when the weeds are uprooted.
Scoffers may ask, “Where is this coming Jesus’ promised? For 2000 years everything goes on just the same.” But we must remember that God is not slow in keeping his promises, but that he is patient with us—in other words, the wheat. God does not want any of us, his wheat, to perish, but everyone to come to repentance. But the harvest will come. The heavens will disappear with a roar. The elements will be destroyed by fire. And in light of this, we ought to be holy and godly, as we look forward to the harvest day, the day of Christ. Now, we are called to bear fruit, and on the last day, to be found spotless, blameless, and at peace with him. The Lord’s patience means salvation. So now is the day of salvation.
But Jesus gives the crowd two further parables: the parables of the mustard seed, and the yeast.
If you, like me, like grainy mustard, you know what a mustard seed looks like. It looks like one grain of ‘hundreds and thousands’. At the time of Jesus, the mustard seed was the common symbol for smallness. We see that where Jesus says that faith as small as a mustard seed can move mountains.
It is said that “good things come in small packages”. Well, it is the same with the mustard seed. Apparently, it produces a large, bush like plant. Try letting that grow in your mum’s herb box on the window sill! Apparently, it grew up to 10 feet in height.
That’s not all that big when you compare it to the gum tree in the front yard. But when you compare it to parsley or basil or shallots, other herbs, it’s a monster. Birds could gather in it, take up residence in its branches, and gather in its shade.
What does the mustard seed say about the kingdom of heaven? It teaches us that Jesus’ kingdom has humble, unimpressive beginnings. But its small beginnings belie the mighty power and potential within. The seed is inconspicuous and insignificant. Yet it is destined to become something that will take over your herb bed. And the kingdom’s mysterious growth is the work of God.
The second parable involves making bread. Many people now own bread makers. You stick all the ingredients into it, and a few hours later, out pops nice hot fresh bread. But in the days before bread makers, people actually got flour on the hands.
Now, like the mustard seed, the amount of yeast that goes into flour to make bread is small. But yeast brings to the dough the quality of gradual, initially unobservable, fermentation. Literally, the women is said to ‘hide’ the yeast in the dough. That is how the bread grows—imperceptibly. You cannot see its effect on the lump as you watch it. But the yeast is truly operating, and it will spread.
In fact it spreads so much that in the bible, yeast is often a metaphor for the infectious power of sin. “A little leaven leavens the lump” (1 Cor 5:6, Gal 5:9). So the presence of an incestuous man in the Corinthian church was affecting the whole church. Possibly, people were saying, “Oh well, he has his father’s wife. I suppose it’s OK therefore if I do too!” And Paul was concerned that such sin, if left unchecked, will spread like wildfire, like gangrene, throughout the church. So Paul commands the church to act, to hand the sinning man over to Satan, that is, to not fellowship with him anymore and withdraw fellowship from him until he repented of his sin and was restored to right thinking.
But here, the yeast is a symbol of God’s power for good. Put the yeast in the lump, and off it goes through the dough. Unseen, unnoticed, gradually, over time, the yeast spreads throughout the whole batch of dough.
Now, Jesus speaks of a woman having about 40 liters of dough. That is, enough to make 50 kilos of bread. That’s a lot of bread! So that little bit of yeast has gone a long way.
These two parables teach two things. The first is that the kingdom of heaven will spread, just like the yeast. This is great news, because it is a promise that the gospel, the good news about King Jesus’ life, death, and resurrection will certainly and surely grow and bear fruit. The news about Jesus, while seemingly insignificant, is powerful news. The message saves people eternally. We know that some people, God’s chosen ones, will repent and believe as they hear about Jesus. But this happens gradually, over time.
I’m impatient. I want results now. But you have to give yeast time. Give it time, and you and I will see the effects of the gospel. Wait until Jesus comes back. Then we will see how far and wide the gospel we have preached has worked. A little leaven leavens the whole lump.
The second point is that the two parables contrast humble gospel beginnings with the victorious end. The parables want to give us the picture of the kingdom from the perspective of heaven and from the vantage point of the end of time. They both call us to stand on the brink of heaven and look back over the growth of the gospel since Jesus returned to heaven. And they tell us that it will be massive. Paul says, “I am not ashamed of the gospel, for it is the power of God, for the salvation of everyone who believes.” We are not much now, friends, but then we will see that we are a mighty kingdom.
Do you find gospel work slow and discouraging? Perhaps your growth group has little growth. Your connect group doesn’t really connect. At work, do you observe that Christianity is an insignificant irrelevance or a quaint oddity, if not a positive evil and homophobic bigoted imbecility akin to racism. If you and your Jesus disappeared, few would notice or care, and many would rejoice.
Even if this is the case, we still need to take heart. We know what it is to be a mustard seed, and yeast. We need to remember that Jesus said, “When two or three come together in my name, there am I with them” (Matt 18:20). Do not give up meeting with God’s people to read the word and pray, for that is the way God’s kingdom works.
Amen.