The Gospel of Matthew is a skillful literary construct that neatly
organizes the birth, life and passion of Jesus into a tightly crafted
account. It’s decidedly Jewish perspective begins with a
genealogy
that establishes the Davidic lineage of Jesus and which sets the tone
for Matthew’s contention that Jesus is the messiah and the fulfillment
of the scriptures. By the end, Jesus has exceeded even these
fantastic
expectations. He has conquered death, and all authority in heaven
and
on earth is his. The great commission to “make disciples of all
nations” goes beyond and actually reverses the traditional hope for the
reunification of Israel. Rather than calling the “lost tribes” of
Israel out of all the nations, all the nations are called into a new
and universal “Israel” that is the world itself.
For Matthew, therefore, the twelve tribes symbolize
the
completeness of Israel and the world, and it is no coincidence that his
account not only encompasses the entirety of Jesus’ earthly life from
birth to resurrection, but is precisely organized into twelve sections
as outlined below:
1.1-4.22
Son of David and
Son of God
4.23-7.29
Sermon on the Mount
8.1-9.34
Healings and controversies
9.35-10.42 Missionary
instructions
11.1-12.50 Conflict intensifies
13.1-53
Parables of the kingdom
13.54-17.27 Opposition and acceptance
18.1-35
The church
community
19.1-22.46 The
authority of Jesus
23.1-25.46 Judgments
present and future
26.1-27.66 Passion and
crucifixion
28.1-20
Resurrection
Matthew’s Gospel seethes with a palpable tension towards the
Jewish community. The Christian community that he is writing to
is
evolved to a level of institutional sophistication that is evidenced by
his use of the term “church” (Greek: “ecclesia”), and reference to
Peter as the “rock.” Matthew is the only one of the four
canonical
Gospels to do so. Based on this and other evidence, the majority
of
scholars date Matthew to the latter years of the first century.
Debate
on the place of composition ranges from Syria to Galilee to the
Transjordan. Traditional authorship is, of course, attributed to
Matthew/Levi, one of the twelve disciples of Jesus, and while there is
no internal evidence that either supports or denies this contention, it
is obvious that the author is a very skilled and talented literary
writer. His knowledge and skillful use of scripture combined with
this
literary artistry hints that perhaps he was a scribe.
The word “parable” comes from the Greek word parabole, which is
used in the Septuagint to translate the Hebrew word mashal. This
Hebrew term is employed to cover a wide variety of literary forms
including axioms, proverbs, similitudes and allegories. The Greek
word
is similarly used in the New Testament and carries the same breadth of
meaning, though its primary purpose is to designate and identify the
stories told by Jesus that use commonly experienced events of every day
life to illustrate greater and deeper truths.
A
parable in which each detail of the story is given a figurative
or symbolic meaning is an allegory. Conservative commentators
have
maintained that a clear distinction should exist between the two
concepts of parable and allegory, and that to read the parables of
Jesus allegorically is to insert meanings into the text that were not
originally intended. The risk, of course, is that such a practice
may
introduce false teachings into a Scriptural context. Conversely,
it is
clear from a literary perspective that these stories were most
certainly meant to carry a deeper and more symbolic teaching, and to
employ an overly rigid interpretation would negate the point that was
originally intended. This creates an equally undesirable
situation in
which the full meaning intended by not only the Gospel writer, but also
the Lord himself, is lost.
In Matthew, the first 53 verses of chapter 13 make up the
“discourse of the parables,” in which the gospel writer groups together
seven parables of Jesus that pertain to his teaching on the kingdom of
heaven. Two of these parables, the sower and the mustard seed are
shared with Mark; the yeast is from Q and appears also in Luke, while
the others are unique to Matthew. The parable of the wheat and
weeds
is from this latter category.
Jesus states the purpose of the parables in the following passage:
The
disciples
approached him and said, ‘Why do you speak to them in parables?’
He
said to them in reply, ‘Because knowledge of the mysteries of the
kingdom of heaven has been granted to you, but to them it has not been
granted. To anyone who has, more will be given and he will grow
rich;
from anyone who has not, even what he has will be taken away.
This is
why I speak to them in parables, because “they look but do not see and
hear but do not listen or understand.” ’ (Matthew 13: 10-13)
As a figurative form that requires reflection in order to be
properly understood, the meaning of a parable is revealed only to those
that are prepared to meditate upon the symbology that it
represents.
True to his Semitic roots, Matthew presents both the disciples
understanding and the crowds lack thereof as attributable to God.
In
this passage, Jesus is prefiguring the role of the church in the future
interpretation of the parables and, in turn, the conversion of those
that would rely on the Apostles for the true and correct understanding
of the nature of God’s kingdom. The message that is being
conveyed is
that it is vital that the mysteries of the kingdom be understood by the
disciples precisely because of the failure of the crowds to grasp the
subtleties that are inherent in the parables. It is most
significant
that Matthew positions this revelation to the disciples in between the
parable of the sower and the parable of the wheat and weeds because it
suggests that the words that the crowds are hearing are seeds that will
take root in those days when Jesus has been glorified. Therefore,
the
significance of these parables is that they are more intended for the
edification of the disciples than for the crowds that are the
ostensible target for them. This explains why Jesus is so
painstaking
in his teaching of the nature of the parables to the twelve, and why he
specifically interprets each of these stories to insure that there is
no misunderstanding. Each represents a parable within a
parable.
Another and deeper layer of meaning to the symbology of planting and
reaping is implied and intended for the disciples alone, and Jesus is
adamant that they understand that it is they that will reap the harvest
that he is planting with these parables.
The
Parable of the Weeds Among the Wheat
He
proposed another parable to
them. “The kingdom of heaven may be likened to a man who sowed
good
seed in his field. While everyone was asleep his enemy came and
sowed
weeds all through the wheat, and then went off. When the crop
grew and
bore fruit, the weeds appeared as well. The slaves of the
householder
came to him and said, ‘Master, did you not sow good seed in your
field? Where have the weeds come from?’ He answered, ‘An
enemy has
done this.’ His slaves said to him, ‘Do you want us to go and
pull
them up?’ He replied, ‘No, if you pull up the weeds you might
uproot
the wheat along with them. Let them grow together until harvest; then
at harvest time I will say to the harvesters, “First collect the weeds
and tie them in bundles for burning, but gather the wheat into my
barn.” (Matthew 13: 24-30)
The mustard seed and the yeast, and the hidden treasure and pearl
of great price, are twin parables in that they are different stories
that carry the same meaning. This technique of reinforcing
teaching
through the repetition of theme is an ancient Semitic literary practice
that can be found in ancient Canaanite literature that actually
predates the founding of Israel itself. The story of the weeds
and
wheat has some similarities to the parable of the seed growing by
itself in Mark, and it has been suggested that Matthew rewrote this
parable into its current form in order to provide a twin for the
parable of the net. In this parable, the symbolism is in the form
of a
net full of fish that is hauled in and sorted, with the good fish
retained and the rest discarded. The thematic similarity is
obvious.
The householder that sows the good seed is an allegory to God who
placed humankind upon the earth in a state of unfallen grace and Christ
who sows these seeds into the church. While everyone was asleep, a
common Biblical image for not paying attention to responsibility, the
enemy, an obvious reference to the devil, sowed weeds all through the
wheat and then left. The “weed” that is sown is the poisonous
bearded
darnel, a plant that is all the more insidious because of its close
resemblance to wheat. It is the ideal image to convey the concept
of
the mixing of wickedness and goodness within the human community.
When
the crop grows and the weeds appear with the wheat, it is nearly
impossible to tell them apart, indicative of humanity’s inability to
judge the nature of what is in someone’s heart. The gross
injustices
that comprise human history, and result in the ongoing theme of inhuman
behavior that has for millennia caused innocent blood to be shed, is as
much the result of the good persecuting imagined evil as it is evil’s
intentional persecution of good.
The slaves of the householder approach their master and inquire of
him as to where the weeds have come from, just as the disciples of
Jesus ask him to interpret his teaching to them. When he answers
that
an enemy (the devil) has done this, they, in turn, ask if he wants them
to remove the weeds from the field. The master tells them that he
does
not want them to do this because of their inability to properly discern
between the weeds and the wheat, or, in the larger sense, between the
righteous and wicked. Because their own human fallibility may
well
result in the removal of some of the good along with the bad, it is
best to allow both to remain unmolested. Just as it is the
householder’s goal that not one ear of grain be lost, so it is the
Lord’s intention that not one soul should be forfeited.
Instead, the slaves are instructed to allow the weeds and the
wheat to grow together until the harvest, at which time the reapers
will be instructed by the master to sort the weeds out and bundle them
for burning, while the wheat will be gathered into the barn. To
let
both grow together is the point of the parable. To try to achieve
a
“pure” church in which there are no sinners is not only humanly
impossible, but the attempt to do so would be disastrous. While
there
would certainly be those times in which a gross offender would have to
be excommunicated, when a weed that so obviously is not wheat would
have to be culled, the general practice must be to allow only the Lord
himself to differentiate between the righteous and the wicked.
Subtle
touches such as bundling the weeds before gathering the wheat, a
reversal of normal farming practice, and the indication that the
reapers are not the same people as the slaves, hint at the sweep of
history that is involved and adds strength to this symbolism as an
allegory of the Last Judgment.
The story of the weeds and wheat presents us with a salient and
perennial truth. It confronts the mystery of wickedness and asks
why
is there evil in our world, in our hearts, and in our church?
While
this mystery is not explained by this story neither is it evaded or
ignored: An enemy has done this. Wickedness is not an
illusion, but
false wheat sown within the field of human life. It is not an
immaturity waiting to grow ripe, but is an alien growth; a corruption
that is beyond human control and power; an irrepressible conflict that
has been thrust upon us, yet which we are unworthy and unable to wage.
Yet wage this battle we must.
The question, then, becomes how this battle should be fought when
we possess neither the proper discernment of the enemy nor the
spiritual weapons necessary to assure success. In the immortal
words
of Pogo, “We has seen the enemy and he is us.” Are we always sure
that
apparent heresy is real heresy? How many times have we persecuted
the
heretic only to find at a later date that what we deemed heretical was
but the harbinger of a greater and deeper truth? Do we need
another
Copernicus or Galileo to convince us? How many nooses and tires
have
gone around innocent necks in the name of God? There have been
excommunications that have done more harm than good, and in the end we
learn that persecution by the church is no different than persecution
of the church. The battle is won when we do not wage it: when
discretion truly becomes the better part of valor.
And so we strangely miss the point; fail to see the forest for the
trees. It is we that are the weeds, and though we all have sinned
we
seem to have no trouble plucking up the first stone to cast at those we
deem to be the sinners. We should be ruthless of the evil that
resides
within ourselves but cautious to the uttermost when dealing with the
evil we perceive in others. And yet we humbly proclaim that
“there but
for the grace of God go I” as we squint around the beam in our effort
to get a better glimpse of the splinter. We would do better to
trust
in God, for the mystery of our evil is no mystery to him, nor is his
sovereignty usurped. Should we harden the “bundles to be burned”
into
a theology then we shall find ourselves so gathered. Though God
does
not elect us to the fire, neither does he endlessly tolerate our
unholiness, and though he longs to gather us to himself, neither does
he embrace our inhumanity.
The parable of the weeds and wheat becomes, then, a mirror in
which we confront and examine a blemished countenance; it declares the
accuracy of the balance that has weighed and found us wanting.
Yet its
ultimate message is that of hope. It is not the bad seed that is
our
enemy, but he that sows it. And it is not he that we should fear,
but
ourselves, for he has no power over us that we do not grant him.
When
the harvest comes our concern should be ending up in the barn, and not
condemning those that are consigned to the fire. It is in this
way
that we can best assure that we are gathered to our Master and not
bundled for the burning.
Bibliography
Catholic
Encyclopedia. Online Edition at
http://www.newadvent.org/cathen
New
American Bible. Iowa
Falls, IA: World Bible Publishers, 1970.
Buttrick, George A.
(editor). The Interpreter’s Bible. Volume VII. New York,
NY: Abingdon Press, 1951.
Dominguez, J. Jerome Bible Commentary. Online Edition at
http://biblia.com/jesusbible/
Laymon, Charles M.
(editor). The Interpreter’s
One-Volume Commentary on the Bible.
Nashville, TN: Abingdon Press, 1971.
O’Day, Gail R.,
Peterson, David, (editors). Access Bible New
Revised Standard Version.
New York, NY: Oxford University Press, 1999.
Smith,
William. A Dictionary of the
Bible. Grand Rapids, MI:
Zondervan Publishing
House, 1948.
Throckmorton, Burton
H. Jr. (editor). Gospel Parallels: A
Synopsis of the First Three Gospels.
Nashville, TN: Thomas Nelson, 1949.
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