Matthew 13 24-30 notes 2005

| Willy Wonka’s WeedsMatthew 13:24-30, 36-43   |   7/17/2005Willy Wonka is returning to the cinema this summer with his staff of Oompa-Loompas. Like us, he has to deal with people — kids — both naughty and nice.Charlie Bucket and Veruca Salt.

A good seed, and a bad weed.

Charlie’s honest, kind, brave and true.

Veruca is a spoiled-rotten brat.

Both get a chance to enter the mysterious chocolate factory of Willy Wonka, a place that has been sealed up tight and closed to the public for a decade. Charlie and Veruca have found Golden Tickets in their Wonka chocolate bars — Charlie’s ticket was in a Whipple-Scrumptious Fudgemallow Delight, to be exact — and because of this they get to go on a tour of the chocolate factory, along with three other lucky children.

Their tour guide is none other than the reclusive and eccentric Willy Wonka himself, a part played by Johnny Depp in the movie Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, which opened last week. When the children walk through the factory doors, they enter an amazing world known only to Willy and his staff of Oompa-Loompas.

The tour is a dream come true for Charlie, a child born into poverty, but it turns into a nightmare for the other members of the group. Willy Wonka is beset with problems: There’s Augustus Gloop, whose hobby is eating; Violet Beauregarde, a dim-witted gum chewer; and Mike Teavee, a gangster-wannabe who is obsessed with television.

As for Veruca Salt, let’s just say that Willy is not amused when she demands of her father, “Daddy, I want a boat like this! ... And I want lots of Oompa-Loompas to row me about, and I want a chocolate river and I want ... I want ...”

Now it wouldn’t be right to give away the secrets of the chocolate factory, but suffice it to say that a number of the children get in trouble when they disobey Willy’s orders. One by one, the nasty are punished and the good are rewarded, in some spectacular and disturbing ways.

That’s what we love about this flick: The good kids get rewarded, and the bad kids get what’s coming to them. It’s a replay of primal, dualistic, Manichaen good vs. evil, light vs. dark, and in the end goodness and light triumph.

And we love this because in real life, it doesn’t always work this way. The psalmist paints a far more accurate picture when he complains about the wicked prospering while the righteous suffer. For the Old Testament prophet, Habakkuk, it was a faith-threatening reality: “The wicked hem in the righteous, so that justice is perverted” (Habakkuk 1:4 NIV).

So we love it when the wicked are punished, when the unrighteous are mowed down, when the weeds are uprooted in the garden.

This is the subject of the text. Here Jesus seems to be acting an awful lot like Willy Wonka. He tells the parable of the weeds and the wheat, and concludes his story with the command to “collect the weeds and tie them in bundles to be burned; then gather the wheat and bring it into my barn” (Matthew 13:30 NIV).

But there is more to this parable than its crisp and clear conclusion about judgment day, when the evildoers of this world will burn and the righteous will “shine like the sun” (13:43). While we certainly have to take seriously this prediction of God’s final judgment, we also need to listen to what Jesus says about the danger of making judgments of our own along the way.

Here’s the preaching point: Leave the weeds to me, says Jesus. You just worry about growing up as wheat.

This is counter intuitive but important advice because we live in a gnashing-of-teeth culture of shouting and name-calling. One person’s weed is another person’s flower.

And it’s not just in the world. The church has caught this infection as well. Christians, right and left, are strutting around these days in the garments of self-righteousness suggesting that those who disagree with them are the weeds in the garden of life, while they themselves are the beauty and flower of the garden.

It’s a rush-to-judgment world we live in. Some are judged harshly for being too radical, others for not being radical enough. Some are judged for embracing doctrinal errors, others for appearing not to have any doctrine at all. Some are condemned for not caring for the poor, others for caring only for the poor. And so it goes.

No wonder, then, that Jesus counsels us to hold off on the weed-pulling “for in gathering the weeds you would uproot the wheat along with them” (13:29).

The parable goes like this: a householder sows good seed in his field, and then an enemy comes and sows weeds among the wheat. It’s a nasty little case of agricultural terrorism.

When the plants come up and bear grain, the weeds appear as well. And the slaves of the householder come to him and say, “Master, we’ve got a problem. Weeds among the wheat. Do you want us to go out and pull up the weeds?”

This seems like a logical response, but the householder gives them a very different command. “No,” he says; “for in gathering the weeds you would uproot the wheat along with them. Let both of them grow together until the harvest” (13:29-30). The master senses that a full-scale attack on the weeds would disturb and possibly even destroy the good wheat, so he instructs his slaves to do nothing about the bad seeds now. At harvest time the householder plans to tell the reapers, “Collect the weeds first and bind them in bundles to be burned, but gather the wheat into my barn” (13:30).

Jesus takes a totally non-Wonkish approach to rooting out evil. Whereas Willy doesn’t bat an eye as Augustus plunges into a chocolate river, Violet turns into a blueberry, Mike disappears into a transporter beam, and Veruca slides down a garbage chute into a furnace, Jesus is committed to preserving the weeds until the wheat is fully developed. He doesn’t have any desire to rush to judgment, preferring instead for nature to take its course.

The point of this parable is not that Jesus is going to go easy on the weeds. No, he fully intends to put evildoers into the furnace of fire, “where there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth” (13:42).

What Jesus is trying to teach us is to leave the judgments to him. He knows that we are consistently off the mark when we try to make an accurate assessment of the moral character of a friend or a neighbor, and so he orders us to put our energy elsewhere.

Here’s an example: A seminar leader recently showed a class of government workers a series of pictures. The pictures began with a view of a person’s face, and then broadened the view to reveal the person’s entire body. It was only when the entire picture was seen that the class could make anything approaching an accurate judgment.

The first picture showed the face of a grizzled man, scowling and straining. He looked to be a member of a motorcycle gang, perhaps gripping the handlebar of a chopper. But when the entire picture was revealed, it became clear that he was a maker of customized wheelchairs for the handicapped, and he was pushing one of his creations.

Picture two showed the face of a lovely woman with a beautiful smile. She appeared to be a flight attendant or a hostess at an upscale restaurant. But when the view was expanded, what the class saw was an exotic dancer, ready to do a pole dance.

We don’t have the whole picture, says Jesus.

The challenge for us is to put our energy into being good wheat, instead of trashing the weeds around us. Rather than erecting walls, building boundaries and trying to purify our community of faith, our job is to grow up healthy and strong — and leave the judging to Jesus. The problem with trying to pull up weeds is that we might grab some wheat by mistake, and hurt ourselves and others who are part of the good-seed set.

Forty years ago some Christians condemned Martin Luther King as a rabble-rouser and a troublemaker. Some Christians denounced Dorothy Day because she did some writing for a socialist newspaper, and missed her great Christian work on behalf of the poor. Some call U2 singer, Bono, an airheaded, irreverent rock star — and he may be — but fail to heed his call to respond to the AIDS emergency in Africa.

Don’t rush to judgment, says Jesus. Let the weeds grow up with the wheat. It will get sorted out in the end.

The best news is that growth and maturity are probably the most effective forms of weed control. If you are responsible for taking care of a lawn, you know that healthy grass is extremely competitive and will crowd out most weeds all by itself. If your lawn is healthy, you shouldn’t have to dig out many weeds at all — in fact, the presence of weeds is a sign that your grass is weaker than it should be. If you find yourself dealing with weeds, one of the best things to do is simply let your grass grow. Don’t cut it so short.

In the end, it’s enough to know that we are “seeds” who have been planted by the “Son of Man,” and that we’re part of a healthy harvest that will someday be reaped by the angels of God.

We don’t want a Willy Wonka in the church.

It would be enough to be like Charlie Bucket, a kid who was kind, brave and true.


Participation Pointers:

• Consult the 1971 movie Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory with Gene Wilder as Willy Wonka for possible film clips.

• Go to textweek.com for Ian Pollock’s painting “The Weeds.” Notice that the weeds are depicted in garish and grotesque forms, easily identified as evil or malevolent. It might have been more interesting for the painting to have emphasized flowing, beautiful and pleasing forms to emphasize the message that weeds can take many different forms. http://www.textweek.com/art/parables.htm. ----

Commentary In critical scholarship on the parables of Jesus, a distinction has often been drawn between the genre and function of a parable and an allegory. This distinction can help us recognize the various options for interpretation of today’s text. The genre of “allegory” is easier to define than that of “parable,” so we can begin with it. The genre of allegory comprises a set of multiple symbols in the world of a narrative, each of which can be interpreted to correspond to another set of referents, which are outside the world of the narrative. An allegory is usually interpreted to have multiple points of correspondence and to guide the listener through the world of the narrative into another world of the referents. In many cases this other world of referents is the real world, comprising historical, present, or future people and events.

Allegorical interpretation thus involves the unlocking of a story’s symbols through the use of a set of hermeneutical keys. Without the proper keys, an interpreter remains on the superficial level of the story world. But with the proper keys, an interpreter can enter and guide others into the world of referents, unlocking the esoteric (and purportedly more important) meanings of the story. Literary critics further elaborate the genre by distinguishing between compositional allegory (texts composed with the intention of being allegories) and allegorical interpretation (reading a text as an allegory regardless of the author’s intention).

The genre of “parable” has been more difficult to define, because this term usually encompasses a range of teachings of Jesus that have diverse genres and functions. There are singular comparisons or similitudes, like that of the “mustard seed,” which are only slightly extended metaphors. Then there are fictional example stories, like that of the “good Samaritan,” which are not based on an opaque metaphor but rather endorse a certain type of behavior. The writers of the synoptic gospels are not all that helpful in our effort to define the genre, since simple proverbs (Matthew 15:15) and detailed ethical instructions (e.g., Luke 14:7) are also given the title “parable.” For the purposes of today’s text, we can focus on Matthew’s use of parables and his choice of an allegorical interpretation.

The parable of the weeds among the wheat (vv. 24-30) is one of the parables supplied with an allegorical interpretation (vv. 36-43) in Matthew’s gospel. In verses 37-39, he delineates eight correspondences between the story world and the real world. The agricultural story world is interpreted in terms of the real world of apocalyptic eschatology. Almost every available noun in the parable is allegorized, and the listener is left with few options for interpretation. He goes on to provide a “mini-apocalypse” in verses 40-43, which leaves even less openness for continued interpretation: every potential mystery of this parable is interpreted and explained. The case seems closed.

But historical and literary scholars, especially those associated with the method of “form criticism,” do not think the case is closed so easily. Form criticism, affiliated most prominently with Rudolf Bultmann and famously executed on the parables by Joachim Jeremias, presupposes that behind the texts of the canonical gospels lies at least one generation of oral tradition. Form critics attempt to demarcate the strata of oral tradition behind the received text in order to isolate older versions of texts, versions closer to the words of the historical Jesus. Now regardless of what one thinks of the historical Jesus project in general, many agree that this process can reinvigorate one’s interpretation of the parables. For today’s text, one could try to assume that the allegorical interpretation does not exist — how might the parable function on its own?

Form criticism does have a payoff here for preaching: It enables the preacher to refresh the parables of Jesus and in some small way recreate the feeling of hearing them for the first time, perhaps even the feeling of hearing them in their original context. Freed from the allegorical interpretation, how could one imagine the parable’s function? A good place to begin is with the climax of the short narrative: the dialogue between the slaves and the householder. The householder rejects the slaves’ expectations when he replies that they should not go and gather the weeds (v. 29). Historians disagree about how the original agrarian audience might have understood this reply. Some have argued that the response is banal and accurate — that the annoying weed was similar in appearance to wheat and could only have been identified when both were ripe. Others have argued that the response is surprising and foolish — that the weeds have differently shaped leaves even when young, and that their fungus would be intertwined with the wheat if a farmer waited too long.

How one decides on this matter would influence the interpretation, but there is at least one point that is unaffected. The householder encourages a level of patience from his workers that they did not expect. Furthermore, he might be implying a level of distrust in the ability of his slaves to properly separate the weeds from the wheat. One way this parable could be applied to a Christian community is by focusing on the patience and humility demanded of the slaves. In the same way that the slaves might not have been able to properly discern weeds from wheat, so Christians might not be able to discern the fruitful from the poisonous in their own communities. They must be patient — even illogically so — while waiting for harvest time.

Another possible point of departure could be the householder’s defense of his opinion: “for in gathering the weeds you would uproot the wheat along with them” (v. 29). The overarching concern of the householder is for the health of the wheat, not the destruction of the weeds. The concern of the farmer is positively for the crop, not negatively against the disease. In a Christian setting, leaders must always be vigilant lest they focus too much on the poisonous elements of their community. It might seem intuitive that the best decision for the collective is to censure and possibly expel those who are harming the community. But uprooting is a violent act whose collateral damage cannot be controlled.

If one wants to preach on the entire text, including the allegorical interpretation, the theme of judgment seems unavoidable. Presented as an esoteric interpretation to Jesus’ chosen “insiders,” we might first think that the parable reassures them in their role as the “righteous” who “will shine like the sun in the kingdom of their Father” (v. 43). However, we should notice that Jesus does not necessarily equate his disciples with the “children of the kingdom.” The disciples may know the secrets, but they are not necessarily safe. There is no one for whom the warning of judgment has lost its relevance. Here is a key moment for a pastor’s discernment of what a congregation needs at a given time: a reminder of humble patience, or a warning of judgment?----

Animating Illustrations A weed is a plant that has mastered every survival skill except for learning how to grow in rows.

—Doug Larson.----

Noted biblical scholar F.B. Meyer was never in a hurry to jump to conclusions about the alleged improprieties of others. He argued that, first, we do not know how hard he or she tried not to sin. And second, we do not know the power of the forces that assailed him or her. We also do not know what we would have done in the same circumstances. ----

Harry Ironside, for 18 years pastor of Moody Memorial Church in Chicago, understood the folly of trying to separate the wheat from the tares.

He was fond of telling the story of Bishop Potter. He was sailing for Europe on one of the great transatlantic ocean liners back before taking cruises was popular.

When he went on board, he found that another passenger was to share the cabin with him. After going to see the accommodations, he came up to the purser’s desk and inquired if he could leave his gold watch and other valuables in the ship’s safe. He explained that ordinarily he never availed himself of that privilege, but he had been to his cabin and had met the man who was to occupy the other berth. Judging from his appearance, he was afraid that he might not be a very trustworthy person.

The purser accepted the responsibility for the valuables and remarked, “It’s all right, bishop, I’ll be very glad to take care of them for you. The other man has been up here and left his for the same reason!”----

I think of a hard young man who’d come to faith in Christ out of one of the gangs that roam the streets of Belfast, Northern Ireland. The boy had started to show up faithfully at Sunday services and, at one of them, brought along with him some of his gang-member friends. The latter young men were a lot weedier than their sponsor and so began to act out during the worship service.

Finally, when this had gone on for too long, the first young man turned upon his compatriots and said in a voice that all could hear, “Would you shut your #$^%&@ mouths; Jesus is @#$%$%# great!”

The incident provoked the call for an elders’ meeting immediately after church. As they gathered, one of the elders fumed, “We’ve got to do something about that Ryan boy.”

Most of the others murmured their agreement and the oldest and most respected of the Elders spoke up. “I concur,” he said.

“Let’s throw him out,” one of the others injected.

“Actually,” said the wizened saint, “I was about to suggest that we mark that young man for future leadership. There’s a fiber and faith there that I think has promise.”

—Daniel D. Meyer, “Of weeds and wheat: How do you spot a saint?” November 3, 2002, Christ Church Web Site, cc-ob.org. ----

Several parallels between the film [Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory] and the tenets of Judeo-Christian belief stand out to the viewer. First, the concept of God is almost fully embodied in Willy Wonka himself. Wonka is omnipotent, omnipresent and secluded. He controls the one thing that the whole world wants: candy. In a song in the beginning of the film that refers to Wonka, a shopkeeper sings,

“The candy man can ’cause he mixes it with love
And makes the world taste good
And the world tastes good
’Cause the candy man thinks it should.”

This last line implies that Wonka has the power to dictate the general happiness of the world. The song also introduces the very important concept of love. This is interesting because in the Judeo-Christian religion, God is love.

The concept of sin is well imbedded in the minds of those who are familiar with the doctrine of Judeo-Christian religion. However, while the “sins” of the characters in the film are really just varying forms of excess and not traditional sins, they have the same result. Augustus’ gluttony, Violet’s gum chewing, Veruca’s selfishness and Mike’s insatiable craving for television all bring about their respective doom in such a way that makes each one a victim of his or her own sin. This is quite fitting since according to the Christian religion “the wages of sin is death.”

—Jeremy Connor, Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory, November 1998, Roald Dahl Fans Web Site, roaldahlfans.com.----

There were several scenes cut from the movie, one of which depicted a mountain climber who encounters a guru at the top of a peak. He asks the typical question, “What is the meaning of life?”

“You got Wonka bar?” the guru says by way of reply.

The climber hands him a Wonka bar, the guru unwraps it and finds nothing.

“Life,” opines the guru solemnly, “is a disappointment.”

At an early screening of the movie, nobody laughed, and the scene was removed. A psychologist queried about the unexpected response said, “Nobody laughed, because for many people, life is a disappointment.”----

The poet Samuel Coleridge had a conversation with a man who believed that children should receive no formal religious instruction. Instead, they should be free to choose their own religion when they reached adulthood.

Coleridge did not openly disagree, but he later invited the man into his rather unkempt garden. “You call this a garden?” the visitor exclaimed. “There are nothing but weeds here!”

“Well, you see,” Coleridge replied, “I did not wish to infringe upon the liberty of the garden in any way. I was just giving the garden a chance to express itself and to choose its own production.”----

It’s a frustrating story, weeds and wheat together. But it’s also real. You raise your children, and you pray for them. Your take them to worship — you surround them with good friends, good influences. And then they go to school, and they come home with words that you hoped they’d never hear. And they watch television and they experience a world of extramarital affairs and uncommitted relationships and rape and drugs and alcohol. And it’s like wheat being surrounded by weeds.

It’s real, and what we would pray to God is this: “Take the weeds away!” Take away the evil and the temptations and the anxieties. Pull those weeds. Take away the wars and the human hunger. Take away the divisions between humanity. Yes, our prayer would be no less than Jesus’ prayer, “Father, if it be your will, take this cup from me ....”

But the kingdom of God is here on earth and wheat and weeds grow side by side, lest in pulling out the weeds we disrupt the wheat as well. Weeds and wheat — side by side. We are not afforded a monastery — where we could get away from the problems of this world. And our church does not give us the option of saying, “This one stays, but this one goes.” “Judgment is mine, sayeth the Lord.” So where does this leave us? Wheat, weeds, together.

—Kim Henning, “Those weeds! Oh, those weeds,” July 21, 2002, Grace Congregational Church Web Site, graceucc.org.----

When Dr. Harold Bosley was pastor of Christ Church in New York City, he preached a sermon entitled, “Shall We Be Patient with Evil?” He pointed out how during the Civil War everything was crystal clear on both sides, if you could judge by what was being said. He then told of an experience he had while visiting a museum in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania, where there is a huge painting of Pickett’s charge at Gettysburg. In front of him was a mother with two small sons who were asking questions. The mother replied softly, “It is hard to tell.” The child asked why they were trying to kill each other. The mother patiently tried to explain about slavery and the other issues. “Did they have to fight?” the lad asked. Her answer was classic. “They thought so,” she said. Dr. Bosley pointed out: “There was in that reply the gentleness distilled in the interval of a hundred years.” Socrates once observed: “He who takes only a few things into account finds it easy to pronounce judgment.” Be patient! Wait until harvest time.

—Thomas Lane Butts, “Problems beyond our power to fix,” March 9, 1997, Day 1 Web Site, day1.net.----

Children's Sermon Pull up some weeds from your lawn or garden and bring them in a brown paper bag to show the kids. Dandelions would be good. Ask the kids what’s so bad about weeds. Why do we hate weeds? The dandelion has a nice, pretty yellow flower, after all. Play off their answers. They might include: Weeds grow everywhere, they grow where they are not wanted, they grow fast, they can’t be controlled, and most of the time they’re not pretty. Kids may not be able to understand their actions as weedlike or flowerlike, but you could give it a try. Emphasize that God sees us as flowers, not weeds. God wants us to bring beauty and happiness into the world. If you want to, you could also talk about the people who take care of flowers, that is, provide water and fertilizer, and so on. These would be our parents and teachers and friends — everyone who wants to help us be beautiful flowers.----

Worship Resources
Calls to Worship General

Leader 1: Let the biblical story be the story of our worship today ...

Leader 2: Jacob paused on his journey to Haran, and rested.

People: Let us also pause along our journey. May this worship be a time of re-creation for weary souls.

Leader 1: Jacob dreamed of a ladder connecting heaven and earth; angels ascended and descended.

People: May the space between heaven and earth be thin and transparent; let us enter God’s presence in prayer, proclamation and song.

Leader 2: God said to Jacob: “I am the God of your ancestors. I will provide for you.”

People: Let us worship the God who governs all time, who holds past, present and future in providential care.

Leader 1: Jacob awoke from his dream, and in gladness he cried:

Leader 2: “Surely God is in this place, and I did not know it!”

People: Surely God is in this place!

Leader 1: Surely, God IS!

People: Let us rejoice in this assurance! Let us worship God!

—Based on Genesis 28.

Benedictions General

Leader 1: Let the biblical story be the story of our service in the world ...

Leader 2: God said to Jacob: “Your offspring will spread to the four corners of the earth.”

People: May the good news of God spread throughout the world; let us carry the gospel to the north, south, east and west.

Leader 1: God said, “All the families of the earth shall be blessed through your offspring.”

People: May all that we say and all that we do be a blessing, through the grace of God.

Leader 2: And God said, “I will not leave you until I have done what I have promised.”

People: Let us venture forth in joy and confidence, knowing that God is with us; God is before us; God is among us; God is behind us; God is beyond us; God is within us. Amen!

— Based on Genesis 28.

Music Links

Hymns

O God of Bethel, By Whose Hand

God of Our Life

O for a Closer Walk with God


Praise

I Was Made to Praise You

We Are an Offering

Let Your Spirit Rise within Me

Lectionary Texts

Ninth Sunday After Pentecost, Cycle A

Genesis 28:10-19a

Psalm 139:1-12, 23-24*

Romans 8:12-25*

Matthew 13:24-30, 36-43*


*Sermonic treatments of these texts are available online. |