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but think of the line that judas sings in jesus christ superstar when he said why d you choose such a backward time and such a strange land 1 it s almost as if this whole kingdom of god thing was intentionally designed to fly under the radar nevertheless jesus came and he placed god s plan of redemption in the hands of this ragtag bunch of followers but just like the insignificant little mustard seed or that tiny little pinch of yeast the followers of jesus have grown the christian faith into the predominant religion on this planet but this astonishing growth of our faith is not the only thing that these parables are teaching us it s not just that the kingdom appeared on earth with small beginnings and became a faith that permeated the world it s also helping us to understand the fact that the kingdom of heaven tends to sneak up on people to many people if not most people their first introduction to the message of the gospel sounds pretty lame there is a god who is all knowing and all powerful and he wants us to follow him but he won t show himself to us he won t even make his presence known at least not overtly why wouldn t an all knowing and all powerful god just show up with lightning and thunder and splendor and majesty wouldn t that make it all a whole lot easier but that is not how god works and the reason that that s not how god works is because that is not who god is our second two parables this morning help us to understand that a man is working in a field he s probably a hired hand and while he is working he discovers a buried treasure now this isn t as unlikely an event as it may sound in the first century there were no banks no safety deposit boxes no ira s or revocable trusts if you had wealth if you had treasure just about the only way that you could protect it was to bury it somewhere and hopefully remember where you buried it it is not at all uncommon today for archaeologists to uncover jars that are full of coins or full of jewels and these jars that they are finding are the safety deposit boxes of the ancient world and so maybe someone forgot they buried it or someone died before they recovered it and our laborer friend working in the field found it returned it to its hiding place sold everything that he had and purchased the field so that the treasure would become legally his likewise a merchant was looking for fine pearls for his collection in the ancient world pearls were the showpieces of one s jewelry collection osborne tells us that pearls were considered the most luxurious of jewels pearls came from the red sea those were the common pearls the persian gulf those were the most expensive and from india they were worth at times the equivalent of millions of dollars 2 pearls were to the ancient world what diamonds are today and when our merchant friend found this one pearl this perfect pearl this incredibly valuable pearl he sold off his entire collection just so that he could own this one incredible pearl and so whether we encounter the kingdom of god by accident like the laborer in the field did or after an exhaustive search like our merchant friend when we find something of surpassing value we will often take whatever measures are necessary to obtain that item of value is there a better way to describe our acceptance of god s unimaginably gracious offer to welcome us into his kingdom is there a better way to describe the response of one who has personally felt the love of god in their lives and has responded to that love by giving their heart to god beare says anyone who counts the cost of discipleship has completely failed to grasp the greatness of the reward 3 god doesn t come to us in the thunder and the lightening he comes to us as the mustard seed or the pinch of yeast he comes in quiet humility in kindness in graciousness because that that is who god is and when the believer discovers that when the believer feels the gentle guidance of the spirit when the believer learns of the love that jesus showered upon us at the cross when the believer finally understands how god has quietly but persistently been seeking us pursuing us calling us to his side then we realize that no sacrifice on our part becomes too much for us to make as we respond to him in gratitude and in love and with our response there comes a change as the love of god just like that pinch of yeast permeates our soul it changes how we think it changes how we act it changes how we view the world it changes our values and our goals it changes who we are and because of that change we become people who don t just see the kingdom but we become fully a part of the kingdom and a big part of that process is us discovering how desperately the world needs to find that pearl of great price how desperately the world needs the saving grace of god the end of today s reading drives home just how important our witness is to the world jesus tells us that the kingdom of heaven is like a net that is let down into a lake that catches all kinds of fish when the net is full the fishermen pull it to the shore then they sit down and separate the fish fish that are unclean or inedible are thrown out while the good fish are collected in baskets for the market just like last week s parable of the wheat and the tares this is a frightening warning about the impending fate of those who will reject the gospel scott hoezee says jesus concludes with an image where subtlety goes out the window there will come a time of reckoning at the end of all things jesus says there will come a time when the bad fish will get tossed into a fate that is more than definitely on the grim side so in the long run despite all jesus had to say about the hiddenness of the kingdom in the here and now the day will come when the kingdom will be all in all and each person will either be in that kingdom or outside of it we witness to the kingdom in ways consistent with the kingdom which means lovingly and humbly and compassionately but witness we must the stakes are too high to stay quiet 4 our reading today closes with a short parable that has perplexed theologians for 2000 years jesus said to the disciples therefore every teacher of the law who has become a disciple in the kingdom of heaven is like the owner of a house who brings out of his storeroom new treasures as well as old and while there are lots of guesses as to meanings that may be hidden in this short parable one thing is certain jesus describes his disciples as teachers of the law the teachers of the law or scribes were those who had dedicated their lives to learning the torah and to teaching others about the law here jesus is telling his disciples and that would include us that we have taken over this responsibility that we are the new scribes the new teachers of the law last week my friend david ourisman sent me a link to a substack post of his about this week s lectionary reading in it he said so by the time you reach the scribe of matthew 13 52 the question this chapter has been building toward has changed not what s the treasure rather what kind of person can be trusted with the treasure understanding is not enough matthew seeks teachers whose understanding has grown into mercy feeding welcoming visiting before calling them ready to teach others matthew does not ask only whether a teacher has found the treasure he asks what the treasure has done to the teacher 5 and so today i ask us to ask ourselves the question what has the treasure done to us are we allowing this treasure to make us more christ like are we allowing this treasure to lead us to become more compassionate more forgiving more loving more willing to step out of our comfort zones in order to reach a world that so badly needs to hear and to understand the message of the gospel the kingdom of heaven is like a tiny pinch of yeast that when shared has the capacity to permeate the lives of others not only that they may be saved but that they in turn will spread the yeast of the gospel to others growing god s kingdom to the ends of the earth one heart at a time 1 music and lyrics by andrew lloyd webber and tim rice copyright 1970 1971 by universal mca music publishing ltd and the really useful group ltd 2 grant r osborne exegetical commentary on the new testament matthew pg 541 3 matthew beare findings pg 315 4 scott hoezee cepreaching org commentary on matthew 13 31 33 44 52 2 5 david ourisman surprised by the text when the text won t stay small tags bible christianity faith god jesus posted in uncategorized leave a comment what s the deal with the blazing furnace july 19 2026 july 19 2026 matthew 13 24 30 36 43 so for the second week in a row we have an agricultural parable but even though both of these parables are related to seeds and harvests their meanings couldn t be more different last week we discussed how the seeds fared as they landed on different types of soil the parable taught us that different circumstances can cause different people to react to the word in different ways and even taught us that a single person can react differently in different times and in different situations we also touched on the extravagance of god s grace as he shares his word generously not wishing that anyone would fail to hear the good news but this week our focus is on the crop itself so let s take a look at the story a farmer sows his field with good seed but an enemy comes at night and sows weeds in the same fields that were just sown with the good seed as the crop begins to grow the slaves working in the field discover the fact that there are weeds mixed in with the good plants the slaves ask the master if they should remove the weeds but the master tells them to leave them that they would all be sorted out at the harvest and for the second week in a row i have learned a few things about agriculture first i learned that allowing the weeds to grow along with the crop is highly irregular saunders tells us that the surprise in the parable comes when the householder forbids them from removing the weeds he directs the servants to let the wheat and weeds grow up together until the harvest when the weeds will be collected first bundled and burned and then the wheat would be gathered into the barn ancient audiences might well have wondered what kind of farmer this is and if this farmer knows what he s doing 1 the second thing that i learned is that the likely weed that was sown alongside the good seed was something called darnel darnel looks identical to wheat until it begins to mature when it sprouts leaves darnel is poisonous in substantial quantities and is capable of killing a human but in small amounts it is an intoxicant and indeed darnel was purposely cultivated to add to beer to increase the level of intoxication received from the beverage we also know that darnel has a very robust root system and that mixed in with wheat pulling the darnel plants out by the root would have damaged or killed many of the wheat plants whose roots had become entwined with the darnel roots the reason that we highly suspect that darnel is the weed in question here is the fact that ancient unscrupulous farmers would go out in the dead of night and sow darnel in the fields of their business rivals so common was this practice that rome actually had a law against the illicit sowing of darnel so it s highly likely that this is the practice to which jesus was referring in our story the slaves who discover the unexpected addition to their crop ask their master if he is sure that the seed that he planted was good and not tainted i would imagine that the slaves may have been concerned that they may be blamed for the unwanted darnel that had been planted in their field but when slaves asked their master if they should pull out the weeds the master aware of the potential damage to the wheat should they do that advised them to allow the darnel to continue to grow alongside the wheat so that none of the wheat plants would be harmed when jesus and the disciples left the crowds behind and returned to the house in which they were staying the disciples asked jesus to explain the parable jesus provided a very straightforward explanation saying that the field is the world the sower is jesus the good seed are the people of the kingdom the weeds are the people of the evil one and the enemy well that s satan and here is where today s reading starts to get interesting because for hundreds of years there have been jewish parables with which jesus listeners would have been quite familiar and in these jewish parables god is almost always represented by the landowner the enemy in these stories is almost always satan himself and the wheat traditionally represents israel while the weeds represent the gentiles and viewing the parable through this lens jesus appears to be telling a story about the redemption of israel and the judgment of the gentiles but that isn t what jesus said rather than the wheat being israel and the weeds being the gentiles and this is important jesus declares the wheat to be the people of the kingdom and the weeds to be the people of the evil one and in saying this jesus is declaring that the good portion of this mixed crop the wheat representing the people of the kingdom is those who are hearing and living his word and the good portion of this mixed crop is not accepted to be israel as traditionally thought but is instead understood to be those from the ends of the earth who have heard and received the gospel message and some of these people are going to be gentiles and the bad portion of the mixed crop the weeds representing the people of the evil one are not being considered to be the gentiles but rather are those who have heard the word and have rejected it and some of these people are going to be israelites the pharisees and the teachers of the law and the jewish people who have failed to recognize or more accurately flat out rejected jesus are the people of the evil one and it is they who are the invasive plants in this narrative now as i said earlier the first century listeners to this parable would have been wondering if the landowner was nuts allowing the darnel to continue to grow alongside the wheat having the darnel mixed with the wheat will ruin the crop and the easiest best time to remove the darnel would be immediately after it sprouted leaves and so removing the darnel at that time would have been the best bet to protect his crop but removing the darnel also would have damaged a significant portion of the good crop now if this farmer is making a value judgment about the pros and cons of removing the darnel then removing it would absolutely be his best bet and removing it at the earliest possible time would minimize the damage done to the rest of his crops this is why rival farmers used to do this because it would cause his rival a loss of crops and a loss of income as many good plants would be destroyed in the process of removing the darnel but this parable is not a real f...
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