WEEK FIVE

March 6 - March 12
Theme: Tales of the Kingdom
Someone once thoughtfully remarked that a parable is “an earthly story with a heavenly meaning.” The synoptic gospels contain 46 tales or parables that Christ relayed to his followers during his earthly ministry. The thirteenth chapter of Matthew contains eight parables about the mysteries of the kingdom, with five more kingdom parables in the remainder of Matthew and another found in the Gospel of Mark. The kingdom metaphors Christ used, describe both positive as well as negative situations and consequences. Grasping implications and heeding messages found in these stories affords us rich opportunities to grow in our faith and more fully experience the rule and reign of Jesus in our lives.  

Sunday, March 6
Scripture: Matthew 13:24-30 & 47-50

He put another parable before them, saying, “The kingdom of heaven may be compared to a man who sowed good seed in his field, but while his men were sleeping, his enemy came and sowed weeds among the wheat and went away. So when the plants came up and bore grain, then the weeds appeared also. And the servants of the master of the house came and said to him, ‘Master, did you not sow good seed in your field? How then does it have weeds?’ He said to them, ‘An enemy has done this.’ So the servants said to him, ‘Then do you want us to go and gather them?’ But he said, ‘No, lest in gathering the weeds you root up the wheat along with them. Let both grow together until the harvest, and at harvest time I will tell the reapers, Gather the weeds first and bind them in bundles to be burned, but gather the wheat into my barn.’ Again, the kingdom of heaven is like a net that was thrown into the sea and gathered fish of every kind. When it was full, men drew it ashore and sat down and sorted the good into containers but threw away the bad. So it will be at the end of the age. The angels will come out and separate the evil from the righteous and throw them into the fiery furnace. In that place there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth.”

WAITING & WORKING IN THE KINGDOM NOW

We learn in Jesus’ parable that the kingdom of heaven is like a field of wheat and weeds growing up together in anticipation of the reaping and sorting to come.  As with all of Jesus’ instructive similes, this image of workers in a field invites those of us with agrarian experience or decent imaginations to picture what it looks like to live in and for His kingdom.  The field is a place of working—tending, cultivating, threshing; it is, too, a place of waiting for the fulfillment and satisfaction promised by harvest.  So it is with eternity in mind: what the world awaits (ready or not) is God’s justice and judgment.  In the lyrics of ‘Queen of Gospel’ Mahalia Jackson, the stakes are clear: “Let them do what will they may, / ‘Til that great harvest day,” for “God’s gonna separate the wheat from the tares / Didn’t He say? / Didn’t He say?”  For now, we wait—until every whiplash, every snarled slur, every act of fraud, is brought to light; every unrepentant knee bent; every tear wiped away; every saint shown His face.

Pieter Bruegel’s The Corn Harvest (c. 1565) depicts this space of tending and resting, where one knows what is (what must be!) to come, yet lives and eats, works and plays within the rhythms of daily life.  In the top right background of Bruegel’s (full) painting stands a church, its steeple barely visible, a reminder of eternal things.  But our attention is drawn to the laborers in the foreground—some threshing, bent under the weight of the bucket or the scythe, others resting and lunching under the shade of a tree.  This is a scene of life, in its banality and necessity, a life of laboring in community, of experiencing with others life’s burdens and joys.  For this time, the parable suggests, we suspend our desire to separate weed from wheat; for to our eyes, weeds are so deeply intertwined with wheat that they are impossible to separate without a disruption and destruction for which it is not yet time.  Thus, “let both grow together” until the “end of the age,” says the Master, until such time as He will sort and gather, and set wrongs right.

The parable, like the painting, reminds us that we live in a kingdom that is “already but not yet.”  For diligent servants, this space of waiting and work can be lonely, painful, and uncertain.  We live in—and often live out—the brokenness of a world bent by sin.  But it is to this living, this work, this waiting for harvest with hopeful expectation, that we are called now.  So we tend our gardens and search our hearts; we rest in the shade and revel in the glorious gold of sunsets; we lift others’ burdens and invite neighbors to share meals; we raise our gaze to the steeple and the horizon beyond; we notice marks of grace; we speak truth; we wait with hope; we echo promises: “Didn’t He Say”?

PRAYER

Compassionate Lord, Thy mercies have brought me to the dawn of another day.
Vain will be its gift unless I grow in grace, increase in knowledge, ripen for spiritual harvest.
Let me this day know Thee as Thou art, love Thee supremely, serve Thee wholly, admire Thee fully.  Through grace let my will respond to Thee, knowing that power to obey is not in me, but that Thy free love alone enables me to serve Thee.
Amen.
~ from The Valley of Vision (a collection of Puritan prayers)

Bethany Williamson, Assistant Professor of English