The Weeds Among the Wheat: Reflections on Matthew 13

"Like" the Patheos Progressive Christian Page on Facebook to receive today's best commentary on Progressive Christian issues. Lectionary Reflections for July 17, 2011 Matthew 13: 24-30, 36-43

I am a great fan of mystery fiction. I never seem to tire of detective novels, TV shows and movies. I enjoy the process of gathering clues and coming to conclusions. It's so satisfying to guess who did it before the final page or act. Sherlock Holmes is one of my heroes. It came as a great disappointment to me to find, when I visited London years ago, that 221B Baker Street is a museum to a fictitious detective, not the home of a real historical person.

The Bible, on the other hand, is not a museum filled with fictional characters, but a library of mysteries involving real live people, awaiting our investigation. Interpreting the Bible calls for shrewd detective work. We can rarely pinpoint exactly "whodunnit" with regard to the authorship of books and portions of books. When we interview each of the four evangelists, for example, spaces remain blank next to Name, Birthdate, Address, and "Where were you on the night of...?" We don't know exactly who wrote Matthew. The material in Matthew doesn't seem to come from an eyewitness to Jesus' ministry, so the author was probably not Matthew the tax collector, one of the disciples of Jesus (Mt. 9:9). The Gospel of Matthew was probably written by a Jewish Christian living in about A.D. 85-90 in the Syrian town of Antioch, the city from which Paul and Barnabas were sent as missionaries (Acts 13-14).

We may not know the name and addresses of each of the four evangelists, but we do know that each of them wrote their gospel to a particular group of people for a particular purpose. As biblical detectives, we put their themes and theology under a magnifying glass and ask this question: In what context would these themes and theology be crucial communication? A way to get at this is to imagine the text as someone's attempt to answer a question and then try to figure out what that question might be. Often, a text addresses more than one question.

Let's look at the parable of the weeds and the wheat and gather some clues as to what question(s) it is meant to answer in its context.

The first clue is that it is only found in Matthew's gospel. This leads me to suspect that Matthew shaped this parable to address some situation regarding two groups of people in his congregation.

The second clue is that Matthew's gospel as a whole is addressed to a community that is in crisis: it is divided and full of disputes. This gospel contains:

Warnings about lawlessness (7:21; 23:28; 24:12) Predictions of divisions and betrayals (10:21-22; 24:4-8; 21-26) Procedures for handling disputes (18:15-20) (Senior 153) This makes me wonder if this parable is an answer to the question: How do two conflicting groups in the same setting manage to get along?

Yet another clue is Matthew's double-sided view of things. On the one hand, he values the contribution of the older Jewish faith. He is loyal to Torah (5:17-19) and expects disciples to observe the Sabbath, to fast and to bring their offerings in keeping with Jewish traditions (6:16ff; 24:20; 5:23f). On the other hand, Jesus' challenge to traditional interpretations of Sabbath, ritual purity and food laws offers freedom from practices that put rigid rules above human need.

I suspect that Matthew was writing to a mixed Jewish and Gentile congregation; neither group wanted to accept the other. Each viewed the other as weeds, themselves as wheat. Perhaps the Jewish Christians felt that since they were the sons and daughters of Abraham, surely they were the wheat and the Gentile Christians were an obstacle to their growth. Perhaps the Gentile Christians felt that they were the wheat, with their freedom from old rules and that the Jewish Christians were an obstacle to their growth. If we can't be quite sure who is a weed and who is wheat, we're better off not touching anything.

I am inferring that this conflict between the two groups was pretty serious and destructive. Why else would Matthew include the allegorical interpretation with its dramatic contrast between the fate of the wheat and the fate of the weeds? It underscores the themes of the reward for obedience and the punishment for disobedience found elsewhere in the gospel.

Matthew must feel his congregation needs motivation to be obedient. Some people are motivated by fear, and so he emphasizes that the consequences of not following Jesus' teachings is punishment. Disobedience, self-centered living, and unwillingness to forgive lead to punishment. Jesus wraps up the Sermon on the Mount with an exhortation to be do-ers and not just hearers of Jesus' teachings (7:21). The parable's closing picture is of the evildoers weeping and gnashing their teeth (13:42).

Other people are motivated by the promise of reward, and so Matthew emphasizes that obedience leads to reward (Mt. 5:12; 6:2-4; 25:1-30, 31-46). I noticed, in looking at a concordance, that Matthew mentions the rewards of righteousness four times more often than Luke. The parable ends by promising that the righteous will "shine like the sun in the kingdom of their Father" (13:43).

For both groups in his community, Jewish Christians and Gentiles, the temptation is to try to get by on lip service without putting one's life on the line. The motivation for this ploy differs, but the result is the same: inactivity. Jewish Christians were resting on the laurels of their heritage, feeling they didn't need to do much. Gentile Christians were reveling in their freedom from the law, feeling they didn't need to do much. Matthew's Jesus calls Jewish and Gentile Christians alike to a righteousness that exceeds that of the scribes and Pharisees (5:20).

So perhaps the parable is an attempt by Matthew to answer the question: How do you motivate people who enthusiastically call Jesus "Lord, Lord," but refuse to follow his ethical teachings (7:21-27; 13:47-50; 22:11-14)?

Perhaps it's his attempt to answer the question: How are two groups to coexist productively and peacefully when each refuses to forbear and forgive the other, but instead excuses their own behavior while judging that of others?

It can't be a coincidence that Matthew's gospel, along with its insistence on active obedience to Jesus, also highlights the need for compassion and forgiveness. Matthew's is the only gospel to include the parable of the Unmerciful Servant (Mt 18:23-24). Our unwillingness to forgive others blocks our ability to receive divine forgiveness.

Says commentator Donald Senior,

This parable urges restraint and tolerance on the part of the community, a stance that harmonizes with Matthew's strong emphasis on not judging and on seeking reconciliation, even with an enemy (5:21-26, 43-48; 7:1-5). God, not human agency, will deal in a decisive way with iniquity. In the meantime, the community should be aware of evil in its midst but not be compelled to uproot or destroy it. (Senior, 153)

Hare points out that the allegorical interpretation of the weeds and wheat omits one of the key features of the parable: its emphasis on the landowner's forebearance. What was central to the parable was ignored in the allegorical interpretation. Concludes Hare, "Perhaps Matthew was less pleased than Jesus with God's long suffering" (Hare, 155).

The Parable of the Weeds and the Wheat in Evaluating our Lives Today Some weeds need to be plucked up, the sooner the better The parable does not mean that, rather than avoiding negative experiences in life, we are to seek out discordant sounds, funky smells, unpleasant situations and difficult people. An unjust ruler needs to be opposed. A bad habit that hurts ourselves and others needs healing.

Clearly, there are some weeds that need plucking. The sooner the better. If something smells in my fridge, I clean out the whole thing to find the culprit: the moldy lemon in the back of the produce drawer. When I'm baking snicker doodles and I accidentally toss in chili powder thinking it's cinnamon, I scoop it out ASAP before the flavor is ruined.

Appreciating the Weeds in our Lives The parable of the weeds and the wheat has similar themes to the parables of the mustard seed and yeast that follow it in Matthew's gospel. Mustard seeds and yeast appear small and insignificant, but have big results. Leaven was thought of as an agent of corruption in the ancient world and yet it helps the nourishing loaf expand. Weeds seem dispensable, but their removal destroys the wheat. "Things are seldom as they seem. Skim milk masquerades as cream," Buttercup sings to Captain Corcoran in Gilbert and Sullivan's comic opera "HMS Pinafore." In this parable, it's more like cream masquerading as skim milk. We can't do without the weeds. What the weeds in your life?

In a recent novel called The Gap Year , by Sarah Bird, a mother, Cam, worries about her teenage daughter, Aubrey, who is about to go off to college:

Because I didn't expose my only child to enough dirt, she will hit the germ factory that is a college dorm with a weak immune system. And she will die of spinal meningitis.... Although I am a slob and raised Aubrey with plenty of messiness, my worst enemy- Recent Studies- now tells me that I should have gone the extra step and provided actual squalor.... If only I'd put a goat in the playpen with my baby she probably wouldn't have asthma today.

This parable is primarily about relationships between people. It's about not judging and not assuming that you and I are wheat and others are weeds. When we judge others and dismiss their contributions and value, we become weeds among the community's wheat.

There may be something in this parable that helps us in introspection as well. Maybe it could help us survey our inner landscape and evaluate the weeds among the wheat that perhaps need pruning, but not plucking up. That might mean that you and I ought to berate ourselves a little less harshly for our flaws and faults. Because, while there aspects of our personality that shouldn't be allowed to take over the whole field, they may just contribute to our life's harvest and our contribution to the world.

And since we know that we often tend to judge others for qualities we dislike in ourselves, it's something worth thinking about.

Sources Cited: Alyce McKenzie, The Interpretation Study Bible Commentary on Matthew

Douglas, R. A. Hare, The Interpretation Commentary on Matthew

Donald Senior, The Abingdon New Testament Commentary on Matthew