Matthew 13:34b “Without a parable (Jesus) told them nothing.”  

A parable is essentially a riddle. The plain meaning is often not plain, but a tease inviting us to see.  

The gospel parables often require us to be knowledgeable about the Hebrew Scriptures. For example, the reference to a mustard seed becoming a tree with large branches with birds of the air nesting in its branches, draws on excerpts from Ezekiel[i]talking about Assyria as a mighty cedar of Lebanon, again in Ezekiel[ii] likening the restored Israel to such a cedar, and then in Daniel[iii] imagining Babylon as a great powerful tree providing for all.  

So, the hearer is puzzled, discomfited. Why is a scraggly mustard bush, seen in those days not unlike how we see gorse today, being likened to these great trees and great empires? What is the meaning of this riddle?

Most parables existed prior to their incorporation into a gospel, though undoubtedly each gospel editor refined or repurposed many parables to suit their messaging ends. But it is the conclusion of most biblical scholars that the parables give us entrée into the thinking, the worldview of Jesus. How he reimagined life might be, or ought to be.

The Jesus Seminar, formed in 1985, is a grouping of now over 200 biblical scholars of liberal and progressive leanings. Under the name the Westar Institute they undertake a process of collaborative research.  Twice a year academic papers by members are circulated and then critiqued by fellow scholars in the field.  Originally, as the name suggests, the focus was on Jesus.  Since then, seminars have broadened out to include both theology and what used to be called early church history.

In the 1990s, the Jesus Seminar published “The Five Gospels: What did Jesus really say?” In this book 200 biblical scholars ranked the material in each canonical gospel and the Gospel of Thomas with a colour coding indicating the likelihood that the saying originated with Jesus. In our scripture reading today from Matthew 13, the three parables, “the weeds and wheat” gets a grey (Jesus did not say this but ideas in it are close to his own), ‘the mustard seed’ gets a pink(most likely Jesus said something like this), ‘the woman who mixed yeast with flour’ gets a red (most likely Jesus said this), and the interpretation of the first parable gets a black (Jesus did not say this).

I don’t intend to give a lengthy analysis of each parable, but simply some pointers. And I will ask of each what might a text like this mean in our context today? How might we reimagine life to be?

This first parable, called ‘the weeds and the wheat’ growing together, is in the gospels Matthew and Thomas. Where this parable has some resonance with the thinking of Jesus is the idea (which not normative agricultural practice) of letting weeds and wheat, good and bad, grow together. It encourages its hearers to not be concerned about judgement – let God do any judging at harvest (the end time).

Then, a few verses further on (v. 36ff), the writer offers an interpretation of ‘the weeds and wheat’ parable. This interpretation reflects the concern of Jesus groups in the late first century attempting to define themselves over against the evil of the world about. The language “children of the evil one,” “the enemy,” “the devil,” and “angels” is thought not to be that of Jesus.

How do we let this ‘weeds and wheat’ parable speak to our faith today? The existential question the parable raises is, to quote the biblical scholar Andrew McGowan, “Why are people such a collection of good and bad, and why is if often hard to tell them apart?” And then, what should we do about this?  Should we try to identify the good and reward them, and try to identify the bad and punish them?

I think of the seed, drawing on its identification earlier Matthew 13, as ‘Word of God’ in the Jewish sense, as meaning that which brings life, justice, and hope. The seed is that which has the potential to make life better for everyone. It could be as simple as a smile, or as complex as the reallocation of resources to those who are without. It could be as simple as a kind act, or as complex as reconciling yourself to a wrong that has been done to you. It could be as simple as giving what you can, or as complex as needing to keep listening to someone’s hurt and trying to keep helping them for the rest of your life. These are seeds of kindness, giving, reconciling, and loving.

And I think of the weeds in our story as the words and deeds that diminish and even destroy the idea that life could better for everyone. When injustices are instigated, perpetuated, and praised. Where greed is good (to quote from the movies Wall Street) and generosity and empathy are seen as weaknesses. When power is all that matters, and poverty a necessary cost for a country doing business. Where prejudice is seen as strength, and religion an inoffensive recreational pursuit.

I think this ‘wheat and weeds’ parable can be read as encouragement firstly not to see wheat and weeds as people – with the wheat to be included and praised, and weeds excluded and punished. Instead, I would encourage us to see good and bad (wheat and weeds) in terms of ideas and actions, rather than those who hold such ideas or do such actions. For sometimes in the span of our lives, we change our minds.

And secondly, let our focus be on tending and watering the good, rather than identifying and decrying the bad. Let’s not fall into the role of judge. For all is often not what it seems. The one we might consider wicked and deserving of judgement may also, at the same time, be selflessly caring for a bed-bound friend. We do not have the means or the wisdom to judge another’s heart.

To conclude again with a quote from Andrew McGowan: “A world of the pure and good alone is a fantasy (historically speaking); a Church of the pure is not even a Church. Despite our conceits of insight into others, we do not really know who will turn out to be good and true or not, in the end; and while that does not prevent us from seeking to act in righteousness, judging others is not included. We cannot determine what is known only to God.”

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Our second parable is that of the Mustard Seed, a pink rating (though the Thomas version gets red). It’s meaning, in short, is that God’s empire –unlike the powerful trees that resemble great empires – is like a lowly, pestilent, pernicious plant (like, gorse). This is a parable of parody, a lampooning of power. It locates God away from the apex of privilege, of wealth, of strength, of men-in-charge, and it relocates God among ‘tax-collectors and sinners’, children, women, the diseased, the discounted, the powerless, and among those who encourage and practice the so-called ‘weak’ deeds of love(without reciprocity), of mercy (without reward), and of gentleness (without gain).  

This parable upends, discomfits, what is considered normative not just in Jesus’ day, but in our own. It deconstructs power and privilege. It is encouraging of weakness and misfits. It skittles society’s normal operating presumptions and procedures.

The editor Matthew, in placing this parable after ‘weeds and wheat’ might be wanting to reinforce the lesson from that earlier parable. In short: don’t presume. Don’t presume ‘Word of God’ is what you think it is! Don’t presume you have a monopoly on morality or truth (as the Church has so often thought in the past!). Those you think of as pestilent, pernicious weeds – or as the later interpretation (v.36-39) put it: ‘enemy’ and ‘children of the devil’ – might be not what they seem. So don’t presume. Judge not. Be open to seeing differently. Be open to change. Even uncomfortable, discomfiting, seeing and change.

Our third parable, ‘the woman who mixed yeast with flour,’ also known as the Parable of Leaven, gets a red rating from the Jesus Seminar and is perhaps the most difficult to understand. For like with the Mustard Seed it is both easily misunderstood and highly subversive.

The parable has two main interpretative keys – firstly, ‘leaven,’ and secondly, ‘three measures of flour.’ Leaven (yeast) in Judaism was a metaphor for moral corruption. Just as a decomposing corpse swells up, so does a leavened loaf.  Matthew, Luke, Mark, and Paul[iv] all use leaven as a metaphor for corruption. It is unleavened bread that is considered holy. The ‘three measures of flour’ (22.67 kilograms) is a reference to three Hebrew Bible stories[v] about divine encounters and miraculous blessings.

So, the Parable of Leaven is making a link between the woman baker’s corrupting action of sneakily infesting all this bread with leaven and the extraordinary miracles of Isaac’s and Samuel’s conceptions and Gideon’s face-to-face encounter with God. Corrupt activity is being equated with divine activity. In addition, the protagonist in this parable is, not like in the Wheat and Weeds parable a powerful man/manager with slaves to command, but a woman doing a domestic chore. What is this riddle trying to say?

The message is simply that the empire of God (how Jesus reimagined life could be) is morally corrosive of the normative operating presumptions and procedures in the empire of Caesar (how Jesus experienced life was).

It is a good news parable for women. It gives them a major role in the empire of God, just the way they are, doing their normal every day activities, baking bread, even leavened bread. This parable is good news too for all those who are leaven (misfits, prisoners, poor) in their society. This parable assures them that the empire of God is like them.  

The unclean don’t scrub up in order to be in the empire of God. The rejected don’t have to ingratiate themselves to the controllers of acceptability. The heretics don’t have to be ‘holy’ in order to be blessed God. Being an outsider, being poor, being sick were – contrary to most of scripture – not signs of being cursed.  The divine encounter, the ‘extraordinary’ of old, is found among the leavened, found in the dirt and mess of ordinary lives.

Again, we might ask, why the editor Matthew included this parable here, following that of wheat and weeds being allowed to grow together, of God’s rule being likened to the pernicious mustard weed. Was he giving a human example (rather than an agrarian one) of what a weed might look like? Namely, a woman doing a scandalous action. An action we (good society) would consider wrong and bad.

Jesus, in telling parable (riddles), questioned presumptions and discomfited his audience had. Jesus used this method to promote a different, alternate vision of how life might be, ought to be. The lowly, the miscreants, the weeds, were not at the back of the queue waiting to pay for a blessing. They were already blessed. Indeed, there was no queue they had to join. The empire of God (the upending and lifegiving ways of love, justice, and mercy) were already among them, already sowing goodness, if only they looked with the eyes of their heart.

[i] Ezekiel 31:2-6

[ii] Ezekiel 17:22-23

[iii] Daniel 4:10-12

[iv] Matthew 16:6, 11-12;Luke 12:1; Mark 8:15; Galatians 5:9.

[v] Genesis 18:6, Judges 6:19, and 1 Samuel 1:24.

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