This week we hear three parables about the Kingdom (Mt 13:24-43). The reading finishes with a fiery furnace and wailing and gnashing of teeth – very atmospheric but in a way unfortunate because it tends to overshadow everything that comes before.
If we look at the parables as a set, one striking thing is how they are very organic, very much based on plants and growth. We might think this is simply a reflection of the agrarian society in which Jesus was speaking. It goes along with all the discussion of sheep, vineyards, and such like.
While that may well be true – Jesus clearly did seek to use illustrations that would be familiar to his audience – it’s not the full story. After all, we know that Jesus included tax collectors, Pharisees, and even Roman soldiers amongst his followers. They weren’t all agricultural laborers. Jesus’ selection of images for the Kingdom is significant not just in his time, or for some people. It matters for us also.
When it comes to our thinking about kingdoms, we are more likely to have images of medieval castles, Robin Hood, or even Game of Thrones in mind. Kingdoms were fought over, kings went out to battle, and served out gory punishments on their enemies, conquered and triumphed, or not. That’s not so different from ancient peoples, or the thought process for people in Jesus’ time. But Jesus doesn’t talk about anything like that. His images are of fields and trees and harvests. This kingdom grows and is tended carefully. It isn’t a battlefield.
But neither is it some idyllic garden where everything is rosy and the bluebirds always sing. Jesus is completely realistic about this garden containing both good plants and bad. But what he tells us is just to accept that fact. Don’t worry about it. It’ll all get sorted out in God’s good time. It’s not for us to go around identifying the weeds and trying to get rid of them. This message should be even clearer for us than for Jesus’ original audience. We are the ones with experience of unintended consequences of pesticides, transferring of plant diseases, overuse of fertilizers and even water. We really need to learn to leave in God’s hands what belongs there.
If it helps us to think about the fiery furnace and the wailing and gnashing then so be it. It was clearly helpful for Matthew’s audience, or he wouldn’t have included it. But it shouldn’t distract us from the larger message. We need to let it grow, whatever it may be, good or bad, whatever we may think of it (or them). It’s all part of the kingdom for now.