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Matthew 13:24-52
00:29:52
This week Dr. Tim Gray and Dr. Michael Barber continue their study of the Gospel of Matthew by diving into 13:24-52.
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- [00:00]
A
Welcome to form. Now, I'm Tim Gray, president of the Augustine Institute. And Joining me is Dr. Michael Barber, who's a professor of scripture here at the Augustine Institute. And we're going to continue our ongoing Bible study on the Gospel of Matthew. You can always go back and find past episodes. We are right in the midst of the Gospel of Matthew in chapter 13, verse 24. We left off last time we covered the parable of the sower. And now we're going to dive into the weeds, literally, with the parable of. So, Michael, you want to set this.
- [00:31]
B
Summit up for us? Sure. So we're in a section of Matthew's Gospel where after chapters 11 and 12, Jesus has faced resistance. Now he begins to speak in parables. And I think it's really important to just highlight that Jesus speaks in parables, as we pointed out last time, to hide his meaning. A lot of people think, well, instead of talking about the readings today, I'm going to give an illustration. I'm going to tell an anecdote. I'm going to tell a story. You see this a lot. People often highlight or even exaggerate, in my view, the teaching powerful.
- [01:10]
A
Jesus spoke in parables so they could easily understand him. And it's like, no, that's just the opposite.
- [01:15]
B
Exactly right. Or I think people think today that a great way to help explain the Gospel is to help people through stories. So stories are really the way we're going to communicate the Christian message. Actually, not usually. You know, you look at JRR Tolkien, he's very Catholic author, and his books have been widely read in our culture. And so everybody's converted and become Catholic, right? No. Right. So I think we can overstate the power of stories as well. So what Jesus is going to do is he's speaking in sort of coded language. Thankfully, we have the privilege of his explanations in the Gospel, so we get a sort of insider's look. But anyway, why don't we jump into the weeds, as you said?
- [02:08]
A
Verse 24, it says, 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? And 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 them both grow until the harvest. And at harvest time, I will tell the reapers, gather the weeds first and bind them into bundles to be burned. But gather the wheat into my barn. Now. It's hard to imagine that in this parable, this story, parabolic story, literally, as Michael just mentioned, that there's deep meaning about the Church, that there's deep meaning for us to understand our own circumstances as Christians today and what the kingdom of heaven that is the Church largely is all about. And yet that's exactly what this story is about. In fact, this is something that St. Augustine is going to talk about. Many of the Church fathers, Augustine's going to use this parable as well as some of the other ones to show that the kingdom of heaven is like that field, and it has both the wheat and the weeds. It has sinners and saints. So when we find sinners in the life of the Church, in the midst of the Church, we can be scandalized. It's a sad thing when people who ostensibly say they're going to follow Jesus Christ and be faithful to him, betray him like Judas, and are unfaithful to him, or just those who even trying to be hypocrites, but they're struggling to live the Christian life, but they fail and they fall short. You know that's going to happen. And that's what this parable in many ways is all about.
- [04:11]
B
And he explains it. So why don't we just drop down to the explanation?
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A
Take us down to the explanation.
- [04:16]
B
So afterwards, Jesus is just with his disciples. So this is important. When Jesus is with the disciples, he's now more transparent, right? He wants them to understand. Then he left the crowds and he went into the house. What house do you think it is?
- [04:34]
A
Well, probably Peter's house. That's what I think.
- [04:36]
B
So it's amazing that if that's the case, right? That, and I think there's good reason to think that lots of interpreters do. I think the idea is we want to be in Peter's house, right?
- [04:48]
A
That's where our understanding is.
- [04:49]
B
That's a great image of the Church, right? So, all right. And his disciples came to him saying, explain to us the parable of the weeds of the field. And so he answered, the one who sows the good seed is the Son of man, the field is the world, and the good seed is the sons of the kingdom. The weeds are the sons of the evil. One and the enemy who sowed them is the devil. The harvest is the end of the age, and the reapers are the angels. Just as the weeds are gathered and burned with fire, so will it be at the end of the age. The Son of Man will send his angels, and they will gather out of his kingdom all causes of sin and all law breakers and throw them into the fiery furnace. In that place there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth. Then the righteous will shine like the sun in the kingdom of their father. He who has ears, let him hear. Now, there's so much going on here. One thing to highlight first is, as I explained last time, all the parables seem to have a kind of a twist, right? There's an element that makes you scratch your head. One of those elements in this parable is that when Jesus first tells the story, the owner says, oh, an enemy did this. Wait a minute. If you knew an enemy was coming, why didn't you protect your field? First off, how do you know? And secondly, if you were expecting this, why didn't we do a better job protecting the field? All right, so when we get the explanation, what's going on is going to help us unpack some of the mystery here. The man who owns the field is ultimately, it's God's field, right? So God knows everything that's going to happen, and yet he permits for his own purposes this enemy to come in and sow these weeds among his wheat. Now, what are the weeds? It's the sons of the evil one, right? And they're the wicked. The wicked. What is going on with the kingdom of heaven? It's kind of a weird image. Okay, there's evil in the kingdom of heaven. What, did Satan kind of sneak into heaven? The back door was open. Peter's holding the keys at the front. But I don't know who would be in the back. I don't know who's watching out. Did the devil kind of sneak in and the kingdom of heaven? Obviously that's not what's going on here. The kingdom of heaven is somehow present in the world. And of course, Jesus will later make that clear when he gives to Peter the keys of the kingdom of heaven at the time he establishes the church. And so many interpreters have viewed this as an ecclesial parable. In other words, there's a mixed bag in the church. You have righteous people and you have wicked people, and. And they're growing up alongside of each other. And sometimes you can't always tell who's who in this life.
- [08:10]
A
I think that's an important point, Michael, because I think a lot of people hear kingdom of heaven and they think afterlife.
- [08:16]
B
That's right.
- [08:17]
A
You know, we think usually afterlife. And it's not about the afterlife, it's about the life. Now that's what Jesus is talking about. Because notice that the parable ends with the end of the world and the final judgment, right? So everything that's taking place with the seed and with the wheat and the weeds, all this is happening in the world today, in the temporal world, which is the field and before the end of time. And so it's not the afterlife. So that would be a misunderstanding. What do you mean by the kingdom of heaven? What does Matthew mean by the kingdom of heaven? There's a lot of things, but I think one of the things we have to realize is what is not. And it's not the afterlife. And then the second thing is we think of it spatially. We think of there's earth and then there's heaven. And we make this kind of two tiered idea. And there's a truth to that in Matthew's gospel and we can talk about that. That's an important idea. But for Jesus, the kingdom of heaven is wherever God's will is being lived, which would be heaven, but it could also be places on earth. And so the kingdom of heaven can have reign and rule, just as, by the way, just like the empire of Rome, Rome is ruling over Judea. Right. And those who do the will of Caesar and pay taxes to Caesar are submitting to his reign. Right. And so whoever submits to the reign of God, the will of the Father, you know, that is where the kingdom of heaven is, is placed on earth. And that's important for people, I think, to get their minds around. I think a lot of people make a spatial difference and they make a temporal, a time based difference. That's confusing for people.
- [10:01]
B
It is confusing and it's especially confusing here because in a sense there is a realm in which the wicked have infiltrated. Right. That is identified with the kingdom. Right. So I always like to tell my students that the best, maybe working definition for the kingdom is it's that realm in which all things are made subject to God's rule in Christ. So what does it mean to seek the kingdom of heaven? It means to seek to subject everything to the will of God. And as part of that, there's going to be a realm, there's going to be a group of people, a community who. Okay, yes, that's what we are committing to. And Here it seems there are sons of the evil one among them, and they're somehow in the kingdom because they're gathered out of the kingdom, it says. It's a shocking term. Right. So how can they be in the kingdom? Well, they appear to be the good seed, but they're not. Right.
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Just like Judas. I mean, he's the easy example. Just like Judas.
- [11:09]
B
That's right. And so there's a lesson here for all of us. First off, there's a lesson for us to recognize that in the Church, we are going to have the good and the bad side by side. And that's existed since the time of Christ with Judas. And for a lot of people, we need that reminder because we hear scandalous stories of people in the church doing horrible things. For some people, oh, that's the last straw. Well, it's a good thing you haven't been paying attention to history because it's been going on for a long time.
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Yeah, there was bad kings in the kingdom of Israel, but that didn't mean it wasn't the kingdom of Israel.
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That's right.
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A
And there's bad popes, and that doesn't mean that the church is the Antichrist. And that's just important for people to get. But you know, this idea of the kingdom, in a sense, Jesus has given us a great way of deciphering this in a prayer that we all pray the Our Father, and we say, thy kingdom come, thy will be done. Notice in synonymous parallelism with the coming of the kingdom is the doing of the will of the Father. Thy kingdom come, thy will be done. So we pray, Father, may your kingdom come, and may your will be done. And of course, wherever God the Father's will is done, that's where the kingdom is advancing. And so if we reflect, I think the everyday Christian can reflect on the Our Father prayer will realize, oh, okay. Because people are like, I didn't realize. Thy kingdom come, thy will be done. I thought those are two separate things, but they're set together. Just like good Hebrew poetry always puts things in parallelism.
- [12:48]
B
That's right. Now, there's another application of this parable that the fathers and doctors of the church also appeal to. And that is, in a way, there's wheat and tares in all of us. Right. That we have to look into our soul and recognize that these two things, good and evil, grow up inside us. And we have to be on guard constantly to recognize that the evil one wants to come. And so weeds within us.
- [13:22]
A
Yeah, this is an area where we can really dive into the weeds. But through self examination, through examining one's conscience, you want to find those weeds and pull them out. You know, Teresa Vava always talked about the soil is like a garden and we want in that garden, we want to uproot the weeds. And you know, now that we're coming towards the end of the summer, I'm shocked at how many weeds are still in my yard. I have fought a great battle this summer.
- [13:48]
B
More.
- [13:49]
A
I threw myself into it more than ever before. And I'm surprised at the lack of results. My front yard, much better than my backyard.
- [13:57]
B
An enemy has done this.
- [13:59]
A
An enemy has done this. Exactly. Those weeds, they come up fast and hard. But you know, I think of Augustine with the Donatists. You know, the Donatists were scandalized. There was people who apostatized and that there was people in the church who sinned. And Augustine has to go back to these parables to show that, look, the church is never going to be 100% pure.
- [14:23]
B
Jesus talks about that the angels come and they will gather out of his kingdom all causes of sin and lawbreakers. Well, first off, notice that Jesus is interested in the causes of sin. We saw this in the Sermon on the Mount, right? You have heard that it was said to the men of old, do not kill. But I say to you, do not be angry. And that's what we need to do. Looking inside our own hearts. What are the causes of sin? What are the things that are going to lead us into sin? Right. So I think that's a very fruitful meditation. Then the other thing here that it's coupled with is lawbreakers. Well, what does it mean to be a lawbreaker? Well, clearly Matthew is writing for a Jewish audience. They would have immediately understood that what's involved here is Torah, right? The commandments of God. And in the Sermon on the Mount, Jesus makes it very clear that at the end of the day, all of the commandments are meant. The way to keep the commandments keep the law is to love all the law and the prophets are fulfilled in treating others the way you would have them treat you. Jesus explains. And so what does it mean to be a lawbreaker? Ultimately it means to violate that principle of treating others with charity, treating others with love. And so what can lead to the fiery furnace? What can lead to the fiery furnace is not paying close attention to those causes of sin and at the same time not paying close attention to the mandate to love our neighbor as ourselves.
- [16:09]
A
Right. And that law that they break that law is the will of the Father. Yes, so, you know, just as the kingdom is wherever the will of the Father is, thy will be done. When we say thy will should not be done. When we reject the Father's will, we're rejecting the kingdom and we're putting ourselves in a place where we'll be outside of that kingdom. If we remain obdurate. That's right. And rebellious to the will of the Father, we won't be in his kingdom, we will not be in his home. And yet, for those of us who get troubled by the causes of sin in the life of the church and the scandals, the one thing that this parable gives us hope and it reminds us that as Scripture says, and Paul says this to the Romans, but find it in other places that the Lord is going to avenge. He will distribute justice to those who break the Torah and break God's will and hurt other people. Right.
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They're not going to get away with it.
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They're not going to get away with it. And God will purify his kingdom in the end. So his bride will be a spotless bride at the end and the church will be purified. And so we know that the church will struggle with sin and sinners, but we know that in the end, God is victorious and the angels will be the harvesters. And I always think of the angels as the harvesters. You see this in a lot of the Lucas Signorelli who does a famous painting of the final Judgment. He has the angels pulling down. And then you have Michelangelo in the Sistine Chapel, his scene of the final Judgment. That's amazing, the role of the angels and the demons. The angels will lift up the righteous to heaven and bring them up to glory. And the demons are bringing them down to the fire. And it's a frightful, sobering thought. And of course, we want. There's no roundup for the weeds in life of the Church today, but there will be the angels who will take care of that in the end. And that gives us hope.
- [18:13]
B
And, you know, it's worth just highlighting here. Jesus talks about how they will be thrown into the fiery furnace, which is an image of eternal judgment. Some people, I have some friends who are Jehovah Witnesses, right. And they, in their theology imagine that, well, what's going to happen is the wicked will be annihilated and then they'll suffer no more. That's not what's going on here. In that place, there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth, which is an image that the damned, those who are wicked, are not going to suddenly have their suffering vanquished at the end. In fact, they're going to have to endure that suffering. As Jesus says, it's going to be a fiery furnace elsewhere. It's an eternal fire.
- [19:08]
A
And this is the Jewish perspective we find in the book of Wisdom in chapter two and three, that all of us are given immortal souls.
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B
That's right.
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And so whether we will be saved or damned, our souls will endure forever. And that means we will endure in beatitude to be with God, or if we reject God, we will be in punishment. And it sounds like, well, wait a minute. What kind of God is this that allows for souls to suffer for eternity? But if God took those souls who were in hell and burning in hell and brought them up to heaven, they would burn hotter in heaven than they would in hell. So hell, I believe, is the disposition of God's mercy, where he makes himself least present to be least painful to those souls who have rejected him. And it's one of C.S.
- [19:51]
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Lewis'S great lines. Hell is locked from the inside.
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From the inside. Absolutely.
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Absolutely. Pardon me the shameless plug, but I treat this in a whole chapter in a book, salvation. What every Catholic should know. Is hell a sign that God is not merciful, that God's not loving? No. God gives you what you want. He's not going to force his will on you. If you say no to him, he will let you go.
- [20:20]
A
And, you know, it's interesting that you have. Those who are wicked and judged are to be thrown into the furnace, the fiery furnace. But then the righteous shall shine like the sun. So in a sense, both go through a fire. The one goes in the fire and is consumed by that fire. That fire is painful. Others shine like the sun. That's an even more intense fire. And God is a consuming fire. And yet those who are righteous, their souls are pure and. And have been purified by God. They can withstand the fire of God's love and find it joyful. Whereas those who have rejected God's love and only have love of self, they can't endure the fire of God's love. And so those who have ears to hear, let them hear. I think there's an echo here to an Old Testament passage. Michael, why don't you think. And the righteous shall shine like the sun in the kingdom of the Father.
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B
I'm just going to go there.
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A
Great. Why don't you take us there?
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B
Yeah. Daniel 12. There's a fantastic prophecy here. I hope you thought I was going to go to Daniel 12.
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A
That's where I was hoping you would go. So we didn't talk about it. We don't prearrange these. No, these are always fun, these Bible studies.
- [21:29]
B
In Daniel 12, there's a fantastic passage that talks about what will happen at the end. And we go on to read how Michael the Archangel will come at this time of trouble. And many of those who sleep in the dust of the earth shall awake, some to everlasting life, some to shame and everlasting contempt. And those who are wise will shine like the brightness of the sky above. And those who turn, many to righteousness like the stars, forever. Salvation isn't just getting out of hell. Salvation isn't just fire insurance. Right. Salvation is ultimately about being conformed to Christ, who's going to shine like the sun later on in the gospel, in Matthew 17, at the story of the transfiguration. So what's going to happen to the righteous is they will be glorified. They will be, as the tradition says, divinized, as Paul would say, transformed from one degree of glory to another. Right. And we get a glimpse of what that will look like at the story of the transfiguration.
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A
And it is glorious. And there's much to hope. Hope that there will be justice in the end, but hope that the glory of God's kingdom that we get to be in. Imagine being in a place in communion with others where there is no sin, there's no lawbreakers, there's no cause of evil. Evil is vanquished. And there's just the joy of knowing Jesus Christ and his love and that peace and that joy and that glory. That's what our hearts have to long for. And that's the promise that Jesus is giving all of us. In these parables, there's a threat to those who continue in evil, but there's also promise to those who persevere in righteousness. And we want to hold fast to that promise and let it make us work all the harder to endure as good wheat in his kingdom.
- [23:27]
B
That's right. Now, we could very quickly treat these other parables, but he talked about very.
- [23:31]
A
Short, the parable of the hidden treasure. You want to just read that real quick?
- [23:36]
B
Yeah, let's do it. The kingdom of heaven is like a treasure hidden in a field, which a man found and covered up. Then in his joy, he goes and sells all that he has and buys the field. And so what is this image of? The kingdom of heaven is of inestimable value, and yet it's hidden in the world. Not everybody is going to recognize its value. And so this man sells all that he has in order to be able to possess.
- [24:03]
A
One of the themes. And I know in Mark, chapter four, he really, Jesus in that account brings out is the mystery of the parables is a big theme. But to me, one of the unexpected things about what Jesus is doing is he's bringing in the kingdom of heaven, which is the kingdom of God on earth. And for the Jews, the expectation was that when the Messiah comes and brings the kingdom, everyone's going to know it and he's going to vanquish all the enemies and, and it's going to be clear and definitive and it's going to be glorious. And Jesus is showing that the kingdom starts small and it starts like seed in a hidden way. When you plant seed, you can't see it, you know, and then you have to patiently wait and wait for it to grow and grow and grow, and then you have to wait for the harvest. And I think Jesus is saying here, Michael, that the kingdom is not coming like they expected in a rapid, sure fire, quick, dominant way, that the kingdom is coming in ways that are hidden, like a hidden treasure that takes a little digging and discovery and no one else in the world might find it, but you do. And then it's worth selling and giving up all that you have to take possession of this great kingdom.
- [25:13]
B
Yep, I think that's absolutely right. And it brings us such joy. And that's such an important note to hit. The next parable, the parable of the pearl of great value. Again, so much could be said about it. But the idea is this merchant is in search of fine pearls and finally he finds one of great value. And he went and sold all that he had in order to buy this one pearl, which really doesn't make sense. Why would you go sell everything you have? So now you have this one pearl. Unless of course, this is no ordinary pearl. Right. This is something that's unexpected, no one can understand from the outside. And that's what's going on in the Gospel of Matthew. Those who are outside can't understand what Jesus is all about and oppose him. The next parable is the parable of the net. And it's a lot like the parable of the wheat and the weeds, where we see the kingdom of heaven is like a net that's thrown into the sea and it gathered fish of every kind, which is probably a reference to the fact that the church's ministry will bring in all people of all kind. When it was full, men drew it ashore and sat down and sorted the good into containers, put but threw away the bad. So will it be at the end of the age. And the angels will come and separate the evil from the righteous and throw them into the fiery furnace. There will be weeping and gnashing of teeth, a lot like the parable of the wheat and the tares. There in the kingdom, there's going to be a mixture of good and bad. And then we have Jesus says at the end of this, have you understood all these things? And they said to him, yes. No, they don't understand. We'll see that later. But they say, oh, yeah, sure, I understood. Jesus said to them, therefore every scribe who has been trained for the kingdom of heaven is like a master of a house who brings out of his treasure what is new and what is old. And I already mentioned this parable, and I think this is the eighth parable on the list. But the whole idea is that the disciples are the scribes. They're going to be able to bring out what is new, right in the new covenant, but retain what is old. They don't throw the old away.
- [27:25]
A
So the two go together, which Jesus does so beautifully. We see him taking the idea of Daniel's revelation about the final judgment and vindication, and he interweaves that into the judgment for the wheat and the weeds. And so you have the old and the new.
- [27:39]
B
That's right.
- [27:40]
A
Interwoven there. And that's. He's modeling to them a scribe trained for the kingdom of heaven.
- [27:46]
B
Wonderful.
- [27:46]
A
Which is really great. Well, there's so much here. But again, I just hope that, that all of you get a chance to read these parables and pray with them. I hope that after you hear the teachings from our courses, that you just take the word of God and pray through it and just let that word speak to you. And God's word is so ever present. Augustine is applying these parables to the time of the Church and the crises that the Church faces in his day. And we need to apply. Apply them to our own lives and to the life of the Church today as well. And it'll give us a lot of insight, it'll give us a lot of encouragement and hope. And that's what we hope that all these Bible studies give to you. You know, I'm struck by the hidden treasure and the pearl of great price. And our Holy Father used this on the feast of St. Jerome as a great image on September 30th. A beautiful letter he wrote on the importance of St. Jerome as the patron saint for biblical studies and as a model And Jerome, he found that treasure in the Word of God, the Kingdom of God. And he gave up everything to study and devote himself to prayer and study the Word of God and to serve the Kingdom of God, to expand it. And that's really what we're all called to do. You know, Jerome is such a great patron for all of us Catholics and all Christians, to love the Word of God and to pray with it. You know, Jerome would write to some of the spiritual directees and say, never let sleep find you without holding the precious Book. Right. The Word of God. So I want to especially thank everybody who has supported us. I'm just blown away by everybody who supported us in our appeal for our death and dying program. I'm really moved by your response. I'm grateful we're going to go full bore into filming a production for that soon, and we're really excited about that. And I want to thank everybody who's in our mission circle. Your ongoing support supports our ongoing operations. Right now we're working on a new studio because we have so much filming to do, and that's because of everybody who's in the mission circle. So I'm deeply grateful for all of you for your support. And may the Lord bless and keep you all. Take care.