Jesus said to his disciples: “The kingdom of heaven is like a treasure buried in a field, which a person finds and hides again, and out of joy goes and sells all that he has and buys that field. Again, the kingdom of heaven is like a merchant searching for fine pearls. When he finds a pearl of great price, he goes and sells all that he has and buys it. Again, the kingdom of heaven is like a net thrown into the sea, which collects fish of every kind. When it is full they haul it ashore and sit down to put what is good into buckets. What is bad they throw away. Thus it will be at the end of the age. The angels will go out and separate the wicked from the righteous and throw them into the fiery furnace, where there will be wailing and grinding of teeth.” (Matthew 13.44-50)
On this Seventeenth Sunday in Ordinary Time, the parade of parables continues in our gospel for today, offering us three in quick succession. We’ve seen similar parables presented in the readings for the last two Sundays, proving that Chapter 13 in Matthew’s gospel is a panoply of parables. That Jesus used parables is without question. He considered them his primary vehicle for teaching. And, as we know, Matthew is keen on presenting Jesus as the premier teacher, the likes of which have not been seen since the days of Moses.
As a whole, these tightly packed parables–much like sardines in a can–that we find here in Chapter 13 have as their focus the Kingdom of heaven, another way of saying the place where God reigns, in contradistinction to the kingdoms of this world, where tyrants and thieves sit on the thrones of power. Jesus puts before his disciples and the crowds the contrast, urging them to envision a new world and to join him in turning it into a reality, not allowing it to be only a dream.
The purpose of the contrast is not all that different from the lyrics of the famous song “Imagine” by John Lennon, his verses offering before the listener a vision of another world far different from this one, his last verse containing this utopian vision: “Imagine no possessions/ I wonder if you can/ No need for greed or hunger/ A brotherhood of man/ Imagine all the people/ Sharing all the world./ You may say I’m a dreamer/ But I’m not the only one/ I hope some day you’ll join us/ And the world will live as one.”
I find this theme of contrast to be a constant in Matthew’s gospel, the evangelist intent on showing us the two ways, one way that leads to God, the other way that leads to “wailing and grinding of teeth.” Of the three parables presented today, the parable of the dragnet is the one that most clearly shows this same contrast, offering us the everyday experience of a fisherman who uses a net to drag the waters, hoping to catch fish in this way.
As the story points out, once the net is full the fisherman has to sit down “to put what is good into buckets and what is bad is thrown away.” Jesus concludes by saying that it will be the same at the “end of the age” when angels will go out and separate the wicked from the righteous and throw them into the fiery furnace.”
Our memory is not so short that it does not immediately think back to last Sunday’s parable of the weeds that grow alongside the wheat, the farmer instructing his workmen to wait until harvest to separate the bad from the good, At that time, the harvesters will “first collect the weeds and tie them in bundles for burning, but gather the wheat into the barn.” The two parables–the weeds and the wheat and the parable of the dragnet–are mirror images of each other. Jesus simply uses different metaphors to teach the same lesson.
As I see it, these parabolic contrasts are building us to a crescendo of sorts that awaits us in Jesus’ last teaching before he is taken prisoner by the religious leaders and executed by the Roman authorities for being a political troublemaker. That final teaching is found in the well-known parable of the separation of the sheep from the goats, sometimes called the parable of the judgment of the nations.
Again, as in these other parables, Jesus forecasts an end time when the Son of Man “will separate them one from another, as a shepherd separates the sheep from the goats. He will place the sheep on his right and the goats on his left.” The parable, one of Jesus’ lengthiest, proceeds to describe the bases for the separation. “Whatever you did for one of these least ones, brothers of mine, you did for me,” referring to giving drink to the thirsty, food to the hungry, clothing to the naked and care to the sick.
And, as we should expect by now, the parable ends with the same judgment upon those who have failed to live up to the demands of God, Jesus saying of them, “And these will go off to eternal punishment, but the righteous to eternal life.” It is easy to see how these three parables–the weeds and the wheat, the dragnet with good and bad fish, and the sheep and the goats–all offer the same contrast between good and evil, between the righteous and the unrighteous, between the Kingdom of God and the kingdoms of this world.
In short, there are two camps, and Jesus is urging the crowds to be part of the Kingdom of heaven, a way of life that seeks to imitate the ways of God, living in the world with care and concern for others, with a welcoming embrace of all others, especially the little ones who are stepped on and stepped over, with an eye for helping the helpless rather than only helping oneself.
The beauty of these parables is in their simplicity. Jesus takes examples from the lived experience of his listeners and injects these examples with a point or a lesson that becomes a challenge to make the right decision, to live the right way, and to take the road less traveled. Those who choose to follow him, meaning those who seek to imitate the ways of God, will prove themselves wholly different from those who do not accept the invitation.
That choice for good is borne out in the lives of those who walk in the footsteps of Jesus, their deeds making it clear what they have chosen to be in this world, the contrast between them and those who have chosen the well-worn path clean and sharp. The clipped conclusion that the second century Roman writer Tertullian gave after observing the lives of the early Christians in contrast to the lives of pagans is still the best summation that shouts across the ages. He simply said, “See how they love one another.”
Already then, this Roman statesman could see the contrast between these earliest believers and the rest of the Roman world. And it was a difference that could not be ignored or overlooked. The way that these early Christians lived out their days was brave, bold, and beautiful, their mutual affection and profound sacrifices put before the rest of the empire like a big billboard on one of our busy highways. It was impossible to miss.
Which, I suppose, gets us to the real issue, at least in terms of our own lives. The question we have to ask ourselves is whether or not own lives show that same stark contrast. Do our choices and our priorities demonstrate a way of living in the world that is radically different from that of others? As the parables all make clear, there is a real difference between the weeds and the wheat, between the good fish and the bad fish, between the sheep and the goats. Is that same difference evident in our lives?
Or, sad to say, do we blend in with everyone else, little difference discernible between ourselves and others around us, a bland sameness in the way we live that would not distinguish us in any way from those who do not pledge allegiance to the Kingdom of heaven, but instead pledge allegiance to the kingdoms of this world? Can it be said of us, as Tertullian said of the early Christians, “See how they love one another.”
If it can be said of us, then we are on the right path, doing what Jesus calls his followers to do, that is feeding the hungry, clothing the naked, and caring for the infirm. If it cannot be said of us, then it is apparent that we are not loving others as Jesus has put as the hallmark of those who do the will of his Father in heaven. In short, our love for others is unremarkable.
The opposite of contrast is uniformity, sameness, indistinguishable. In other words, just another face in the crowd. Jesus was never just another face in the crowd, and those who would imitate his way of life also should stand out, stand apart, stand tall because the ways of God are always a stark contrast to the ways of this world.
Already at the start of his mission, the contrast was plain to see. Matthew tells us that when Jesus finished his sermon on the mount “the crowds were astonished at his teaching, for he taught them as one having authority, and not as their scribes.” As he continued his mission in the world, that contrast became sharper, his actions setting him apart in multiple ways because “he was not as their scribes.” I suppose that also serves as the litmus test for ourselves. Are we not as others?
Some years ago, I ran across a story that has stayed with me. It was about a tall, self-conscious seventh grade girl who was on her junior high girls’ track team. A meet that had been scheduled for a particular Saturday had to be postponed and moved to the next Saturday. However, the girl had already signed up for a community service project at her church for that day.
After learning of the change in the schedule, she went to her track coach to tell him about the conflict. His answer was direct. “Your teammates are counting on you and you can’t let them down. I expect you to be here for the meet.” She went home in tears. The next day she talked to him again and his answer was even sharper, telling her, “You are either here for the meet or you turn in your uniform.”
After a sleepless and tearful night, she made her decision. So the next day she appeared at the coach’s office, handed him her uniform, and walked away. Her teammates were surprised. Some were shocked at her decision because they knew she loved running track and she also liked her teammates. She simply answered their inquiries with the statement, “This is about God.”
Hearing her story, we also are probably very surprised by her decision. It isn’t what we would have expected because it just wasn’t the normal thing to do. And therein is the key. That seventh-grade girl didn’t take the easy way out and she didn’t do what the typical teenager would have done. She made the hard decision, one that removed her from the team.
We might want to take a moment to think about that girl and the decision she made. We see in her actions a real contrast with the choice others in that situation would have made. And now we are left to look into our own lives and our own decisions, asking ourselves if the same contrast shows itself in our actions. These parables remind us that the one who follows Jesus always stands in contrast to those who don’t follow Jesus. Put simply, if there is no contrast, then we are following the crowd, not Jesus.
–Jeremy Myers
