Context
As I shared last week, Matthew chapters 11-13 should all be read as a unit and chapter 13 should really be read altogether as a series of parables. Additionally, this is the only other explanation of a parable that we hear from Jesus outside of the explanation of the Parable of Sower in each of synoptics (that we heard last week). While some scholars of parables argue that we should throw out explanations (because they must have come after the parable), narratively Matthew is using it for a reason. So, if you really want to throw it out, by all means go for it. However, I believe that it is original to Matthew and thus we should try to understand how Matthew is using the parable and explanation together.
As I’ve said in other commentaries, Matthew is foretelling of a Judgment Day that will come at the end times. So, while I’d love to tell you that there is a nifty way around this where he’s not talking about Judgment Day in the explanation, that wouldn’t be true to the text. The explanation of this parable is describing an end times of Judgment Day.
However, (and what I have said over and over in this prophetic gospel) is for Matthew, the Judgment is not soon. It is at the end of the age. The Greek, συντελείᾳ τοῦ αἰῶνος, is only used 6 times in the New Testament, 5 of which are in Matthew. We know this phrase well, but it is only really used in Matthew and it is always talking about the end times at the end of eternity.[1]
So, all of that situational context from last week remains the same this week. But reiterating one point from last week, in the middle of all of these parables there is a question raised by the disciples about why Jesus speaks in parables, and he quotes the famous Isaiah passage. However, there is another quote that should give us deep comfort.
13:34 “Jesus told the crowds all these things in parables; without a parable he told them nothing. 35 This was to fulfill what had been spoken through the prophet:
“I will open my mouth to speak in parables;
I will proclaim what has been hidden from the foundation of the world.”
Did Jesus speak in parables to confound and confuse? Is the knowledge of the kingdom only for the elect? The wheat? The good soil? No, the purpose of parables is to open up the hiddenness of God. Jesus speaks in parables so that more of us might understand.
So, if the purpose is to help us see more, then what do we gather from this parable and explanation?
There is still time. The purpose of the prophets is to call the world to turn before it’s too late. These parables are a call, a shout, for the world to turn. It’s a call for the people to at least ask the question, am I wheat or a weed?
Preaching Possibilities
End of the age
While Matthew is talking about the end of world, the implication is for us to think about us right now. We could talk about this parable as a “why some people just don’t get faith and religion.” We could talk about why there is evil in the world, maybe even talk about evil people.
But I think there is an opportunity to think about the end of the age differently.
At the age of 22, I was admitted to the hospital with pancreatitis because of my drinking. Although I’d grown up in a wonderful home environment with wonderful parents and siblings, having received a remarkable education in a diverse and inclusive community, attended an amazing faith community, weeds still sprung up in my life. And at 22, I was at the end of an age. In that hospital bed in Chestnut Hill Hospital in Philadelphia, I was entering a time of God’s harvest, when the angels and reapers were coming to untangle the wheat from the weeds. A day of reckoning when I would have to look all around me and see the harsh reality of who I was. The good and the bad. That was the beginning of my road to recovery. Which is a road of stumbles and falls, heartache and tremendous joy. Wheat and weeds.
In our Lutheran tradition, we have a phrase that we use quite frequently, we are simultaneously Saint and Sinner.
We are sinful beings and at the same time we are Saints with the goodness of God inside of us.
We are all simultaneously wheat and weeds. Good and bad.
We are not just one. It is not good or bad. A wheat or a weed. We are both.
And at this moment in time, we collectively are in a time of harvest. We are at the end of an age.
Racism, bigotry, homophobia, transphobia, and prejudice are weeds that have been deeply sown into the fabrics of this nation and in systems around the world. They surface in systems of power, they surface in our rules and laws, they surface in our individual preferences and practices.
Like my story, we may believe that we grew up in environments that primed us to be seeds planted in good soil, separated and distinguished from the evils of this world.
Maybe we grew up in diverse communities. Maybe we grew up in the Christian Church and were always told to love everyone. Maybe we grew up with loving parents and siblings. How could we have these weeds within us?
Even in these environments, weeds still spring up, sown deeply in the culture and systems around us that we have no control over in the early stages of planting. Weeds will spring up in our lives. They will spring up out of us. No matter how hard we try to prevent it.
But, at the harvest, at the end of an age, we can go through the deliberate and painstaking work of separating the wheat and weeds that grew together for all that time. And when we come to see the weeds in ourselves, we can recognize how we can do better, be better, for those around us, to those we have harmed, and correcting systems that led us astray.
[1] The final occurrence is Hebrews 9:26.
Micah Krey 
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