Introduction
For three weeks now we have been listening to Jesus teach almost exclusively through parables. Matthew 13 is not a collection of disconnected stories but one sustained lesson about how the kingdom of heaven interacts with us. The Parable of the Sower invited us to consider how God’s word takes root in different kinds of soil. Last week, the Parable of the Wheat and the Weeds reminded us that judgment belongs to God and that disciples are called to patient faithfulness rather than anxious sorting.
This week, Jesus offers five brief parables in rapid succession. At first glance they seem unrelated: a mustard seed, yeast, hidden treasure, a pearl, a fishing net. Yet together they continue the same conversation. If the first parables taught us how the kingdom begins taking root and how it waits, these parables teach us about recognizing it.
Narrative Context
Matthew tells us that Jesus speaks in parables because they reveal “things hidden since the foundation of the world” (13:35). The kingdom of heaven is not hidden because God wishes to keep secrets. Rather, it is hidden because God’s reign rarely appears in the ways people expect.
This chapter follows a careful progression. The Sower reminds us that God’s word is scattered generously. The Wheat and the Weeds teaches that the kingdom grows patiently amid the brokenness of the world until God brings the final harvest. Now Jesus offers a series of shorter images that describe what that kingdom actually looks like as it breaks into ordinary life.
A temptation with these short parables is to treat each one as an isolated lesson. The mustard seed teaches growth. The yeast teaches influence. The treasure teaches sacrifice. The pearl teaches value. The net teaches judgment. *There are many other interpretations to each but just listing a few for effect.
Each of those readings has merit, but together they reveal something larger. The kingdom of heaven consistently appears where no one expects it and acts differently than we expect.
It begins with a tiny seed that becomes an oversized shrub rather than a majestic cedar. It works quietly through yeast hidden in dough. It is discovered unexpectedly in an ordinary field. It is worth more than everything else, though many walk past it without ever seeing it. Even the fishing net gathers “fish of every kind” before any separation takes place, echoing the patience we encountered in last week’s parable.
Throughout Matthew 13, Jesus keeps overturning our expectations. We expect dramatic displays of power, but the kingdom begins in hiddenness. We expect immediate judgment, but God waits with remarkable patience. We expect certainty, but Jesus gives us stories that invite reflection rather than easy answers.
But my favorite detail is how Matthew ends this section.
After all these parables, Jesus asks the disciples, “Have you understood all this?” They answer with remarkable confidence: “Yes.” After weeks of asking for explanations, they suddenly answer, “Yes.”
Matthew’s irony is difficult to miss.
The disciples rarely understand Jesus the first time. And neither do we.
Yet perhaps that is precisely the point. Discipleship is not about mastering the mysteries of God. It is about allowing these stories to reshape our imagination until we begin to recognize God’s presence in places we once overlooked.
Preaching Possibility
Learning to Notice the Kingdom
There is a beautiful progression across Matthew 13. The Sower teaches us to receive. The Wheat and the Weeds teaches us to wait. These parables teach us to notice.
Many of us spend our lives looking for God in extraordinary places. We expect dramatic miracles, unmistakable signs, or moments of absolute certainty. But Jesus points us somewhere else entirely.
He points us toward shrubs. Toward bread rising in the kitchen. Toward merchants doing their daily work. Toward fishermen hauling in nets.
The kingdom is hidden in plain sight.
That perspective is profoundly Lutheran. Our theology deeply reflects that God has always delighted in working through ordinary means. Water becomes the washing of new life. Bread and wine become Christ’s gifts for the world. Ordinary people become saints called into ordinary vocations. The kingdom does not wait for spectacular moments before it appears. It comes quietly, persistently, often unnoticed until we look back and realize God has been at work all along.
Perhaps that is why Matthew closes with the image of the scribe who brings out treasures old and new. The faithful disciple is not the one who has solved every parable or answered every theological question. The faithful disciple is the one whose eyes have been trained to recognize God’s surprising work within the familiar rhythms and the little changes of everyday life.
The kingdom has already taken root. Have we learned to notice?
Have You Understood? YES! (But not really)
“Have you understood all this?” Without hesitation the disciples answer: “Yes.”
Really? I have my doubts.
Perhaps that skepticism comes from my own experience. I attended one of the top public magnet schools in Philadelphia for both middle school and high school. It is regularly ranked among the best academic schools in Pennsylvania.
Now, before you get the wrong impression, I should probably clarify something.
I was not one of the students making the school famous or improving the national test scores. In fact, I was placed in the lowest-level math class in my grade.
The people I went to school with are now doctors, engineers, professors, and researchers. They were brilliant. I was…present.
By eleventh grade I was taking physics, and one afternoon the teacher began covering the board with formulas that looked like absolute gibberish to me. I was still trying to figure out what the symbols meant when one of the students who had already taken two or three years of calculus casually raised his hand and said, “Oh, we’re just calculating the derivative.”
The teacher smiled. “Oh good,” he said. “Then we can move through this quickly.”
I remember looking around the room wondering if I was the only one completely lost. Everyone else seemed to be nodding. So I did what many students do. I kept quiet and hoped they would go over it again later.
They never went over it again.
That was not a great year of physics for me.
I sometimes wonder if that’s what is happening with the disciples.
Matthew has already shown us that they needed Jesus to explain the Parable of the Sower. They needed the Wheat and the Weeds explained as well. Yet after hearing five more parables, Jesus asks, “Have you understood all this?” and every one of them confidently answers, “Yes.”
Maybe Matthew intends for us to chuckle. Or perhaps he intends us to recognize ourselves.
How often do we assume that faithful Christians are supposed to have all the answers? How often do we nod along because we don’t want to admit that we don’t understand?
Martin Luther seemed to think there was a better way. Throughout the Small Catechism one question appears again and again: “What does this mean?”
It is the question children ask around the dinner table. It is the question every disciple should keep asking.
Perhaps the greatest obstacle to hearing Jesus’ parables is believing we’ve already figured them out.
Parables are not riddles with one correct answer. They are invitations into deeper reflection. A baker may hear something in the yeast that we miss. A fisherman may notice details in the net that escape someone who has never cast one. But someone new to it all might hear possibilities we’ve never even thought of. Every time we return to these stories, another facet of the kingdom catches the light.
Discipleship is not pretending to understand everything.
It is remaining curious enough to keep asking, “What does this mean?”
Subscribe to this Commentary:
Micah Krey 
Leave a comment