Marginal Christianity

Conflict on the Home Front (Mt.13:54-58) The parables of ch.13 make as clear as possible to difference between Jesus’ kingdom movement and its competitors among the Jewish people. And his insistence upon the necessity of choosing and shaping one’s life entirely around his way is unmistakable as well. He comes next to his hometown “and they took offense at him” (v.57). However true it may be on a psychological or sociological level that “familiarity breeds contempt,” Matthew’s concern is theological. As St. John puts it, the Word came to his own but his own did not receive him (Jn.1:11) and Matthew gives narrative color to that maxim. “Where did this kind come up with all this pompous and, well, arrogant or at least presumptuous proclamation?” We know him. His family too. He’s nothing special or not ant better than us, at least. And in those words Matthew voices the deep truth and scandal of the incarnation. A creature just like them (and us): “Jesus was what we are....

More Parables (Mt.13:44-50) Throughout this centerpiece of Matthew’s gospel [1] we have met parables, designed to gather those “with ears to hears” to Jesus’ way of being Abrahamic Israel and separate those who clung to other ways of being Israel as destined for judgment. The people by and large do not get what these riddling stories are about. Neither do the disciples but they at least ask for explanations which Jesus gives them. Jesus is presented as a Solomonic sage at this point in Matthew’s narrative. He embodies the wisdom he extols at the end of this chapter. He is the “master of a household who brings out of his treasure what is new and what is old” (v.52). Notice the “new” -what is happening and coming into reality in and through Jesus, the “kingdom of heaven” – comes first, them in its light the “old” may be brought forth as interpreted by the arrival of the kingdom. It may, indeed, will, be different from everyone’s accumulated expectations, but it will prove, ...

The Wheat and the Weeds and Its Explanation (Mt.13:24-30; 36-43) Jesus offers another parable of the kingdom. This one is split into the parable proper (vv.24-30) and its interpretation (vv.36-41) in between which are two more parables of the kingdom (vv.31-33) and another explanation of Jesus’ use of parables (vv.34-35). Jesus’ parable compares the kingdom of heaven to one who sows wheat in a field. While everyone slept an enemy sowed weeds in that field.   When the field grew both wheat and the weeds together filled the field. The owners’ slaves asked him if he wanted them to de-weed the field of the enemy’s work. The owner declines fearing some wheat would be cleared out with the weeds. Wait until harvest time, he instructs them, then the two can be separated, the weeds for destruction, and the wheat for storage and later use. The question about the proper understanding of this parable has to do with the timing of the harvest Jesus talks about in it. [1] ...