Marginal Christianity

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] ...

Jesus announced the arrival of the kingdom of heaven (4:17). Yet his subversive, counter-revolutionary practice of this kingdom confused even his mentor John the Baptist (11:2ff.). What kind of kingdom? What kind of Messiah? There are the4 questions swirling around Jesus as we reach the center of Matthew’s account. He uses his favorite teaching device, parables, to reveal (but see 13:10-17) the nature and scope of this kingdom to his disciples and the “great crowds” coming to hear his message (v.2). Now, parables, far from being the simple earthly story with a heavenly meaning, are more like a grenade lobbed into the settled convictions of the people about what God was like and what he was doing through his people in the world. As such, a particular disposition was required to “get” what they are about. Jesus calls this disposition “having ears to hear” (v.9). We all have earlids that close and keep out anything that does not compute with what we already think or ...

Four Triads on Living in the Presence of God (Matthew 6:1-18) The first six triads of the SoM dealt with the practices that God’s people in the midst of the crisis for their life in the 1 st century. Jesus unveils ways for his people to survive and even thrive amid this crisis. We also saw some analogies between the church’s situation in that 1 st century and the North American church’s in the 21 st and made Jesus’ teaching to them reach across the centuries to us in spite of the differences between our circumstances. The next four triads of the SoM reveal Jesus’ teaching on how in such a crisis (or a different one, or, indeed, no crisis at all) to relate to God. Giving Alms (6:1-4) 1 “Beware of practicing your piety before others in order to be seen by them; for then you have no reward from your Father in heaven. 2  “So whenever you give alms, do not sound a trumpet before you, as the hypocrites do in the synagogues and in the streets, so that they may be ...