The Parable of the Final Harvest
Matthew 13:24-30, 36-43
We look again at the parables of Matthew 13 this week. Last time we were looking at the parable of the soils, which speak of human receptivity to the word of God. Our hearts can be hard to the gospel, or be shallow, or be choked with too much stuff (success can be a dangerous thing!). That’s what Jesus was experiencing in His own ministry, in the way people responded to His teaching, and it’s what still happens today when His message is preached.
We turn to the next parable of Matthew 13, that’s often called the parable of the wheat and the tares, but which I’m today calling the parable of the final harvest.
With this parable, there is a turn toward one of the great themes of the gospels and of the whole Scripture, and that theme is the kingdom of God.
The driving theme in the teaching of Jesus is the Kingdom of God. This may surprise you. Many people think that Jesus’ main theme is heaven or love or even Himself. If you know Jesus’ teaching as a series of sound-bites, then maybe it’s never occurred to you that the kingdom of God is the central idea around which His teaching revolves.
What is the kingdom God? Well, first, the kingdom is not heaven. The confusion sometimes arises from the fact that Matthew consistently uses the term “kingdom of heaven” in the place of “kingdom of God.” Here’s what’s behind this. Most likely, Jesus Himself used the term kingdom of heaven (malkuth ha-shamayim) which Matthew faithfully reproduces for his Greek-speaking Jewish readers. You see, in Jewish usage, you avoid the word “God” whenever you can as a way of expressing reverence for God. But Mark and Luke sensibly translate this term as the “kingdom of God” because that is exactly what was meant by the term. It is God’s kingdom in the sense of His rule and reign that has now decisively entered the earthly experience in the person of Jesus.
But what is the kingdom? A central Christian belief is that in Christ the fullness of deity dwells (Colossians 2:9). Let’s think this through in terms of Jewish Old Testament expectation. The expectation was that in some way, God Himself would show up on earth, in real tangible human history at the end of human history. God would then exercise kingly prerogatives: to judge, re-order life, to gather His own, and so forth. This all could be called the kingdom of heaven, as heaven (the eternal dwelling of God) is set now in central position to all human experience and activity. That’s exactly what the phrase from the Lord’s Prayer means: “your kingdom come, your will be done, on earth as it is in heaven” (Matthew 6:10).
When Jesus comes and declares that the kingdom of heaven is at hand (Mark 1:15), He is suggesting nothing less than the fact that than the consummation of the ages was at hand. Here’s what it means: it means that Judgment Day, in some strange and surprising way, has already begun. The kingdom of God, amazingly, is among us now. It has slipped in quietly with the coming of Jesus. This is the surprise of the kingdom, and it is central in Jesus’ teaching. God is establishing His rule now, within history, not just at the end of history.
Belief in the kingdom of God includes the hope that God will send the Messiah. The Messiah comes because we, humanity, we all rebelled against God’s order—against the Kingdom of God. The Old Testament is the story of the beginning of the reestablishment of the kingdom of God. The New Testament is the story of the coming of the King and describes the pattern of the age we now live in that will lead to the full coming of the kingdom.
Jesus chose to communicate much about the present course of the kingdom of God through parables because it was such a surprise to the people of His time. Parables, with their surprise twists, were the perfect verbal tool of Jesus to describe the kingdom. The people expected the kingdom of God to come crashing into the world kind of like an iceberg into the Titanic, overturn the world, make Israel the ruling nation of the world and start Messiah’s kingdom.
Jesus’ plan of the kingdom caught everyone by surprise. Jesus comes to do battle, but He battles the root cause of humanity’s woes—He battles sin, and He does it on the cross. Instead of a sudden victory of a Jewish kingdom over the nations of the world, we have the unseen victory of God’s kingdom alongside of the nations. Instead of a sudden end to the world order, He inaugurates a kingdom that stands alongside the present world without destroying it. People can turn in faith toward the kingdom, and the final end is delayed. The kingdom for now comes in quietly, under the radar. But it won’t always be so. There is a day of judgment to come.
This is one of many kingdom parables He tells. There are five more all here in Matthew 13 in which the main theme is the kingdom of God.
Like the parable of the four soils, this parable is told in two parts. Matthew 13:24-30 tells the parable, and then in vs. 36-43, Jesus interprets the parable. Let’s first hear the whole parable, and the interpretation, with just a few comments.
First, the parable (24-30):
24 Jesus told them another parable: “The kingdom of heaven is like a man who sowed good seed in his field. 25 But while everyone was sleeping, his enemy came and sowed weeds among the wheat, and went away. 26 When the wheat sprouted and formed heads, then the weeds also appeared.
27 “The owner’s servants came to him and said, ‘Sir, didn’t you sow good seed in your field? Where then did the weeds come from?’
28 “‘An enemy did this,’ he replied. “The servants asked him, ‘Do you want us to go and pull them up?’
29 “‘No,’ he answered, ‘because while you are pulling the weeds, you may root up the wheat with them. 30 Let both grow together until the harvest. At that time I will tell the harvesters: First collect the weeds and tie them in bundles to be burned; then gather the wheat and bring it into my barn.’”
Now, the importance of the parable is highlighted by the fact that Matthew records Jesus’ interpretation of the parable in v. 36-43:
36 Then he left the crowd and went into the house. His disciples came to him and said, “Explain to us the parable of the weeds in the field.”
37 He answered, “The one who sowed the good seed is the Son of Man. 38 The field is the world, and the good seed stands for the sons of the kingdom. The weeds are the sons of the evil one, 39 and the enemy who sows them is the devil. The harvest is the end of the age, and the harvesters are angels.
40 “As the weeds are pulled up and burned in the fire, so it will be at the end of the age. 41 The Son of Man will send out his angels, and they will weed out of his kingdom everything that causes sin and all who do evil. 42 They will throw them into the fiery furnace, where there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth. 43 Then the righteous will shine like the sun in the kingdom of their Father. He who has ears, let him hear.
Let’s discuss that parable and its explanation under four headings:
· Rejoice: God has a plan; it’s called the Kingdom of God
· Expect Opposition: the Kingdom of God is the target of Satan and his servants
· Be Patient: this present age is a time of “mixing” for a good reason
· Be Hopeful: a final harvest is coming
Rejoice: God has a plan; it’s called the Kingdom of God
Does history have a meaning? Are events totally random? The modern atheist has to believe that. We’re just lucky animals on a lucky planet who are foolish enough to believe that we aren’t anything more than lucky animals on a lucky planet!
Here’s the first, and easiest to miss lesson of the parable. There is a plan. Behind all the events of human history, and behind the chaos of all of our individual lives, God stands.
Recall the opening of the parable, vs. 24-26:
24 Jesus told them another parable: “The kingdom of heaven is like a man who sowed good seed in his field. 25 But while everyone was sleeping, his enemy came and sowed weeds among the wheat, and went away. 26 When the wheat sprouted and formed heads, then the weeds also appeared.
“Weeds” here is a specific plant, called in Greek the zizania. (Older English translations use the word “tares” and the modern word is darnel, but since no one’s heard of that, I’m going to use the Greek word zizania.)
Here’s the deal on zizania: it looks an awful lot like wheat, especially when it first starts to grow.
Here’s the picture: in world, God has planted His wheat, but the devil has sown zizania in abundance. And this is how the kingdom of God is, for the time being. Everyone expected the kingdom to come in and kick down the doors. Everyone expected the kingdom to vaporize evil. But not so. The good wheat and the bad zizania just grow up next to one another. And that’s the plan. For the present, God is content to not finish the judgment, and that’s an act of mercy on His part. You see, He loves the weeds. He died for the weeds. I was a weed, and so were you, and it’s a miracle of God to turn weeds into wheat.
Expect Opposition: the Kingdom of God is the target of Satan and his servants
Look at vs. 25-27 again:
25 But while everyone was sleeping, his enemy came and sowed weeds among the wheat, and went away. 26 When the wheat sprouted and formed heads, then the weeds also appeared.
27 “The owner’s servants came to him and said, ‘Sir, didn’t you sow good seed in your field? Where then did the weeds come from?’
The kingdom of God not only doesn’t come into our world like a lightning bolt; it has a lot of opposition. Recall Jesus’ explanation in vs. 38-39a:
38 The field is the world, and the good seed stands for the sons of the kingdom. The weeds are the sons of the evil one, 39 and the enemy who sows them is the devil.
The kingdom is not only unimpressive in the way it comes, but in some ways is unimpressive in its results. For every wheat stalk, there’s a dozen zizania. The kingdom doesn’t seem to be winning.
But it is winning, and other parables of Jesus make it clear that it is, such as the parable of the mustard seed.
I hope we are all done with the notion that following Jesus means that we are guaranteed an easy life. It doesn’t, and as a matter of fact, Jesus coming into a life makes things at least more complicated. We have a new “wheat” life that is still getting over both formerly being zizania, and is usually surrounded by zizania that can be fairly described as “weeds, armed and dangerous”!
Jesus and the apostles taught us the same. In John 16:33, Jesus says,
“I have told you these things, so that in me you may have peace. In this world you will have trouble. But take heart! I have overcome the world.”
And in 1 Peter 4:12-13, Peter writes,
12 Dear friends, do not be surprised at the painful trial you are suffering, as though something strange were happening to you. 13 But rejoice that you participate in the sufferings of Christ, so that you may be overjoyed when his glory is revealed.
The present course of the world means that Satan is active and at war against God’s people. This age is a dangerous time.
Be Patient: this present age is a time of “mixing” for a good reason
There is an unspoken assumption behind the parable, and it’s very subtle: did you catch when it was that the enemy came in and sowed the zizania? It was “while everyone was sleeping” (vs. 25). Jesus could have just said, “At night”; instead it’s while everyone was sleeping. Here’s the unspoken assumption: there was one who was awake while everyone was sleeping. How else does the landowner know that “an enemy has done this”?
By the way, messing with your enemy’s fields was something that actually happened. There were laws on the books of ancient Rome that prohibited what happens here: mixing zizania with wheat. If no one ever tried it, there wouldn’t be a law against it! And when Rome defeated Carthage, they seeded their fields with salt to make them useless for generations.
The mixed world we live in now—a mixture of believers and unbelievers, of just and unjust, or godly and godless—it’s there for a good reason. The people of God now can influence the world for the sake of the kingdom. God knew what He was doing when He shaped the present age as it is. This is the age of kingdom witness, the age of the Holy Spirit, when the sons of the kingdom rub shoulders with the sons of the evil one, so that the unrighteous may turn and believe. Again, this is a good plan and the “mixed up” time we are in is a good thing.
Bible scholars sometime refer to the “already/not yet” nature of the kingdom of God as it’s described in the New Testament. Yes, the kingdom is “already” here: Jesus proclaimed the kingdom was at hand. But it is “not yet” all here; this was the heart of the surprise nature of the kingdom of God in Jesus’ teaching, and yes, it is a good thing.
Last,
Be Hopeful: a final harvest is coming
While we live in tension today—between “already” and the “not yet”, rest assure, one day the kingdom will be fully established, and the “not yet” will fade away.
Look again at the text, first in vs. 28-30:
28 “‘An enemy did this,’ he replied. “The servants asked him, ‘Do you want us to go and pull them up?’
29 “‘No,’ he answered, ‘because while you are pulling the weeds, you may root up the wheat with them. 30 Let both grow together until the harvest. At that time I will tell the harvesters: First collect the weeds and tie them in bundles to be burned; then gather the wheat and bring it into my barn.’”
And now Jesus’ interpretation in vs. 40-43:
40 “As the weeds are pulled up and burned in the fire, so it will be at the end of the age. 41 The Son of Man will send out his angels, and they will weed out of his kingdom everything that causes sin and all who do evil. 42 They will throw them into the fiery furnace, where there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth. 43 Then the righteous will shine like the sun in the kingdom of their Father. He who has ears, let him hear.
Harvest time is coming. One day there will be an end to the mixed world of faith and unbelief.
As zizania matures, it starts to look less and less like wheat. As time goes on, it’s easier to tell the two apart. Perhaps as the present age goes on as well, the sharp division between Godward faith and hellward unbelief will be easier and easier to see, but the point is this clear: one day this age will end. A final scythe will cut down all, and some will be (by their own choice) worthless to God, bundled as kindling, while others will be gathered into the barns as the treasured harvest of God. Some will know nothing but ultimate despair—weeping and gnashing of teeth, and some will “shine like the sun in the kingdom of
their Father.”
So be hopeful. The God who is in charge, who has a plan, and who now wisely delays won’t always delay; the end of the present age is coming.
At the very end of the parable, at the end of vs. 43, these words: “He who has ears, let him hear.” That means that you are being called, right now, to take action based on this parable. What action is that?
First, take action to trust God. The world is in chaos, and your personal world may be in chaos. Do you trust God now? They expected a Messiah that would just do it all at once, bring down history’s curtain and judge the world. Can you trust a God who’s letting the world go on in what looks like a field of weeds on the promise that there’s wheat in there? Can you trust Him as Savior, Guide and Friend, even when all seems harsh, mad and cruel?
Second, Jesus’ words are a call to faith. This, says Jesus, is the present course of the kingdom of God. Do you believe? Will you follow Me? Have you crossed the line of faith? Do you stand outside the kingdom or inside?
One more part of the story, easy to miss. The owner alone sows the seeds. He has servants, but only the owner—the Son of Man, Jesus Himself, is said to have sown the seed. If you are in the kingdom of God, it is because Jesus bore the pain of planting you there. He went out into the field, bearing you and me. It takes the rest of the gospels to understand that that means the cross. It means the blood, and the tears and the pain and the agony of the cross.
Harvest is coming. It will be a rich harvest. But it cost Jesus His life. He regards the price as worth it. Such is His love.
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