MY BLOG IN 2018: Week Four

And finally we wrap up my introduction to what is coming, starting in January. It’s only a few weeks away.

We’ve chatted about how we’ll be using the first week to review the top blog posts from the last five years. We’ve talked about how the second week will be a time to invite you into my life as a campus minister and as the President of Impact Campus Ministries. Last month, I introduced you to a little bit of the history behind ICM and our mission, vision, and values; we talked about the third week being dedicated to casting some vision around our common language and culture at ICM. So what is going to be the topic in week four?

Stories.

We all love good stories. Stories enable us to see a great idea in action. There is something unbelievably powerful about taking a concept and wrapping it in the flesh of human experience. And so, whatever idea we talked about that month (from the previous week), I’ll be finding a story to write about or share with you so we can see the idea with feet on it.

When we take time to talk about the process of discipleship, I want to find a story about someone who engaged in that process. What did discipleship look like to them? How did our definition find life in their experience? What pieces of advice would they give?

When we talk about our commitment to pursue (intimacy with God), what example can I find of someone who created space to pursue God passionately? What fruit was borne of that pursuit? What can we learn from those stories of success (and even failure)?

When we pull apart our value of excellence, who embodies our idea of excellence? How do they (and we) balance the tension between letting God bear the fruit and putting in an effort of excellence at all times? What does it mean to do our part and trust God to do His?

The fact of the matter is that we are surrounded by these stories every day. As campus ministers, we ought to be sharing the stories with others. The truest testimony to whether or not something works is just that: testimony. An idea is just an idea unless it becomes real in the life of another human being. A product is just a product unless it really proves itself useful to others. Nobody cares about whether a culture or belief system is right or wrong unless it becomes compelling to others through the lens of experience.

Stories.

Stories are the most powerful teaching tools we’ll ever have. God believed in the power of story; He worked through Elisha to tell Naaman to “go in peace,” armed only with his experience to change the world of Aram. Jesus believed in the power of story; he turned down an eager applicant for discipleship, telling him instead to go home and tell others his story. These are instances where people lacked any training in theology or management. They were not equipped with what the world might have called “conventional wisdom.” But they had their story.

Stories have changed the course of history more than once. Maybe we should put more stock in stories; maybe we should put more stock in our own stories.

Now, storytelling is something most of us have to get better at. It’s definitely something ICM is trying to get better at. Please don’t let me overhype what’s coming. We’re not expert storytellers, but we’d like to be better storytellers, so we’re going to try. Maybe we’ll struggle through and maybe it will be incredible. There’s only one way to find out.

So for week four, I’ll invite you to a new series: Pull Up a Chair.

Faithful and Wise Steward (part three)

Before reading this post, you should certainly should check out part one and part two in order to have an idea of where the discussion is headed.

Now that we have looked at the overall teaching of Jesus in Matthew 24 and looked at the rough p’shat readings of these parables, it’s time to wrestle with the potential details, the remezes, and the drash meaning that lies underneath the packaged teaching of Matthew 24–25. Before we do that, let’s review what we had as a synopsis of Jesus’s teaching points in the last post:

You’re going to hear rumors of the end and false messiahs; do not believe it.

The world is going to get crazy and there is nothing you can do to stop it.

All of this is going to have to happen and you will have to persevere.

You will have to be ready; being ready means taking care of God’s people.

Parable of the Foolish Bridesmaids — be ready!

The priests aren’t doing it, so you will have to.

Parable of the Talents — you’ll have to give an account.

Persevere and be ready by taking care of the oppressed.

Parable of the Sheep and Goats — take care of the oppressed and do what the priests aren’t doing.

FOOLISH BRIDESMAIDS (vv. 1–13)

If you want to look at a suggested remez, I would offer up Jeremiah 25:

Therefore the Lord Almighty says this: “Because you have not listened to my words, I will summon all the peoples of the north and my servant Nebuchadnezzar king of Babylon,” declares the Lord, “and I will bring them against this land and its inhabitants and against all the surrounding nations. I will completely destroy them and make them an object of horror and scorn, and an everlasting ruin. I will banish from them the sounds of joy and gladness, the voices of bride and bridegroom, the sound of millstones and the light of the lamp. This whole country will become a desolate wasteland, and these nations will serve the king of Babylon seventy years.”

The key to looking at all of these references is going to be the larger context of each remez. Would it make sense in the context of Matthew 24–25 that Jesus would remez the use of Nebuchadnezzar as a tool of God to destroy the people and remove the sounds of joy and weddings from their midst? Would it make sense that Jesus’s drash would be the use of Rome to destroy the city of Jerusalem? Wasn’t that the point of the whole conversation of Matthew 24? Brilliant.

THE TALENTS (vv. 14–30)

Beyond just the remez, it should be worth noting the details of this parable are so strange to us because the context of Jesus’s original parable is the life and reign of Herod Antipas. In Jesus’s original parable (the parallel story of the ten minas, found in Luke 19), we are given additional details that help us understand the parable of the talents. In the parable of the minas, Jesus is employing a rabbinical tool known as kal va’omer (“greater and lesser”). In this teaching method, the rabbi uses a negative example to portray a universal trait; after making the case that the trait is true, the rabbi then will say “how much more” it is true in a positive example.

In the case of the minas and talents, the cultural backdrop is the life and reign of Antipas. When Herod the Great died, he willed his kingdom to his three sons. Upon his death, the three sons set sail on three different ships for Rome in order to bring gifts to Caesar and ask him to honor their father’s will. The Jews (Pharisees) also sent a delegation on a fourth ship to plead with Caesar not to make Antipas king. Caesar decided to name Anitpas a “tetrarch” (just lower than a king) and Antipas blamed the Jews for the decision. Upon his return, Antipas made an example of the Jews who were left at home and slaughtered them by the thousands.

This cultural setting is the backdrop to the kal va’omer that is the parable of the ten minas. The parable of the talents, a parallel story told later by Jesus, employs the same teaching points. The point of the parable (as seen in the last post) is that you will have to give an account for what you have been entrusted with. This is the universal principle that is true for both positive and negative examples (Jesus’s kal va’omer). 

Consider the following as the remez (from 2 Kings 22):

In the eighteenth year of his reign, King Josiah sent the secretary, Shaphan son of Azaliah, the son of Meshullam, to the temple of the Lord. He said: “Go up to Hilkiah the high priest and have him get ready the money that has been brought into the temple of the Lord, which the doorkeepers have collected from the people. Have them entrust it to the men appointed to supervise the work on the temple. And have these men pay the workers who repair the temple of the Lord—the carpenters, the builders and the masons. Also have them purchase timber and dressed stone to repair the temple. But they need not account for the money entrusted to them, because they are honest in their dealings.”

Again, context will be everything. But this story comes at a point in the story where they are cleaning out the temple and they find the Book of the Law. Those doing the work of restoration (not the priests, mind you—they lost the Book of the Law) are entrusted with money to aid them in repairing the Temple of God. Because they are honest in their dealings, they do not have to give account for what they do with the money. Do you suppose Jesus’s drash could be that those who are not priests should do the work of restoring the presence of God in the world? And if they are honest in their dealings in response to the priests’ dishonesty, they won’t even have to worry about giving an account, because they have done the will of the LORD?

THE SHEEP AND GOATS (vv. 31–46)

This one, to me, is an easy grab for a remez. Consider Ezekiel 34:

“ ‘As for you, my flock, this is what the Sovereign Lord says: I will judge between one sheep and another, and between rams and goats. Is it not enough for you to feed on the good pasture? Must you also trample the rest of your pasture with your feet? Is it not enough for you to drink clear water? Must you also muddy the rest with your feet? Must my flock feed on what you have trampled and drink what you have muddied with your feet?”

And here, the context is a condemnation of the priesthood (throughout the entire chapter). So the drash would be that God will divide His flock into sheep and goats; the context of the chapter will make it clear the deciding factor will be how they treat others.

So I guess Jesus wasn’t teaching a brand new parable, was he?

Shocked? We shouldn’t be.

When one views the threaded teachings and the three parables together, it becomes very clear how brilliant this entire teaching is on multiple levels. The remez/drash readings of these parables together would look something like the following:

God is about to use Rome as a “Nebuchadnezzar” of sorts to judge the people of God. You should be a faithful worker who can be trusted with the investments of the kingdom, even if the priests will not. Remember, you will be judged by how you treated others.

It’s the same teaching we heard in Matthew 24. Jesus put it into three parables and it was the same teaching on a p’shat level. We dug deeper and realized this is in fact the same story we have been learning all along. The same lesson, the same meaning, the same teaching.

I like this Jesus guy. He’s something else.

Faithful and Wise Steward (part two)

After addressing the disciples’ questions about the coming of “the end,” Jesus reinforces his teaching like he’s done so many times by telling a series of parables. Jesus tells three parables in rapid succession — the parable of the foolish bridesmaids, the parable of the talents, and the parable of the sheep and goats. Now, instead of having to place all of the biblical text here in this post, I’m simply going to invite you to take the time to pause and read Matthew 25 (and maybe even brush up on the previous post and the conversation in Matthew 24).

Rather than deal with all three parables separately, as we have been doing, discussing the different levels of interpretation for each one, I would like to deal with the p’shat level readings of these three parables together so that we might appreciate immediately what Jesus (and Matthew) is trying to accomplish by packaging this teaching together.

THE FOOLISH BRIDESMAIDS (vv. 1–13)

The p’shat of this teaching should be somewhat obvious. Jesus is telling a parable to reinforce the need to be ready and the foolishness of not being prepared. As we’ve looked at before, the context of Jewish weddings helps us to understand the foolishness of the bridesmaids. After a couple’s betrothal, the groom disappears for an undetermined length of time as he prepares their home and a place for them to be wed. The bride-to-be has no idea how long this will take and must be ready for the groom’s arrival. How foolish would it be for the bridesmaids not to be ready for the great celebration? This would be a matter of great anticipation in the village; wouldn’t everyone be ready for the coming of the groom?

THE TALENTS (vv. 14–30)

We’ll talk more about the confusing details of this parable in the next post, but we’ll consider this a p’shat observation of the teaching: Jesus wants to convey that people will have to give an account for what they have done with God’s Kingdom. How have they used what God has given them? It might also be worth noting here that the amount of the talents may be pointing to something. Do you remember the talk we had about the meaning of numbers? Consider that each member of this story is a particular number of talents. The first is given five (Books of Moses), the second is given two (the Tablets of Moses), and the third is given one (God). You don’t suppose there could be any hints about those that are given a deep knowledge of the Text, those who have a basic knowledge of the Text, and those who just have an experience with God — do you? God expects you to use what you have to bless the world around you.

THE SHEEP AND GOATS (vv. 31–46)

We are very familiar with this parable, and the p’shat within this teaching is also obvious. What we typically take away from this teaching is the criteria of the judgment — what it is that condemns the goats as goats. The sheep are praised because they take care of those in need. They hear the cry and they care for the marginalized. The goats are condemned because they do not join and partner with Him in bringing justice (mishpat) to the world. What does God care about?

When the Groom comes, will we be ready? Will we be able to give an account of how we have used what He gave us? We know what He will be looking for and the account that will matter; He will want us to care for those in need.

Now, let’s take the summary from the last post and combine it with the teaching points seen here before we dive into the remez and the drash contained in the teachings above:

You’re going to hear rumors of the end and false messiahs; do not believe it.

The world is going to get crazy and there is nothing you can do to stop it.

All of this is going to have to happen and you will have to persevere.

You will have to be ready; being ready means taking care of God’s people.

Parable of the Foolish Bridesmaids — be ready!

The priests aren’t doing it, so you will have to.

Parable of the Talents — you’ll have to give an account.

Persevere and be ready by taking care of the oppressed.

Parable of the Sheep and Goats — take care of the oppressed and do what the priests aren’t doing.

Do you see how Jesus’s parables are great reinforcements to His teaching to His disciples? And all of that is from a p’shat level observation. So let’s keep digging. Got your shovel?

Breaking Dress Code

After giving the spiritual leaders of Israel some time to consider his teaching (at least that’s how it reads in Matthew), Jesus moves on to his next parable. This will be the parable of the wedding banquet.

Jesus spoke to them again in parables, saying: “The kingdom of heaven is like a king who prepared a wedding banquet for his son. He sent his servants to those who had been invited to the banquet to tell them to come, but they refused to come.”

The setting of this parable, especially following the parable of the tenants, will be much easier to decipher on a p’shat level. The Kingdom of Heaven is like a party (which I feel is nearly enough to chew on without going any further, but I digress…) that has been thrown by God. He invited His people to be the firstcomers to this party, but just like the elder brothers they are, they refuse to go in.

“Then he sent some more servants and said, ‘Tell those who have been invited that I have prepared my dinner: My oxen and fattened cattle have been butchered, and everything is ready. Come to the wedding banquet.’ 

“But they paid no attention and went off—one to his field, another to his business. The rest seized his servants, mistreated them and killed them. The king was enraged. He sent his army and destroyed those murderers and burned their city.”

I think it’s interesting that Jesus comes into Jerusalem on this final week so clearly convinced of the impending doom and destruction of the city of Jerusalem at the hands of the Romans (more on this in later posts), but he certainly does. He paints a picture of God’s relentless pursuit of His people and an invitation that keeps going out, but it is ignored, disrespected, and despised.

“Then he said to his servants, ‘The wedding banquet is ready, but those I invited did not deserve to come. So go to the street corners and invite to the banquet anyone you find.’ So the servants went out into the streets and gathered all the people they could find, the bad as well as the good, and the wedding hall was filled with guests.”

And Matthew’s agenda is again seen in full effect here in Jesus’s teaching. God will have His party. While the invitations are initially sent to His firstborn children, He will have His party, one way or another. And so He fills His banquet hall with anyone who is willing to come and be a part of His celebration.

A pause here is certainly warranted. With only a p’shat level reading, there is much at this point in the teaching for those of us who call ourselves “followers” to consider. The setting of the parable is one that haunts me routinely. God is throwing a party. Apparently, this party is not the kind of party that I am prepared for. It’s not thrown at the right time, in the right way, or in the right place. The religious, the people who claim to speak for God, the ones on the guest list do not seem to be interested in this party God is throwing — and it leads to their demise.

Am I insistent that God throw the kind of party I would throw? 

Am I blinded by the fact that God’s definition of a party isn’t mine? 

Am I so distracted by the worries of this world, my own personal agendas, and idolatry of self to hear the invitation?

Apparently the religious folks have a hard time realizing God is throwing a party.

While I’m tempted to assume this passage doesn’t apply to me, I think that deep down I know better. I think that over time I begin to believe God works for me, and He throws the kinds of parties I want, when I want, and where I want them.

And I’m afraid I miss out on far too many of the parties that God is actually throwing.

But Jesus’s point isn’t directed at just anybody. Jesus is hurling this parable at the religious leaders of Israel. It’s at this point the teaching takes an incredibly awkward turn:

“Then he said to his servants, ‘The wedding banquet is ready, but those I invited did not deserve to come. So go to the street corners and invite to the banquet anyone you find.’ So the servants went out into the streets and gathered all the people they could find, the bad as well as the good, and the wedding hall was filled with guests. 

“But when the king came in to see the guests, he noticed a man there who was not wearing wedding clothes. He asked, ‘How did you get in here without wedding clothes, friend?’ The man was speechless. 

“Then the king told the attendants, ‘Tie him hand and foot, and throw him outside, into the darkness, where there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth.’ 

“For many are invited, but few are chosen.”

Not wearing wedding clothes? What?

I have been told that in this world, if a king were to throw such a banquet he would also provide the attire. Part of your attendance would include a willingness to come early, prepare yourself for the celebration, and dress appropriately. I have never been able to verify this and I’m not sure it’s true, but on a p’shat level it seems as though this might insinuate a person who wants to be a part of the celebration, but not recognize God’s design, desire, or authority. He wants to be a part of God’s will, he just doesn’t want to do it God’s way.

But I think there might be more than that going on here. I think it may be linking us to our remez. Consider Zephaniah 1, a prophecy leveled against a corrupt priesthood:

“On the day of the Lord’s sacrifice    I will punish the officials    and the king’s sonsand all those clad    in foreign clothes.On that day I will punish    all who avoid stepping on the threshold,who fill the temple of their gods    with violence and deceit. 

“On that day,”
    declares the Lord,
“a cry will go up from the Fish Gate,
    wailing from the New Quarter,
    and a loud crash from the hills.
Wail, you who live in the market district;
    all your merchants will be wiped out,
    all who trade with silver will be destroyed.
At that time I will search Jerusalem with lamps
    and punish those who are complacent,
    who are like wine left on its dregs,
who think, ‘The Lord will do nothing,
    either good or bad.’
Their wealth will be plundered,
    their houses demolished.
Though they build houses,
    they will not live in them;
though they plant vineyards,
    they will not drink the wine.” 

The great day of the Lord is near—
    near and coming quickly.
The cry on the day of the Lord is bitter;
    the Mighty Warrior shouts his battle cry.
That day will be a day of wrath—
    a day of distress and anguish,
        a day of trouble and ruin,
    a day of darkness and gloom,
        a day of clouds and blackness—
    a day of trumpet and battle cry
against the fortified cities
    and against the corner towers. 

“I will bring such distress on all people
    that they will grope about like those who are blind,
    because they have sinned against the Lord.
Their blood will be poured out like dust
    and their entrails like dung.
Neither their silver nor their gold
    will be able to save them
    on the day of the Lord’s wrath.”

The drash of this parable turns into a scathing retort of the Sadducees. They sure want to be a part of God’s party, but they have no interest in doing it God’s way. And Jesus foretells of the doom that awaits them because they refuse to care for God’s people. They continue to take advantage of those who are trying to find and worship God.

Of course, Jesus is still not done interacting with these corrupt leaders…

The Heat of the Day

One of my favorite parables of Jesus is the story of the vineyard and the workers:

“For the kingdom of heaven is like a landowner who went out early in the morning to hire workers for his vineyard. He agreed to pay them a denarius for the day and sent them into his vineyard.

“About nine in the morning he went out and saw others standing in the marketplace doing nothing. He told them, ‘You also go and work in my vineyard, and I will pay you whatever is right.’ So they went.

“He went out again about noon and about three in the afternoon and did the same thing. About five in the afternoon he went out and found still others standing around. He asked them, ‘Why have you been standing here all day long doing nothing?’

“ ‘Because no one has hired us,’ they answered.

“He said to them, ‘You also go and work in my vineyard.’

“When evening came, the owner of the vineyard said to his foreman, ‘Call the workers and pay them their wages, beginning with the last ones hired and going on to the first.’ ”

So the story is told about this landowner who hires different groups of people throughout the day to work his vineyard. Some of them are hired early and work all day, while others are hired late and barely have a chance to start. It comes time to pay and the owner instructs the ones paying the wages to pay the ones who have worked the least first.

Now first, even though we know how this story ends, don’t race past the immediate assumptions we make about the story. They are worth wrestling with.

But then, ask more questions about this story. For instance, why would the owner START with the ones who worked the least? If he started with the ones hired first, isn’t there a better chance that he could have avoided this entire mess? Why would he do that?

No, really. Wrestle with that.

And then, Jesus delivers the end of the story:

“The workers who were hired about five in the afternoon came and each received a denarius. So when those came who were hired first, they expected to receive more. But each one of them also received a denarius. When they received it, they began to grumble against the landowner. ‘These who were hired last worked only one hour,’ they said, ‘and you have made them equal to us who have borne the burden of the work and the heat of the day.’

“But he answered one of them, ‘I am not being unfair to you, friend. Didn’t you agree to work for a denarius? Take your pay and go. I want to give the one who was hired last the same as I gave you. Don’t I have the right to do what I want with my own money? Or are you envious because I am generous?’

“So the last will be first, and the first will be last.”

Now, this story is loaded with incredible implications on the p’shat level. God is inviting those who are closest to Him to learn the lesson that allows them to experience a heart change.

P’SHAT CONCLUSION: God loves to be generous and He loves to give to people who don’t deserve it.

P’SHAT CONCLUSION: God apparently wants us to have to wrestle with this and let it transform our selfishness by inviting us to join Him in celebrating His generosity, rather than getting angry.

P’SHAT CONCLUSION: The Kingdom of Heaven isn’t fair — it’s incredibly benevolent and generous.

P’SHAT CONCLUSION: It is (and will be) this way for people who we think don’t deserve it.

Now, we are still missing a large contextual piece to the “p’shat puzzle.” The phrase “borne the burden of the work and the heat of the day” is used throughout Jewish thought to express the relationship between Jew and Gentile. The Jews have carried the burden of Torah for centuries and centuries on behalf of the world, in order to show the world what God is like. It should go without saying they would expect to reap a more generous reward for their work.

And Jesus has the nerve to suggest the Gentiles might get the same blessing from God — just because He loves to be generous.

All of this is p’shat.

And the remez? Check out Isaiah 61, Jesus’s staple passage when talking about his ministry:

The Spirit of the Sovereign Lord is on me,
    because the Lord has anointed me
    to proclaim good news to the poor.
He has sent me to bind up the brokenhearted,
    to proclaim freedom for the captives
    and release from darkness for the prisoners,
to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favor
    and the day of vengeance of our God,
to comfort all who mourn,
    and provide for those who grieve in Zion—
to bestow on them a crown of beauty
    instead of ashes,
the oil of joy
    instead of mourning,
and a garment of praise
    instead of a spirit of despair.
They will be called oaks of righteousness,
    a planting of the Lord
    for the display of his splendor.

They will rebuild the ancient ruins
    and restore the places long devastated;
they will renew the ruined cities
    that have been devastated for generations.
Strangers will shepherd your flocks;
    foreigners will work your fields and vineyards.And you will be called priests of the Lord,
    you will be named ministers of our God.
You will feed on the wealth of nations,
    and in their riches you will boast.

Instead of your shame
    you will receive a double portion,
and instead of disgrace
    you will rejoice in your inheritance.
And so you will inherit a double portion in your land,
    and everlasting joy will be yours.

Wow.

Jesus just insinuated this generosity to the Gentiles is what God has been up to since the beginning. Not only this, but the “double portion” the Jews will receive for all their work — the special blessing that is due them — is going to be the fact that God’s favor is poured out on the foreigners.

Now, for most of my readers (Gentiles), I invite you to rejoice in that amazing plan of God.

And then, I invite us all — Jew and Gentile — to consider what there is left to learn in the teaching of this parable. What do I think I’m entitled to? What are the rewards I am expecting to receive? Am I prepared to join God in handing out generosity to ALL people? And what if my “double portion” is actually going to be the blessing of my enemies?

Those who have ears, let them hear.

Fish in a Net

The last parable found in this Matthew 13 package is the parable of the fish and the net:

“Once again, the kingdom of heaven is like a net that was let down into the lake and caught all kinds of fish. When it was full, the fishermen pulled it up on the shore. Then they sat down and collected the good fish in baskets, but threw the bad away. This is how it will be at the end of the age. The angels will come and separate the wicked from the righteous and throw them into the blazing furnace, where there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth.”

Let’s do one last application (for now) of the Jewish hermeneutic to this parable, shall we?

P’SHAT

The teaching of this parable appears to echo the parable of the weeds (which happens to be the same “explanation” that launched the teacher into these additional parables). The surface level p’shat reading of this teaching appears to be that the world contains both good fish and bad (similar to weeds and wheat in a field). The Kingdom is a reaffirmation that the good and the bad will be dealt with “by the angels.” The implied surface level assumption, based on our earlier parable about wheat and weeds, would be that the parable is inviting us to trust in this harvesting process and not try to do the separating ourselves.

REMEZ

The remez contained in this parable could be many. First (and foremost), consider the idea of fish and a net in relation to Ezekiel 47, keeping in mind that the image driving this passage is an apocalyptic vision of the restoration of all things:

There will be large numbers of fish, because this water flows there and makes the salt water fresh; so where the river flows everything will live. Fishermen will stand along the shore; from En Gedi to En Eglaim there will be places for spreading nets. The fish will be of many kinds—like the fish of the Mediterranean Sea. But the swamps and marshes will not become fresh; they will be left for salt.

Again, just like the case with the birds that came to nest in the branches of the mustard tree, the fish are representative of the Gentile nations in most Jewish tradition and rabbinic teaching that I have seen on Ezekiel 47.

Not only this, but again there is a reference to the angels throwing the bad into the “fiery furnace.” If this is also a remez, then we might have a couple of additional connections, as well. The first mention of “furnace” would be in the story of Sodom and Gomorrah — the story of judgment coming to those who did not show hospitality and mercy to the foreigner — a beautiful connection to Ezekiel 47. The addition of the “fiery” description causes many to think of the book of Daniel (Hananiah, Mishael, and Azariah) and the tales of perseverance, which would also be a similar connection to the parable of the soils and the remez to Isaac persevering in the land. This all can be seen without even realizing one of the most massive stories told about Abram in the midrash is the story of him in a fiery furnace among the Gentiles.

DRASH

All of this takes us much deeper into the parable to consider Jesus’s intended meaning. Could he be insinuating that the reason his followers should not be about the business of separating the weeds from the wheat and the good from the bad is that their primary calling in the world is to be a blessing to those very fish they might deem as bad? Could it be that if they did the work of God and judged the foreigner as a “weed” or a “bad fish” (even appropriately!), they would miss their calling (seen in Ezekiel 47 and all throughout Tanakh) and fall prey to the very judgment that awaited the sin of Sodom and Gomorrah? And wait, haven’t we heard Jesus teach on this already?

So it seems like this Jesus character is a broken record. And yet, because of his teaching style and his implementation of Jewish parables, his broken record teachings are anything but redundant.

But they are like a broken record. And we may be wise to listen to the themes Jesus repeats throughout his ministry.

A Treasure and a Pearl

I would like to deal with the next two mini-parables as one unit. (Wait, what? Two mini-parables together again?) We should be used to the process by now, so let’s jump right in, shall we?

To start with, here is the Text:

“The kingdom of heaven is like treasure hidden in a field. When a man found it, he hid it again, and then in his joy went and sold all he had and bought that field 

“Again, the kingdom of heaven is like a merchant looking for fine pearls. When he found one of great value, he went away and sold everything he had and bought it.”

P’SHAT

The teaching that likely lies on the surface of the parable is that the Kingdom of Heaven deals with things of great value. It’s worth giving everything you have to obtain it. Pretty straightforward and quite profound.

REMEZ

This is a little tricky, but what did you find? Did you do any digging (pun intended)? It would seem that the most obvious remez (backed up by the use of the word in the Septuagint) would be Proverbs 2:

My son, if you accept my words    and store up my commands within you,turning your ear to wisdom    and applying your heart to understanding—indeed, if you call out for insight    and cry aloud for understanding,and if you look for it as for silver    and search for it as for hidden treasure,then you will understand the fear of the Lord    and find the knowledge of God.For the Lord gives wisdom;    from his mouth come knowledge and understanding.He holds success in store for the upright,    he is a shield to those whose walk is blameless,for he guards the course of the just    and protects the way of his faithful ones.

Combine this remez with the fact that a “pearl” is a Hebrew idiom for a proverb and you have a very convincing case for the remez of these two parables.

DRASH

This would mean at least part of Jesus’s drash surrounding this teaching is that the wisdom and understanding of the Kingdom is something that must be sought after and dug for. In other words, if you aren’t willing to do the work of preparing your soil, you aren’t going to find the wisdom buried in the field. The wisdom is buried. Notice the emphasis in Proverbs 2 about “understanding”; now, go back and think about the parable of the soils. What was the difference for the learner who was the good soil? “… the one who hears the word and understands it.” The understanding comes because somebody is willing to break up their unplowed ground, clear it of rocks, and burn away the thorns; it comes to the one who searches for truth as for hidden treasure.

If there’s one glaring issue remaining with all of this, it’s that the characters in these parables are off. Notice, with every parable told in this teaching, “the man” is the God character. The sower is God. The land owner is God. The farmer is God. Why are these parables different?

In short, I don’t think they are.

I used to argue with one of my colleagues (Aaron Couch) about the remez of this parable (again, this is the beauty of rabbinic teaching — we argued, in good spirit, about the Text). Aaron was convinced the remez is Proverbs 2, and I was convinced it is Ezekiel 16. While I now believe, looking at the language in Matthew and in the Septuagint, Aaron is correct about the direct remez, consider the following:

The word of the Lord came to me: “Son of man, confront Jerusalem with her detestable practices and say, ‘This is what the Sovereign Lord says to Jerusalem: Your ancestry and birth were in the land of the Canaanites; your father was an Amorite and your mother a Hittite. On the day you were born your cord was not cut, nor were you washed with water to make you clean, nor were you rubbed with salt or wrapped in cloths. No one looked on you with pity or had compassion enough to do any of these things for you. Rather, you were thrown out into the open field, for on the day you were born you were despised.

“ ‘Then I passed by and saw you kicking about in your blood, and as you lay there in your blood I said to you, “Live!” I made you grow like a plant of the field. You grew and developed and entered puberty. Your breasts had formed and your hair had grown, yet you were stark naked.’ ”

In the passage above, the phrase “entered puberty” can also be translated as “beautiful jewel.” Also, in Hebrew thought, there is plenty of wiggle room to use the term “pearl” and “jewel” interchangeably. Notice, then, this additional remez allows us to see the man/merchant as the God character. This also adds a significant layer to the teaching in that the Kingdom of Heaven is like the truth that when God found His people (i.e., you), He found a treasure — a true gem, a pearl — in a field. You were important enough to God that when He found you, there is nothing He wouldn’t do to acquire you. He sees your true value and is willing to sell everything in order to buy you as His own.