8/7/05                                                                                                    M. Sidney McCollum

“The Promise and the Warning”

Matt. 13:47-52 

            Suppose you were asked what life is like?;  what you would compare it to?  If you’re  like me, the first response would be “Huh?”  There’s a bumper sticker many of us have heard of, which says “He who dies with the most toys wins.”  For this person, life is like a shopping trip.  Again, what would you compare life to? 

            This is the last in a series on Jesus’ parables of the kingdom.  These parables tell what the kingdom is like.  But they also clearly indicate what our actions ought to be, and what expectations we ought to have about life.  So we might see these parables as a template for life—a pattern. 

            The first part of Jesus’ template for life comes from the parable of the sower.  Remember that the gist of the sower was that the word of God is like seed, and the seed of the word is sown everywhere.  The yield depended on the soil—how the word was received.  The word is powerful, but fragile, too.  It can be stymied, but when it lands in good soil, it is very productive.  The application for us is to strive to be the best soil we can be:  to listen attentively to God’s word, and live by it. 

            The second part of Jesus’ template is from the parable of the weeds of the field.  The surprise in this parable was that the weeds and the wheat were allowed to grow up together.  The weeds would not be uprooted until the harvest, that is, the end of the age, so the wheat didn’t have an obviously privileged position in its journey through life.  And the non-intervention of the farmer prior to the harvest was for the good of the wheat—he knew he couldn’t uproot the weeds without uprooting the wheat, too.  But one faulty conclusion that might be drawn from this setup is that we really don’t live in a moral universe after all.  The bad guys seem to prosper as much as the good. 

            The messages of the parables of the mustard seed and the yeast are similar:  they describe the first wave of God’s kingdom as a movement which grows and penetrates its surroundings and provides shelter for others—but it does so without force.  This kingdom is not imposed. 

            The parable of the net finishes Jesus’ template for life because it emphasizes the separation or division at the end of the age.  Let’s turn now to read the parable of the net. 

Read Mt. 13:47-52, p. 15 (Pew Bible)

            (47)“Again, the kingdom of heaven is like a net that was thrown into the sea and caught fish of every kind;  (48)when it was full, they drew it ashore, sat down, and put the good into baskets but threw out the bad.  (49)So it will be at the end of the age.  The angels will come out and separate the evil from the righteous  (50)and throw them into the furnace of fire, where there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth.

      (51)“Have you understood all this?”  They answered, “Yes.”  (52)And he said to them, “Therefore every scribe who has been trained for the kingdom of heaven is like the master of a household who brings out of his treasure what is new and what is old.” 

The story is simple.  The kingdom of heaven is like a net—it collects all kinds of fish.  But when the net is hauled up, the fishermen sort their catch.

            The point, of course, is that there will be a separation.  Fish are sorted by the kind of fish they are, but the sorting of humanity at the end of the age will be on the basis of moral decisions:  the evil and the righteous.  It’s a chilling message, repeated almost verbatim from the explanation of the parable of the weeds of the field, vs. 40-43.  Since it is mentioned twice, we are bound to deal with it. 

The evil are thrown into the furnace of fire.  Whatever that literally involves, fire represents destruction and pain.  The church has always understood this as a reference to hell.  And the significance of being cast into hell is the eternal severing of people from God.  We are created in God’s image, for a relationship with him.  The meaning of this separation is that those who are separated are cut off from all that gives them meaning.  It has been suggested that the fire symbolizes the disintegration of the human personality when it is separated from that which gives it meaning.  The thought makes me cringe. 

The contrast to this is in vs. 43, where the destiny of the righteous is given:  “…the righteous will shine like the sun in the kingdom of their Father.”  Notice that the point here is not that they escape the fires of hell.  That isn’t even mentioned.  Their destiny is to be with God and God’s people eternally, which is to say (among other things) that their destiny is to fulfill the loving purpose for which they were created.  This is as wonderful as the other was frightening. 

Another troubling phrase is “Weeping and gnashing of teeth.”  It’s in vs. 42 & 50.  It speaks of regret and remorse—people realizing their fate, and thinking “If only I had seen things differently and acted differently.” 

Shockingly, from vs. 41, we learn that it is Jesus, the “Son of Man,” who will send his angels to perform the separation. 

            When we get to this point, we confront a troubling question.  Jesus is the incarnation of God’s love.  Jesus came to be savior.  In his own words, he came, “to give his life as a ransom for many” (Mt. 20:28).  Yet he says more about hell than anyone else in the whole Bible.  And as we have just seen, it is he who will send his angels to perform the separation.  How do we understand this? 

            Perhaps our perspective is backwards.  If he knows we live in a moral universe, and that we are morally responsible, how could he not tell us?  Why would he come to be our savior if we didn’t need one?  The simplest way to think about this is that what he says is true:  that both heaven and hell are real, that there will be a separation, and that eternity with God is to be desired above all else, just as hell is to be avoided at all costs.  And he, more than anyone else, understands these things. 

What motivates you more?  The promise of blessing?  Or a warning?  I believe that Jesus knew that we need both the encouragement of the promise and the discipline of the warning.  What is rare is to find someone with the balance and compassion of Jesus to give a warning.  Speaking for myself, I have a stereotype of people who rant about hell fire and damnation, and it’s easy to dismiss them.  It’s sobering to find that Jesus says more about hell than anyone else in the Bible, and that should make us pay attention. 

            I asked what motivates you.  I have a friend named John who is currently a seminary professor teaching theology.  Years ago we were classmates, and we talked about what drew us to faith.  John said he had been in conversation with friends, and that the conversation came around to that famous verse of the Bible, John 3:16, “For God so loved the world that he gave his only son, so that everyone who believes in him may not perish, but may have eternal life.”  What surprised me was that the conversation didn’t stop there, but went on to cover what would happen if he rejected the message—the topic of the next few verses.  (Read Jn. 3:17-21.) 

            (17)“Indeed, God did not send the Son into the world to condemn the world, but in order that the world might be saved through him.  (18)Those who believe in him are not condemned;  but those who do not believe are condemned already, because they have not believed in the name of the only Son of God.  (19)And this is the judgment, that the light has come into the world, and people loved darkness rather than light because their deeds were evil.  (20)For all who do evil hate the light and do not come to the light, so that their deeds may not be exposed.  (21)But those who do what is true come to the light, so that it may be clearly seen that their deeds have been done in God.”

Here, as in the Matthew passages, we have Jesus’ own words, both about God’s love and grace, but also a warning about what happens if one turns away.  My friend John said that the warning—delivered by caring friends—played a significant part in his thinking and his making up his mind to give his life to Jesus Christ. 

            What will happen if I reemphasize the place of judgement and heaven and hell in my template of life?  Does it turn me into a Bible-thumping fanatic?  It didn’t turn Jesus into one, and it didn’t make my friend John into one, either.  (Of course, Jesus went to the cross to provide a way of escape for us.)  During his ministry, Jesus spoke about it when it was appropriate.  But it seems to have made him do everything he could to get people to take the message of God’s kingdom as seriously as possible—even to the point of telling little stories called parables to try to get past people’s defenses and popular misconceptions and take the kingdom of God seriously. 

            What are we supposed to do?  This may seem anticlimactic, but the way to respond is exactly what Jesus said in the parable of the sower:  listen attentively to the word, and live by it.  It will change your life, and anyone who is paying attention to your life will not miss the change. 

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