NOTES for Mat 13:24-43

The parable of the weeds tells us about something so hard to follow in daily life. We see that the Lord counsels us to be careful and to refrain from hasty judgment. Yet again and again we feel "like gods, knowing good and evil," passing judgment on human destinies.

It is very easy to cry, "Get the bad grass out of the field," and begin uprooting everything that is bad or that looks bad to us; often it only looks that way and nothing more. And if the owner of the field is afraid that weeding might damage the good grain, such difficulties do not frighten us. More than that, we are ready to trample even half the harvest just to spite the weeds.

At the same time, we do not want to think that what looks like a weed today may turn out tomorrow to be a useful plant. In the world of living nature, of course, such transformations are exceptional; but we live among people, and with people like us changes greater than that can happen.

The weeds, however, are sown not only among those around us, but also in our own hearts. It makes no sense to uproot the weeds around us while leaving untouched the ones growing out of ourselves. In that way we will fail to notice how we become overgrown up to the crown of the head, or even become weeds ourselves.

And now, into the soil where both grain and weeds grow, a nearly invisible seed has been thrown. And strange as it is, the weeds do not manage to choke it, although at first they can cover it, it is so small.

Yet the very thing that looks insignificant often proves to be the most important. For what grows from this seed, when it has become taller than all the trees, will separate the wheat from the weeds.

Another absurd story from the field of agriculture. Every one of Jesus' listeners knows perfectly well that weeds must be pulled as early as possible, before they have drained the juices from the useful grain, especially since telling one from the other is no great difficulty for an experienced farmer. But, as you can tell, the absurdity of the content of this parable is precisely meant to show the listeners how unlike human judgment God's judgment is. Even the "reapers," the angels, are unable to tell the weeds from the wheat in this field of human lives. Many "good people" would no doubt like to be rid once and for all of the "bad people" who prevent them from living a full life. But weeding can lead to the death of the grain, which means there is no clear distinction between "good" and "bad" people: the first can become last, and the reverse.

God Himself refuses to carry out a "cleanup" in the world He created. This means that for Him people are not divided into "honest ordinary citizens" and "terrorists." Although some people strongly resemble bandits and violent offenders, the "weeds of society" (or of the Church, or of the family), the Lord is in no hurry to weed the field. And this is despite the fact that He, of all people, knows what each person is capable of in this life. He waits until each person can reveal himself, without abandoning hope for anyone's repentance.

What, then, can be said about us, for whom another person's soul is darkness? What right do we have to divide the world into good and bad people? And no one has appointed us as harvesters...

"The Kingdom of Heaven is like a mustard seed, which a man took and sowed in his field; though it is smaller than all seeds, when it grows it becomes larger than all the garden plants and becomes a tree, so that the birds of the air come and shelter in its branches." This wonderful image that the Lord offers us today may have been inspired for the evangelist by the words of the prophet Ezekiel: "On the high mountain of Israel I will plant it, and it will put out branches, bear fruit, and become a majestic cedar; every kind of bird will dwell under it, every winged creature will dwell in the shade of its branches" (Ezek 17:23).

But in order to understand correctly the subtle difference that distinguishes the prophet's image from the image Jesus gives us, we need to know that an inaccuracy was most likely introduced here in translation, and it erases this subtle distinction.

Let us turn to the work of Jean Carmignac, the well-known French priest and Hebrew scholar, "The Birth of the Synoptic Gospels": "Matt 13:32 and Luke 13:19 say that the mustard seed 'becomes a tree,' which is an obvious exaggeration, because this plant does not exceed one and a half or two meters. <...> Everything would be explained if Mark, who apparently was inspired by Ezek 17:23, wrote NP, pronounced anaph, 'branch,' as in Ezekiel, and if the copyist whose copy preceded Matthew and Luke read S, pronounced es, 'tree,' because in Qumran script the letters NP, if they touch, are similar to the letter S."

And if it is a branch, then the theological meaning immediately becomes clear, because the branch really does indicate that these two texts should be read in parallel. But here is the essential difference: a mighty cedar or a little mustard tree. Strength and weakness. The strength of the Old Testament becomes weakness in the New, in order to become some other, new Strength.

Comparing the Kingdom to a mustard seed and to leaven, Jesus draws attention to some of its features that at first glance can appear paradoxical, although, if one thinks about it, the matter concerns an antinomy characteristic of spiritual life in general. Indeed, if the Kingdom, at some stage of its formation, can be completely unnoticed, like a mustard seed or leaven in dough, if it fits within the human heart, then the matter would seem to concern a purely subjective reality, an inner spiritual state of a person. On the other hand, at the end of the path the Kingdom turns out not to be subjective at all; on the contrary, it is hard to imagine anything more manifest and objective, anything that so fully determines not only the eternal destiny of individual people, but the fate of all God's creation as a whole. So what is the Kingdom: an inner experience, or an objective reality revealing itself more and more in the world?

Judging by Jesus' words, it is both at once. And if one thinks about what the Kingdom is, it turns out that it cannot be otherwise. Indeed, when speaking of the Kingdom, both Jesus Himself and all the apostles have in mind above all relationships: the relationships of Christians with one another, their relationships with Jesus, and finally the relationship of Jesus Himself with the Father. But relationships are born, to use biblical language, in the depths of the human heart; they are manifestations of that spiritual "I" which determines the whole quality of a person's life, his intentions, his system of values and priorities. That is why the path into the Kingdom begins in the heart of the seeker - as, indeed, does the path of righteousness. But when relationships between a person and God are established and strengthened, they acquire their own dynamic, their own spiritual space, existing as objectively as God and the person who seeks Him. And when the matter concerns Christ and the Kingdom, He Himself enters into this dynamic, He who brought the Kingdom into the world and is ready to open the way there to every seeker.

That is why the Kingdom is born first of all in the heart: a person's relationship with Christ is established in the same way as any other relationship - from the same spiritual depth. And if sprouts of new life, the life of the Kingdom, can appear somewhere in the untransformed world, it is precisely there, in the depth of the human heart. There is no other place for the Kingdom in a fallen world. And then these sprouts, having broken through, will reach toward what is kindred to them. And the Kingdom will be revealed in the world in all its transforming fullness.

The chief feature of the Kingdom of Heaven revealed in the parables of today's Gospel reading is that it is hidden from human sight and acts unobtrusively. The seed sprouts unnoticed, the leaven works unnoticed, and no one can see the treasure found by a man in a field. Moreover, the seed and the treasure are placed within the earth, and the leaven within the flour. Later Jesus will tell the Pharisees plainly: “The kingdom of God is within you” (Luke 17:21). This is important, because we murmur and claim that God has abandoned us, is absent from among us, or does not exist at all, since His actions cannot be seen. The whole problem is that we are looking in the wrong place.

The Kingdom of Heaven is not found in society or the state: it is impossible to imagine a state as a seed cast into the earth. The Jews greatly wanted to see God's Kingdom in the power and prestige of their state, since they were the God-bearing people. The result: “Behold, your house is left unto you desolate” (Matt. 23:38, Luke 13:35). The First, Second, and Third Romes placed their hope in the manifestation of the Kingdom of Heaven through Orthodoxy, autocracy, and other forms of national identity—where are they now?

The Kingdom's place is within human life. Like leaven, it gradually transforms your will so that it obeys the laws of the Kingdom. Like a seed, it grows gradually, imperceptibly giving you life so that you bear fruit for others and not for yourself alone. Like hidden treasure, it is a joy that no one will take from you.

Outwardly, the Kingdom of Heaven is manifested and acts through people—not through someone else, but only through you. To see this Kingdom, you must begin to fulfill its laws without expecting those around you to do so. And there is one more essential detail: the Kingdom of Heaven permits no dual citizenship. Either you agree to become a subject of the heavenly King and gradually become godlike—or you do not.

Of course, it is not quite right to pull these two parables about the Kingdom of Heaven out of the whole set of parables. Scripture's ways of describing the Kingdom are varied. But let us imagine something like both this mustard seed and this leaven. It is something very small, yet capable of growth (other parables speak of this through their own images), growth that cannot be compared with its original size. This growth can take place both through inner change and development (seed-tree) and through influence on what surrounds it (leaven-dough), but in one way or another the original quality disappears, being transformed into something new that benefits someone else (the birds of the air, the housewife). Interesting, is it not?

Today the focus of our attention is our own answer to Christ's question: "But who do you say that I am?" Humanly speaking, we can imagine the matter this way: you reflected on life and finally reasoned your way to the conclusion that Jesus of Nazareth is the Son of God. But He Himself says that it does not happen like this. Not flesh and blood, that is, not human nature and its capacities, revealed this to Peter, but Jesus' Father, who is in heaven. Therefore this faith is a gift of God, and, like every gift of His, it too must be asked for. It is absurd to sit and wait until the Almighty remembers you - He has never forgotten His creation. One must want Him to reveal the truth about Himself to you, and ask for this.

Enormous courage is required of Peter to utter these words. As long as one can treat Jesus as one of the prophets, a great spiritual or moral teacher, everything is simple and convenient for a person. But when you have accepted and confessed that He is the Son of God, your relations with the surrounding world and your whole life change. What we call human maturity is, in essence, the ability to say to God: "You are my Lord, You are the Christ, the Son of the Living God," and to draw practical conclusions from this. Then you become part of the Church - His people, whom the gates of hell will not overcome.

In addition, today's Gospel reading is one of the foundations of ecclesiology - the Church's teaching about herself. A brief account of this can be found in A. Lakirev's article "The Properties of the Church: Unity, Holiness, Catholicity, and Apostolicity" (RU).

There is an important aspect of the Gospel that is painful for our minds to confront, so we tend not to notice it. The Gospel, like the whole Bible, speaks of life and death and settles for nothing less. Forgetting this, we have learned to see Christianity as a sugary pink myth, turning it into what one rather unattractive thinker called the opium of the people. Yet the whole meaning of the Gospel lies precisely in this tension of the choice between life and death. Interpretations in the style of “everything will turn out well anyway” are very attractive and popular, and not only in the twentieth century. But if we close our eyes to the possibility of perishing, then the possibility of being saved also becomes illusory, and life itself turns into a kind of sickly sweet ideology.

That is why the interpretation the Lord Himself gives the parable of the wheat and the tares in today's passage from Matthew's Gospel is so important. Leaving no room for other interpretations, He speaks of the destruction of those who practice lawlessness and the salvation of the righteous. There are a number of other passages in the New Testament where Christ says the same thing: the possibility of perishing and the possibility of being saved are entirely real.

Another difficulty is that we immediately begin looking around, trying to see who are the children of darkness and who are the children of the Kingdom. That is why it is so important to remember that the Lord is speaking to you—about you, and no one else. These are two possible outcomes of your destiny and no one else's. Paraphrasing Christ's words today, the apostle Paul offers a vivid image in his letter to Corinth: “Know ye not that they which run in a race run all, but one receiveth the prize? So run, that ye may obtain” (1 Cor. 9:24).