Storyteller
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Date: 2022-05-29
Audience: Grass Valley Corps ONLINE
Title: Jesus Storyteller
Text: Matthew 13:1-52
Proposition: Jesus told stories to grow those in his circle
Purpose: Open your eyes and ears to his teaching so you can be in his circle
Grace and peace
Working through Matthew’s bio of Jesus
Hard to properly teach next section in time we have without getting all technical – BUT WE WILL! Matthew used an advanced chiastic structure – kind of a sandwich of ideas pointing to a main central point. But even for Bible geeks, digging into chaisms is a slog. What’s really happening here is that Jesus told a lot of stories and Matthew has lined some of them up for us to hear and learn from.
To start, I’m going to tell you the first story, which you’ll find in Matthew 13, starting at verse 1.
Because I want to capture the feel of hearing these stories as stories, I’ll be using the Message translation for most of what we read today. Got Matthew 13 open?
At about that same time Jesus left the house and sat on the beach. In no time at all a crowd gathered along the shoreline, forcing him to get into a boat. Using the boat as a pulpit, he addressed his congregation, telling stories.
3–8 [Jesus said] “What do you make of this? A farmer planted seed. As he scattered the seed, some of it fell on the road, and birds ate it. Some fell in the gravel; it sprouted quickly but didn’t put down roots, so when the sun came up it withered just as quickly. Some fell in the weeds; as it came up, it was strangled by the weeds. Some fell on good earth, and produced a harvest beyond his wildest dreams.[1]
And then he said:
“Are you listening to this? Really listening?”[2]
Nowadays we call this kind of story a parable. In Hebrew it was called a mashal. These are stories that are comparisons – they use a shared experience to make a point. In telling a story like this, Jesus was using commonplace images and situations to explain what it meant to live in God’s Kingdom.
The disciples following him, though? They weren’t really sold on this. They liked when he just told them things instead of making them think so hard. Verse 10.
The disciples came up and asked, “Why do you tell stories?”
11–15 He replied, “You’ve been given insight into God’s kingdom. You know how it works. Not everybody has this gift, this insight; it hasn’t been given to them. Whenever someone has a ready heart for this, the insights and understandings flow freely. But if there is no readiness, any trace of receptivity soon disappears. That’s why I tell stories: to create readiness, to nudge the people toward receptive insight. In their present state they can stare till doomsday and not see it, listen till they’re blue in the face and not get it.[3]
Then he tells them two things to draw them into his teaching in a new way. First, something from their history.
I don’t want Isaiah’s forecast repeated all over again:
Your ears are open but you don’t hear a thing.
Your eyes are awake but you don’t see a thing.
The people are blockheads!
They stick their fingers in their ears
so they won’t have to listen;
They screw their eyes shut
so they won’t have to look,
so they won’t have to deal with me face-to-face
and let me heal them.[4]
This is from Isaiah 6, when the LORD sent the prophet to warn the people that they had gone so far away from him that judgment was coming. All he wanted was for them to come back, but he said they were behaving like children throwing a tantrum, refusing to listen, refusing to even look away from their sin to be healed.
Jesus said that he didn’t want that to happen again – he’s telling them stories to sneak Kingdom knowledge into them! He wants them to hear and see and think until the truth explodes in their brains and they find themselves heading back to God as they rejoin the Kingdom they have rebelled against.
Second, Jesus tells his disciples something about themselves.
Verse 16:
“But you have God-blessed eyes—eyes that see! And God-blessed ears—ears that hear! A lot of people, prophets and humble believers among them, would have given anything to see what you are seeing, to hear what you are hearing, but never had the chance.[5]
He’s telling them, “Hey, I have to use stories to get to the crowd, because otherwise they won’t listen. You, though, you’ve already opened yourselves to God’s Kingdom truth!”
And he rewards them for being open to what he has to say by explaining it to make sure that everyone really understands what he was teaching. Starting at verse 18, Jesus says
“Study this story of the farmer planting seed. When anyone hears news of the kingdom and doesn’t take it in, it just remains on the surface, and so the Evil One comes along and plucks it right out of that person’s heart. This is the seed the farmer scatters on the road.[6]
I can see the guys with him looking at each other and saying, “Oh, yeah, I get it! That makes sense! So then they next part…” And Jesus goes on.
“The seed cast in the gravel—this is the person who hears and instantly responds with enthusiasm. But there is no soil of character, and so when the emotions wear off and some difficulty arrives, there is nothing to show for it.
22 “The seed cast in the weeds is the person who hears the kingdom news, but weeds of worry and illusions about getting more and wanting everything under the sun strangle what was heard, and nothing comes of it.
23 “The seed cast on good earth is the person who hears and takes in the News, and then produces a harvest beyond his wildest dreams.”[7]
Do you get it? See how all the pieces fit together?
It’s easy when Jesus explains it, right?
But only those who sought to understand more had more to understand.
Did you follow that?
It was the people who were open to learning who got more to learn. For those who didn’t bother, they just got a nice little story about the challenges of farming.
Sit with that for a moment while Jesus tells us another story.
He told another story. “God’s kingdom is like a farmer who planted good seed in his field. That night, while his hired men were asleep, his enemy sowed thistles all through the wheat and slipped away before dawn. When the first green shoots appeared and the grain began to form, the thistles showed up, too.
27 “The farmhands came to the farmer and said, ‘Master, that was clean seed you planted, wasn’t it? Where did these thistles come from?’
28 “He answered, ‘Some enemy did this.’
“The farmhands asked, ‘Should we weed out the thistles?’
29–30 “He said, ‘No, if you weed the thistles, you’ll pull up the wheat, too. Let them grow together until harvest time. Then I’ll instruct the harvesters to pull up the thistles and tie them in bundles for the fire, then gather the wheat and put it in the barn.’ ”[8]
Ooh – Good story, eh?
Want to know what’s going on there? Me too!
So how do we get the answer?
Well, we can think through it and try to figure it out. There are a lot of ways to apply what Jesus said here. Which one is right, or is there even a right and a wrong here? Oh, that’s a thought, huh? What if this is one of those things where there isn’t a specific right and wrong answer, but it can be applied more than one way?
Bears thinking about, right?
We could also ask Jesus. You know, make sure we’re on the right track. Let’s do that!
Wait, he’s telling another story.
Another story. “God’s kingdom is like a pine nut that a farmer plants. It is quite small as seeds go, but in the course of years it grows into a huge pine tree, and eagles build nests in it.”[9]
So God’s Kingdom is this tiny thing that grows into this big thing? Is that what he’s saying? Big enough for birds to nest in it? What’s that mean? Maybe we should take a minute… No, wait, he’s on to another one already.
Another story. “God’s kingdom is like yeast that a woman works into the dough for dozens of loaves of barley bread—and waits while the dough rises.”[10]
Ok, so this is another story about God’s Kingdom being something small that grows. Where a tree is big, it’s got a limit, right, but yeast growing in dough has no limit. The more dough you have and the more time, the more the yeast will grow, eventually leavening every bit of the dough.
Oh, so the Kingdom is this thing that may have seemed small to them at the time, but it was going to grow. It would get bigger and bigger until it filled… what? The dough? Are we the dough? Is it the church? The world? The galaxy?
I don’t know, but it’ll be cool to find out, right?
Think about the Kingdom of God as Jesus’ followers would have seen it then: Jesus, Twelve key guys, and several dozen others, plus maybe some of the hundreds or thousands that followed along at any given time. Overall, big for an activist group, but pretty small on the overall scale of things.
What do you think they’d have said if you told them stories about Jesus would be written and collected into the Scriptures?
How about if you said the world calendar would change to date from when they thought Jesus was born?
What if you tried to describe the prevalence of Gideon bibles in hotel rooms or the tens of thousands of church denominations or hospitals, schools, and child care centers which all were begun in the name of Jesus as ways to grow the Kingdom of God?
Do you think they’d have understood what these parables might mean?
Even the growth that these guys got to see in their own lifetimes must have been staggeringly unthinkable when Jesus was wandering around the backwaters of Israel telling those first handfuls of people that the Kingdom of God was at hand.
And here, he’s described so much with these two short, pithy little stories about yeast and a tree growing from a seed.
Which Matthew sums up by saying this:
All Jesus did that day was tell stories—a long storytelling afternoon. His storytelling fulfilled the prophecy:
I will open my mouth and tell stories;
I will bring out into the open
things hidden since the world’s first day.[11]
This prophecy is Psalm 78. It reminds us of the even more humble beginnings of the people of God. They were a tribe of slaves in Egypt, but God’s power and grace brought them out, set them free, and performed so many miracles for them. But they wouldn’t listen. They kept falling away. God would go after them, bring them back, show them he cared. And they would rebel again.
But in this story of Israel’s history we also see the hidden story of God come to light. He cares for his children. All of them – not just Israel, but all human kind.
The stories of the past reveal truths about the present and hopes for the future.
Just as Jesus stories were doing for the people who listened to him that day.
As they can still do for us now.
It’s amazing, isn’t it?
But I still want to know what that story about the wheat and the thorns meant.
Do you think Jesus will help us with that one?
Verse 36.
Jesus dismissed the congregation and went into the house. His disciples came in and said, “Explain to us that story of the thistles in the field.”[12]
See, it’s not just us here seeking a better understanding of the answers we’ve managed to start piecing together.
So he explained. “The farmer who sows the pure seed is the Son of Man. The field is the world, the pure seeds are subjects of the kingdom, the thistles are subjects of the Devil, and the enemy who sows them is the Devil. The harvest is the end of the age, the curtain of history. The harvest hands are angels.[13]
Okay, yeah, that makes sense. The Adversary deceives people and lures them into tripping up others, trying to bring us all down before God comes on that final Day of the LORD. I guess that’s the harvest, in this story, right?
Wait, Jesus isn’t done yet.
“The picture of thistles pulled up and burned is a scene from the final act. The Son of Man will send his angels, weed out the thistles from his kingdom, pitch them in the trash, and be done with them. They are going to complain to high heaven, but nobody is going to listen. At the same time, ripe, holy lives will mature and adorn the kingdom of their Father.
“Are you listening to this? Really listening?[14]
If you are listening, you just heard Jesus tell us again that the choice we are making in life is one of allegiance. Are we part of the Kingdom, part of the wheat harvest? Or are we serving the interests of the Adversary? Is the fruit we are creating blossoms that can adorn God’s Kingdom or is it nothing but thorns?
To put it in terms that may resonate more with current events, are we leaving piles of dead behind or are we healing people so that they can go heal others?
Do you get it?
Because Jesus is done explaining the world of wheat and thistles, but he’s not done telling us stories. Check verses 44 through 46 – he’s got two more for us.
44 “God’s kingdom is like a treasure hidden in a field for years and then accidentally found by a trespasser. The finder is ecstatic—what a find!—and proceeds to sell everything he owns to raise money and buy that field.
45–46 “Or, God’s kingdom is like a jewel merchant on the hunt for excellent pearls. Finding one that is flawless, he immediately sells everything and buys it.[15]
What is a place in the Kingdom worth to you? Is it a treasure worth giving your all for?
If the Kingdom is growing to fill everything, then doesn’t it make sense to give everything for it? Everything outside of it is valueless in the end, so why not trade it for the Kingdom?
Why not cling to the wheat instead of the thistles?
Jesus has one more story for his in-group. One more piece of Kingdom knowledge he wants them to understand before he asks them a very important question.
So he tells them God’s Kingdom is like a treasure hidden in a field or a flawless jewel in a marketplace. Or it’s what we read in verse 47.
“Or, God’s kingdom is like a fishnet cast into the sea, catching all kinds of fish. When it is full, it is hauled onto the beach. The good fish are picked out and put in a tub; those unfit to eat are thrown away. That’s how it will be when the curtain comes down on history. The angels will come and cull the bad fish and throw them in the garbage. There will be a lot of desperate complaining, but it won’t do any good.”[16]
And on this note, which I’m sure you can see is another way of telling the same story as the end of the story of the wheat and the weeds, Jesus asks that very important question I mentioned earlier:
Jesus asked, “Are you starting to get a handle on all this?”
They answered, “Yes.”[17]
Really? Yes? Well, I hope so. He isn’t asking if we all have all the details down exactly right, but if we are putting the pieces together and working out how it all connects. Are we THINKING it through?
Well, then, last verse for now, verse 52:
[Jesus] Hesaid, “Then you see how every student well-trained in God’s kingdom is like the owner of a general store who can put his hands on anything you need, old or new, exactly when you need it.”[18]
If we understand the stories Jesus tells, he will have all we need.
Need for what?
I know I said I wasn’t going to get into the details of the structure of Matthew’s writing, but it may help to know that this short statement ties directly to the parable of the farmer that started us on today’s journey.
Understanding the stories of Jesus helps us understand that, in spreading the word about God’s Kingdom, we can use things old and new in order to increase the harvest.
What we need is more of the seed we spread to root into good soil so that it will grow and produce more.
We are able to use old things and new things to help prepare the ground so the seed can sprout and grow and thrive.
We can use old teachings from the distant past, newer teachings from New Testament days, and still newer teachings and methods from the current day to grow those seeds into harvests which will ultimately be larger than any we might even be able to imagine.
But Jesus has equipped us to do just that.
Let me leave you with a challenge today.
I challenge you to believe what Jesus said.
Accept your place in God’s Kingdom. Spread the seed of the Word and help cultivate it as it grows to bring impossible harvests. As it spreads to fill the world and more. Give all you have to uncover it and own it. Give all you have to claim it. So when the sorting comes, you will be counted among the fish fit for the Kingdom.
Will you do that?
If so, pray this prayer with me.
Oh, God, we come before you as people who want to accept your gift of a place in the Kingdom. We want to serve as your agents in the world, doing the things you set before us to do so that we can grow and become more and more what you created us to be. Help us to do the things which will produce the fruit which you have planned for us to grow. Grant us understanding and the will to seek the answers we need to succeed. Teach us to follow Jesus in all things and to represent him in all things and to stand for the Kingdom in all things. By the blood and power of Jesus Christ we pray these things. Amen.
[1] Eugene H. Peterson, The Message: The Bible in Contemporary Language (Colorado Springs, CO: NavPress, 2005), Mt 13:1–8.
[2] Eugene H. Peterson, The Message: The Bible in Contemporary Language (Colorado Springs, CO: NavPress, 2005), Mt 13:9.
[3] Eugene H. Peterson, The Message: The Bible in Contemporary Language (Colorado Springs, CO: NavPress, 2005), Mt 13:10–13.
[4] Eugene H. Peterson, The Message: The Bible in Contemporary Language (Colorado Springs, CO: NavPress, 2005), Mt 13:14–15.
[5] Eugene H. Peterson, The Message: The Bible in Contemporary Language (Colorado Springs, CO: NavPress, 2005), Mt 13:16–17.
[6] Eugene H. Peterson, The Message: The Bible in Contemporary Language (Colorado Springs, CO: NavPress, 2005), Mt 13:18–19.
[7] Eugene H. Peterson, The Message: The Bible in Contemporary Language (Colorado Springs, CO: NavPress, 2005), Mt 13:20–23.
[8] Eugene H. Peterson, The Message: The Bible in Contemporary Language (Colorado Springs, CO: NavPress, 2005), Mt 13:24–30.
[9] Eugene H. Peterson, The Message: The Bible in Contemporary Language (Colorado Springs, CO: NavPress, 2005), Mt 13:31–32.
[10] Eugene H. Peterson, The Message: The Bible in Contemporary Language (Colorado Springs, CO: NavPress, 2005), Mt 13:33.
[11] Eugene H. Peterson, The Message: The Bible in Contemporary Language (Colorado Springs, CO: NavPress, 2005), Mt 13:34–35.
[12] Eugene H. Peterson, The Message: The Bible in Contemporary Language (Colorado Springs, CO: NavPress, 2005), Mt 13:36.
[13] Eugene H. Peterson, The Message: The Bible in Contemporary Language (Colorado Springs, CO: NavPress, 2005), Mt 13:37–39.
[14] Eugene H. Peterson, The Message: The Bible in Contemporary Language (Colorado Springs, CO: NavPress, 2005), Mt 13:40–43.
[15] Eugene H. Peterson, The Message: The Bible in Contemporary Language (Colorado Springs, CO: NavPress, 2005), Mt 13:44–46.
[16] Eugene H. Peterson, The Message: The Bible in Contemporary Language (Colorado Springs, CO: NavPress, 2005), Mt 13:47–50.
[17] Eugene H. Peterson, The Message: The Bible in Contemporary Language (Colorado Springs, CO: NavPress, 2005), Mt 13:51.
[18] Eugene H. Peterson, The Message: The Bible in Contemporary Language (Colorado Springs, CO: NavPress, 2005), Mt 13:52.