Bela Lugosi’s Parables

In the name of the Father, and the Son, and the Holy Spirit. Amen.

We continue in Matthew’s parables this week. This week, we are focused on verses 31-33 and verses 44-52. When we have a reading that is separated like this, I usually find something in the omitted text that I wish the powers that be who made the lectionary decisions had left in: this time it is verse 35, where Jesus is quoting Psalm 78, verse 2.

In Matthew, it goes like this: “I will open my mouth to speak in parables—I will proclaim what has been hidden from the foundation of the world.”

In the Psalter, on the other hand, it goes like this: “I will open my mouth in a parable—I will utter dark sayings from old.”

One of those sounds just a little bit more moody, more ominous than the other, doesn’t it? I’m drawn to the version from the Psalter—it reminds me of my teenage years, spent listening to goth music (too loudly, according to my dad) and dressing only in black clothing. In those days, how much black eyeliner I wore was decided in the same way as how much garlic to use in a recipe—I measured with my heart, without restraint. Uttering “dark sayings of old” sounds like a ton of fun to the teenager I used to be—it still sounds like it could be a great goth playlist, and I might just make one.

I don’t like it only for my own nostalgia, though. I like it because it reminds me that there have many different interpretations of these parables over time, and not all of them have been—or should be—comfortable. A lot of us have heard these stories regularly since we were children in Sunday School, and we can forget that parables were meant to challenge as a method of instruction, to be disturbing to the listeners rather than being familiar and soothing.

The parables of Matthew this week cover a lot of deep themes—discipleship, sacrifice, discernment, agency, judgement, what can be hidden and what must be shown. They question us—what is the pearl you would give up absolutely everything for, here and now, in this life? Which of the treasures you seek are earthly, and which are heavenly—and what impact does your choice have on Creation; on everyone and everything in it? What purpose does the tree that grows from the tiny mustard seed of faith sowed in your soul serve? What nests in it? There is leavened dough enough to feed a hundred people, and there are many fish, but is anyone being fed? Are the fish dragged in by the net for us to consume, or are we being consumed? Do we really need this much wailing and gnashing of teeth?

There is no way to give fair treatment to all of these parables in one sermon, so I am going to focus on the one my little goth heart—which loves a good eschatological discourse—keeps coming back to: the dragnet scooping up an abundance of fish. All kinds of fish. So many fish. At the end of the age, Jesus tells us, the fish are sorted into good fish and bad fish, and the bad fish are unceremoniously thrown away.

Matthew is not subtle in telling us that we are the fish, and we will face a sorting at the end of the age, with the evil being tossed into the furnace to gnash their teeth; an echo of the fate that awaits the weeds after they are sorted from the wheat.

Among the four gospels, Matthew focuses most on the terrible fate of those judged as bad. All in all,  Matthew’s gospel contains eight parables which describe a violent end to those judged as evil.

While there is rarely consensus among biblical scholars about—well—much of anything at all, the most common estimate for the date this gospel was written is between 80 and 90 CE. At this time, people present for the destruction of Jerusalem and the Second Temple in 70 CE would still be alive, and the wounds of the loss of Temple Judaism would have been fresh for the Jewish people. A whole established way of worship was suddenly gone, and new ways of acceptable worship had to be created. Rituals and ceremonies, holy days of celebration and atonement, once restricted to the Temple now were celebrated in the home in private, or in smaller communities.

This must have felt like another kind of exile to a people whose history and scripture contained so much about surviving exile, especially in the words of the Prophets.

The vivid descriptions of the judgement of evildoers in Matthew remind me of the way the Prophets placed the blame for the fall of Israel and Judea at the feet of a people who had lost their way, who had turned away from the commands from God to care for the poor, the widow, and the stranger, and chose idolatry and greed at the expense of others.

Matthew’s main concern in his gospel is demonstrating to the Jewish people that Jesus is the Messiah, descended from David, that he is a new Moses for the Jewish people, sent to turn the people back to their God after the destruction of Jerusalem and the Temple. Matthew wants people to hear that those who reject Jesus will be tossed into the furnace on the last day, to suffer for that choice.

Here, I would like to reach back to Matthew Chapter 4, verse 19, when Jesus tells Peter and Andrew to come with him, so he can make them “fishers of men.” The image was embraced by the early church, which used the ichthus—the Jesus fish—more often than the cross to symbolize their faith. James Avery makes a beautiful silver bracelet made of fishhooks, that they call the “fishers of men” bracelet, that we can wear to remind ourselves of the mission the disciples, and us, have been given. As a child, I was baffled by this whole “fishers of men” thing—I was very concerned that this was a literal story, and people were being hooked through the cheek like the fish my uncle caught from piers on Galveston. This was not a parable that I looked forward to hearing.

Of course, I grew up and learned about metaphor and allegory, about parables and fables, and I had new questions. What is this net that the disciples are to fish with? What are they to do with the fish?

What strikes me first about this parable is that it is God—or God’s angels acting on God’s behalf—who will do the sorting. Like in the parable of the wheat and the tares, judgement is not our job. Without the depth and scope of knowledge that God has of his children, we simply don’t have the information necessary to issue any sort of final verdict in God’s name. These parables come to my mind when I consider the death penalty, for example, or the way ICE is killing people on our streets. I am sure you have your own places where the parables influence your thinking and decision-making.

We are called to the work of practicing empathy and compassion, and putting them into action. This is not easy, especially in times of war, economic uncertainty, and political and social turmoil—which sometimes seems like it is the human condition in all times and all places. We are not the first to struggle with how hard loving our neighbor and enemy alike can be, and we will not be the last.

God will enact his judgment on all of us in the end, as Matthew makes very clear. I believe we will all face the cleansing fire, and come through it restored and redeemed—scripture tells us that God wants salvation for all of his Creation, and I am betting on God that he will get his way in the end.

In the meantime, our job is to gather together, to sweep people into the presence of God. This is an evangelistic task. The disciples were asked to spread the net of the Good News among the people, and gather all who were willing to hear and teach them and show them how to live according to the will of God. We are asked to do the same. We are asked to turn towards those at the margins, to people in any kind of need, to help whenever we have the means to do so. It requires that we be mindful of what we most desire, and to choose where we focus our talents and resources for the good of others.

I am reminded of my favorite prayer, the General Thanksgiving from the morning office in our Book of Common Prayer, which says “let us show forth your praise, not only with our lips, but in our lives, by giving up ourselves to your service.” May we as the church support each other in service to God, spreading the joyful gospel and both gathering people in, and meeting them where they are. What do they need? How can we meet that need?

Let’s go spread that net.

Amen.