The Need for Wisdom – 30 July 2023
Matthew 13:31–33, 44–52
The larger context of chapter 13 continues to be about Jesus’ teaching regarding the rejection of his ministry. The setting for verses 44–52 has, however, changed. No longer addressing the crowds, themselves a mixture of soils, weeds and wheat, Jesus is now addressing the disciples alone. These followers have left behind family, jobs, property (4:20, 22). Jesus explains to them that when one is grasped by the reign of God, it becomes worth everything. All is sold to buy the field that contains the treasure, and all is sold to obtain the pearl of highest value.
Jesus also seems to lift up the fact that people are grasped by the reign of God in different ways. In the first parable, the man plowing a field stumbles across the treasure quite by accident. In the second, the man is on a quest to find what he is looking for. No matter, the result is the same. We should not miss the radical nature of what Jesus is saying. Disciples in Matthew’s gospel are characters who show the reader what discipleship looks like, unlike the dullards of Mark’s presentation. The reign of God, the movement into God’s future, is indeed graciously offered—but it costs us everything.
The parable of the net parallels some of the message of the parable of the wheat and weeds. Yet, directed at the disciples, it is oriented to mission. These disciples, led by the four fi shermen, are to cast their nets wide and deep for all kinds of fi sh. Their mission is inclusive, as is Matthew overall, of the outcast and marginal, gentile and Jew. Note that the angels will do the sorting. This is a solid message in an age where the church often is more concerned with judgment than spreading good news, than casting the net as wide as possible.
Finally, Jesus asks if they understand. They respond in the affi rmative. Then Jesus offers a commission, or at least permission, of sorts. These are the scribes before him. They are masters of the household, the church. They are charged to bring out—note the unexpected order—the new, and then the old. While the old is not abandoned, it is the time for the new thing that God is doing in Christ. God’s future is at hand. –– Timothy V. Olson
Romans 8:26–39
The discussion of being “predestined” in Paul’s thought is not about a restriction of human freedom, or a way to work out what God knows when. Paul is holding to the notion that God is indeed in control of the future and knows how the end of things turns out. This is an assurance that we indeed are God’s people. This leads to the grand and glorious summary of the whole of chapter 8: . . . If this God does not condemn you (v 1), then who in the world can?
. . . We don’t just conquer, we don’t just survive, we indeed are secure in Christ. No one, nothing, not even our own selves can separate us from God’s love and God’s future. –– Timothy V. Olson
1 Kings 3:5–12
The key to this passage is, of course, Solomon’s asking for wisdom, seeing all that is entrusted to him while he does “not know how to go out or come in.” Seeing the “chosen people” in his care, he recognizes his need for the ability “to discern between good and evil.”
This discernment is the task of all people of faith because the values that oppose what God desires for creation ceaselessly undermine the good. We human beings are nudged in directions that require that we determine whether the underlying nudging spirit is from God or is of a power that destroys our connection with God’s desire for us. What God gives to Solomon is what God gives to each community of faith: others on whom we can rely in discerning the spirits.
For Christians, life in the body of Christ (take that literally) calls us to lean on the baptized in our midst for just the wisdom Solomon received. –– Melinda A. Quivik
Timothy V. Olson is the pastor at Holy Trinity Lutheran Church, Ankeny, Iowa.
Melinda Quivik, an ordained ELCA pastor (who served churches in Montana, Michigan, and Minnesota) and former professor of worship and preaching, is the Editor-in-Chief of Liturgy, a writer, and a preaching mentor with Backstory Preaching at backstory-preaching.mn.co.
Homily Service 38, no. 8 (2005): 25–34.