February 12 - Stories With a Twist
Matthew 13:24-30, 36-43
Deborah Laforet
Stories With a Twist
Let us pray. May the words from my lips and the meditations of my heart be guided by your Spirit and be words of wisdom for this day. Amen.
Do you know the story of the three pigs and the big, bad wolf? You know, the one where the wolf huffs and puffs and blows the pigs’ houses down? Well, I heard that’s not exactly what happened. According to Alexander T. Wolf, as told to Jon Scieszka, he was making a cake for his dear old granny and ran out of sugar. So, even though, he had quite a bad cold, he decided to ask his neighbours for a cup of sugar. Unfortunately, he sneezed at the home of the first two pigs, and accidentally blew their houses down and the third pig insulted him and his granny, so that when the police arrived, he was huffing, and puffing and sneezing and making a real scene. He says he was framed. Now, this is kind of a tongue in cheek kind of story, but it does show that there are two sides to every story.
I have always loved hearing common, familiar stories that are given a twist. More than 20 years ago, I enjoyed a book based on The Wizard of Oz, where the Wicked Witch is the protagonist of the story, Elphaba, and she is good friends with Glinda, the good witch of the north. Maybe you’ve heard of it; it’s called “Wicked,” by Gregory Maquire, and is now a big, Broadway musical.
I also love hearing bible stories differently. How many of you read, The Red Tent, by Anita Diamant, published in 1997? It’s a historical novel, mostly based on the one daughter of Jacob’s of whom we never hear. Even in the hit Broadway show, “Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat,” a show that has taught many the stories of Joseph, his father, Jacob, and Joseph’s eleven brothers, we never once hear about his sister, Dinah. This book offers a fictional sense of who Dinah could have been and gives one a sense of the lives of women during this time in our bible, who are usually ignored, unnamed, and forgotten.
I majored in history in university, and I think I have always loved learning history for this very reason, to learn about context, to become aware of the circumstances in which people lived, to hear the different sides of a story, and to become aware of the different lenses from which you can see a story. For a long time, many of us have been told these stories with a white, North American, privileged lens, but I have heard bible stories once described as being like gems; every time you turn it, there is a different angle, a new light, another way of seeing the story.
And the parables of Jesus definitely have many angles and many differing interpretations. The parable we heard today has been interpreted by theologians since Augustine in the third century as an analogy for the church, or Martin Luther once used it to argue that true believers and heretics must coexist until the harvest at the end of time. One modern and intriguing interpretation of this parable was on the questions the servants asked: ‘Master, did you not sow good seed in your field? Where, then, did these weeds come from?’ This might first be a question around God’s intentionality. If God only created good, why do we have evil and suffering mixed with the good in the world? Second, where did this evil come from? Is evil part of God’s plan or is it against God’s plan and evidence of another great power? These are questions which people have grappled with for thousands of years and still wrestle with today.
But here’s the twist. When Jesus told stories or parables about the Master, or the King, or the Ruler, we always assume God or Jesus is being referenced as this Master or Ruler. In this particular parable, we assume that the Master is Jesus, who has instructed his servants to plant the wheat, and then, that some outside evil influence has come to plant weeds among the wheat. We assume, that it’s Jesus who will one day, separate the wheat from the weeds, gather the wheat into the barn and burn the weeds. What if, though, Jesus is not the Master? What if he’s the thief in the night? How might this story be seen differently?
We need to remember that Jesus and his followers lived in an occupied land. Romans had conquered this land and ruled over them. The masters, kings, and rulers of this time were seen as corrupt and all-powerful, and were seen to be harmful to the common people. There were several Jewish rebellions that has been quashed violently by the Roman army. The people of Israel were not fond of their occupiers, those who ruled the land. They strongly believed, and still do, that God had promised them a land of their own, and the Romans were just the latest of several conquering nations to subdue and violate their land.
Now, I now you were listening when Ron read the scripture reading, but let’s remind ourselves of the details. Good seed is planted, but then, while everyone’s sleeping, an ‘thief’ comes and sows weeds among the wheat. So when the weeds start to grow with the wheat, the servants ask who has done this and the master replies that it was an enemy. The servants then ask if they should pull the weeds from the field. The master says no because they would pull up the wheat with the weeds. He tells them when the harvest comes, that the wheat and weeds will be separated - wheat put into the barn and the weeds burned.
Now, we usually interpret Jesus to be the master, but what if we saw him as the thief? Think about it. Jesus comes in with his new ideas and subversive stories, and begins to sow, amongst the pristine fields of wheat, something different, something that others might see as weeds, as hindrances to the wheat, as a problem and a nuisance. Some will try to pull the weeds before they can cause harm, or cause unease and unspeakable influence. Others will wait for the weeds to grow, become stronger, and then separate them and eradicate them.
If you think about it, this happens all the time in our world. When the master wants purity, or riches, or power, they will destroy anything that gets in their way. The ‘thief’ has to come in the night and plant tiny seeds. The thief plants ideas in the fields, hoping they will grow, and become strong, and change how the wheat grows, affecting change, maybe causing transformation. If the thief is caught, he will be punished, and the master will try very hard to rid his field of these weeds, but it won’t be easy.
The thief might be the enslaved who plant new ideas in the hearts of others who are enslaved. The thief might be indigenous to the land and fight to regain land that had been stolen. The thief might be houseless, looking for shelter and safety where others live in ultimate comfort. The thief might be black, African, Caribbean, Asian, Middle Eastern, hispanic, fighting to be seen and noticed in a field of sameness. The thief might be one who heals the sick, one who comforts those who despair, one who speaks up against the hypocrisy in current religious leaders, one who preaches of God and Spirit and justice. This thief was caught and this thief was executed, along with many of his followers.
It’s a different way of viewing some of the stories Jesus shared. We don’t know what he meant. The author of this gospel tried to offer one explanation, and others have offered others, but this is one of the wonderful aspects of a story. Everyone can see it from their own lens, from their own perspective, and look for the wisdom it conveys.
When you read or hear bible stories, or any story, may you find the different angles of that gem. May you be open to the different interpretations, and even more, ask and seek other interpretations. May Jesus be your guide, and may the Holy One - God, Christ, Spirit - surround you with love, compassion, and curiosity. May it be so. Amen.