100 MPH Review of Matthew's Parables

 

The Parables of Matthew

We just spent 28 weeks working our way through the gospel of Matthew.  In the next service I will give you the 30,000-foot flyover.  In this service we will focus on some of the parables.

A parable sets things in parallel.  I use a form of parallelism which I take things that I know and can explain first hand from the Marine Corps and compare them with some scripture.

I also like to make parallels with sports.  Baseball and football give me the most to work with.  I have yet to use anything from badminton, but I’m not through preaching yet, so don’t write it off.

The man who doubts is like a shuttlecock batted around the court on a windy day. OK, I will probably stick with a wave tossed about the sea.

My baseball and football parallels were of absolutely no value when I went to Africa. I don’t do soccer.  The only year that I watched my daughter play, it looked like a swarm of kids moving all over the field.  I suspected there was a ball in the middle of the swarm.

Jesus was the only person who had walked the earth that had also been in heaven.  He explained things we had never seen or did not understand in terms of things that we had.

Let’s take the Parable of the Sower or the Seed or the Soil, depending on what part you want to emphasize.  Jesus knew that his word was true and that our hearts are so often corrupt, but when our heart is receptive to the word of God, it can produce a fantastic yield.

When our hearts are good soil, the word of God flourishes in us.

Jesus told us that we would struggle in this world.  The Evil One is at work in the work.  The Enemy has sown weeds with the wheat but both will be allowed to grow to the harvest.  As we look at the explanation, there will be a sorting at the end of the age.  God’s angels will sort out his children from amidst the weeds.

It’s for our benefit so we have a chance to grow before the harvest. We should not worry.  God and his angels can tell the difference.

Jesus taught that once you realize what the kingdom of heaven is and that you can live there now, you will do whatever it takes to enter it.  Buy a field to claim its treasure, sell everything to buy a pearl of great value, or pluck the bad fish out of your catch and keep only the good ones.

You can enter the kingdom of heaven now and there will be a sorting at the end of the age.

Jesus explained the kingdom of heaven with the Parable of the Unmerciful Servant.  This servant had a debt that he could never repay.  He could hit the Powerball lottery and still not have enough to repay the debt; yet his master forgave the debt.

This servant did not pay this forward.  He did not show the same forgiveness as his master.  The master heard about this and restored the debt and executed the punishment. 

God is serious about this forgiveness business.  Check out what Jesus had to say about forgiveness right after he modeled what we call the Lord’s Prayer.

The Parable of the Two Sons is about words and deeds.  One son says he will do what his father wants but doesn’t.  The other says he won’t, but then decides that he will.  Even the knuckleheaded Pharisees understood this one.

It was obviously the one whose actions not words did what the father desired.

The Parables of the Tenants and the Wedding Banquet are likely allegorical with Jews and Gentiles getting their chance to receive the grace of God.

The Parable of the Ten Virgins speaks of being ready.  Remember the Coast Guard motto:  Semper Paratus—Always Ready.

And then we come to the Parable of the Talents.  By now, you should know this one by heart.  I think next year, Matthew 25:14-30 will be one of our memory verses.

What did you do with what God gave you?

Then, of course, we get to the sheep and the goats.  The question that we should ask ourselves is:  What did we do for the least of these brothers and sisters among us? 

What did we do for the least of these?

Jesus humbled himself and stepped out of heaven.  He humbled himself to such an extent that he came as a baby.  He lived as a human lives, needed food and water and shelter and care, but he had known heaven and the kingdom of God.

He wanted to share that with us.  He did that by teaching, preaching, healing, and many miracles but he also put in parallel the things of heaven and things that we understood here on earth.

He wanted us to know and understand the kingdom of God before we got there.  Parables are more than stories with a moral.  They are more than examples.  They open our eyes to see and our ears to hear the things of the kingdom of God and the way of our Lord.

They leave us hungry to learn more.

Amen.

Matthew 18 - Part 5

 

Read Matthew 18

Read the message about this parable from 2017.

Peter wanted to know how many times he should forgive someone.  Seven seemed like a good guess.  Jesus replied, not 7 but 77.  Some translations might say 7 times 70, that’s 490 times.  That’s a lot of forgiveness.

And so, Jesus told the story of a man who owed his king 10,000 talents.  That’s a bunch of money.  There was no way he could repay that now but the debt had been called.

The man pleaded that he would not be sold to pay for the debt.  The king had mercy on him and forgave the debt.  Now that’s some mercy right there!

The man went on his way and came across a man who owed him a hundred silver coins and he demanded payment.  The man could not pay and he pleaded for more time to repay.

The man who had been forgiven so much would forgive nothing.  He had the man who owed him put into prison until he could pay.  His fellow servants found out about this and reported it to the king.

The king was furious.  He said, I canceled all of your debt and you couldn’t show just a little bit of mercy on your fellow servant?  OK, two can play this game.  He handed this man over to the jailers to be tortured until he could repay what he owed.

Realize that there are many strategies for getting out of debt, but getting tortured doesn’t reduce the sum owed.  It’s a no-win scenario.

Now we can look at this parable and think justice was done.  It was but the king desired mercy more than justice. 

Jesus told this parable to help Peter and us understand what it will be like at the end of the age.  We can never pay what we owe God but God desires mercy more than justice or sacrifice or any perfunctory payment.  He desires mercy.

He delivers mercy.  He wants to see mercy operating within us so much more than compliance, mindless obedience, ritual, or anything else that misses the divine heart of God.

When we are at a loss as to what we should do, find the way that includes love and mercy.

When we are struggling to please God, find the way governed by mercy.

When the world is going absolutely crazy around us, find a time and place to practice mercy.

Consider how Jesus called us to come to him as a child, not as a judge or master of ritual, but as a child.  Come to him as a completely accepting child.  Accept love.  Accept forgiveness.  Accept others with the same love and mercy that you received.

Grant forgiveness.  Be known by your love and mercy.  Be an example of mercy to your fellow servants.  Do not lead anyone astray by your lack of compassion and mercy.  Speak the truth to your fellow servants in Christ, even about uncomfortable subjects, but do it in a spirit of love.

Practice mercy.

We did a little warm up at the beginning of the service.  Let’s do it again.

Seek justice.

Love mercy.

Walk humbly with your God.

Think about these two words:  love mercy.  What if we not only tried to practice mercy, but we loved mercy.  We loved being merciful.

What if our new nature—our Christ nature—loved mercy.  What if we did what Jesus instructed the Pharisees to do.  Learn what this means.  I desire mercy not sacrifice.

The child does not know bitterness or contempt or hate or coveting.  The child accepts the love of a parent without questioning.  But our human hearts have been corrupted by sin.  Left to our own desires we seek to gratify ourselves more than others, more than God.

To enter the kingdom of heaven we must become like a child again.  We don’t come seeking to balance the scales that can never be balanced.  We owe more than we can pay.  We owe more than we can imagine.  Our only recourse is mercy.  Without mercy, we are toast.

But mercy is not our first nature.  We want what is owed to us by others.  What others owe becomes our focus.  It gets in the way of putting God first.  It blinds us to what God has done for us and we see only what we desire from others.

We have received mercy beyond our comprehension.  We must deliver mercy to the best of our ability.  We must remember that while we were God’s enemies, Christ died for us.

Let’s say our words from Micah again.

Seek justice.

Love mercy.

Walk humbly with your God.

Christ came full of grace and truth.  We have received more than mercy.  We have received favor.  How can we ever deliver condemnation? How can we look upon another with disdain?  How can we see others through eyes of contempt?

Our M.O. must be mercy.  As we begin this New Year, consider all the old things that you hold on to because someone wronged you.  So long as you hold on to these things, you are not prepared to deliver mercy.  You want justice from your own unique perspective.

It makes for a good action movie with plenty of violence, payback, and revenge, but it also makes for a terrible likeness of Christ Jesus whom others should see in us.

As we set upon this New Year, I asked us to set as our goal to do the things of God.  Let’s put practice mercy near the top of that list of the things of God.

Seek justice.

Love mercy.

Walk humbly with your God.

Amen!