Mass Readings for the 15th Sunday in Ordinary Time:
Isaiah 55.10-11 Psalm 65.9-13 Romans 8.18-23 Matthew 13.1-23
It’s a commonplace to say, “Jesus taught in parables.” The gospels say as much, but it was not the only way he taught. In more intimate settings, with his inner circle of disciples, Jesus would use more direct and theological language. But I think that if I were just to say to most anyone the word “parable,” the image of Jesus would pop into mind: he is that strongly associated with this method of teaching. Fr. John P. Meier, the great Catholic scholar who authored a “magisterial” four-volume work on the historical Jesus, wrote that it’s a form virtually unique to Jesus in Christian tradition.
No other figure of New Testament literature or of the early Church really uses the parable. Not Saint Paul or Saint John, nor any of the early successors of the Apostles. They might use metaphor, draw comparisons, but never in the narrative form as Jesus does – and it prompts one to ask why is this so unique to Jesus?
Why does Jesus employ the parable so much?
Well, for one it is effective, but it is also protective. It is a demonstration to his followers of the effective application of language in conveying truth over the use of force to demonstrate power; in being “wise as serpents” as Jesus tells us to be, because we are surrounded by wolves. We need to remember that Jesus is preaching publicly; he’s putting himself out there, just like John the Baptist before him. We know what happened to John. To speak publicly, even about ostensibly spiritual matters was to challenge the ruling establishment. The powerful don’t want us to have fulfilling virtuous lives; they want us in our sins and miserable and fearful, looking to them for the solution to our troubles.
To preach a vision for humanity that calls us to live in accordance with the truth is to suggest that we’re not living that way now; and who has led us to this sorry state? Too often those who govern do so through lies and half truths, and maintains their position through intimidation – that’s not always the case, the Church celebrates just rulers and encourages those in political leadership to emulate them. However, this is often seen, not as the Church fulfilling its role as moral guide and ethical advisor to the society, but simply as political opposition. This is very much the concern today of our bishops who’ve communicated as much in their recent pastoral letter.
So, it doesn’t matter that Jesus expressly said he wasn’t interested in political power; it matters that those in political power took an interest in him as a threat.
In contrast, and in reference to the fact that we don’t see early Church leaders teaching in parables has a lot to do with the fact that the early Church, to a great extent, was not as public about itself. What we have in the way of texts that survive from the earliest of days are internal communications, things read at the Sunday gathering, letters between bishops, catechisms for disciples and manuals for pastors. In a few instances we have letters that are public defenses of Christianity, but they use the legal language and rhetorical conventions of the Roman Empire; that is, they aren’t delivered as gospel lessons, but as legal defenses of a persecuted community in terms a Roman magistrate would understand, not so much a Judean farmer or a Greek peasant.
All of this is to say that what we see in Jesus’ approach to teaching the truth of God is that it’s a lesson for us. We live in difficult times when free speech, the hallmark of our constitutional and democratic order, the guarantor of our civilization, is under attack by the powerful. And not only is it under assault legislatively, culturally, technologically; these efforts appear designed to frustrate and anger, and push people toward violence.
I rather like what the late British musician and songwriter John Lennon once said in warning,
“When it gets down to having to use violence, then you are playing the system’s game. The establishment will irritate you – pull your beard, flick your face – to make you fight. Because once they’ve got you violent, then they know how to handle you. The only thing they don’t know how to handle is non-violence and humor.”
I don’t know if Lennon was conscious of this being very much in the vein of gospel wisdom, of having connection to Isaiah’s suffering servant, and to the Passion of Christ who was also insulted and provoked physically by his enemies. One can’t help but be reminded that Jesus, with one careful exception, never lifted his hand against anyone or anything; he employed humour, and he used his intellect to deal with the murderous inclinations of his enemies. So, must we.
Now, the genius of the parable as Jesus deployed it lies in what, to reference Fr. Meier, was a “fierce polemic thrust. Full of surprises, paradoxes and sudden reversals, it can be an ‘attack’ on the very way the audience views God, religion, the world, and themselves. The parable is thus often a challenge to change one’s vision and one’s action; in short, it is one of Jesus’ favourite ways of calling people to repentance, a basic change in mind, and life.” (p. 146, A Marginal Jew, Vol. 2)
So, Jesus is beyond clever when he uses parables – yeah, it’s a metaphor, it’s an allegory, but his parables are unpredictable, they overturn expectation, they shake us up. They also give some comfort, but to paraphrase a popular saying, they also afflict the comfortable.
Also, given the dangerous times in which Jesus taught and acted, they have this wonderful defense built in – so, often the Pharisees, the Temple officials, the scribes, the Herodians, the Roman spies, might be tempted to challenge him, to accuse him of sedition, of disloyalty, of offering insult to the rulers and magistrates, with Jesus always able to say, “oh, you were offended by what I said? Why did you think I was talking about you?”
Equally so, with the common people of the land, with the sinners who were many, they could listen with a certain amount of satisfaction that Jesus was taking the mickey out of the rich and the powerful only to, upon a little reflection, find he was talking about them as well. They could see in what he was saying explanations as to why things had gotten so bad – the parable of the sower isn’t just about the spreading of the gospel in the future, but to those who heard it 2000 years ago, they had to ask themselves, how is it that Israel, seeded with the Word of God through Moses and the prophets has come to this time of political, cultural, religious and even geographic fragmenting? How has the holy city of Jerusalem become a pit of corruption? How have the royal courts of Herod’s princes descended into iniquity? How have we common folk, in our towns and villages, on our farms and in our workshops come into a state of anxiety for the future and depression over the current state of affairs?
Yet, despite this clear criticism coming from Jesus, they also could see how much he sincerely cared for them, for their immediate material well-being, and their eternal salvation. So, the response for the majority was not an angry one, but a thoughtful contemplation of what Jesus had said. They could ponder the parable of the sower, and consider whether they were truly receptive to God’s word.
Recent laws enacted in Canada, constitutional changes in some U.S. states and in Ireland, proposed legislation for the European Union and the enforcement of hate laws in the United Kingdom and Finland, all indicate a trend toward the constraining of free discussion and freedom of religion, the enforcement of this strange new orthodoxy that does not allow us question or to state plainly what we can see happening with our own eyes. Again, these are the cause of the concern expressed by the Canadian Catholic bishops and bishops worldwide. The powerful tell us that to do so is to incite hatred, encourage sedition, and to be disloyal to the state and its rulers, and this is unforgivable.
So, is it time for us all to start speaking publicly in parables? When challenged by another about our Christian faith, do we launch into fables as ingenious as those Jesus taught? Well, I think not because I’m not as clever as our Lord, and as bright as many of you are, we’re never going to be as good as he is. Yet, we do need to think about what we are to say; and to frame our comments on whatever controversy in terms that are faithful to Apostolic teaching yet convey the deep concern we have for the salvation of others, for their eternal joy and not just their temporary happiness.
That will come with our first having prepared ourselves as good ground to receive the seed of God’s wisdom – and then we can produce good fruit, thirtyfold, sixtyfold, a hundredfold, then go forth as sowers ourselves, turn back the growing spiritual desert and remake this place as a green and fertile land.
Amen.