If someone asked you to teach them about the faith what would you do? Would you teach them the Nicene Creed we say every Sunday? Consubstantial, anyone? Would you give them the Catholic Catechism – all 904 pages — so that they would have all the answers? Or maybe you would give them an encyclical from Pope Francis to learn the latest thinking? When someone asked Jesus to teach them, he did none of the above. He told them stories. He spoke in parables. This was a surprise to his followers. The disciples approached him and said, “Why do you speak to them in parables?” Why don’t you supply a nice snappy answer that they can spit back? Looking at the nature of parable tells us something essential about the teaching of Jesus and about us. His method was the message.
The first thing one notices in looking at the parables of Jesus is that they are about the everyday, the commonplace of life: no gods, no angels, no demons, no cosmic struggles. The parables are about things Jesus’ hearers would have seen as part of their normal life: farmers farming, fishermen fishing, bakers baking, workers working. Parables talk about wedding guests and fractured families and dinner parties and merchants trying to make a deal. While some of these images seem exotic to us today – we very seldom run into a sower sowing his seed – they would have seemed completely normal to Jesus’ contemporaries. The lesson we can draw from this: Jesus taught in parables so that we would learn that the place to find God is in the providence of our everyday life. We don’t need to have a heavenly vision. We don’t need a sacred shrine which puts our minds in another place. We don’t even need to come to Church. All we need do is recognize the signs of God’s presence which are all around us. No doubt if Jesus sat down in our midst and spoke in parables today, they would start off something like this: The kingdom of heaven is like an “L” train full of passengers… The kingdom of heaven is like viral meme spreading through the internet… The kingdom of heaven is like a black Friday sale on new HDTVs… The parables are narratives of normalcy, they are about discovering the extraordinary in the midst of the ordinary.
Another thing to notice about parables is that they cannot be reduced to a clear and distinct idea. Think of the language: “the kingdom of God is LIKE…” We are never told what the kingdom of God IS, only what it is LIKE. By teaching in parables Jesus lets us know that when talking of God and the things of God we aren’t able to give a complete definition. No, “the answer is.” Two plus two equals four. Columbus sailed the ocean blue in 1492. The Bears will find a way to disappoint us again. We like having some truths we can say with certainty. That is not the case with God. There is always more to say when dabbling with the divine. Stories, imagery, poetry provide us with a way of thinking about God without ever nailing it down. Perhaps the best analogy to this way of thinking about the divine is love songs. No one has ever or will ever write the love song that says it all. The making of love songs goes on and on with the artist trying to give us a picture, a glimpse of what love is like. Nothing can capture its fullness. So with God; There is always more to say. Jesus spoke in parables because there was no formula, no blueprint, no prescription which captures God. Jesus gives us an image that invites us to fill in the blanks for ourselves.
Which leads to another aspect of Jesus teaching in parables: everyone must determine the meaning of the parable for him or herself. Occasionally, as in today’s Gospel about the farmer sowing seed, an explanation of the parable is provided. Most often not. But even looking at the explanation given in the gospel you can judge that it is only one of many possible ways of talking about the parable. The parable itself is about the sower sowing. The explanation is about the effect on the seeds. If the explanation wasn’t provided one could easily interpret the parable to mean that the sower should keep on sowing no matter what. Yes, some of the seed will be dried up, or be blown away, or become choked but there will be enough that bear abundant fruit to make the effort worthwhile. Jesus does not usually explain the parable because he wants us to take the parable and warm it in our own hearts and come to understand what it means for ourselves.
All of which makes it possible for us to answer the disciples’ question about why Jesus taught in parables. He used parables as his preferred teaching style because he trusts that we’ll get it. There is a certain style of teaching, that I suspect most of us experienced, called the “empty vessel method.” The idea: the teacher knows stuff. The student does not. The teacher pours in the learning like water going into a bucket. Jesus didn’t think we were empty vessels but rather sponges. He taught in parables so that we would, as he said quoting Isaiah, “see with our eyes and hear with our ears and understand with our hearts and be converted.” Since Jesus taught in parables all we need to do is, as the crossing guard told us, “stop, look, and listen.” Do you want to know about God? Stop the busy-ness and notice what is going on around you. Do you want to understand the meaning of life? Look, really look, at a child and see the glory of human existence. Do you want to know what you’re supposed to do? Listen to the possibilities that Jesus presents in the ordinariness which makes up our life. Whoever has ears ought to hear!
