Language is the way people convey information to others. Problems can arise because language is alive, it evolves so communication can wobble. What words signify changes over time. When I was growing up somethings were “groovy” or “outta sight.” I knew I was getting older when I didn’t know what it meant to be “gnarly” or “rad.” Was “feeling funk” and “getting down with the boogie” good or bad? Speaking of bad – saying that is a bad car was actually good? Like totally, man. Today there are some perfectly good English words which have whole new meanings when nouns become verbs: to ghost, to gaslight, to catfish, to troll. Language sometimes means something to those in the know but to the rest of us it sounds like Greek or, better, Martian. Have you ever had a computer geek (another new word) explain to you how something works? Wrap your head around that. Lawyers try to get around this problem of shifting language by over-specifying things: “the party of the first part” instead of “him.” Religion uses technical terms to explain complex ideas: “consubstantial” anyone? Which brings us to Jesus. You would think since Jesus lived a long time ago, in a different culture and spoke a different language that his message would be hard to understand. Instead, the opposite is the case. The language he used, the lessons he taught, the message he conveyed resonates in the third millennium just as powerfully as it has for the previous twenty centuries. Jesus did not teach complex ideas about transubstantiation. He never found it necessary to use catechism words like incarnation. Instead, he talked about sowing seeds, about birds nesting in branches, about a woman breaking bread or frantically searching for her lost purse, a shepherd counting his sheep. Jesus taught in images called parables, not in concepts — and images work just as well in the space age as they did in the bronze age. As the gospel of Mark puts it: “With many such parables he spoke the word to them as they were able to understand it.”
The way Jesus taught, his style of speaking, tells us something very important in and of itself. As one communication theory puts it: the medium is the message. Not just what we say but the way we say it conveys meaning. The medium Jesus used to teach, speaking in parables, is part of the message even before we look at the content of the parable. The first thing to note: Jesus drew his lessons from everyday life around him. He spoke about farmers and fisherman, bakers and bankers, banquets and beggars. In doing so Jesus leads us to understand that if we want to find God we have to look in our own back yard. Knowing God is not meant for some kind of spiritual elite that have specialized education and knowledge. God is hidden in plain sight. We have but to recognize the divine presence which infuses everything. Jesus, no doubt, was passing on to us the methodology which shaped his own spirituality. Look around you. What do you see? How is God present at Starbucks, Jewel Osco, Sox Park? The God who created the beetle and burro wants us to recognize the divine presence in the very stuff of creation.
A second observation from Jesus teaching style: he really trusts us as human beings. Those of us who grew up with the Baltimore Catechism will remember how important it was to give the exact right answer. The sisters were concerned that any deviation from the wording of the catechism would produce an incorrect answer. But Jesus was not looking for pre-packaged answers like some kind of Swanson’s frozen fish sticks of revelation. He instead was confident that we would come up with the right answer on our own. He invited us to look, to become aware, to wake up to what was all around us. Then he sent us off to come to understand the deeper meaning beneath the obvious. You don’t send Johnny to pick up the milk and eggs at the grocery store unless you think he is capable of doing it. Jesus believes we, just as we are, are capable of discovering the very presence of God without an answer key or Cliffnotes.
Which leads to another aspect of Jesus teaching in parables: we must complete the parables in our own lives. Nowhere does Jesus tell us what the kingdom of God means beyond “it is as if a man were to scatter seed” or “it is like a mustard seed.” No definition, no description beyond the images. If we want to understand how the kingdom of God is like scattered seed or birds in the branches of a mustard bush we must answer for ourselves. And here’s the important thing – our answer is the right one. Oh, the scripture scholars can provide the historical background and the cultural context. The poor preacher can give you his or her interpretation. But the fact is that Jesus did not produce a list of the characteristics of the kingdom of God that we can put on three by five note cards and tape to our refrigerator to memorize. Any interpretation of the parable has to be personal. And – this is the why teaching in parables was necessary for Jesus – since we complete the parable in our own lives it demands a response, an action on our part. We don’t define the kingdom of God or describe the kingdom of God we become the kingdom of God. By teaching in parables Jesus modeled that right now today we are surrounded by the kingdom of God if we have the eyes to see and the willingness to act. Everything in life is, or can be, a parable. To what shall we compare the kingdom of God or what parable can we use for it? It is like the pandemic coming to an end and people seeing one another with fresh eyes.
