Parables

Mark 4:10-12; Isaiah 6:9-10

Why is God obtuse? Does God really not want us to understand what God wants or expects of us? Does God want us ignorant just to make our condemnation all the easier?

We pray that the answer to all of these questions is a resounding and emphatic “NO!” 

But then we hear Jesus’ word to the Twelve, and we wonder--what is going on here?

Jesus taught in parables, a common rabbinic practice. When someone asked a rabbi a theological question, rarely would come a straight answer, but rather would come a story. Somewhere in that story would be the answer, but it would be up to the listener to figure out where and what that answer was. 

Why? Why do this? Why not just be clear and precise? Answer the question!

Life, though, is rarely clear and precise. If we know nothing else, we know that to be true. If any of us undertook trying to list all of the moments that made no sense, we would exhaust reams of paper and fill up so many flash drives, we would need to buy stock in the companies that make them. Life is a muddle. One of the best analogies the ancient Hebrews ever made was equating all that was before creation as chaos, noting that what we exist within is ordered chaos that threatens to unravel at any moment--and often does. Ergo, there are very few moments that make sense perfectly and precisely. We live with ambiguity every day. 

Which is why so many of us come to faith seeking certainty, clarity, and simple directives--do these ten things and all will be well; believe these five dogmas and life will be easy; be still and God will show the way--and there is no lack of preachers willing to reduce faith to such lists and catechisms. Making God and God’s way simple, direct, and easy seems to answer so many ultimate questions.

What’s wrong with that? A little clarity goes a long way. With such lists and directions, life can be managed.

Until it can’t.

Job posits the first and most profound challenge--one believes the right things, practices the right actions, and says the right words, but life still unravels in a moment. Now what?

The Pharisees took God and Moses at their word and sought to live in perfect obedience to all 632 commandments in the Torah. That would align them with God and life would make sense. But woe to any and all human beings who run afoul to the Pharisees code of perfection. Suddenly, the community of faith is an exclusive club, making no bones at all about who is in and who is out. Fie on those who are out! But that doesn’t seem to be what God wants, if one reads the scriptures. Something’s missing.

Then there is the simple cry of a father facing a child he cannot help, “I believe, Lord, help my unbelief!” No list of ten simple rules is going to help him (see Job). 

So, faith must be more than a reductionist set of codes, dictums, rules, or guidelines. Faith is something more. And this truth lay at the core of Jesus’ approach of parables. To lead us into understanding the something more of faith, we have to see the wisdom of God for what it is--a way of thinking and being. It is existential. It encompasses our words and deeds, but it also gathers in our hearts and minds. We speak and act from the ultimate intent and purpose that lay behind the commandments of the Torah. We realize that there is flexibility in those commandments because faith is not about literally keeping each rule, but seeing each as an expression of something bigger and deeper.

And what is that?

Love.

God gave the Torah as a means to embodying the love in which God made us and through which God governs creation itself. Therefore, meeting someone in love will always trump being legally correct. 

So how do parables teach this way of being?

Because they are open to interpretation, we find the great spectrum of being able to live in and by love. We can find ourselves in these little stories, finding those bridges into our own experience and affirmation that we can and do meet God in moments of love. So, Jesus can tell a story about a shepherd seeking a lost lamb, rejoicing in finding it, and risking all by leaving 99 sheep to find the one lost animal. We will see ourselves as that shepherd, recalling times when we lost something dear to us and the joy of finding it. We may even make the leap to finding SOMEONE we thought lost. We will see ourselves as the lost lamb, recalling being afraid, lonely, and alienated. We may even remember a moment of being found. We might see ourselves as one of the 99, too, wondering why someone sought someone lost, leaving us behind, seemingly to fend for ourselves. We will be pushed to rejoice in that effort, moving beyond self-righteous grumbling about being right and being ignored, to seeing love practiced. No matter where we are as we hear the story, it is ours to do with as we will where we are as we are. 

And that is how love truly flourishes.

There is no right way, one way, or only way--love is left to the lover to practice. Those who want it simple miss the point. They actually stifle God’s grace that knows no bounds. No wonder Jesus dismisses all such attempts to reduce his message to a code. That saves no one. 

Instead, Jesus teaches us to open ears so we can open hearts and minds. In love, we hear what needs to be heard and we see what needs to be seen. We find an amazing breadth with which to regard one another, accept one another, and love one another. 

And that is faith as it is to be.

Amen.