The passage that we've read from Mark's gospel today falls easily into four sections, all straightforward enough on the surface but in each section there is a hint of disquiet.

The lamp and the bushel is clear enough - mood lighting has its place but for a lamp to be really effective it needs to shine without obstruction. And the passage goes on to speak of hidden secrets being disclosed - "truth will out" if you like. But what about the last verse in that section: "To those who have, more will be given; and from those who have nothing, even what they have will be taken away."(v 25) Especially in a church community where we are sensitive to the needs of others it sounds uncomfortably close to the idea that the rich get richer and the poor get poorer.

Next comes the story of the seed growing secretly. It's a Kingdom of God image - an important one for us to take notice of. But what does it ask of us? The "someone" who sowed the seed then has nothing more to do. In fact, the text says "the earth produces of itself" - a lovely ecological image but seemingly removed from human action. And then the harvest image with the sickle being wielded reminds us of judgement metaphors - found scattered through the prophets and through to revelation. Judgement is usually as a result of what we have or haven't done. Does this lovely image of the secretly growing Kingdom of God have to leave us uneasily anticipating the day of reckoning?

I've spoken before about the mustard seed parable - pointing out that for first century Palestinian farmers the mustard plant was a noxious weed, meaning that the idea of sowing it in one's property is absurd. It would be like asking farmers today to go out and sow Patterson's Curse and see how its rapid growth and spread can teach us a lesson.

And then there comes a second reference in this chapter to the use of parables - saying that Jesus chose to speak through parables alone to those around him, with the very intention, if we look back to the earlier passage, of keeping truths hidden and explanations obscure. In verse 12, we are told, parables were used "in order that they may look, but not perceive, and may listen, but not understand, so that they may not turn again and be forgiven."

Does such a statement have a place in the gospels, the good news, available for all?

Why did Jesus use parables?

Why did Jesus choose to speak in parables, or "riddles" would even be a good translation. Why didn't he leave a crisp code of laws, or a stack of essays with titles like "How to Be a Good Disciple," "A Brief Definition of the Kingdom of God" or "Seven Key Features of the Coming Kingdom and What This Means to You." Perhaps we should think about the nature of parables to try to understand. At the heart of the parables is a story. We all know the power of story, the ability to connect us to one another, to our ancestors, to our world and to our God. But these stories had particular characteristics so that we don't need to think of them as allegories, or moral tales. The vitality of parables is captured in these characteristics, and in their ability to adapt and change and thus keep breathing life into the gospel. But, as we'll see, these characteristics also mean that their truth is only open to those who are willing to listen, to really listen, and to see in Jesus' own life the truths of God's kingdom being worked out.

Let me read a classic definition of parables, penned by CH Dodd. "At its simplest the parable is a metaphor or simile drawn from nature or common life, arresting the hearer by its vividness or strangeness and leaving the mind in sufficient doubt about its precise application to tease it into active thought." According to Sallie McFague, another New Testament theologian, three characteristics can be drawn from this definition. We also need to keep in mind that when Jesus used parables, he most often used them to teach about the Kingdom of God.

The first characteristic, then, is that parables were mundane. The Kingdom of God applies to ordinary, secular, relational life, both personal and public. Lamps, coins, seeds, sheep, relationships and decisions about dealing with other people are all drawn in to the concerns of the Kingdom. The ordinary housewife, the shunned widow, the crooked business man, the struggling farmer, children at play in the marketplace - wherever Jesus' listeners stood in life there was a word of God for them. Consciousness of God and God's ways doesn't have to be picked up at the door when you enter church and dropped off again on the way out, it is something that applies to all of life.

Another characteristic drawn from Dodd's definition is that parables are extravagant. The smallest of seeds grows to the largest of shrubs. Worthy guests are usurped by the totally unworthy. The return of something lost is celebrated with a wild party. A little leaven permeates enough bread to fill a baker's truck. Living our comfortable lives now at the expense of others will have eternal implications. The author Flannery O'Conner once said "for the hard of hearing you shout, and for the almost blind you draw large and startling pictures." Parables need extravagance because we find it hard to see and hear the truth of the Kingdom of God.

Because the third characteristic is the disorienting nature of parables. They are stories that turns our world upside down. At the heart of the gospels is a reversal of expectations. It is captured in Mary's song even before Jesus is born, but his life and his teaching reinforces this new direction over and over. Despite being grounded in the ordinary world, the stories Jesus told showed his listeners that the ways of the conventional world are not the ways of God. Familiar language is used to draw people in, but a surprise twist is usually there to challenge popular assumptions about propriety and possibility. We might think we know what the world is like, but Jesus' stories open up our hearts and minds to an alternative - the kingdom of God. The gospels would argue that the Kingdom of God is the most important thing to have happened in human history. But rather than being advertised on some glitzy neon sign it's the treasure buried in a field. It's not an expensive jewel displayed under plate glass and bright lights but it is the pearl of great price that someone just happens to stumble upon in an unlikely place. The kingdom does not call attention to itself like a marching band coming down the street with drums and brass blaring but is instead the yeast that disappears into the larger lump of dough, the tiniest of all seeds that vanishes almost the very moment it hits the soil. The kingdom doesn't do its business with the energy and noise of the stock exchange or the aggressiveness of parliamentary debates, but in the silent growth of a shoot pushing its way slowly through soil.

And yes, the disorienting nature of parables mean they also allow room for judgement. The world of God's Kingdom is too big to be nice in the face of injustice, too important to ignore sin that marrs God's good creation. We know from our daily news bulletins that evil exists with its ability to torture and degrade and destroy every form of life. The God of the Old Testament and the Gospels stands against such evil, and offers an alternative kingdom where peace and justice reigns. The parables confronted the unconscious assumptions in those hearing them, particularly assumptions about who was welcome in the Kingdom of God. The fact that Jesus who told these parables ended up on a cross shows us that they weren't nice stories, they were subversive words challenging the status quo. Parables are not so much "earthly stories with heavenly meanings" as they've often been described, but "earthy stories with heavy meanings".

Jesus as parable

Some people would see the three characteristics we have noted in the person of Jesus himself, making him a parable of God. The life and death of Jesus is at one level a mundane story - God taking on human existence in all its ordinariness and all its frailty. But in this life we see an extravagance of love that both opens God's grace and upsets the conventions of the day. His was a life set on a pedestal for all to see, a life that offered grace to sinners and love to outcasts. As Jesus sided with the tax collector, the prostitute and the oppressed he disoriented the religious leaders, his own disciples, and the crowds following. Few could understand the direction his life took - even those closest to him only realised the significance of his actions in the light of the cross and resurrection. Following this Jesus means re-orienting one's whole life to the values of the Kingdom.

Others as parables of the Kingdom

We often tell each other stories of people who have done just this: who have followed the example and teachings of Jesus and who in their own lives have become parables of the Kingdom. People like Hildegard of Bingen and Francis of Assisi, people like Dorothy Day and Martin Luther-King, people like Desmond Tutu, Nelson Mandela and Mother Theresa. People who have confronted the issues of their day with the values of God's Kingdom: values of love and justice and grace. And there are characters in fiction too that offer for us parables of God through the story of their lives that mirror God's ways in the world. The Thursday morning bible study group that I meet with is looking at the book Chocolat right now, and finding parallels with God's story in the world. Vianne in her chocolaterie offers love and acceptance and the freedom of a new life for the marginalised in her town much to the disapproval of the rules-bound religious authorities. (Carlo's sacrifice of love in Captain Corelli's Mandolin)

We can be parables too

We may feel some disquiet at the uncompromising view of parables that Mark's gospel gives us, that they were told to be deliberately obscure, but the context makes it clear that it is only in relationship with Christ that it is possible to understand the language of God. It is not enough to hear, (in one ear out the other) but to be part of the Kingdom of God is to have what is heard affect your life. By preaching to his followers in parables, Jesus let each listener make the Good News become their own story, their own experience. As we are swept up in the story, we ourselves become part of a new parable - the parable of our lives.

We as parables can also exhibit the characteristics of Jesus' stories. We are not asked to step out of our ordinary lives to be followers of Jesus. God is part of our everyday existence, at school, at work, at home, at the shops, on holidays. The Kingdom of God is able to break in to our mundane world. But if we are living the kingdom values we will be part of spreading a new way of living in this world. Like a troublesome weed we will need to pop up wherever the values of the Kingdom are being ignored or defied. To live in a world based on power and conflict with the message of love and grace and reconciliation will mean that we become nuisances, people that others may wish to pull out and cut down. Our only answer is to keep loving extravagantly, to keep spreading the good news of God's grace and acceptance, especially to the marginalised of our place and time.

If we live our lives as parables of God we will find ourselves being disoriented. We will be faced with a choice of households, or kingdoms, to live in. The message of the parables we've read today remind us that this may seem, in the eyes of the world, a strange choice. Standing up and being counted like a light blazing forth. Having the faith to plant seeds without worrying about the results. Remembering that the Kingdom of God is about the small things that get lost in the bigness and busyness of our world. Leaving aside growth manuals and techniques to concentrate on the one-to-one relationships that really change lives. Being part of caring for the shrub that shelters others and see to its spreading.

And just a comment on that troublesome verse 25 - "to those who have more will be given and from those who have nothing even what they have will be taken away." Jesus had made it clear who it was who would receive more from God - the ones who pay attention to what they hear so that God's word is heard in the deceptively mundane parable about everyday affairs, God's word is heard in the message of the broken man on the cross, for them God's word can be heard as we listen for it in the parables of other lives around us. Understanding comes as we listen attentively to God's Word.

As we live our ordinary lives each day may it be that that word plants its seeds and grows in us so that our lives too may be parables of Jesus Christ. Amen.


Reference:
McFague, Sallie, article on "Parables" in A New Dictionary of Christian Theology (SCM Press, 1983)

Jeanette Mathews
29/08/04