Asking the Right Questions--The Parables: 12th Sunday of Ordinary Time

“Have you understood all these things?” Jesus asked (Matthew 13:51).

Perhaps you'll consider it good news that this is the last Sunday for us to consider the parables in Matthew 13. I wonder if you feel like we're on parable overload today: mustard seeds, yeast, buried treasure, the finest pearl, nets and fish. How do you make sense of any one of these, much less all of them? What unites them is how Jesus begins each parable: “The kingdom of heaven is like...” In each parable, Jesus uses the present tense, and he uses recognizable images from this world to describe what the kingdom of heaven is like. So, the kingdom of heaven is not just a future reward. The kingdom of heaven is right here, today. God already reigns as Lord of this world, and we are called to recognize it in the world around us, and to value it above all else.

But recognizing God’s authority in this world isn’t always easy. That is something else that all these parables have in common. The kingdom and the power and the glory, which these parables point to, are hidden. The kingdom is hidden because it is dangerous. C.S. Lewis referred to this world as “enemy-occupied territory.” And according to Lewis, “Christianity is the story of how the rightful king has landed, you might say landed in disguise, and is calling us to take part in a great campaign of sabotage.” We who are called disciples of this Christ the King have the eyes and ears to recognize his kingdom, and to stake our energy, our treasure, our life and our death, on this kingdom.

So what is a parable? Let's start with this definition of a parable by C.H. Dodd: “At its simplest a 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.”

At the very least, a parable is not an allegory. It's not like of Aesop's fables, where the characters and images represent a specific thing, and there is a clear moral lesson to be taught. But the wonderful thing about Jesus's parables is that they can mean different things, depending on who is hearing the parable. The parables are not a “how-to” set of precise rules for getting out of God's dog house. The parables are not a cheat sheet for getting the right answers to the test. The parables are not meant to give us the right answers so much as to help us ask the right questions.

The first two parables, about the mustard seed and the yeast, are spoken to the “crowds,” and not just to Jesus's students the disciples. Jesus is speaking to anybody listening, friends and enemies. And so he speaks in code, through these parables. And in both cases, the kingdom, to which these images of mustard seed and yeast point, is hidden. The mustard seed is hidden by nature of it's being so small. And yet it becomes a tree. Trees were symbols of imperial kingdoms. And so this tree represents an imperial kingdom. But it does not seize power by military conquest or political propaganda and clever slogans. The kingdom of heaven begins in humility and service. Can the crowds recognize this servant-led kingdom?

We then hear Jesus tell of a woman who “mixed in” yeast with three measures of flour. But the word translated as “mixed” actually means, “to hide.” The woman hid the yeast of the kingdom within the three measures of flour of this world. To use Lewis's words, this is the sabotage we're called to do. There is opposition to this kingdom of servanthood over power. We have to recognize that opposition for what it is. It may be fear and resentment within us, or fear and resentment that is acted out around us. But we also need to recall how just a little sabotage from just one of us can make enough bread to feed hundreds with hope, and love.

Then, Jesus speaks only to us his students, his disciples, about how much value we are prepared to place on this kingdom of servanthood. Roman law actually dealt with the question of finding buried treasure on someone else's property. And the law basically said, “Finders, keepers.” Understandably, we still flinch a little bit at the underhand way in which this man lays claim to his hidden treasure. But we know that the “lesson” here is not to attain the kingdom of heaven by any means necessary. Both these parables leave us with the question: How valuable is this kingdom of servanthood to us? What are we willing to give up to attain this everlasting treasure? How much opposition are we willing to endure?

So, “Have you understood all these things,” Jesus asks his disciples; to which they respond in unison, “Yes.” Personally, I think they answered a little too quickly. I won't ask you that. But as we leave the parables behind, for now, I pray that if I haven't given you a neat and tidy set of answers, that at least I have left you with the right questions. How will the seeds being sown right outside this door produce a yield of thirty to one, sixty to one, or even a hundred to one? What weeds do we need to let Jesus pull out of our hearts so that the sun can shine on the wheat? Who are we called to serve in the kingdom of heaven? Where is the opposition? And what will we give up for the only treasure we can take with us?

We who have been trained as disciples in the kingdom of heaven don’t need to come up with all the answers to these questions today. Being a student of Jesus the Christ doesn’t mean we have to get 100 on the test just to pass. We just need to ask those questions, and wait for Jesus to answer them.