Br. Jamie Nelson

Matthew 13:10-17

In today’s gospel passage, Jesus has just finished preaching the Parable of the Sower to a large crowd gathered alongside the lakeshore. When we enter the story, his disciples have come to him privately to ask why he spoke to the crowd in parables.

I wonder if the disciples’ question masked feelings of disappointment.

I wonder if they felt that Jesus’ choice of teaching tool had squandered a great opportunity. Perhaps their own plans had been for him to relate to the crowd like a politician at political rally – pumping up the people with an inspiring message and building up a base of support for his Messiah movement.

I wonder if they would have liked him to perform a miraculous healing on command. That would demonstrate credibility for his claims to messiahship.

I wonder if they were hoping to pick up a few new guys for the discipleship road crew.

But instead, Jesus left out an inspiring call to action and told the crowd a confusing parable about seeds.

So what are parables, and why did Jesus choose them as a teaching tool?

I can give you an answer for the first question. Parables are deceptively simple stories that illustrate complex spiritual truths using everyday situations and settings. Parables are like icons – their images point to a deeper reality underneath the story.

As to the second question, why did Jesus choose to speak in parables – Jesus’ explanation about why is about as confusing as the parables themselves.

This gospel passage, and Jesus’ frequent use of parables, points to a complicated truth: that God is ultimately uncomprehensible to our limited human capacity for understanding. That the beauty, goodness, and power of God will stay beyond our knowing in this lifetime.

So why use parables?

Parables create space for wondering and for wrestling with God.

Parables offer nuggets of mystery to mull over.

Parables invite further seeking, they don’t set up tidy answers to regurgitate on command.

Parables plant the seeds of the kingdom.

Have you ever felt disappointed by God, unable to trust in the good news or to live in hope? Sometimes life is downright disappointing, and looking to Jesus’ words in the gospels can be confusing.

Jesus’ use of parables reminds us that God’s work is often hidden, mysterious, and silent. It’s easy to give in to the temptation to live as if human action is what brings salvation. However, the sowing and harvesting is ultimately God’s work, theologian Mark Burnham cautions us.[1]

Over and over, Jesus reminds his disciples that his messiahship isn’t going to look like what they’re used to. He doesn’t fit neatly into the box of Promised One born to overthrow Rome through military might, destined to restore glory and freedom to his people.

What he does offer is a kingdom that enters our world through stories. Through stories as seeds that grow into moments of insight and understanding, mercy and love.

Theologian Michelle Voss Roberts writes: “Jesus plants parables in the imaginations of his hearers to do the work that Scripture and theological language are supposed to do: take root, mature, and bear fruit.”[2]

But seeds take time to germinate, to take root, mature, and bear fruit.

So how to live in the in-between?

The poet Rainier Maria Rilke wrote this word of advice to a younger man that he was mentoring in poetry and in life:

“Be patient toward all that is unsolved in your heart and try to love the questions themselves, like locked rooms and like books that are now written in a very foreign tongue. Do not now seek the answers, which cannot be given you because you would not be able to live them. And the point is, to live everything. Live the questions now.”[3]

Jesus’ parables are like those unsolved questions that Rilke writes about.

So let us follow his invitation and live the questions now.

[1] Mark R. Burnham. (2015) “Matthew 13:10-17 – Pastoral Perspective.” Essay. In Feasting on the Gospels – Matthew, Vol. 1. Louisville: Westminster John Knox Press, p360.

[2] Michelle Voss Roberts. (2015) “Matthew 13:10-17 – Theological Perspective.” Essay. In Feasting on the Gospels – Matthew, Vol. 1. Louisville: Westminster John Knox Press, p360.

[3] This quote is from Letter #4 of Rilke’s Letters to a Young Poet: https://rilkepoetry.com/letters-to-a-young-poet/letter-four/