Matthew 13:1-3, 10-17
Several days after calling the Twelve who would travel with him as he went around healing broken bodies and explaining the New Kingdom, Jesus rose early and sat on the beach. In no time at all a crowd gathered along the shoreline, forcing him to get into a boat. Using the boat as a pulpit, he addressed his congregation, telling stories.....
Later, the disciples came up and asked, “Why do you tell stories?” He replied, “You’ve been given insight into God’s kingdom. You know how it works. Not everybody has this gift, this insight; it hasn’t been given to them. Whenever someone has a ready heart for this, the insights and understandings flow freely. But if there is no readiness, any trace of receptivity soon disappears. That’s why I tell stories: to create readiness, to nudge the people toward a welcome awakening. In their present state they can stare till doomsday and not see it, listen till they’re blue in the face and still not get it.
The reading given by the lectionary for today is quite a long one. What I just read is only a small piece of the longer reading but I realized that long reading fell rather nicely into two separate topics. And so, I’ve divided it in half and we’ll discuss one half today and the other half next week.
The gospels, of which of course “Matthew” is one, are collections of stories – stories about Jesus -- and most importantly, stories told by Jesus. That’s what scripture is – stories about God and our lives as pieces of this world of God’s creation. And so it’s “stories” that I want to talk about today – stories, or what we usually refer to as ‘parables’ when we talk about Jesus’ teaching stories. A parable, according to dictionary definition, is “a usually short fictitious story that illustrates a moral attitude or a religious principle.” It’s simpler just to call them stories.
Why stories? Most of them are short and they don’t even seem to talk about anything terribly important when you stop to think about it – figs and seeds and fish – do these sound like the stuff of deep philosophical reflection? These stories about oh-so-ordinary things lie at the heart of all we can ever really know about God, and about ourselves.
It will come as no surprise to most of you who have listened to me teach and preach over the years that I found someone who once said all this better than I ever will. It will be even less of a surprise that the person was Frederick Buechner. The dear man just said it all so well:
Jesus told stories. And he told stories about ordinary things because those who came to listen to him led ordinary lives. They might not get a more theologically nuanced sermon, but they understood things like putting their boats out into the water and casting their nets, hoping to catch fish. They knew that their vineyards mattered because without them there would be no wine, so if Jesus compared something to a vineyard, they knew it was important.
Talking to his listeners in terms of things they understand on some level gives them “ears to hear.” As we just heard Jesus himself explain in our opening reading:
It’s a human trait to hear what we want to hear, whether that’s what is actually spoken or not. So as we go through the next few weeks and hear some stories, some parables, let us focus our listening to hear what is actually being said.
Let’s give Buechner one final word here for today:
God speaks to us through our lives – through tired muscles and hot sun on our skin; through the rain that falls on the just and unjust alike; through care of the earth we live in. Through the nurture a woman puts into the bread she bakes for her family or the solicitude given when a man sees, not a hated neighbor, but a soul or body in need – and helps him.
So let us listen, with care, to what is being said when Jesus tells his stories, because those stories are all about us.
The gospels, of which of course “Matthew” is one, are collections of stories – stories about Jesus -- and most importantly, stories told by Jesus. That’s what scripture is – stories about God and our lives as pieces of this world of God’s creation. And so it’s “stories” that I want to talk about today – stories, or what we usually refer to as ‘parables’ when we talk about Jesus’ teaching stories. A parable, according to dictionary definition, is “a usually short fictitious story that illustrates a moral attitude or a religious principle.” It’s simpler just to call them stories.
Why stories? Most of them are short and they don’t even seem to talk about anything terribly important when you stop to think about it – figs and seeds and fish – do these sound like the stuff of deep philosophical reflection? These stories about oh-so-ordinary things lie at the heart of all we can ever really know about God, and about ourselves.
It will come as no surprise to most of you who have listened to me teach and preach over the years that I found someone who once said all this better than I ever will. It will be even less of a surprise that the person was Frederick Buechner. The dear man just said it all so well:
- It is well [he says] to keep our eyes on the central fact that the Christian faith always has to do with flesh and blood, time and space, more specifically with your flesh and blood, and mine, with the time and space that day by day we are all of us involved with, stub our toes on, flounder around in trying to look as if we have good sense. In other words, the Truth that Christianity claims to be true is ultimately to be found, if it’s to be found at all, not in Rules, not in the Church, or Theology—but in our own stories.
Jesus told stories. And he told stories about ordinary things because those who came to listen to him led ordinary lives. They might not get a more theologically nuanced sermon, but they understood things like putting their boats out into the water and casting their nets, hoping to catch fish. They knew that their vineyards mattered because without them there would be no wine, so if Jesus compared something to a vineyard, they knew it was important.
Talking to his listeners in terms of things they understand on some level gives them “ears to hear.” As we just heard Jesus himself explain in our opening reading:
- “That’s why I tell stories: to create readiness, to nudge the people toward a welcome awakening. In their present state they can stare till doomsday and not see it, listen till they’re blue in the face and still not get it.”
It’s a human trait to hear what we want to hear, whether that’s what is actually spoken or not. So as we go through the next few weeks and hear some stories, some parables, let us focus our listening to hear what is actually being said.
Let’s give Buechner one final word here for today:
- It’s important, therefore, to keep in constant touch with what is going on in your own life’s story and to pay close attention to what is going on in the stories of others’ lives. If God is present anywhere, it is in those stories that God is present.
God speaks to us through our lives – through tired muscles and hot sun on our skin; through the rain that falls on the just and unjust alike; through care of the earth we live in. Through the nurture a woman puts into the bread she bakes for her family or the solicitude given when a man sees, not a hated neighbor, but a soul or body in need – and helps him.
So let us listen, with care, to what is being said when Jesus tells his stories, because those stories are all about us.
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