A Sermon preached on 30 July 2023 (Pentecost IX) at St. Augustine’s, WI
Genesis 29:15-28 Romans 8:26-39, Matthew 13:31-33, 44-52
Jesus is putting a lot of parables before us today, 6 in total in just a few short paragraphs! This is a teaching technique he uses a lot, and there are over 30 parables of Jesus recorded in the Gospels. What are parables for and how should we interpret them? Traditionally, they were seen as allegories, which the dictionary (OED) defines as “a story …. that can be interpreted to reveal a hidden meaning, typically a moral or political one.” Each word or term stood for an idea and the parable had to be de-coded term by term. The interpretations we find within scripture, which we think were added when the Gospels were written down, tend to be allegorical, just like the rather truncated explanation of the dragnet parable that we heard today.
St. Augustine (of Hippo) famously interpreted the parable of the Good Samaritan allegorically, and in great detail: The man who went down from Jerusalem (= the heavenly city of peace) was Adam, Jericho was the moon and signified our mortality, the thieves were the devil and his angels, and when the man was beaten, he was persuaded to sin and when stripped, it was his immortality that was being taken away. And so, it goes on …. And does not sound to me anything like Jesus was thinking!
C.H. Dodd, a Welsh New Testament scholar wrote a very influential book about the parables in 1935: “The Parables of the Kingdom.” He defined a parable as “a metaphor or simile drawn from nature or common life, arresting its hearer by its vividness or strangeness, and leaving the mind in sufficient doubt about its precise application to tease it into active thought.” Paula Gooder, in her more recent (2020) book[1] makes a similar point: “They begin with the known but point us to the unknown. They challenge us to think and think again …. All in all, parables are hard work. They require us continually to ask questions.”
I think that’s what makes them both attractive and challenging. We are not presented with a strict teaching to do this or not do that, but with stories in day-to-day settings: families, farming, fishing, trade, households, weddings, feasts. They are stories that we are invited to enter into. They are offered to help us not only understand something, but also live into it: What is the kingdom of heaven like? Who is my neighbour? Who is a sinner? Who is God’s messenger? They often have an element of the unexpected and they almost always provoke questions.
All of today’s parables are about the kingdom of heaven or the reign of God. What is it like? It is like a mustard seed, yeast, buried treasure, a pearl, a dragnet, and those who speak of it are like the master of a household. But is it the seed or the fully grown tree that is like the kingdom? Is it the yeast or the leavened flour? Is it the net or the varied catch? And the kingdom the parables are referring to, is it already here, or still coming, or in the future? To which my answer is simply, yes! God is not either / or. God is one and three. God is unknowable and yet fully revealed in Jesus Christ. Jesus is fully human and divine. All of the interpretations are possible, and more, and which one we choose will depend on our context, which is very different to that of Jesus’s first listeners or the early church that wrote them down.
The first two parables, about the mustard seed and the yeast, form a pair. Both are about something very small that becomes something huge. The end result is a tree that offers shelter and protection for all the birds of the air and leavened flour to make enough bread for 100 people! But both the mustard seed and the yeast also have negative connotations. The mustard plant is a weed that grows quickly and spreads, it is very invasive, and not something that you would usually sow in your garden. And while yeast or leaven was needed in baking, it was not seen uncritically. Some bread had to be allowed to rot to make leaven. And when Jesus wants to warn his disciples, he compares his enemies to yeast: “Watch out—beware of the yeast of the Pharisees and the yeast of Herod.” (Mark 8:15)
All of these meanings can be relevant. When Jesus began teaching, his motley crowd will have been seen as suspicious, certainly unwanted by the authorities, often ignoring the boundaries of ritual cleanliness, and consorting with the outcasts, the rejected, and the unloved. In his 1954 book, “The Parables of Jesus,” German theologian Joachim Jeremias wrote: “Could Jesus’ wretched band, comprising so many disreputable characters, be the wedding guests of God’s redeemed community”? The two parables could almost be an illustration of Paul’s teaching (Romans 8), that, “We know that all things work together for good for those who love God, who are called according to his purpose.”
For the early church, the idea of something as small and insignificant as they felt themselves to be, growing into something so large would have been very reassuring. And for us? As we struggle with decline and worry about whether our message of love is getting across, the comparison of the kingdom of heaven to an invasive plant that is constantly and inevitably growing and spreading or to yeast that is contagious, almost infectious can also be a source of reassurance. I think the idea that the kingdom and the church that teaches it will not always be welcome or acceptable is also valuable! The Church’s opposition to the recent “Illegal Migration Bill” in the UK is a good example.
The next two parables, the treasure and pearl, also pair off. In both, something wonderful is hidden or not immediately recognised. The discovery is a surprise, finding them causes great joy and fills the hearts of the finders with gladness. The treasure and pearl are of such inestimable worth, that both the one who finds the field, and the merchant sell everything they have to buy them. Many of those following Jesus will have recognised themselves in this parable. They had given up everything, their jobs, their wealth, their place in society to follow him, seeing in Jesus something so good, noble, precious and beautiful (all meanings of the word kalos) that they could not do otherwise. Have we lost that excitement? What would make you sell all you have? Is your, my vision of the kingdom of heaven, of God’s reign attractive and joyful enough?
The parable of the net – a dragnet – is similar to the parable of the wheat and tares that we heard, and that Linda already talked about, last week. It is the only parable about fishing. Matthew’s own interpretation, and that of many commentators, is that it is an allegory of the Last Judgement, with the focus on the sorting. I’m not sure. Four of Jesus’ disciples were fishermen and will remember Jesus calling them to fishers of people. They will have understood that when fishing with dragnet you cannot expect to select your fish. Apparently, there were 24 different kinds of fish in Lake Galilee, and not all were kosher. The word for every kind, genos, also means class, kind, race or kin. It is also a call, when fishing for people, to cast the net widely and reminds us of the parable of the great banquet: When those who were invited, do not come, the king sends his servants out into the streets where they “gathered all whom they found, both good and bad; so the wedding hall was filled with guests.” (Matthew 22:10) Dodd writes: “The mission of Jesus and His disciples involves an undiscriminating appeal to men of every class and type.” (Dodd’s ideas are not dated, but his language is!).
There is no premature separation. Often – as Jesus’ followers experienced – the process of selection happened during Jesus’ ministry, when some turned away because the demands were too strong. And we can leave the final judgment to the judge.
The final parable is about those who document and interpret parables, and other scripture! The scribe – the scholar - trained for the kingdom of heaven brings out of their treasure – their knowledge, their witness, their records – both old and new. Jesus was probably referring to his own teaching, which combined the old: Hebrew scripture and Jewish tradition, with the new: His vision of the kingdom, his idea of a life in relationship with God and one another.
For us that also means combining the old: Scripture, now including Jesus’ teaching and other traditional interpretations, with the new: new understanding and new contexts. We might even need new parables – although most of the modern ones I looked at online were pretty awful. Jesus had a unique talent!
Just this last week I came across an article about the Taizé community appointing a new prior, Brother Matthew an Anglican from Yorkshire. He will only be the third prior since Taizé was founded by brother Roger, a Swiss Protestant, and then lead by Brother Alois, a German Roman Catholic. In his statement, Brother Alois said that he had “complete confidence” that the new prior would ensure Taizé remained “a little parable of communion” according to “the intuition of its founder.”
Not only stories, but real communities and lives can be parables! What is the kingdom of heaven like? It is like the church that opens its doors in welcome and offers shelter and protection to the needy, to the outcast, to the refugee. It is like the people who give generously out of their own abundance. It is like the congregation, so filled with the Spirit that their own joy and wonder about God and God’s Son is contagious. The kingdom of heaven is extravagant, unexpected, contagious, uncomfortable, surprising, joyful, inclusive, innovative …. Can we be like the kingdom, so that others see the kingdom in us?
Amen
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