His disciples ask him, "Why speak in parables?"
Why not be more direct? Why don't you just say it bluntly and plainly?
Jesus quotes the prophet Isaiah in response to the question.
His answer is two-fold. The first is this: The Kingdom is more than a concept or principle. It is more than knowledge. Knowledge
sometimes does not translate into action.
An example would be of
someone who knows the Scripture backwards and forwards but does not
translate that knowledge into how they treat their family, friends and
neighbors. Knowledge does not guarantee ethical actions.
There
is an old joke about a butcher who claimed to be a Christian. He quoted
the Bible for everything he did. One day a new neighbor came into the
butcher shop and asked for a chicken. The butcher put the bird on the
scale and pressed the scale with his thumb, elevating the weight. The
customer paid the inflated price and left. A co-worker who had observed
asked, "So what is the scripture that justifies that?" To which the
butcher replied, "They were a stranger and I took them in!"
Did you
ever know someone who was religious but didn't know the first thing
about the Kingdom?
But, his answer has another implication:
All of us are victims of the dulled heart. We lose our sense of the
awe and wonder of God's presence and action in our lives. We take too
much for granted and do not receive our blessings joyfully. In fact, we
begin to see with eyes that only see the surface and not the beneath
and beyond. We begin to hear only words and not the underlying
messages. Are we not all guilty?
Even if your life is lived at
the highest ethical standard in the world, if you have lost your
ability to sense the wonder of God's presence you have also lost the
deepest meaning of life.
I believe it was Thomas Carlyle who said, "The man who ceases to wonder is like spectacles behind which there are no eyes."
One
of the greatest hopes of the Christmas Season is that we can still
recover our sense of wonder. There is always that moment of Angels'
song, a Star, a Savior in a manger that gives us the opportunity to
sense the transcendent Presence. Hearts dulled, eyes blind, ears deaf
reawaken to the good news of Emmanuel, God with us.
It's not a
Christmas hymn but it could be. Charles Wesley wrote: "Love divine, all
loves excelling, joy of heaven, to earth come down; fix in us thy
humble dwelling; all thy faithful mercies crown! ...changed from glory
into glory, till in heaven we take our place, till we cast our crowns
before thee, lost in wonder, love and praise."
My Advent prayer for us all is for lively hearts, wide open eyes, and intently listening ears.
Maybe then we can hear the Angels song... the song of the Kingdom.
-- Rev. Richard Lancaster
