Why do you speak to the crowd in parables?
This is a reasonable question. Why not be more straightforward about his message and use language which left no room for ambiguity? Why leave open the possibility that he will not be understood or that he will be understood wrongly? Why specifically conceal the meaning beneath the surface?
Because knowledge of the mysteries of the Kingdom of heaven
has been granted to you, but to them it has not been granted.
The parables were not barriers to learning from Jesus for his disciples. They possessed the one thing necessary, they key that was able to unlock all of the parables: Jesus himself. Because they had him, his teachings would be "more" which was given to them to make them grow rich. But trying to interpret their parables without the key would leave one frustrated. One like that may have heard, but he did not understand. He may have looked but he did not truly see. Because his hearts remained closed to Jesus even these experiences of his teaching and of his miracles would not make any difference for them. Rather, they were the little they had that would be taken away.
Gross is the heart of this people
Our response to the parables, our ability to understand them, is predicated on our response to Christ. We might imagine the parables as mysteries to be solved that would then give us confidence or compelling reasons to follow Jesus. But the parables are not like this. They are the treasures of the Kingdom given to those who are already in relationship with the King. This was the case for his disciples. First he called, then they came to him, and the parables and other teaching came after. Christianity was not to be conversion to a teaching so much as conversion to a person.
they will hardly hear with their ears,
they have closed their eyes,
lest they see with their eyes
and hear with their ears
and understand with their hearts and be converted
and I heal them.
Jesus proclaimed the parables to all because he desired his riches to be available to all. But he would not force anyone to receive them. Hence the mode of communication was not one which was filled with unanswerable knockdown arguments. It was something which hard hearts could quickly and conveniently set aside. 'Aren't the parables too simple, too mundane, to really matter?' they may have asked. 'The meaning of these is obvious and not that big of a deal' they may have asserted. To the degree that we only penetrate the letter of these parables and not the Spirit we might be tempted to feel the same way. The parables leave our free will entirely intact. They do not overwhelm us. They allow a fearful freedom of response.
The parables of Jesus spring from him as from the fountain of life, the deep well of living waters. May we receive them as the treasure they are meant to be, and not forsake them in favor of other options. However those options gleam on the surface they inevitably fail to satisfy.
Two evils have my people done:
they have forsaken me, the source of living waters;
They have dug themselves cisterns,
broken cisterns, that hold no water.
Are we grateful that Jesus has given us access to living water, to the fountain of life, to the light which gives light to all we see and experience? Do we even realize it? The disciples were thus privileged, but Jesus still had to call their attention to the truth of it.
But blessed are your eyes, because they see,
and your ears, because they hear.
Amen, I say to you, many prophets and righteous people
longed to see what you see but did not see it,
and to hear what you hear but did not hear it.
In Jesus we receive what all of humanity, Jews and Gentiles both, longed for at the deepest level of their being. Yet we scarcely recognize it. We often prefer the cisterns of the world, empty though they are, to the true living water found in Christ, veiled in the simplicity of his teaching, but available for hearts that will open themselves to him. Let our hearts and those of the whole world be converted, that he may heal us.
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