In a lot of churches, this will be the reading for the day, from Mark 4:
26 He also said, “The kingdom of God is as if someone would scatter seed on the ground 27 and would sleep and rise night and day, and the seed would sprout and grow, he does not know how. 28 The earth produces of itself first the stalk, then the head, then the full grain in the head. 29 But when the grain is ripe, at once he goes in with his sickle because the harvest has come.”
30 He also said, “With what can we compare the kingdom of God, or what parable will we use for it? 31 It is like a mustard seed, which, when sown upon the ground, is the smallest of all the seeds on earth, 32 yet when it is sown it grows up and becomes the greatest of all shrubs and puts forth large branches, so that the birds of the air can make nests in its shade.”
33 With many such parables he spoke the word to them as they were able to hear it; 34 he did not speak to them except in parables, but he explained everything in private to his disciples.
There is a lot going on there, and basically three things a preacher could talk about: the parable of the sower, the parable of the mustard seed, and the explanation of parables. It's that last one that preachers least often address.
The explanation for the use of parables as a teaching tool is that it allowed Jesus to speak the word to his audiences "as they were able to hear it." Of course, that doesn't really explain the technique, but I think there are at least two important things at work here.
First, parables allowed Jesus to set moral lessons in the kinds of experiences that everyday people had at that time. Getting water from a well, sowing seeds, paying workers (or being paid), working as a shepherd-- these are settings that people could understand. In other words, Jesus started at a point of commonality. I often think of it as drawing a circle around me and an audience, and starting there, with what we have in common.
Second, as this passage explains, Jesus usually did little to explain the parables unless goaded to do so by his apostles later. He left the people in the audience to figure it out, and that gave them agency, a role in the process. The commitment to a conclusion is much stronger when we are part of the deciders, and that is what is going on here, I think.
There is a lot to learn from how Jesus taught....
# posted by Mark Osler @ 1:00 AM
