Mark 4:33-34
With many such parables he spoke the word to them, as they were able to hear it; he did not speak to them except in parables, but he explained everything in private to his disciples.
We’ve already talked about parables, describing them as truth delivered “sideways,” or indirectly. They are typically composed of clear, concrete images that are simultaneously plain and simple enough to make it difficult to misunderstand them and yet also surprising or even scandalous enough that you have to keep thinking about it before you can begin to buy it. Like a mustard plant gone wild used to describe something like the kingdom of God, or a farmer who wastes so much seed as to drive most farmers out of business being used to represent God.
Parables like these are almost like riddles whose too-obvious-to-be-true meaning has such a kick to it that it can’t be true…unless maybe it is. This is the essence of parables, what Eugene Peterson once described as “narrative time bombs.”
Okay, that’s the parable. And what’s amazing to me in these couple of verses is that Mark narrates that Jesus “did not speak to them except in parables.” Yes, he explains things to his disciples later – thank goodness – but his refusal to use any other kind of speech except parables is what grabs my attention here.
Why? Why only parables? Why this kind of enticing, intriguing, confounding, “slow” (in that you can’t hold onto it right away), sideways kind of speech? I can only think of one reason: the kingdom of God is not what Jesus’ audience expected it to be.
At this point we could start talking about how many first-century Jews were looking for a king like David and so had a hard time accepting Jesus’ very different embodiment of messiah. That’d be fair. And we could anticipate Mark’s use of the Suffering Servant imagery from Isaiah that turns typical ideas of kingship and messiah on its head, and that’d be fair, and probably helpful, as well.
We’ll get to that. But to move there too quickly is to miss the equally important point: the kingdom isn’t what we expect, either. It’s just not. And if we expect that it is, we’ll treat Jesus’ parables like some kind of cute metaphors or fables and remain untouched and unchanged.
I had a friend in college who was pretty conservative theologically. (Actually, I had a lot of friends like that.) Once he was explaining to me why he was convinced the Bible was inerrant – that is, factually accurate in all things, including history and science. He said that if there were two things you’d expect from an all-knowing, all-loving, all-powerful God, it’d be 1) there would be no evil in God’s creation and 2) if this God were to reveal himself (and it was definitely a “he” with Mike), that self-revelation would be perfect. “The first didn’t happen,” he said, “so you know the second has to be true.”
On one level, this is a logical argument, but it’s a logic based on being able to predict God. One might just as easily have concluded, “Well, I sure got the first one wrong, so what makes me so sure about the second?” And that’s the thing – every time we try to predict what God will do based on our own logic or experience, we can be pretty sure we’ll be off. And the more invested we are in these predictions, the more upset we’ll be, perhaps to the point of rejecting God’s unexpected, sideways truths.
And so Jesus doesn’t tell it straight because we can’t handle it straight, instead he delivers his truth sideways, indirectly, on a slant, if you will, so that we can take time and puzzle and muse and wonder and in this way get used to the idea that when it comes to predicting, even imagining, the wildly unpredictable and shockingly merciful God, our picture of God is usually too small. And into our collections of too-small pictures of God, Jesus lobs these narrative time bombs.
But if you think this is something, just wait. By the end of the story, Jesus will not just speak in parables to disrupt the system, he will become the parable, the ultimate parable, that throws just about everything out of whack.
Prayer: Dear God, thank you for not giving up on your people then or now, for taking the slow road, for speaking in parables that we might, in time, come to learn, or at least embrace, your truth. In Jesus’ name, Amen.
You probably know this Emily Dickinson poem, but just in case you don’t, here it is:
Tell all the Truth but tell it slant —
Success in Circuit lies
Too bright for our infirm Delight
The Truth’s superb surprise
As Lightning to the Children eased
With explanation kind
The Truth must dazzle gradually
Or every man be blind —
I knew the line, but couldn’t remember where it came from. Thanks so much for sharing this poem and filling me in, Amy!
Thank you so much for this. It’s good to be remeinded that Jesus is not always what we think he is. He’s greater and if we don’t watch up, we will be fooled by our own thoughts. When we think we have got it, look again, dig deeper, and see if there isn’t one more layer underneith. I loved your word “he will become the parable”. Good point, that will now become my prayer when I read a parable.