Parables and Abundance – Mark 4

A text – Mark 4:26-34

4:26 He also said, “The kingdom of God is as if someone would scatter seed on the ground,
4:27 and would sleep and rise night and day, and the seed would sprout and grow, he does not know how.
4:28 The earth produces of itself, first the stalk, then the head, then the full grain in the head.
4:29 But when the grain is ripe, at once he goes in with his sickle, because the harvest has come.”
4:30 He also said, “With what can we compare the kingdom of God, or what parable will we use for it?
4:31 It is like a mustard seed, which, when sown upon the ground, is the smallest of all the seeds on earth;
4:32 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.”
4:33 With many such parables he spoke the word to them, as they were able to hear it;
4:34 he did not speak to them except in parables, but he explained everything in private to his disciples.

A reflection:

Jesus spoke in parables. To those of us who teach using analogies, this teaching/learning strategy makes sense. When you are trying to convey something complex, or something that people don’t think they can easily understand, you overcome that barrier by choosing something they already know very well and letting their imaginations create all the images and actions needed to describe the concept. As a teacher, you don’t know exactly what they are picturing (a corn seed, a wheat seed, a poppyseed in a dry field, a wet field, a hilly field, a flat field), but if the learner supplies the full picture, you can drop the concept into it, and understanding will be better and deeper.

I taught grammar for a long time. Since punctuation mystifies a lot of people, I used the analogy of punctuation being like road signs and warnings as we drive along. Periods are stop signs, commas are yellow blinking lights, parentheses are the road construction barrels, and dashes are the orange cones. I never knew which streets my students were picturing as we did that lesson, but often they grimaced or grinned when it hit them that, instead of being arbitrary marks writers threw into sentences, punctuation had the function of separating things and helping the reader slow down or swerve over in order to understand what was being communicated. They were learning in a personal way.

Jesus’s planter parables would have just mystified some people, but to others who could picture the planter and his work, suddenly God’s work and care for humans would have made a lot more sense. And the parables brought great surprise sometimes, because the God Jesus describes is a careful planter whose work results in abundance and not scarcity. Jesus is teaching that everyone’s powerful heavenly father is generous and deeply loving, a parent and a creator/lord who can always be trusted, unlike many people’s earthly fathers or earthly powerful landlords. God takes something small and out of it produces goodness that is very large. What a wonder Jesus described to his hearers! How Jesus’s words must have come alive for his listeners God is the source of goodness and wants abundance for the children of earth.          

A prayer:

Lord God, Thank you for loving us. Thank you for the parables of Jesus that teach us of your good will toward humans and the power of your abundance. Help us never forget that you are the source of all goodness and abundance, and that we always have more than we need. Amen.