Tuesday, May 16, 2017

Why Does God Speak in Parables? -sermon


Why Does God Speak In Parables?
Rev. Alison Longstaff, July 19, 2015
Bath Church of the New Jerusalem
Isaiah 6:6-10; Matthew 13:10-15; Sacred Scripture 97

You will indeed listen, but never understand, and you will indeed look, but never perceive.  For this people’s heart has grown dull, and their ears are hard of hearing, and they have shut their eyes; so that they might not look with their eyes, and listen with their ears, and understand with their heart and turn—and I would heal them.’ (Matthew 13:10-15 NRS)

At first glance, today’s Bible passages imply that God stops some people from understanding the Word. They imply that those who do somehow understand the inner message within the Word are given to understand and receive more and more wisdom, while those who don’t understand not only miss out on the inner meaning, but will be stripped of what understanding they do have.  Jesus says: “The reason I speak to them in parables is so that ‘seeing they do not perceive, and hearing they do not listen, nor do they understand.’  He then quotes a passage from Isaiah to emphasize his point.  In it the wording is even more harsh:

Go and say to this people: “Keep listening, but do not comprehend; keep looking, but do not understand.” Make the mind of this people dull, and stop their ears, and shut their eyes, so that they may not look with their eyes, and listen with their ears, and comprehend with their minds, and turn and be healed.  (Isaiah 6:9-10)

Today’s passages say that if the people understood, they would turn and be healed. Does this mean that God prevents some people from hearing and seeing?

These passages imply that to “be healed,” we must first manage to figure out the secret inner message to the “parables” and then we get the “abundance.”  But what if I’m not smart enough?  If my spiritual IQ is less than stellar, am I doomed to be stripped of my little rather than granted abundance?  Am I doomed to miss out on the “healing?”  Why would God prevent some of us from seeing and hearing the truths of the Word?

This picture of God isn’t fitting with a God who loved us so much that He came to earth and suffered and died for our eternal salvation.  So let’s look in deeper.

It always helps to look at the context of a saying.  The setting for our main quote is the gospel of Matthew.  Matthew begins with the promise of “God with us” (1:23) and ends with “I am with you always.” (28:20) The middle of Matthew is chock full of parables, one after another, many of them about the kingdom of heaven as something to be sought.  So this gospel’s overarching message is “God is with us,” and with us always, as well as the strong implication that we must seek the kingdom of heaven if we want to find it.  We need to want the kingdom of heaven to find it.  Today’s story is found within this bigger message: “God desires to be with us forever, but there is a process involved for us to achieve this.”

Matthew thirteen in particular opens with, “That same day Jesus went out of the house and sat beside the sea.  Such great crowds gathered around him that he got into a boat and sat there, while the whole crowd stood on the beach.” (1-2)

There is a wealth of meaning in these few lines. When it says Jesus went out of the house and entered a boat, it is preparing us for a paradigm shift. A boat is a structure that enables us to maneuver safely over great depths of water, to stay dry, to access the resources of the deep without drowning, and (especially in the days before cars and trains and planes) to travel long distances more quickly and efficiently than we could over land.

Emanuel Swedenborg tells us that boats have relation to the way our mind is structured by ideas.  Jesus sat in the boat to teach, implying a bending down or accommodation of His understanding to ours.  In this case, Jesus is established in His own Divine understanding of the Word, and then bending Himself in order to accommodate His understanding to our limited and mortal minds.

The crowd is standing on the beach. They have followed Jesus as far as they can, and cannot follow him farther.  They have hit a barrier—the sea.  They stand on the beach, at the very edge of the sea—where the land ends and past which these mortals could not travel and survive very long without specialized equipment and/or extensive swimming lessons.

Swedenborg tells us that water means knowledge, and that seas represent a large body of knowledge (a gathering together of many waters). This means that a sea illustrates a vast collection of knowledge available in one great mass; in this setting, it represents revelation.  We need Divine aid in navigating revelation effectively and safely.  We might find revelation (the sea) beautifully supportive or wildly threatening, full of bounty or ready to tear our life apart, all depending on our equipment, our training, and especially the weather.

This story in Matthew is a particular discussion of how the Divine message within revelation finds accommodation to our mortal condition.  We stand on the shore, longing to hear it.  A few of us might have boats too, but if we are honest, Jesus doesn’t even need a boat. He can walk on water.  Even in our most optimistic and beautifully confident moments of faith (Peter), we can imitate the ability to walk on water only temporarily.  Our understanding is too limited—our comprehension too hopelessly mortal—and we are quickly swamped. We sink too easily. Only Jesus has the ability to navigate the depths without assistance—He is the Word incarnate.  His being in a boat is an accommodation to our human condition, because the crowd couldn’t have handled it if he had simply walked out and sat on the water.

As for us, “standing on the shore” at least says that we are on our feet; we are ready to move.  We have come as close as we can.  In this verse it says “beach,” which gives us the image of small rocks or sand beneath our feet.  Water is knowledge that is so abstract that it takes special mental constructs to navigate.  Sand is also knowledge, but it is more “grounded” or solid than water. Anybody can access “sand” knowledge and “walk” on it.  It is relatively solid, though it shifts and blows. It is less solid than rock, but solid enough for many purposes. It has been ground down by wind and water action.  However, notice that it is about as loose and shifting as a substance can be “under our standing” before we need special equipment.

In the story, Jesus moves from solid ground to water, and we follow as far as we can.  From the vast sea of wisdom, God bends himself to teach us.

Matthew thirteen is packed with parables.  Indeed, almost right away in thirteen do we find the disciples asking, “Why do you speak to them in parables?” indicating that this chapter may address that very question. The word parable comes to us from the Greek word “paraballo,” meaning “to throw alongside” or “to compare.”  A parable by definition then, holds a parallel or symbolic meaning.  It reveals more than our first glance might assume. The listener is asked to make a mental leap in order to follow the deeper line of thought.  A parable invites us to stretch our minds, to think about things in a new way: a parable is a kind of puzzle that teases our minds into new insight.  It can be seen at face value, or interpreted for a deeper meaning.

At face value, today’s passage seems to say that God speaks in parables to prevent some of us from “hearing and seeing”.  Why on earth would the Word say this, and why would Jesus emphasize it?  We find a possible answer in Swedenborg’s work The Divine Providence: The Lord provides that no one should interiorly acknowledge truths and then afterwards depart from them and make them profane. (231:9)

According to Swedenborg, this strange story is internally about how the Lord protects us from profaning the Word. It is imperative that when we receive Divine truth it is with respect and spiritual maturity, because without respect and spiritual maturity we can do great harm to ourselves and each other.  And so the Lord speaks to us in parables.  We are kept from understanding deeper truths until we are spiritually ready.

Swedenborg says in The Doctrine of the Sacred Scripture number 97:

The literal meaning of the Word is a guard for the genuine truths lying within it. It may be turned this way and that, and interpreted to one’s own understanding, without its interior content being injured or violated. It does no harm that the meaning of the letter of the Word is understood differently by different persons: but harm results when Divine truths, lying concealed within, are twisted toward evil, for in this way violence is inflicted on the Word. To prevent this, the sense of the letter is a guard; and it acts as a guard with those who are in false thinking from their religion.

Or as translator Michael David words The Doctrine of the Sacred Scripture number 26:

“So, to prevent anyone from coming upon the spiritual meaning of the Word, and screwing up what is really true there, the Lord has posted security guards, who are meant by the ‘cherubim’ mentioned in the Word.”  (SS David 2004 26:2)

The Word exists among a humanity full of mixtures of goodness and not-so-goodness.  Some people (and some of our own inner states) are more arrogant and controlling, and some are gentler and seeking mutual well-being.  Churches also come in all sorts of mixtures of good intentions and a desire to control, ignorance or deep scholarship, sometimes doing good and sometimes doing harm. The innocent parts of us that are open to learning are represented by the sheep, the lost sheep, and the gentiles in the Word as well as by the disciples.  Those who wish to use the Bible to control others and control the church are represented by the “Pharisees.”  It is important to remember that the Pharisees aren’t so much a group “out there,” but a part of your inner world and mine.  They represent a phase or mind-set when we are sure we know what is right, and are putting our energies and attention into religious rules and enforcement.  In this mindset, we have fallen away from the “Spirit” of revelation and sunk into legalism.  We have made the Letter of the Word the Law.

When we are needing to use the Word to control other people (“Pharisees”), our eyes are blinded and our ears stopped up. We are not open to the spirit. We don’t even recognize it when it is staring us in the face. The survival of this mindset depends on silencing the voice of the spirit. This mindset is also represented by Herod who tried to slay the infant Jesus.  It is imperative that the Lord protects and prevents that part of our inner nature from accessing the tender inner truths of the Word until we are spiritually ready to treat them with respect. God hides away this precious inner meaning and keeps it (and us) safe. In fact, in his work The Divine Providence, Swedenborg tells us:  “We are not granted inner access to the truths of faith nor the goodness of mutual love except so far as we can be kept in them with integrity right on to the end of life.” (DP Longstaff 2005 21)

And so it is not so much that the Lord prevents us from seeing, but our own spiritual immaturity closes our hearts and eyes.  Revelation is presented to us in parables for our own protection.  The image of child-locks on kitchen cupboards comes to mind.  It is not good for us to have access to the knives, electrical appliances, or cleaning detergents until we are mature enough to use them responsibly.  Isaiah 6:9-10 and Matthew 10-15 can be read as, “I have put locks on the cupboards.  Those of you who reach sufficient maturity will be allowed access to the things inside.  When you are ready, these tools will add tremendously to your ability to work and serve.  If you are not ready, I will need to take away any of those things if you get a hold of them, for your own protection.”  For me, this reading of today’s story fits with the God that is being revealed in the Word—a God that comes as close as possible to those who are ready to receive, and a God who guides our spiritual advancement carefully, only presenting things as we are ready to handle them. 

Salvation is not a one-time event but a series of lifelong choices. You and I are on a path of spiritual evolution. And until we are ready for deeper concepts, we are not ready.  God guides and protects each one of us, every step of the way.

For when we are ready, the Word holds hidden vast stores of treasures in great abundance. But we need to desire this treasure, like the widow of the parable sweeping to find the coin or the man selling all he has for the field with the buried treasure.  Our part is to come to the shore—as close as we can—and stand eager to receive.  If we come with reverence and humility, and the awareness of the deep Divinity of the inner message, the Word sits ready to teach.

But if we see the Word as a tool for controlling the lives of others, it will soon become a hard and lifeless thing in our hands.  If we see instead that it is like dough with hidden leaven, prepared for our own daily bread, we will handle it with care so that the leaven can do its work.  The God revealed in the Word longs for lasting growth and strong roots in his disciples.  Such a sower exercises great patience, for strong growth takes time, even as the raising of bread dough must not be rushed.

With its appearance of impatience and harshness, perhaps Matthew 13:10-15 actually hides words of great gentleness and patience.  God has plans for our well-being and not for harm.

We do not need to worry and be afraid.  We simply need to grow in our hearts and soften our need to control, and seek diligently for readiness and wisdom.  God does all the rest.

Therefore the Lord waits to be gracious to you; therefore he will rise up to show mercy to you. For the Lord is a God of justice; blessed are all those who wait for him. (Isaiah 30:18)

Do not be afraid.  Seek and you will find.

Amen

The Readings
Isaiah 6:6-10 (NAS)
Then one of the seraphim flew to me with a burning coal in his hand, which he had taken from the altar with tongs. He touched my mouth with it and said, “Behold, this has touched your lips; and your iniquity is taken away and your sin is forgiven.”
Then I heard the voice of the Lord, saying, “Whom shall I send, and who will go for Us?” Then I said, “Here am I. Send me!” 
He said, “Go, and tell this people: ‘Keep on listening, but do not perceive; Keep on looking, but do not understand.’ “Render the hearts of this people insensitive, Their ears dull, And their eyes dim, Otherwise they might see with their eyes, Hear with their ears, Understand with their hearts, And return and be healed.”

Matthew 13: 10-15 (TNIV)
The disciples came to him and asked, “Why do you speak to the people in parables?” 
He replied, “The knowledge of the secrets of the kingdom of heaven has been given to you, but not to them. Those who have will be given more, and they will have an abundance. As for those who do not have, even what they have will be taken from them. This is why I speak to them in parables: “Though seeing, they do not see; though hearing, they do not hear or understand. In them is fulfilled the prophecy of Isaiah: “‘You will be ever hearing but never understanding; you will be ever seeing but never perceiving. For this people’s heart has become calloused; they hardly hear with their ears, and they have closed their eyes. Otherwise they might see with their eyes, hear with their ears, understand with their hearts and turn, and I would heal them.’

SS 97
The literal meaning of the Word is a guard for the genuine truths lying within it. It may be turned this way and that, and interpreted to one’s own understanding, without its interior content being injured or violated. It does no harm that the meaning of the letter of the Word is understood differently by different persons: but harm results when Divine truths, lying concealed within, are twisted toward evil, for in this way violence is inflicted on the Word. To prevent this, the sense of the letter is a guard; and it acts as a guard with those who are in false thinking from their religion.

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