Wednesday, September 4, 2024: So they might see with their eyes, hear with their ears, understand with their hearts and turn, and I would heal them.’
Jesus used parables to teach important lessons in a way that was simple and easy to understand. He explained complex ideas about God's kingdom by telling simple stories taken from everyday life. The people he talked to were mostly illiterate farmers or fisherfolk. Their lives were hard and they had earned their calluses and the wisdom of working with their hands in the hot sun or on a smelly wooden boat since childhood.
How eagerly they listened to someone who spoke their language and who didn't talk down to them. Stories they could relate to - images and experiences they knew so well, taken right out of their experience. Jesus was someone who met the people where they lived, who understood their struggles and who appreciated and loved their humanity. What a gift to hear from a teacher who cared.
The made these lessons relatable and memorable for everyone, from farmers to fishermen, so they could grasp the deeper meanings without getting confused by complicated language.
2,000 years after Jesus we continue to love His parables. What makes them even more exciting is that we can imagine members of his audiences looking at each other with knowing expressions, winking and laughing when they "get" the meaning of his stories. The parables of Jesus are designed to open eyes and hearts so that grace and the healing power of love transforms sadness to joy.
So they might see with their eyes,
hear with their ears,
understand with their hearts
and turn, and I would heal them.’
At Emmaus we have celebrated the parables -- among them The Prodigal Son and the God Samaritan -- two of our favorites. Here's another grouping of parables taken from the lives of farmers and farm workers of the time:
The Parable of the Sower
That same day Jesus went out of the house and sat by the lake. Such large crowds gathered around him that he got into a boat and sat in it, while all the people stood on the shore.
Then he told them many things in parables, saying:
“A farmer went out to sow his seed. As he was scattering the seed, some fell along the path, and the birds came and ate it up. Some fell on rocky places, where it did not have much soil. It sprang up quickly, because the soil was shallow. But when the sun came up, the plants were scorched, and they withered because they had no root.
Other seed fell among thorns, which grew up and choked the plants. Still other seed fell on good soil, where it produced a crop—a hundred, sixty or thirty times what was sown.
The disciples came to him and asked, “Why do you speak to the people in parables?”
Jesus replied, “Because the knowledge of the secrets of the kingdom of heaven has been given to you, but not to them. Whoever has, will be given more, and they will have an abundance. Whoever does 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.
So they might see with their eyes,
hear with their ears,
understand with their hearts
and turn, and I would heal them.’
But blessed are your eyes because they see, and your ears because they hear.
For truly I tell 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.
We come from a place of agricultural wealth. We know fruitfulness. Vines crisscross Sonoma County. We are proud of our apples, plums, hops, and organic community gardens. It's hard work. We understand that these parables speak to us directly and to everyone because at their root is a story of healing and transformation.
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