Mark 4:26-29
Have you ever told a joke to
someone from a different culture only to find that they simply did not
understand your humour? Or someone from a different culture tells you a joke
and you smile politely and wonder why they and their friends are laughing so
hard? Jokes, idioms, proverbs, and stories all have one thing in common…they
are culture specific and can therefore only truly be understood within the
interpretive principles of that culture. This is also true of the Scriptures. Although
the same Holy Spirit inspired every human author, each one had his own specific
style of writing based on his own life experiences at that time.
This also applies to the
interpretation of parables. They are culturally sensitive. Robert Stein alerts
us to the need for grounded application of the parables:
“Only by attempting to understand
the parables in their original Sitz im
Leben[1]
shall we be able to free ourselves from the chains of modern-day fads or
trends, whether they be liberalism’s general moral truth or existentialism’s
language event. The greatest reverence we can give to the parables of Jesus is
not to treat them as literary accounts that are ends in themselves, but rather
to treat them as the parables of Jesus,
i.e., as parables Jesus taught and which are filled with His meaning and
insight! What He means by His parables today cannot be treated apart from the
question of what He meant by them in the first Sitz im Leben.”[2]
Then also, in many ways, parables
are works of art…pictures created with words. And like most works of art, they
demand a response from the listener. Kenneth Bailey defined a parable as a
story “told from life that has one or more referents in reality which press the
listener to make a single response which is informed by a cluster of
interrelated theological themes.”[3]
Generally, scholars would agree that the most common if not the overriding or
primary referent in the parables of Jesus is the Kingdom of God. This is the
case with the parable before us.
The introductory formula “The
Kingdom of God is like…” confirms this. In His parables, Jesus used every day
objects probably chosen to fit the present audience at the time. The agrarian setting
in this set of parables may reflect a majority rural or working class community.
The central truth of this parable seems to be that the growth of the kingdom
cannot be defined or measured through finite human reasoning. Just as the
farmer sows his seed without fully comprehending the complexities of biological
realities that bring about germination and growth and fruit, and just as he
goes about his business in a normal manner, waking and working and sleeping, following
the pattern and cycle of every day life, so the Kingdom of God comes about in a
very ordinary fashion…so ordinary that many would miss it altogether.
As with most of the parables,
there is a further, deeper meaning that needs to be spiritually discerned. In
Jesus’ day, most of His hearers would have been fairly familiar with the
Scriptures and most would have been able to connect subtle Old Testament references
in Jesus’ teaching to the relevant passage (or passages as is the case with
conflated texts) and its context if they were willing to listen carefully.
In this parable, the connection
comes in the final sentence. “And as soon as the grain is ready, the farmer
comes and harvests it with a sickle, for the harvest time has come.” This is an
indirect quotation from the book of the prophet Joel 3:13, “Swing the sickle,
for the harvest is ripe.” The context in Joel is one of both judgement and
restoration…judgement of the pagan nations and the restoration of Israel. This
would have been a very welcome message for Jesus’ contemporaries, but the
warning in the parable is that while God’s promise would indeed be fulfilled,
it would not necessarily happen as they expected. Like the seed in the ground
growing out of sight, so God’s Kingdom would grow from small beginnings in the
backwater towns of Galilee to produce abundant fruit at the appointed season of
harvest.
How a seed germinates and grows
is unknown to many even in this day of genetic modification and artificial
growth stimulants. But the point of the parable is that the Kingdom of God
grows in the most ordinary circumstances even though it cannot be explained or
predicted or manipulated. And the Kingdom will continue to grow until the glory
of the Lord fills the earth as completely as the waters cover the sea. The
citizens of the Kingdom simply have to remain faithful in what they are called
to do…sow the seeds.
[2] An
Introduction to the Parables of Jesus, Robert H. Stein, Westminster, Philadelphia,
PA, 1981, 69.
[3] Poet & Peasant and Through Peasant Eyes: A Literary-Cultural
Approach to the Parables in Luke, Kenneth E. Bailey, Eerdmans, Grand Rapids,
MI, 1983, 41.
No comments:
Post a Comment