Today, we talk about parables. And parables are vitally important to the Chirstian experience. They're vitally important to the Christian experience because of how Jesus uses them. For you see, in the experience of being a Christian and being attentive to what Jesus has to say, he spends most of his time teaching in parables.
Now, this is done for a key reason, and it's not too terribly hard to figure out. All you have to do is to look at the audience that Jesus is speaking to. In this particular circumstance, from thsi last Sunday, we had the following parable:
The Parable of the Net
47 “Once again, the kingdom of heaven is like a net that was let down into the lake and caught all kinds of fish. 48 When it was full, the fishermen pulled it up on the shore. Then they sat down and collected the good fish in baskets, but threw the bad away. 49 This is how it will be at the end of the age. The angels will come and separate the wicked from the righteous 50 and throw them into the blazing furnace, where there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth.
Parables like this are super useful for us understanding what Jesus is all about in his teachings. For his teachings are based almost exclusively on relevance.
I'll explain.
This parable was told by Jesus, obviously, but the pericope cuts off the content of who Jesus is talking to. And that's as important as anything else. Unlike the previous few parables which were told by Jesus from a boat because there were so many people around, this one was told in private, with only a few people around. Matthew 13:36 says that '[Jesus] left the crowd and went into the house. His deiciples came to him...' He left the people who were crowding around him, and went to his disciples, and it was at that moment that he decided to tell them this parable. And there's a great reason that Jesus told the parable about fish. Consider the audience.
Who in the disciples would know much about fishing? Oh, only about a third of them. Andrew, Peter, James and John were all fishermen, who had made their living before running into Jesus as fishermen, with Zebedee and family. And when Jesus was telling them this parable, he was telling this parable to men who knew what fishing was all about, who knew about good fish and bad fish, who knew about nets and boats. And lest you think that it was just the four of those men who knew about fish, we need to talk about the end of the book of John, which tells us that Simon Peter went out fishing with Thomas, Nathanael, James and John and two others. These were mostly all guys who would at bare minimum knw their way around a boat.
And this, this is what is intended by Jesus in the teaching by parables. He has in mind to make the kingdom of God, the unchanging kingdom of God, relevant to any and all who may be prepared to listen to the word contained therein. The parables told by Jesus to his closest followers is followed up by him saying : 'Every teacher of the law who has been instructed about the kingdom of heaven is like the owner of a house who brings out of his storeroom new treasures as well as old.'
The incarnation of Christ is something that cannot be overstated in terms of its importance. Because the words that echo through the ministry of Christ, and in the lives of Christians, is that he makes all things new. In making all things new, he presents the truth of the kingdom of God to his people with fresh eyes, a way of looking at the God of the universe as though for the first time. Peeling back the layers of time, peeling back all the tradition and layers of humanity that were placed there over a great deal of time, and showing it to his disciples with an enormous amount of relevance. Showing his disciples what the kingdom of God is all about perhaps for the first time, in a way they could understand it.
The story of Peter Hitchens is one that bears close examination in this capacity, because he was someone who assumed that the God of the Bible was buried under thick layers of irrelevancy, who was
This essential, core aspect to teaching through parables, is what makes the Christian faith as flexible and malleable, able to be presented to an unbelieving world without forcing it into a particular place and time. And, as usual, this all comes back to the incarnation, as everything does. Jesus was manifested not in a cartoon world, not in a stained glass window, not in a watercolour painting, but in a real world, full of real people, who told dirty jokes, who ate too much, who didn't listen to their parents, who were lazy or undisciplined, who had real jobs, who worked hard for a living and enjoyed their snacks. People exactly like today. People who need to hear the word of God anew.
But Jesus doesn't change the teachings of God when he presents it to people. He just finds a new way to explain the old eternal truths about God and his kingdom. That he calls us to repentace, that he loves us and actively seeks us out, that he wants to gather the grain, the good fish, into his good kingdom. These old eternal teachings are not sacrificed, nor are they stilted. They are kept, and refreshed.
This is our task as well. The more acquainted we are with the scriptures, the more we are familiar with the kingdom of heaven, the more we have to walk that fine tightrope line, to work out how to bring the old and the new out of there. The more we have to help the world outside to see the truth of the scriptures, without the added layers, without the extra content, without the ages, without the time, without the stuff we've added to it, and present it to them with new, fresh, relevant eyes.
As Dorothy Sayers said, if you present this to the unbelievers, they may not believe it, but at least they may see that there is something that is worth believing.
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