June 17, 2018 - Fourth Sunday after Pentecost - Tell All the Truth but Slant

There can be the question, "Why re-read the same passages in the Bible in a three year cycle?"

Today's Gospel contained two parables that contain the subject matter of two other parable that that are more well-known.  The Parable of the Sower for a parable about seeds and the Parable of the Mustard Seed in Matthew and Luke for the mustard seed where those two parables more closely resemble each other.

The Parable of the Growing Seed appears only in Mark 4:26-29:

And he said, “The kingdom of God is as if a man should scatter seed on the ground. He sleeps and rises night and day, and the seed sprouts and grows; he knows not how. The earth produces by itself, first the blade, then the ear, then the full grain in the ear. But when the grain is ripe, at once he puts in the sickle, because the harvest has come.”

The Parable of the Growing Seed is hard to focus on. First it is an elementary story. Everyone knows that plants eventually grow from seeds. Also the Parable of the Sower appears to be about the same subject but there are important differences. Many assume that the sower is God / Jesus who extravagantly sows seeds in ground that may not be fruitful. The seeds don't grow for a variety of reasons but the emphasis at the end of the parable is the yield of the crop planted in good soil. God's bounty despite some seeds to growing.

This parable has a different feel. The sower is definitely not God who would know how the seed sprouts and grows. The earth produces without the man's help. The religious strictures (moral rules or social justice imperatives) are not, in themselves important to the growing and the harvest that will come in its own time. God, and the kingdom, is present and changing the world but is hidden. The man sleeps and rises knowing only incremental change that can be seen.

This is a parable that hides itself in what first strikes the reader as ordinary-as-dirt insights. It focuses on the hidden nature of  the kingdom of heaven that happens through God's production plan that we do not understand.

Pastor Ray focused his sermon more on the Parable of the Mustard Seed - Mark 4:30-32:

Again he said, “What shall we say the kingdom of God is like, or what parable shall we use to describe it? It is like a mustard seed, which is the smallest of all seeds on earth. Yet when planted, it grows and becomes the largest of all garden plants, with such big branches that the birds can perch in its shade.”

Pastor Ray preached about mustard as more of an invasive weed, as if Jesus saying to today's northwest audience, "The kingdom of heaven is like dandelions that are growing out of control".

He continued with the observation that when we contemplate the full meaning of certain parables that Jesus upends the usual expectations. Here Pastor Ray quoted the title of Emily Dickinson's poem Tell all the truth but tell it slant.

All the parables seem to follow the idea of telling the truth slant. The pastoral feel of this parable as it is initially experienced in changes as other considerations enter the listener's mind. First is the twisted the out-of-control growth of invasive plant that adds humor as much as frustration that God does not seem to be promoting the order we expect . Another twist comes from the Parable of the Sower directly. The birds in that parable are menacing. They eat the seed from which the ripe grain should come. So why is this part of the vision of the kingdom of God?

Re-reading scripture year after year keeps all of these stories and verses ready to becomes part of the discussion as we struggle to understand them individually. The meanings of parables abut the kingdom of God wrestle with each other as that understanding each deepens. The Parable of the Sower highlights the bounty of the kingdom. The Parable of the Growing Seed stresses the inevitability of the kingdom and promise that the harvest will come. They compliment one another while this wrestling goes on in our minds. 

All today's readings are also about the old passing away and making things new. This may be a warning that if we are not in a new creation with Christ after everything old passes away this moves history way from old "shady" solutions that twist meaning away from what is loving, good and true. Today we are having our government tell us that their policy of taking children of immigrants who are applying for asylum and separating them from their parents is "biblical". A prime example of the old that will pass away.

Jesus gives all of us this description of living before the harvest has come -  what we might call meantime living. And this is part of the kingdom of God as we see it around us. If he did not include this part he would not be telling all the truth.

We may not know why, only that this is Jesus, telling all the truth but slant.