Word to the Wise
Thursday, July 26, 2018 - Thursday in the 16th Week in Ordinary Time
[Jer 2:1-3, 7-8, 12-13 and Matt 13:10-17]"Why do you speak to the crowd in parables?" [Jesus] said to them in reply, "Because knowledge of the mysteries of the Kingdom of heaven has been granted to you, but to them it has not been granted.......But blessed are your eyes because they see, and your ears, because they hear. Amen, I say to 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." [Matthew]
JULY 26 STS. JOACHIM AND ANNE [parents of Mary]
Occasionally I will meet someone who attended a retreat or parish mission that I preached some time before and tell me that what they most remember of the event they attended are the stories I tell. Although it would be too much to ask them if they remember the point of the story, my hope is that the story did have the intended impact! Jesus' use of parables to convey his message of the kingdom of Heaven is one of the distinctive marks of his ministry. The evangelist Matthew tells us in today's gospel, which begins a "discourse" of parables, that some people understood and some did not. The difference was a matter of faith.
The parables were usually drawn from everyday life, using common images. This presumes a familiarity with the situations in the parables. Most of Jesus' listeners were tenant farmers and fishermen and folks who had to worry about survival. The parable of the sower and the seed, which will come after this gospel, is an example. The challenge for me as preacher is to know the audience well enough to pick stories or parables that come from their experience. One of my dad's favorite images was, "He looked at me like a mule looking at a new gate!" This expression would probably be lost on an urban audience! But it would characterize those who did not understand Jesus' images.
Jesus tells us that our eyes and ears are blessed by what we see and hear in his teaching. The first audience may have had a greater challenge, but we have centuries of reflection to help us. Do we know how blessed we are? AMEN