TUESDAY, SECOND WEEK OF LENT

Jesus Taught in Parables

[Jesus] began to teach them many things in parables, and in his teaching he said to them: “Listen! A sower went out to sow. And as he sowed, some seed fell on the path, and the birds came and ate it up. Other seed fell on rocky ground, where it did not have much soil, and it sprang up quickly, since it had no depth of soil. And when the sun rose, it was scorched; and since it had no root, it withered away. Other seed fell among thorns, and the thorns grew up and choked it, and it yielded no grain. Other seed fell into good soil and brought forth grain, growing up and increasing and yielding thirty and sixty and a hundredfold.” And he said, “Let anyone with ears to hear listen!”
Mark 4: 2-9

Jesus taught in parables. A parable is a metaphor with a moral or religious message. Jesus spoke on more than one level. Then, as now, language has a surface structure and a deep structure. The surface structure is what gets said and communicates a social meaning. The deep structure is everything else, including what’s left out. It holds the psychological and the spiritual meanings of the experience.


Jesus’ story has a surface structure and a deep structure. On the surface, it’s just a story about everyday, common knowledge. The disciples knew this story was about more than planting seeds, they just didn’t know exactly what else Jesus meant. The rabbi was planting a different kind of seed in both the followers and the disciples. He wove a simple story with deeper meaning.
Jesus overlaid God’s message onto the current, local scene. Two thousand years later, how might this parable be told? Perhaps it would be about a salesperson with a special product and different types of customers. It could be about a math teacher who taught more than arithmetic, or a computer programmer with a revolutionary program.


Rewrite this parable to fit today’s local scene.


Holy God, open our ears to understanding so that we may turn and be forgiven. Amen.