Devotion for March 14, 2016

I have all these great ideas about posting devotions every day. Sometimes life just gets in the way, and Monday's thought gets posted on Tuesday.

Monday: “This is why I speak to them in parables: ‘Though seeing, they do not see; though hearing, they do not hear or understand’” (Matthew 13:13; NIV).

            Many of us were taught that parables are earthly stories with heavenly meanings, that is, that they were meant as a way of illustrating and making plain an important truth. There are, of course, different sorts of parables, and some parables do fit that definition. However, when Jesus’ disciples asked Him why He used parables, He made a strange reference to seeing by not perceiving and hearing but not understanding.

            The truth, then, is that often Jesus uses His parables to hide the truth. Here’s where it’s important to be sensitive to the context in which Jesus tells parables. He often tells them because His original audience needed to have their thoughts or behaviors challenged, but to be overt in His criticism would have brought on trouble. So, Jesus wrapped His message in parables. The parable veiled the criticism and forced the hearer to work it out for himself.

            When I was in high school English, my teacher regularly told us, “Show the reader; don’t tell the reader.” When I think about parables, I wonder if my own preaching is a little too directive, a little too ‘telling.’ It’s something I work on. I also wonder if Christians should in general be a little less about telling the world what’s wrong with it and a little more about showing how we can live differently.