A Reflection for Friday of the Twenty-ninth Week in Peculiar Time
Find today’s readings here.
“Once you see a cloud rising within the west
you say immediately that it’s going to rain—and so it does;
and whenever you notice that the wind is blowing from the south
you say that it’s going to be hot—and so it’s.
You hypocrites!
You realize how one can interpret the looks of the earth and the sky;
why do you not know how one can interpret the current time?” (Lk 12:54-56)
In his book Parable of the Kingdom, the good Scripture scholar C.H. Dodd offered what has turn into a classic definition of a parable. A parable, said Dodd, is “is a metaphor or simile drawn from nature or common life, arresting the hearer by its vividness or strangeness, and leaving the mind in sufficient doubt to its precise application to tease the mind into lively thought.”
There are such a lot of wonderful things about that definition, including the insight that a parable was never meant to be fully “understood.” That’s why we’re still discussing, and sometimes debating them, over 2,000 years later.
However the a part of that definition that at all times stuck out for me was the “drawn from nature or common life.” Jesus used images from nature (birds and seeds, flowers and wheat) and from the common lifetime of the time (a girl sweeping her home, a farmer sowing seeds, wayward son on his way home to his father) with a view to make himself, and the elusive concept of the reign of God, more accessible to the people around him.
We can be ignoring what Jesus said if we did not see where God is at work not only in our world today, but in our private lives.
Today we have now not a parable precisely, but one other vivid use of nature and customary life. Jesus reminds his listeners that they’re adept at reading signs in nature (a cloud rising within the west, the wind blowing from the south) to make decisions, presumably for his or her crops. Yet Jesus notes, with some anger (calling them “hypocrites”) that they’re not pretty much as good at reading the “signs of the times.” And what are those signs? Well, in Jesus’ day, he was the sign. And plenty of people weren’t being attentive to what he was saying and doing. And there may be an implicit warning: When you can’t read the signs of nature, your crops will fail, and also you’ll starve. But Jesus is implying, for those who can’t read the signs of the times, you’ll suffer spiritual starvation and death.
What are the signs of the times today? Well, Jesus continues to be the sign. But we can be ignoring what Jesus said if we did not see where God is at work not only in our world today, but in our private lives. War, pandemic, violence, starvation, poverty, racism, xenophobia, homophobia and other ills call us to reply. At the identical time, signs of affection, charity, compassion, generosity and selflessness are clear signs of God’s presence. And in our private lives, we are able to spend time in prayer every day reflecting on where God is present to every of us.
So where, to make use of C.H. Dodd’s wonderful phrase, is God “teasing your mind into lively thought”?