Isaiah 55:10-11 (NRSV Updated Edition)
and do not return there until they have watered the earth,
making it bring forth and sprout,
giving seed to the sower and bread to the eater,
so shall my word be that goes out from my mouth;
it shall not return to me empty,
but it shall accomplish that which I purpose
and succeed in the thing for which I sent it.
Matthew 13:1-17 (NRSV Updated Edition)
That same day Jesus went out of the house and sat beside the sea. Such great crowds gathered around him that he got into a boat and sat there, while the whole crowd stood on the beach. And he told them many things in parables, saying: “Listen! A sower went out to sow. And as he sowed, some seeds fell on a path, and the birds came and ate them up. Other seeds fell on rocky ground, where they did not have much soil, and they sprang up quickly, since they had no depth of soil. But when the sun rose, they were scorched, and since they had no root, they withered away. Other seeds fell among thorns, and the thorns grew up and choked them. Other seeds fell on good soil and brought forth grain, some a hundredfold, some sixty, some thirty. If you have ears, hear!”
Then the disciples came and asked him, “Why do you speak to them in parables?” He answered, “To you it has been given to know the secrets of the kingdom of heaven, but to them it has not been given. For to those who have, more will be given, and they will have an abundance, but from those who have nothing, even what they have will be taken away. The reason I speak to them in parables is that ‘seeing they do not perceive, and hearing they do not listen, nor do they understand.’ With them indeed is fulfilled the prophecy of Isaiah that says:
‘You will indeed listen but never understand,
For this people’s heart has grown dull,
and their ears are hard of hearing,
and they have shut their eyes,
so that they might not look with their eyes,
and hear with their ears
and understand with their heart and turn—
and I would heal them.’
“But blessed are your eyes, for they see, and your ears, for they hear. Truly I tell 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.”
~
"Jesus was indeed teaching about the arrival of something which is, for his listeners, very weird. That’s why he has to teach in parables. And please note the justification which he gives for teaching in parables. He quotes Isaiah, when he says:
“Listen as you will and you will not understand; look as you will and you will not see, because this people’s heart has waxed gross. They are dull of hearing and have closed their eyes against seeing and their ears against hearing lest they be turned to me that I may heal them.” (Mt 13:14-15 quoting Is 6:9-10; cf. Mk 4:12 and Lk 8:9-10)
"That is, there is no direct understanding of the kingdom: it is a strange thing, and people’s minds are dulled, which is exactly what we would expect as a result of what we’ve seen about the human condition, our own included, shot-through with death.
"It’s worth our while to stop a little to see what this teaching in parables consists in. The parables are highly creative little stories sprung from Jesus’ imagination and have as their aim helping people to overcome their being blocked-up with respect to God and his project. However, behold, they are two edged weapons, capable of different interpretations. It is perfectly possible to interpret the greater part in terms of a violent God. In that case the parables only serve to reinforce what people already think anyway, and they move on no further. What I’m suggesting is that this would be the ‘dull-hearted’ reading of the parables.
"At the same time it is perfectly possible to read the same parables as obliging us to overcome this vision. This means that there is an interpretation for those who understand, and that what they understand will increase exponentially, and there is another interpretation for those who do not understand, so that what little they do understand is in the process of being lost, for they will get into an ever more tied-up and painful understanding of the things of God."
- James Alison, Raising Abel, pp. 83-84
~
"Please notice that one of the key things that has been assumed here, silently, is the work of the ploughing [which in 1st century Palestine was done not before but after the seeds were scattered on the soil]. The ploughing is going to go on.
"So what's Jesus talking about here? He's asking people to listen to an image with which they'd be very familiar, but it's also an image which, if they have ears to hear, they'll understand perfectly well is an image that comes from [Isaiah 55].
"So supposing you start listen to this parable, a simple description of agricultural reality, but actually here there is a promise - this is the promise that God's Word will produce fruit, and it will produce fruit absolutely abundantly... So behind this there is the image of someone who is speaking, and whose word will produce fruit, and the question is: how involved in it are we going to be? How are we going to be involved in it?
"Now, when Jesus was finished [speaking to the people], the disciples come up and said, why do you speak to them in parables? And he answered, “To you it's been given to know the mystery.” I think that the mystery is this transfiguration from within of all the signs that are natural to us into signs of the incoming King, the new Temple, the crucified Lamb, the Lamb standing as one standing on the throne, who is coming in and who is in fact going to be the new sower [who] makes everything come alive. It's a transfiguration of all that. So something of that, he's saying, “you're on the inside of that process, that's what I've been preparing you for.”
...
"And so Jesus then says, incidentally what I'm telling you is what's been known ever since the great Isaiahan vision, because the passage he quotes, ... he's quoting from what happened immediately after Isaiah had his wonderful Temple vision in Isaiah 6, where he sees the Lord high and lifted up on the throne, and he hears the voice of the Lord, who tells him to go and preach ... but warns him that he's sending him out to preach to a people who “seeing they do not perceive, and hearing they do not listen, nor do they understand.” That's us.
"So strangely enough what Jesus is doing is saying, “I am the fulfillment of that promise, and I am speaking precisely into the midst of these people who are bound [to not know], and the whole question is to what extent are [the disciples], you, me, ... going to allow ourselves to be sucked into the ploughing over of the earth until we find ourselves able to take part in the rediscovery of the signs that are pointing in a completely different direction, things we take for granted as part of our systems of security undone, and thus finding ourselves born into belonging to a completely new way of being together, sharing together, loving together. ...
"So for me this is the greater challenge: at what depth are we prepared to allow ourselves to be ploughed into the earth, so as to become part of the bearers of the sign of the kingdom?"
- James Alison, from video "Homily for Sunday 15 in Ordinary Time Year A" (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zeVj6YKeWEU)
[Source of quote from James Alison's book Raising Abel, and for analysis and discussion on all the lectionary texts for this Sunday, see also: http://girardianlectionary.net/reflections/year-a/proper10a/]
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