Reading the Gospels for Lent

 

Read Matthew 13-15     

 

In chapter 13, you get several parables, stories of Jesus.  A few notes on parables.  These are not moralistic fairy tales.  Parables are meant to provoke and evoke emotions.  Parables can cause you to feel flummoxed or frustrated.  For example, in verse 44, a person finds a treasure in a field that apparently does not belong to her.  Maybe your first thought is about wanting to find a treasure for yourself…or win the lottery…or get that prize you have your eye upon.  You can skim or skip past this parable and miss the playfulness and subversiveness.  Because, you could wonder, why was she in the field in the first place?  She was trespassing!  Did she not see the sign and the barbwire fence and the “Keep Out” notices?  Further, she already found the treasure, why not just run off with it using the wisdom of, “Finders keepers, losers weepers?”  Finally, you have to assume there was an economic benefit to buying the whole field just for that one treasure, that it had to look good on the balance sheet of life.

 

I know, we usually spiritualize and religious-ize this parable.  We say the treasure is faith in God that will cost you everything…then we pass the offering plate reminding you to tithe.  But what if this isn’t just about money or finances or even faith?  What are we willing to give our life to, because there are so many voices that clamor for our allegiance.  What is really that pearl of value?  Or to use the opening parable, how is the soil of my soul?  Because the truth is that I have shallow soil where the good news of God’s love doesn’t sink in (I am looking at you inner critic) and I have soil where birds come and gobble up seeds (I am looking at you folks who like to offer helpful “feedback” for my life) and I have soil that is rocky and rough (I am looking at you anxiety and anger); and I have soil that is alive with God’s presence (especially on Sunday morning or visiting a church member or laughing with my family).  Parables are a mirror to our life.  Let the parables in chapter 13 sing to the soil of your soul today. 

 

After Jesus offers narratives that can confound and confuse us, he hears that his cousin, John the Baptizer, is dead.  Killed by a political system that was anxious and didn’t like anyone coloring outside the lines.  Jesus weeps just as Jesus did for Lazarus in John 11 – note the humanness of Jesus – the desire to withdraw.  But in chapter 14, the crowds keep following, and Jesus has compassion ~ that he is moved deep in his soul seeing his own ache in humanities ache.

 

This is the gospel and good news that we would be awake that our suffering connecting us to others’ suffering.  But too often we turn suffering into a competition and comparison.  You know the story that gets repeated in our lives…one person starts talking about the aches and pains in body, mind, or soul to some other human soul…only to have the other featherless biped say, “You think you got it bad, let me tell you about my pain/ache/woundedness”.  Rather than letting our suffering connect us, it becomes a competition.  The good news is that we don’t have to live this way, we can let the suffering be a connection point that might even offer nourishment.  Jesus’ own grief connects him to the people who come to see him in chapter 14:14. 

Finally, I will be preaching on the faith of the Canaanite woman in Matthew 15:21-28 on March 19^th…so I will save some of my thoughts/prayers for that day.  But I know that this is not the warm and fuzzy Jesus we love.  We wonder, did Jesus wake up on the wrong side of the bed?  What’s the deal, Jesus, you’ve been healing everyone else, why let your bias/prejudice cease your compassion toward this poor woman, who doesn’t even get a name!?!  As people of faith, we confess and profess that Jesus is fully human and fully divine.  This is one chapter where Jesus’ humanity, in all its less than perfect glory, is on full display.  When we read the gospels, we let the gospels read us.  When I have pulled someone else down to prop myself up, especially when that other person doesn’t vote like I do, believe like I do, think like I do?  When do I forget my point of view is only a view from a point?  Hold these questions close and I give thanks that the gospels are brave and bold enough not just to present Jesus as some kind of superhero who always gets it right, but was human-sized and sometimes even got it wrong ~ AND was willing/open to God’s presence in the other.  May you and I hear and live this good news in these difficult, demanding days. Amen.