Jesus spoke and taught in parables. Parables are extended metaphors or similes as the case may be; both are ways of making something unknown known by comparison to something already familiar. Jesus begins today, “the kingdom of God is as if…” And he goes on to narrate the familiar scene of a farmer casting seed upon the ground and watching its growth until harvest time. And he continues later, "With what can we compare the kingdom of God, or what parable shall we use for it?” And here Jesus picks up upon a prophetic precedent: the parable of Ezekiel about the Lord who trims a little bow from the top of the cedar tree and replants it in to grow and offer shelter for many and various creatures. But in Jesus’s version of the parable, the point of comparison and cause of wonder is how the tiniest seed can produce the biggest shrub, thus shelter, so that the birds of the air can make nests in its shade.
Ezekiel had concluded with the declaration, I the LORD have spoken, and I will do it. So also Jesus. In these parables we are talking about the righteous rule of God in the action of its coming into effect. Jesus emphasizes that the farmer witnesses how the seed should sprout and grow, he knows not how. The wonder –indicating divine action-- is how the littlest of seeds produces the magnificent shrub to shelter a variety of creatues.
Such extended metaphors told in story form are certainly a good teaching device when introducing unfamiliar material, in this case the nature and purpose of the righteous reign or rule of God which occurs, according to our Lord’s Prayer, when the will of God is done on earth as it is done in heaven. But it can also happen that biases, prejudices, preconceptions and other such mental blocks, can block understanding of the comparisons. Here parables are obscure. They leave people befuddled. They just don’t get it. This too, however, is a reason why Jesus employs parables. Because his message is in fact an attack on certain biases, prejudices and preconceptions in his audience. Some may be thinking the kingdom of God already exists in the temple worship at Jerusalem; others may be thinking that the kingdom of God will come when we have the courage to rise up violently against the Roman occupation; still others may be thinking that the kingdom of God will come supernaturally if and when Israel will finally perfect obedience to all the rules written in the law of Moses.
It is against such preconceptions that Jesus in public deliberately teaches in parables. As Mark makes clear he clarifies the sense to his disciples privately. With many such parables he spoke the word to them, as they were able to hear it; he did not speak to them without a parable, but privately to his own disciples he explained everything. Parables are subversive acts sneaking in the true sense of the kingdom of God over against prevailing religious ideologies; even disciples need help understanding them.
It is really quite impressive, then, how the apostle Paul captures this subversive but also transformative sense of Jesus’s teaching in parables. He concludes today: From now on, therefore, we regard no one from a human point of view; even though we once regarded Christ from a human point of view, we regard him thus no longer. You see, for the apostle Paul, Jesus who told parables has himself become in person the great parable of God. What is familiar from a human point of view, you see, is that an evidently deluded Jew who proclaimed the kingdom of God ended up crucified on account of it, rejected and refuted. However, because of his resurrection and vindication by the God whose reign he had proclaimed, Paul says, we regard him thus no longer. Indeed, Paul’s resurrection-extended narrative-parable reveals the coming into effect of the kingdom of God. The righteous rule of God comes into effect with the resurrection-vindication of the crucified prophet of the kingdom of God! This is what the kingdom of God is like: giving life to the dead, hope to the hopeless, righteousness to sinners. So Paul explains the parable of the crucified but risen Jesus accordingly: One has died for all; therefore all have died. And he died for all, that those who live might live no longer for themselves but for him who for their sake died and was raised.
So clarified that we understand the sense of the story parable of Jesus crucified but raised and exalted is our new in saving Lord, Paul spells out its meaning for living in this world here and now. Namely this: we are always of good courage. Existentially this is what faith in Jesus Christ, crucified but risen means for us: courage in every trial and testing of this life, knowing we know that while we are at home in the body we are away from the Lord, for we walk by faith, not by sight. We are of good courage so whether we are at home or away, we make it our aim to please him.
Courage of course is the righteous way to face danger. But what danger? Whom really do we fear? Peer pressure? The twitter mob? The classroom bullies? The office politics? With one swift stroke, Paul eliminates all such dangerous to tell the true one: we must all appear before the judgment seat of Christ, so that each one may receive good or evil, according to what he has done in the body.
Yet courageously facing this true danger of the judgment of God upon us, in the light of God’s justification even of sinners who have cast themselves upon the mercy of Christ, we are truly delivered from the tyranny of opinion. Therefore, Paul continues, knowing the fear of the Lord, we persuade men; but what we are is known to God, and I hope it is known also to your conscience. What truly we are is in fact secure in the judgment of God just as we may hope that it is also known among conscientious fellow Christians. For the love of Christ controls us! Such people themselves become little parables of God, ordinary lives transformed by the astounding love of God for us. So the kingdom of God actually comes even here and now without the fireworks some expect. So under the radar the kingdom of God grows slowly, often imperceptibly, but tangibly offering shelter to all suffering creatures in body and soul. Because in fact, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation; the old has passed away, behold, the new has come. You are such parables of God!