Mark 4:21-34
21 He said to them, ‘Is a lamp brought in to be put under the bushel basket, or under the bed, and not on the lampstand? 22For there is nothing hidden, except to be disclosed; nor is anything secret, except to come to light. 23Let anyone with ears to hear listen!’ 24And he said to them, ‘Pay attention to what you hear; the measure you give will be the measure you get, and still more will be given you. 25For to those who have, more will be given; and from those who have nothing, even what they have will be taken away.’
26 He also said, ‘The kingdom of God is as if someone would scatter seed on the ground, 27and would sleep and rise night and day, and the seed would sprout and grow, he does not know how. 28The earth produces of itself, first the stalk, then the head, then the full grain in the head. 29But when the grain is ripe, at once he goes in with his sickle, because the harvest has come.’
30 He also said, ‘With what can we compare the kingdom of God, or what parable will we use for it? 31It is like a mustard seed, which, when sown upon the ground, is the smallest of all the seeds on earth; 32yet when it is sown it grows up and becomes the greatest of all shrubs, and puts forth large branches, so that the birds of the air can make nests in its shade.’
33 With many such parables he spoke the word to them, as they were able to hear it; 34he did not speak to them except in parables, but he explained everything in private to his disciples.
The lamp set under the bushel. The mustard seed that grows into the flourishing tree. The farmer who rises to sow her seed night and day. I have heard these parables too many times to count. I grew up in an Evangelical tradition that emphasized reading the Bible quite constantly and literally. I would imagine that even if the Biblical text had featured less prominently in my early life, I’d almost have to be raised under a bushel to never have heard parable “takeaways” like, “you reap what you sow” or “all you need is the faith of a mustard seed.”
When I sat down to read today’s text, my intention was to practice Missy and Deacon John’s suggestion to read slowly, prayerfully, impressionistically, and with the eyes and ears of my heart. What happened instead is that I had to force myself not to skim, to gloss, to make assumptions. It was so tempting for me to reduce these words of Jesus to “lessons” I had already learned. I love to learn, and I’m ever in danger of my own desire to “check off” more boxes of knowledge and experience. For me, spiritual practice is discipline because it’s a slow schooling in how much can’t be known, is ever unknown about myself, the world, the Sacred. To read this way is to feel my way into all that is unresolvable in a text like this. Here Jesus says, “there is nothing hidden except to be disclosed; nor is anything secret except to come to light.” Later we read that Jesus only spoke in these cryptic parables, but explained it all to his disciples in private. Far from unspooling into tidy threads of wisdom, I find that parables invite me to get more comfortable with discomfort in messy and sometimes tangled bits and bobs of story and meaning.
This is, in my experience, a more authentic reflection to life, at least to mine. Spiritual practices and communities don’t always make clear the path in front of me. These are scary, uncertain times. There are no easy answers or straightforwardly accessible wisdom. I want those things sometimes, of course. Perhaps this is why I first read today’s text like a snack to be scarfed down after a tough workout! It’s much more difficult and much more powerful to listen quietly and slowly to the uncertainties and mysteries of the text and of my own heart.