Collect for Trinity 3
Lord, you have taught us that all our doings without love are worth nothing: Send your Holy Spirit and pour into our hearts that most excellent gift of love, the true bond of peace and of all virtues, without which whoever lives is counted dead before you. Grant this for your only Son Jesus Christ’s sake.
2 Corinthians 5: 6 – 17
Mark 4: 26 – 34
Why parables?
‘Now, what I want is Facts. Teach these boys and girls nothing but Facts. Facts alone are wanted in life. Plant nothing else, and root out everything else. You can only form the mind of reasoning animals upon Facts: nothing else will ever be of any service to them.’
So speaks Mr. Gradgrind, the teacher in Charles Dickens ‘Hard Times’, in the first chapter of the book. He couldn’t be more wrong. ‘Facts’ alone actually stultify the process of reasoning. On their own, they do not convey meaning or enable learning. To do so, they have to be contextualised, and easily the best way of doing this is through the vehicle of story; and so through the ages, story has been used as the basis of wisdom transfer. Stories have the ability to convey deep truths across generational, cultural and even linguistic boundaries in a way that dry facts never will. Not only that, but the use of stories to teach a lesson offers the added benefit that people actually enjoy hearing them; they are easy to remember and can be repeated and shared. When learning is not seen as a chore but as a pleasant experience, it is also at its most effective.
Jesus is speaking to a crowd by the lakeside. Some will be educated, some not; there will be those who want to learn, others who are just passing by and listen out of curiosity. The stories used by Jesus to explain the Kingdom of heaven – the ‘parables’ – offer understandable truth to all of them whoever they may be– and through many generations, to us.
But to get the best from a story or parable does demand that we think about (and put into practice) it’s significance. What audience is Jesus addressing? Do we identify with one of the actors? Is He explaining about the Kingdom? Is His purpose teaching, encouraging, or rebuking? What lesson are we meant to take away?
Eventually, even Mr Gradgrind realises that facts alone cannot coney truth. A parable may not be ‘factual’ – but does tell a truth – and it is truth that sets us free.
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Cambridge dictionary definition: ‘Conform’ – to behave according to the usual standards of behaviour that are expected by a group or society.
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Just cling to the promise that neither height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus our Lord
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We define hope as ‘to want something to happen or to be true, and have a good reason to think that it might’.
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We obey His command, but not as slaves – instead, he invites us to be willing servants, alongside the freedom to always ask and reason together with Him as we choose our actions. Therein lies the path to Wisdom, and in God’s Wisdom lies gentleness, humility and rest for our souls.