30 January 2019
Wednesday of the Third Week in Ordinary Time
Jesus speaks in parables so that those on the outside “may look and see but not perceive, and hear and listen but not understand, in order that they may not be converted and be forgiven” (Mk 4:12). Jesus is being intentionally enigmatic here, and we should not eliminate the enigma that he himself desires. Nonetheless, if he speaks, it is not to remain incomprehensible, but so that we might know and love him. So let us endeavour to enter a bit more into what Jesus shares with us here, to the extent that his Holy Spirit enables this for each of us.
When Jesus speaks about those on the “outside,” he speaks about the outside of what? When he says “the mystery of the Kingdom of God has been granted to you,” he is speaking to “the Twelve,” his disciples. But he clearly intends for this Word to go further, for here it is in the scriptures where it is read to this day. Perhaps one way to see this is in the key of God’s love, for, as 1 John 4 reminds us, “God is love.” Insofar as we let ourselves be moved by Love to love as God loves us, the parables will open up themselves up to us, revealing ever deeper and more meaningful realities of God’s life as we begin to live it in our own lives, through love.
But what about the enigmatic words that veil the meaning of the parables to some, “that they may not be converted and be forgiven?” Origen proposes that if some people are given the right answer too quickly and easily, they will have only a superficial change of heart that fails to release them from the sin that ails them at a much more profound level. Their “conversion” would then be nothing more than fixing this or that aspect of their own way of proceeding so that it might be “more perfect,” and they might then feel like, having made the necessary corrections, they now live a virtuous life, justified in the eyes of God and neighbor. But this misses the point. Love, for God, is not a question of “getting things right” in an independent way, but the trusting handing-over of one’s life to the Beloved. A conversion that is a mere correction of one’s own certainties is not a conversion at all. To the smug, the enigma of the parable is an act of love, for the Lord would rather them be perplexed by the parable rather than allow a false understanding. The parable remains sealed until the system is surrendered and love takes its place.