Epiphany of Our Lord

Epiphany of Our Lord

Dearly beloved,

The Gospel for this Sunday is a continuation of last week’s, taken from Matthew, chapter 13.  At the end of the discourse of various parables about the Kingdom of God, St. Matthew caps it off with the saying we just heard, “All these things Jesus spoke to the crowds in parables, and without parables he did not speak to them.”  This sentence should cause us to ask what is meant by this and why the Lord did this.

In commenting on the passage, St. Augustine offers the most likely interpretation: that Matthew is not saying Jesus only taught the crowd using parables, but rather than whenever he taught publicly, he always threw in at least one parable.  For instance, in the Sermon on the Mount, when he was speaking to the crowds, Jesus says many straight-forward things without using parables, such as ‘Love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you.’  But in the discourse as a whole, he uses many short parables, such as the man who builds on rock as opposed to the man who builds on sand.  So it was not that the Lord only used parables, as if he had a secret doctrine only some could know, but rather that he never taught without using a parable at some point in his discourses.

Why did Christ use parables?  There are many reasons why.  First, he is the creator of the world, and he above all others knows how the material and spiritual worlds relate to one another, and how material things are signs of spiritual realities.  He is the God of both nature and grace, and since we are more aware of nature, he used that to draw us to an understanding of grace.

Second, parables have a universal appeal—any human being can have some sense of what is being said.  If I waxed eloquently about the philosophy of being in Pseudo-Dionysius, I would hopefully get the attention of some who would benefit, but most would go away unfed.  If I used an image that Dionysius used, however, even if you knew nothing of him or his thought, you could still be fed by the image.  Jesus was a good teacher, and knew that parables would work more effectively than just passing on abstract notions or moral formulas.

That is also why the Lord used parables that are common to human experience: baking bread, growing plants, military service, weddings.  He did not wish his teaching to be esoteric or exclusive.  But that also means that in our technological age, we should still do human things like bake bread, have a garden, serve the country, celebrate married love.  In this sense, the ideal Christian would have sheep, a vineyard, and raise crops; he would serve in the military and be savvy in business; fish in his free time, and regularly attend wedding banquets.  So get started.  Seriously, though—if we work at doing any of these things, we become more receptive to the Kingdom and to divine wisdom.

Third, parables are open to varying depths of understanding.  In the Confessions, St. Augustine speaks of Scripture as a nest for chicks who cannot yet fly and need great care and safety, and also as an orchard for the advanced, who “fly about it in joy, breaking into song as they gaze at the fruit and feed upon it.”  The Lord’s parables are just like this: to those in the nest, they are good, solid doctrine; they teach a simple truth which advances salvation.  But to those flying around in the orchard, a parable is an inexhaustible source of contemplation and spiritual insight.  For instance, the parable of the sower is straightforward, teaching us to avoid the things that destroy faith: fear, pleasure, riches.  But it also offers so much more, such that each time we read it, if we are attentive, we enter more deeply into the mystery.  As St. Jerome writes, ‘The Lord mixes things plain with things dark, that by those things which we understand we may be incited to get knowledge of the things we do  not understand.’

A good example of all this is the parable of the mustard seed.  We all have experience of planting seeds or nuts and seeing that something so small can become something so substantial.  I have seen mustard seeds, but even though I have never planted one, I can ask someone who has or find a picture of one to gain more understanding of what Our Lord is saying.  The more I know about mustard seeds and trees, the more I can understand, but also the more time I spend with the parable and the more I grow in holiness, the more I can learn from it.  But the basic truth remains evident to everyone: the kingdom of God seems small, but if you wait on it patiently, it grows far beyond your expectations.

One image we can use in connection with the mustard seed is that of the Eucharist.  The host is small and surely seems ridiculous to unbelievers.  Yet we know that under the appearance of bread is found divine life and power.  We receive it and plant it in the field of our hearts, and we trust that it will grow into eternal life.  And though we receive the Lord many times, even every day if we wish, it is not as if we are planting new seeds—it is the same seed, maturing in our hearts until it grows into a place we can live.

And since the Eucharist is not only divine life and power but Jesus Christ himself, we can see how the sacrament can be both a seed and a tree at the same time.  St. Gregory says that Christ is the seed and the tree: “a grain of seed when he died, and a tree when he rose again.”  He is a seed in us, as we grow towards maturity, but in due time he will be a tree in which we, his birds, can rest.  By his presence in us through Communion, he teaches us how to die as he did, so that we can live in eternity.  Not only that, but he freely chose to become a seed, to take on our humanity, so he could also be our tree in which to live forever.

So as we receive that blessed mustard seed in Holy Communion, think on these things.  No matter how small the kingdom seems or how much the conditions seem to be poor for its growth, the divine seed is powerful and cannot be destroyed.  The Jews once tried to destroy it, and they failed; it became a tree that filled the whole earth.  And the same holds true for now—if the whole world is trying to destroy the divine mustard seed, Son of God and son of Mary, what does that mean for the kingdom now except that the birds will roost in the tree in larger numbers than we can imagine?  And so we should not fear, but take courage and fly, not resting until we reach the branches of eternity.  Then the words of Isaiah will come to fulfillment in us: 

“Have you not known? Have you not heard? The Lord is the everlasting God, the Creator of the ends of the earth. He does not faint or grow weary, his understanding is unsearchable. He gives power to the faint, and to him who has no might he increases strength. Even youths shall faint and be weary, and young men shall fall exhausted; but they who wait for the Lord shall renew their strength, they shall mount up with wings like eagles, they shall run and not be weary, they shall walk and not faint.”