2024-04-26 A Meditation on Parables

“27 Now you are the body of Christ and individually members of it. 28 And God has appointed in the church first apostles, second prophets, third teachers, then miracles, then gifts of healing, helping, administrating, and various kinds of tongues. 29 Are all apostles? Are all prophets? Are all teachers? Do all work miracles? 30 Do all possess gifts of healing? Do all speak with tongues? Do all interpret? 31 But earnestly desire the higher gifts. And I will show you a still more excellent way.” (1 Cor 12:27-31 ESV)

It can be so hard to know if we have the right parables. Strange insights, abruptly differing thoughts, the inspiration of a fellow conversationalist: these things prompt the mind, the thought engine, with sovereign insight. Sovereign, because in an insight is the power to legitimize, to save souls, to accomplish what any rational naysayer would abruptly dismiss.

And then the calm reasoning with past decisions: no time to find fault; no time but for the gratitude extended, that in Christ was a patient task-master, no task-master after all in fact, but a parent in whom we can thankfully find approval and mercy. In Christ the warrior spirit is reminded of a sole death that occurred, that life might flourish the more broadly.

It was a concept, at least. It was a venture, at the most. It was a reasoned plan, to some. That God is for us, would be shown by a demonstration easily dismissed, to which the obvious question is, “Where is the bluster? Where is the bark?” Sometimes what we put our faith in “out there” is in fact right before our eyes, “Here and now”.

The Christian also can forget a winnowing time, a time not head of the pack (as though in our lazier times we now felt Authorship), not possessing all the answers, but when he or she felt under the gun of competitive winners, leaders who were a few steps better than us, a game so real that it led to wild bouts with sin or with a strange leaning upon some evolved ability to be copacetic even in the wild, even in the impossible offerings, thought offerings, things to reason through.

Wow. We were near to mellow defeat. We were near to the end of interest, of the fascinations that expire. Somehow God gave us clarity and health, to sort through a miasma, to find a miracle, to have good parables our cachet, our inheritance, our gift from girlfriend or guy friend, from tutor and fellow inspired Citizen of this green planet.

To reckon then with Death is to reckon with Debt, is to reckon with the greater climes of a best friend or a chance encountered soul; life keeps us near to the sovereign Experience, the near-to-the-heart or near-to-the-knee moving forward, through regret, through unvoiced apology, through frustration and impossible counterpoints.

Point, counterpoint: we had so much to brand ourselves winners and experientialists, contributors and peace-monikers. Yet the Doctrine—of one Man dying that all might find new life—was perturbed and made into a vacuum of power, the lack of a perceived thrust or potency, the vain assumption that, if we were Kings and gods via our longstanding time with Scriptures, then we are the demigods and authors of all whom we encounter. As if. As if the world were our personal playground. As if it were up to us to make orders and give demands. So the Christian is of a sanctity, a holiness, for understanding: with great insight comes great responsibility: yes, kings and queens, and, yes, experientialists who are servant-leaders, who balk at the crazy lanced-forth “new” sins: it was a cry for help. It was a bluster in light of a bluster: someone fussed a little too loudly, and all craziness broke loose. That the situation should be under meltdown. That the fabric should be rent. That the utter hatred of our situation, should bring jealousies to bear, the presumption that all messages are tailor-made to our own hearing rather than simply the experiences of someone else.

The induction, then, to a post-striving, post-wandering loss, overall losses mighty and terrifying, is also the induction to an evolved Peace, somehow riding about town grateful though persecuted, rather, though wrongly denied what Scriptures seem to promise to kings and queens. We find the right parables, because we are educated and pristine, that is, newly minted free of sin, evolved and the very apple of the Master’s kind eye. Fond eye. Patient eye. Winning approval and gladsome initial investment, though the dividends may be long in the making. We are forgiven the lean years. We are forgiven for the sake of myriad binds that prevent and prohibit simpler manner of move. Something more Holy was at stake, was at principled war, was yearning for a hearing. That something is our Testimony, our ability yes to be the crazed Witness but also, if no event-horizon has graced us with its presence, to get back to the fishing, spiritual and otherwise. We work. We serve. We soldier on. We thank God, who humbles the proud, who gives a parable worthy of a little levity in our general direction, as to how sovereign and sincere the Person is.