Parables, Cartoons, and Other Official Statements

Dominic's preaching for Sunday, July 20, 2008
Monastery of the Angels in Hollywood and St. Agatha's in South Central
Mt 13:24-43; Wisdom 12:13, 16-19; Rom 8:26-27

But Jesus doesn't explain why the farmer let the weeds grow, the weeds being, according to Jesus, the followers of the evil one. Of course, I knew as a boy who had to pull weeds many a Saturday that they were from the devil.

Actually, I get frustrated when Jesus explains his parables anyway. I was taught that parables can't be explained, especially in an allegorical way, as Jesus does, where every element of the story symbolizes something. I was taught that parables are about one main thing but in a Zen kind of way, where you're supposed to sort of swim around in the story and let it act on you rather than pin down a precise meaning. In fact, I was sort of disappointed in the artist's explanation of the mural here in the monastery chapel which I received the other day. I saw some different things, but he's reduced it to some very specific meanings. What does he know? He's only the artist.

Why does Jesus tell parables to begin with? In today's passage, it's said that Jesus spoke to the crowds only in parables in order to "announce what has lain hidden since the creation of the world." Then why does he hide the announcement inside a parable? Last Sunday, Jesus said he uses parables "because they look but do not see, they listen but do not hear or understand." And a parable is going to help? Help confuse them maybe, which is precisely why, he says in other places in the gospel, he tells parables: "so that they may look and look, but never perceive; listen and listen, but never understand" (Mk 4:12).

One commentator says parables are something like our political cartoons, attempts at expressing in figurative ways things that can't be fully expressed in words. It sounds like today's passage from St. Paul's Letter to the Romans: "the Spirit himself makes intercession for us with groanings which cannot be expressed in speech."

While I don't want to ignore Jesus' allegorical interpretation of his own parable, and neither do I want to insist that parables rather have only one meaning -- maybe it depends on the parable, on the context -- I noticed that there is a thread running through all three of today's parables. Let God deal with the weeds, the smallest seed becomes the largest plant, and the yeast causes the whole mass of dough to rise. All three parables speak in their own way of God's power. More specifically, of the already-successful reign of God. Nothing can stop it. Nothing can stop God.

Don't worry about the weeds. Let God deal with them. (I sure wish I'd realized as a boy that Jesus was giving me a good excuse not to pull weeds.) Let God deal with them. And he will. He has. In Christ. Besides, we might make a mistake and pull the weeds up with the wheat. In fact, if this is a certain weed, it looks suspiciously like wheat, so we might even get the two mixed up. No, separation, a word from which the word Pharisee is derived, is the way of the evil one. Especially activist, judgmental separation. How competent are we really to issue judgments about people, including judgments about ourselves?

As it happens, speaking of political cartoons, a recent cartoon and the reaction to it seem to tell a similar story as the weeds and wheat parable. I suspect many of you are aware of the cartoon on the front cover of the most recent New Yorker and the subsequent hullabaloo. Satirist Bill Blitt has Barack Obama in traditional Muslim attire doing a terrorist fist bump with his wife Michelle, who's dressed in camouflage -- no, stylish, floral print camouflage -- and combat boots, an assault rifle slung over her shoulder. They're in the Oval Office, a flag burning in the fireplace and a portrait of Osama bin Laden over the mantel. All of these images, of course, are poking fun at specific rumors about the presidential candidate and his wife.

But an Obama spokesperson issued a statement about the cartoon, saying that "most readers will see it as tasteless and
offensive. And we agree." McCain's campaign also said the cartoon is "tasteless and offensive." Meanwhile, others find the cartoon immensely clever and an extremely effective response to the silly accusations that Obama is Muslim, as if that's a bad thing. Yes, the cartoon may be mainly preaching to the choir, the liberal readership of the New Yorker. And who knows, maybe it's possible that, even with their cartoonish nature, the images may plant in some people's minds the very notions they're meant to dismiss. But perhaps most likely, just like with Jesus' parables, we'll hear or not hear what we want or don't want to hear.

It's interesting that Obama and McCain felt they had to issue a judgment on the cartoon. And the Obama campaign took this judgment further by claiming that most readers will judge the cartoon offensive. But how do they know what the rest of us think of it? What would happen if we all didn't feel we had to make judgments on so many things and so many people -- again, including ourselves -- in order to maintain our credentials as upstanding citizens and Christians?

I heard Bishop Gene Robinson of the Episcopal Church interviewed on the radio the other day. Because he is publicly in a gay relationship and some people in the Episcopal Church find scandal in his being a bishop -- in fact, there is serious division over this -- he was not invited to this summer's Lambeth Conference, the international meeting of those in the Anglican communion that takes place every ten years. But it turns out that some of the scandalized stayed away from the meeting anyway because Bishop Robinson's supporters are there. It also turns out that Bishop Robinson went anyway. He says that all in the Church need to "hold on to each other" as they work out their differences. Is he right? Once again, are separation and judgment the way of the evil one?

The farmer says to leave the weeds, to let them grow. It's interesting to note that the word forgive is related to the word leave. In today's passage from the Book of Wisdom, God's mercy is praised: "you gave your children good ground for hope that you would permit repentance for their sins." Ground for hope. Good ground indeed.

One commentator goes so far as to suggest that leaving the weeds is a way of turning the tables on the devil. You put weeds in my field? I'll show you. I'll let them grow so that I'll have not only wheat but fuel as well. Forget ethanol. I've got weeds.

If we're lucky, God will use those weeds to burn only the sin and not the sinner. And if there are any weeds left over after our purgation, maybe God will invite us to a heavenly bbq. Except we might be surprised by who else is invited.