Commence your prayers with the posture and mode that you find best. You can say a brief prayer: “Come Holy Spirit, fill the hearts of your children”, or any other that you find good. Try to place all your being in the presence of God.
Topic: Jesus preached the kerugma (III)
It doesn’t seem that he did so as a “Preacher”. We cannot say “This is his message”.
Now he says it. Now he says it again. Jesus upsets our mental schemes; his life is human, but it is DIVINE, and we have to learn from Him.
The school of Jesus
There is good reason to say that Jesus preached the “kerugma”. “He went to Galilee announcing the Good News of God” (Mark 1, 14). He pointed out clearly that on had to repent.
But Jesus spoke in parable. The kerugma is a clear, open, announcement. The parable is more enigmatic, symbolic: ¿so that seeing, they do not see”??
On the other hand, Mark 8, 31-32: “he told this to them very clearly”. That is, in some things it was clear and in others, no. It was not an open, defined preaching.
In the book of the Acts of the Apostles we are told (1,1) “The things he did and he taught”. He didn’t just talk, he did things, he acted. That is his mission.
Also, a large part of the time of his life Jesus is without words,30 years in which there are very few words from Jesus: “Didn’t you know that I must be doing the things of my Father”.
To us it seems that the “kerugma” should be clear, easy to remember: like the Creed. But the truth is that even the Apostles had a lot of difficulties in understanding it.
We should think, rather, in the plurality of way sin which God communicates with man: “The Spirit blows where it wishes”. (John 3.8)
The parables in the preaching of Jesus
1. How many parables are there? There are 42. they are a large part of the Gospel.
Not all the synoptics have the same ones: Mk.6: Mt.22; Luke 31. Few are repeated by the 3 Evangelists. They are the first attempts at preaching. It is what was transmitted to the Communities.
The Parable has a peculiar structure: they emerge in the life of Jesus, they are less present in the Primitive Community. But they return again.
2. When did Jesus proclaim the parables?
It seems that it was at the beginning, apart from some: Mc. 12
3. What did he want to say? How are they pronounced? It seems that it isn’t an explanation for the public. He explains to the disciples in private. It wasn’t only a way of teaching, as when we set examples. The parables serve to shake-up the people. They speak of the KINGDOM, although there are some that refer to particular situations: There are four fundamental themes: The beginning: seed. The invitation, call: Banquets. The return: lost and founds. The Finish, of the end: Judgement.
Some of the others, like the one about the good Samaritan, have other peculiarities.
The parables are not a quiet, easy going sort of teaching: rather they are the “weapons of war”. Moments of battle. Shouts that are born of a profound interior emotion. The world of the parable makes up enter into the communicative force that Jesus has of the mystery of God.
Useful advice:
1. Avoid rapid conclusions. Sometimes we are told that it was the usual method of CATEQUESIS, because Jesus talked like that. Also others reach the opposite conclusion: Jesus preached about the KINGDOM openly. But the reality is that it was the two things, openly and covertly.
Contemplating Jesus, we cannot make a rapid synthesis. And it has to be like that: he preached, he spoke for all times...
2. Listen and have patience.
- Because Jesus is a mystery, …”He lives in the clouds”.
- He can only be known through experience and patient prayer.
- We are impatient and in a hurry: we want to know God already and his plans for us. At times we take rapid decisions; even in the plans for pastoral teaching. No; listen and be patient.
- It is very import to practice this listening: above all in the parables. God doesn’t reveal himself by force, nor hurriedly, but by love, sweetness and silence: “in the still small voice of calm”, prophet Elijah.
3. It is a good idea to ask questions to Jesus, to Jesus the Teacher: To Speak to Him:
- Why did you tell this parable? Why did you speak in this way? Ask him peacefully, patiently. HE HAS THE ANSWERS.
- Saint Augustine says that to talk with the Teacher is to enter already into eternal life, to be above all problems.
- He could say to Mary: “You have chosen the best part”. The parables make us enter into the mystery of God: They serve for in our lives; for times of illness; for death. For all the happenings of our existence.
We have to bring them up to date: read them from our today, from the men of today. They all have a great validity. Let us hop that they will be seeds in our lives.
One final idea: sometimes a parable is like a good seed that last throughout our life, giving us strength, and communication with the mystery. It makes us united with God.
Let us give thanks to God, for so much richness, so much good seed.