This involves one of my favorite parables, the Matthew one about the seeds. I was exposed to it in an institutionally structured timely way recently.

Of course, it could certainly do without the blatant explanation attached. That is totally unnecessary. I’m sure that everyone can get a sense of what it’s about without the in-your-face commentary. That said, it’s still a really good one, and one of my favorites.

Rocky ground, thorny ground, on the well-trodden path. We can all get the idea. It is very cool. Deep, nourishing soil is where it is. Very cool.

Many have been exposed to this one. Many more have had it mansplained or have grappled with it in the course of self-guided study, alone or in like-minded group-thinks. The mansplaining and the self-guided tours are, of course, in the style and the fashion of all that is post-1517 (and all that!) . . .

But there is a major blind spot. There is a blind spot that is missed, despite the blatant, detailed and superfluous explanation provided in [inerrant] text. I will be a kind friend and I will enlighten you on this blind-spot trap as a “freebie” before I get into deeper theology regarding this one.

The major blind-spot, universally “un-caught” by the congregated, the mansplained and the self-guided alike, is this: the good deep soil is universally understood to be the sole and exclusive domain of the hearers and select heeders, i.e. those present and willing and active recipients of the word. That is not the case, I say. It is so not the case. Like, totally, otherwise. It is a parable still, mind you. It is a parable despite the burdensome explanatory albatross hanging like golden holy bling from the neck of the thing. The good soil, I maintain in true parabolic[sic] fashion, is indeed something else. It lies elsewhere. Thus, the blind spot is exposed. ‘Flashenlightenment’ flashlight having shone.

You’re welcome.

And if you don’t believe me, that’s fine. Good traps are not easily seen. (And when Jesus got sarcastic, it was always directed to the overly pedantic and ‘law’ ’abiding’/projecting insiders). [Just is always saying].

But, to get on to the theological grub of the thing: that’s why we are here, remember? That’s why I’m [still] here at least . . .

There is an overriding sense of destiny stuck in the heart of the craw in this one. Although theological gymnastics can get us out of it, it is still stuck in the core there. Soils are what we have, what we are. The seeds are strewn and fall where they will. Some take and some either don’t, are taken away, or only appear to take, for a time. We are what we are. It is what it is.

Of course, you can stretch out the tired old explainer of everything mysterious: free will. Of course, then you still must pull it over the frame of the true enough fable of a tiny seed of faith with the amazing ability to move physical mountains. Then thus, of course, path, thicket and rocky ground can be “converted” to deep soil (with grace, of course. One simply doesn’t ‘work’ at these things). But, really, who expects much out of rocky ground? The ‘proverbial’ path has been verily paved into a free-way by now, expanded to six lanes and the traffic has only increased. Where is the deep soil to be found these days but in the pew or in front of the book?

No, there is something altogether exclusionary and deterministic about the whole thing.

But that is parable.

This one continues the context-wide tension that always exists between the few, the proud, the chosen versus the good news offered freely to all. These contradictions will always be in tension as long as we hold onto that fundamental reality of life as once, finite, and for all. They directly lead, cause and effect, to false assumptions about dire recruitment obligations.

Parable.

O that concept of life as once, finite, and for all! This fundamental assumption renders all scripture incomplete. In this context, ends will never meet. This fundamental assumption makes nothing spiritual make sense. This road-map will get you lost. Parabolically [sic], it is intended that way. Scripture beats around this particular bush, always talking about promise yet, cannily, always able to make threats. Scripture never quite achieves the actual spiritual. Rote always falls short. Doctrine is always challenged by parable. Parable deludes as much as it explains, despite the best attempts of detailed explanation to deliver and/or to demystify. There is always a tension. It never quite makes sense. Even the deftest acrobatics merely produce an explanation that only works parable-free. Parables are always there in the life as once, finite, and for all. They, [the parables], haven’t gone away. Nor has the trap.

That is the parable. But there is a time-frame that is spiritual. Life as once, finite and for all it is not. The very idea of life as once, finite and for all is a conceptualization of nothing beyond fear and threat. Fear and threat are death. The way that we have been and the way that we are, continually, institutionally instructed and drilled — (well regulated) — to accept things and to grasp reality is a manifestation of death. No wonder fear is never far away.

There is a spiritual actuality, a true eternity of soul, stretching past and future like lone and level sands that allows for a breakage of all limitations, that allows the cultivation of the soil over an eternal working of over. It allows for the general promise and for the good news to be real and actualized. It is a tree. A tree of life. [Hint: someone restored it, there in the garden]. Or, you can go with your future-tense. Have it as you insist, as learning and tradition have taught you to do. Truth goes against the fundamental of life as once and for all though. It is parable.

Ponder the parable.

The kingdom of heaven is at hand.
Sartor Resartus.
Parable.