When I view Jesus' parables, I always ask myself, like any good federalist, where is the sovereignty in the parable? To some extent I am certain Jesus himself understood these relationships of sovereignty. When challenged about paying taxes, he asked whose face was on the coin. In his parables, specifically, who is sovereign? What is sovereign, artificially so called, because it is taken for granted? What is sovereign because it has been lost, and now is found? Now by sovereign, I mean what holds power, sway, influence, gravity, importance, political sovereignty. What is priceless? Looking at his parables in this way, there is a certain joy attached to things that are earned. There is freedom and truth found in what grows, versus what is handed to a person.
Another way to put it is, what is arbitrary? This is the reverse of the viewpoint above. Things appreciated, or accomplished via an unearned method, are arbitrary. Ready made solutions. Makeshift solutions. Things and people taken for granted. Presumption.
The two questions are a counterpoint. One is evolutionary, ethical, natural, organic. The other is revolutionary, arbitrary, summary, and superficial. The whole of Jesus' teachings, as I understand them, used the former and evolutionary method.
One great example, a parable which I recently used in a short story on the dangers of arbitrarily genetically engineering honey bees, found here, is The Parable of the Weeds, as follows:
The kingdom of heaven is likened unto a man who sowed good seed in his field:
But while men slept, his enemy came and sowed tares among the wheat, and went his way.
But when the blade was sprung up, and brought forth fruit, then appeared the tares also.
So the servants of the householder came and said unto him, Sir, didst not thou sow good seed in thy field? from whence then hath it tares?
He said unto them, An enemy hath done this. The servants said unto him, Wilt thou then that we go and gather them up?
But he said, Nay; lest while ye gather up the tares, ye root up also the wheat with them.
Let both grow together until the harvest: and in the time of harvest I will say to the reapers, Gather ye together first the tares, and bind them in bundles to burn them: but gather the wheat into my barn.
I love this parable immensely. I comment on it here because it is illustrative of a point. This parable is not about the enemy who sows weeds. It is about the householder's rejection of his servant's suggestion that they pull up the weeds. Evil will be evil, sure, but the good servant shall not use revolution to fight the revolution that an enemy imposed upon them all.
In my short story, I modify the parable slightly, not only to bring forward that point above, but to show just how organic (in British English ecological) are Jesus' parables, especially this one.
The kingdom of heaven is like a man who sowed good seed in his field. When the wheat sprouted
and formed heads, the weeds also appeared. The owner’s servants came to him and said, ‘Sir, do
you want us to go and spread herbicides to kill the weeds?’ ‘No,’ he answered, ‘for while you
are killing the weeds, you will be damaging the wheat with them. This is an ecological crop. Let
both grow together until the harvest. At that time the harvesters will collect the weeds and the
wheat, sort and sift between them, and then bring the ecological wheat alone into my barn.
I have a garden, and I have four good rows of red Raspberries growing in it. It never fails that when I leave it alone a couple days, up sprout the weeds, all sorts of nettles and thistles. Because I am only concerned with a large portion of berries, I am not at all worried about the few I chance to harm and crush while pulling up the weeds. And so pull them up I do.
The same is true of the non-ecological farmer. Weeds grow, and to minimize these from the start, the farmer sprays out herbicide, killing them. What he also does with that herbicide, and pesticides when there are little creatures eating away at the crop, is damage the crop itself.
What we are talking about here is 6 billion berries, and concern for every one, so much so that the householder refuses to arbitrarily tend them. The householder allows for weeds, because to summarily cut them down would also harm the grain.
Now I am sure some biblical interpretation may be applied to this. Some sorting and sifting of the wheat from the weeds in the afterlife. That's for somebody else. But me, I'm concerned with the here and now, and this parable is about ethical living. This is not a magical formula where you state "I believe Jesus died for my sins" and arbitrarily all things are better, get out of jail for free. In fact, according to the parable, such a statement is a quick fix that creates more trouble than not. It certainly doesn't improve upon a person's character, and may make the person feel psychologically certain that
The parable, to me, is about not using arbitrary methods with others. I'll state that positively. It is about using evolutionary, earned methods of achievement with others. How many bosses have you liked that micro-managed what they didn't believe, yet you knew, you yourself were capable of? How many new magazines on the market go out and claim that they are great, rather than borrow somebody else considered great to get the person to vouch for them? Problem very few. They borrow sovereignty from others until they have earned their own. How many times have you turned down good advice because, even though it's exactly what you need, it wasn't asked for, and therefore oversteps some bounds of propriety? How many know-it-alls do you respect? Affectation is an attempt to appear more skillful than what one has actually earned. But I digress a bit.
The parable means going to the individual privately with your problem before going to him or her with a group of mutual friends, and that before going next with the "congregation". Going with the congregation from the outset, first, places the congregation, rather than the individual in question, first. It is arbitrary. It breaks the rule that the Sabbath (or congregation) was made for man, not man for the Sabbath (or congregation). If this is about the individual, then why do the harm of control. In essence, going to the congregation first is a means of controlling, arbitrarily, what you are unable to achieve by evolutionary, ethical means. If you enforce the solution with the congregation, summarily, immediately, arbitrarily, have you really solved it? If you solve things in this way, is it because you having gained the skill of solving it by going to the individual first?
Don't get me wrong as far as the relationship between individual and group. One ought to have devoted loyalty to the congregation, whatever healthy congregation it may be. The universe isn't so centered around the individual that he or she doesn't owe some time, resources and responsibility to the whole. But in the end, however important the group may be, it is always founded on the individual. Anything else is an arbitrary construction, and is doomed to fall to pieces under its own weight. I'll put the primacy of the individual in another light. The difference between Jesus' way of gardening and mine is that I love the bunch of berries, like China loves the Chinese, and so, a few are expendable when pulling up the weeds, spraying herbicide. Jesus on the other hand, loves the bunch of berries because he loves each berry, and therefore, none are expendable. That is the reality that is going to survive. But it requires that, for the sake of the wheat, weeds are allowed their time. Because the individual is sovereign.
And so, last time I looked, the world was full of berries, and also a bunch of weeds. Thank God.
With parables, let everyone interpret it his or her own way (lest it be an arbitrary one, ready made). Here's mine.
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