Parables of the Kingdom

         I love parables
—good ones wake us up at midnight 
and beckon for us to think them through just one more time
—to dream the story 
until it is real!
To chew on it until every dribble of flavor is tasted.

         Yet, parables are tricky things, 
we chew on them, 
until they start to chew on us… 
transform us, 
bring us into the story.

 

         Today’s parable, 
the Parable of the Sower, 
is Jesus’ parable, 
about his parables 
(kinda meta right!).

         Jesus is explaining what is happening 
when he tells these many tales about God’s Kingdom, 
when he seeds the crowd’s imaginations, 
sowing them with stories 
that touch upon the ephemeral something that happens 
when we experience the presence of God.

 

Prayer

         Imagine this great crowd listening to Jesus, 
bunched up all the way to the shore line, 
gathered from the sand dunes to the water’s edge.

         Now, he regularly does this
—tells them about the Kingdom of Heaven using parables
—Words of the Kingdom.

         This day though, it is a little different
—it is a description of what is happening
—what he’d doing to the crowd 
as he is doing it!

 

         Jesus regularly tells crowds stories about 
The Kingdom of Heaven
—the reign of God
— when the universe flows as it is created to
 –when you know that God is present…

         To quote Luther from the Small Catechism: 
“God’s Kingdom comes on its own… 
but we ask that it might also come to us.” 
With these stories, 
Jesus is preparing the crowd 
so they don’t miss it!

 

         The Kingdom of Heaven is like! 
(and for the sake of brevity, we’ll stick to what Jesus says in Matthew) 
The Kingdom of Heaven is like!

         Discovering secret treasures! 
There is nothing more important!

         A wedding feast with unexpected guests! 
Chaos and celebration, 
gathering and a long night.

         A person making a vicious power play, and it comes back to bite them. 
The balance between forgiveness and judgment.

         The budding of a field, revealing what was planted. 
It all gets sorted out in the end.

         A fishing boat making a good catch
—some of it stinks but wow, what a haul!

         Siblings hashing it out. 
They can finally name where words and deeds align and diverge.

         Workers in a vineyard. 
The owner’s generosity is overwhelming and even offensive.

         Being reminded of forgotten good works. 
It is always a surprise when you find out that you once entertained angels unaware.

         

         Jesus tells all of these parables
—these words of the Kingdom
—and they have an effect. 
They do something to these folk on the shore, 
straining to hear over the sea’s whooshing. 
Mesmerized by these stories he has sown in their hearts.

 

         Some hear these parables and are like a tight packed path
So long walked upon that nothing can catch, 
and the devil snatches the story from their heart.
         Others internalize the parable, 
make it their own, 
they understand that there is a meaning in it for them. 
They now know the Kingdom of Heaven.

 

         Some receive Jesus’ words with joy,
it sprouts up like unsupported tomato plants
and crash to the ground
and bake in the sun
and they are alone.

         Others welcome the seed down deep
it can grow in a community 
where those stories are true,
where the joy of Jesus can be cultivated.

 

         Some see this good thing, 
named experiences of the divine
as a thing among things.
Idols, like funhouse mirrors, 
make the remembrance of God coming near
so impossibly hard… fleeting, 
compared to worry and wealth
…a crown of thorns.

         Others are so moved by the truth of Jesus’ words 
that they make the Kingdom of Heaven 
their primary concern,
the center of who they are,
and they chase after it, 
whatever the consequences.

 

         Meaning, connection, a clear center… 
truly that is good soil.

         Good soil, from which can spring much fruit!

-Generous hearts and grand celebration. 
-Community gathered in joy and in sorrow. 
-Repentance, forgiveness, rejoicing. 
-Wakeful watchers for the Kingdom come.
-Treasuring and caring for all who experience grand reversals.

 

         That is what happened on that rocky beach in Galilee.
You’ve heard of life imitating art.
In this case it was parable interpreting life interpreting parable.

         There, Jesus sows parables into all kinds of imaginations, 
some compact, 
some rocky, 
some thorn filled, 
some good soil.
Telling a story about their experience of Kingdom Words…
rejection or transformation, 
fruitfulness or withering.

         Let anyone with ears listen.

In Defense of Decentralization

So, in a previous article, I laid out a few options for restructuring the ELCA. They were all more decentralized than our current structure. Folk had critiques, mainly suggestions of political naivete on my part. There seems to be a consensus from those who cared to engage that decentralization of authority and power is innately racist and dangerous.

Perhaps that is a blind spot for me. I was strongly influenced by the book The Starfish and the Spider. The way the book highlighted aspects and examples of decentralization really struck me as a true reading of many of the phenomena shaping our society today, and the very ethos of our world since the advent of the internet.

So, I want to give a bit of a defense of, or at least further engagement with, decentralization in the context of the conversation about restructuring the ELCA.

The Bible:

The formation of Hebrew Scripture occurs in response to the monstrous centralized power of the Babylonian Empire destroying Jerusalem and recentering the remaining Judean power in Babylon (essentially, they captured everyone who could read and write and put them in one place). These exiles produced sacred scripture that:

-praises 12 tribes that would unite under a God-inspired leader (Judge) when trouble brewed… even as they critique that decentralized mode of governing as fundamentally chaotic.

-praises a centralized kingship, even as they name it as a rebellion against the rule of God.

-describes a hoped-for right ruler as a “son of man”, over against multiple the monstrous kingdoms. Humane rule is the telos of power.

For that matter, the New Testament is not exactly smitten with centralized authority and power:

-God shows up in human flesh far from the center of power, both Jewish and Roman. He rejects the trappings of power as temptations from Satan, and shows what true authority looks like by a faithful subversion of that power. The Gospel is that the rule of God has come near—not far off, not a distant authority figure, but God is here in the muck.

-Roman power, the focusing of economic, social, and military power to the whim of the emperor, looms over the entirety of the New Testament. Mary and Joseph have to make an awful trek to Bethlehem because a single person called for a census. The Roman Empire crucifies the Humane Messiah—Jesus. The way all power swirls around the singular figure of the emperor is heavily and fantastically mocked by John the Revelator. On the other side of the coin, Paul uses his Roman Citizenship as a get-out of jail free card when he gets in trouble.

America:

The bulk of folk’s critique of decentralized power and authority in the ELCA as innately racist came from American history. The argument goes the Confederacy was a Confederacy of States instead of United States. Additionally, racists used the framing of “States Rights” to uphold Jim Crow.

Honestly, I think this is a shallow reading of American history. It agrees with the central premises that both the Civil War and the Civil Rights movements were about states rights. I’m not conceding that point; I think both moments in history were about the so called “right” to own humans and the choice to create and maintain a racial underclass. There were both centralized and decentralized forces that did that. There were Governor’s and Mayor’s Offices from which laws that entrenched Jim Crow came, as well as local societal mores that refused to budge. Then there is the Klan, arguably a very high level centralized conspiracy to keep black folk down!

On the other side of thing, anti-racist work took both grass roots and centralized forms. While states leaving the Union can be seen as a decentralized act, it is worth noting there were also counties who refused; we have a West Virginia for a reason! That too was a decentralized use of power and authority.

If you look at the history of the Civil Rights movement, there are powerful centralized organizations keeping the pressure on the bigots. But you also have some amazing grass roots actions that were rejected by the centralized civil rights organizations yet did work that needed to be done. For a time, every Civil Rights action in Florida was done by one guy. So too, organized labor for the poorest of the poor was often a decentralized dissent against the racial caste system and the vestiges of slavery, not a diktat from on high.

For that matter, the ultimate example of centralized powers that keep racism and reactionaries in check, lifted up as the main reason we need to reject decentralized power, is a strong executive and a muscular supreme court, who are willing to buck precedent for the unprecedented chance to protect all of America’s citizens. Would the same folk who uplifted these sacred centralized institution uplift the centralized unfootnoting of our immigration and customs enforcement by executive order, or the latest choices by the supreme court around abortion, affirmative action, and environmental protections? Is housing that much power in so few hands innately a good?

ELCA:

              One last place to look is at the ELCA’s last major crisis. Would Bishop Rohrer’s abusive mistreatment of Nelson Rabell have been helped by the centralizing or decentralizing of power and authority in the ELCA? My reading of the situation is that a decentralized force, the constant pressure of Leah Schade’s blogging, had a positive impact, but the decentralized nature of this church “Three expressions, one church” made it hard for people in authority to act.

Bigger Picture:

However the ELCA reconstitutes itself, whether we’re a radically flat denomination going forward, or become a hierarchy that is the envy of Rome, I hope we focus on the why of the structure. After all, while some synods do match state borders, ultimately, Pastors aren’t Mayors and congregations aren’t towns, Bishops aren’t Governors and synods aren’t states, and our Presiding Bishop isn’t the President and the ELCA isn’t the USA. We’re not accepting a structure for its own sake, but so that it will best allow us to faithfully share the Gospel of Jesus Christ in word and deed with our neighbors near and far.