Powerpoint Images of God

In the book of Wisdom, we hear that "Those who are just must be kind.” (Wis. 12:19).  This appears to be the opposite of the message of today's dominant world cultures.  And if we examine world history, it seems that kindness often takes a back seat to aggression, selfishness, and an endless hunger for more control. 

Jesus knew that the people who came to hear Him preach and teach, to be healed and consoled and be comforted and relieved of their burdens were the ones taught by the Scribes and Pharisees on how to pray and give alms and fulfill their obligations to the Temple.  Jesus needed to teach the people who flocked to Him a more loving God, a compassionate God, a forgiving God.  In other words, Jesus was revealing to them His Father (and ours) in these parables, the Father that the wise and the learned would never know.

So he taught them in parables.  All of the parables have something in common; they describe Jesus’ God and not the God of the Scribes and Pharisees.  The parables are like PowerPoint images of God.  There are images of the seed being sown generously, allowing it to fall where it may, in the path, in rocky soil and among the thorns, as well as good soil where it produces abundantly (Matthew 13:1-9).  Images of the wheat and the weeds growing up together (Matthew 13:23-30), of a woman in her kitchen making bread (Matthew 13:33).  We don’t need to use a lot of “brain power” to imagine these images.

Through His parables, Jesus talks to us about a God who allows the good and the bad to grow, knowing full well that ultimately only the good will endure (Matthew 13:36-43).  Jesus also lets us know that God’s mustard seed far surpasses our imagination for sustaining life (Matthew 13:31-32).  And God is like the woman who mixes a bit of yeast into three measures of wheat flour and the whole batch is leavened. (v 33)

In other words, God isn’t depending upon us to save the world, but to be the ones through which the world is saved.  We are, after all, God’s creation, made in the image and likeness of God. (Genesis 1:26)

While wheat and weeds continue to co-exist, there will continue to be truth and holiness all tangled up with sin, injustice, and error.

As Jesus says at the conclusion of a lot of His parables: “Whoever has ears ought to hear.”  

So, if today you hear God’s word, harden not your hearts (Psalm 95); rather, ask for assistance and grace through prayer and remember what St. Paul wrote, “Brothers and sisters: The Spirit comes to the aid of our weakness; for we do not know how to pray as we ought, but the Spirit himself intercedes with inexpressible groanings.  And the one who searches hearts knows what is the intention of the Spirit, because he intercedes for the holy ones according to God’s will.” (Romans 8:26-27)