IN THE WORDS OF JESUS–Part 106

YES, HE is Talking to YOU! (continued)

Love is the Fulfilling of the Law

We have now completed 13 of the Parables of Jesus and we should pause here to briefly review the last eight as we did with the first five. As we said prior to our review of the first five: perhaps we can find some new insights going over them again.

• The Parable of the Unjust Steward. Some commentaries paint this parable as the story of the Jews at the time and with Christ or God as the rich man and say that it is Israel that was a bad steward of the riches of God and therefore these riches would be taken from them. Some say that this parable was intended directly against the Pharisees who they consider to be the bad stewards, taking for themselves and feeding themselves instead of the flock. Now there may be some credence to these views but it cannot be the only point to be made. There should be some redeeming value to us as well and this has been our approach in our interpretation. We should see that the unjust steward is the world of men focused on their carnal lives; these men are neither good nor bad on the whole but they act selfishly and cheat where they can to their own gain. They do get caught, but their authorities and by their own conscience, and, if by the authorities, are put into position where they need to deal with their apprehension. This is what happens in the story; the steward is caught not taking right care of his charge and is fired, so to speak, from this position; he thinks what to do. If he is also caught by his conscience he would repent and go on in life a better man but he is not and he then seeks ways to gain the favor of those around him and those like him. He uses shrewdness and cunning and overall craftiness to further undermine his former employer and to accomplish his goal, thus earning the commendation that he had done ‘wisely’. Then the moral of the story? if we are going to live carnal lives in the world of men we need to use our craftiness to our advantage. The Master also tells us that this type of worldly person is better at what he does that are those who have chosen the higher path of righteousness and we can assume that this is because men are brought up and learned in the carnal ways much more than in the way of righteousness. His message continues in saying that if this is the life we choose, we should give it our best and keep it in our hearts; be faithful to this lifestyle so that it will serve us well. Again, there need not be evil present here; this could be the picture of the life of any one of us before we hear the call of the Lord. We do what we know and if we are faithful to it we will succeed in most any worldly enterprise. The last idea from the Master here is that we must be faithful to one; to the mammon as is the story or to God which is the antithesis. Remember He does not say that we should not serve both; He says that we cannot. Jesus words say that “No servant can serve two masters” and “Ye cannot serve God and mammon” (Luke 16:13) and we can take these as commandments or, as we said previously, as His statement that it is simply not possible. Looking at life as we live it, we can likely see the latter.
• The Parable of the Tares. This is one of those parables that the Master tells and then interprets for His disciples because they do not understand and, as we have discovered, the interpretation is also a parable in its own right. We will here skip the story itself and deal only with Jesus interpretation. We have, as we have discovered, wheat and false wheat both sown into the field of our hearts or our conscious personality. The wheat is the seed, the word, planted into the field by our own Soul, our Christ Within and the false wheat, the tares, is the seed or the word of the world, planted by our exposure to it and our actions in it. There is a constant planting and a constant reaping in our lives and, for the man who is inclined toward God, it is at the reaping that we separate the tares from the wheat as the Master instructs us. If we look at the word, the seed from each, as being ideas flowing through our consciousness we will find that they are so intermingled and mixed that it is hard to tell one from the other, hence the whole story of this parable. It is in the end, when the word or seed shows itself selfish or self-centered that we can know that it is a tare or, if we see that it is based in Love and in righteousness, we can know it is of God. It is here, according to the Master’s teaching, that we can tell the wheat from the tares and it is here that we, if we are inclined toward God, must pull up the tares and burn them in the fire, eliminate them, and harvest the good fruit which is the wheat.
• The Parable of the Growing Seed. We looked at some of the popular commentaries regarding this parable and found that none of those we reviewed showed the intent of the Master in likening the Kingdom of God to the man planting the seed. The commentators tend to take the story and interpret it into their understanding of Christianity and to this we plead guilty as well. However, we do keep (or try to keep) the primary comparison of the story intact and this is the likening of the growing seed to the growth of the Kingdom of God within us. We posited that the Soul, the Inner Man is the sower and He sows the seed, the word of God, into the field of the heart or the conscious personality and we can say here that here too, like in the last parable, that the sowing is a continuous act. The seed is sown by the prompting of the Soul on the personality, the urging to right by the conscience and, after sowing, the sower waits and ever so patiently. The Soul is waiting should the seed take root and grow and the Lord tells us that “ he knoweth not how. For the earth bringeth forth fruit of herself” (Mark 4:28) which is to say that the actions of the personality need not allow the seed to take root; the free-willed personality is about its business in the world of flesh. So, as in all of our lives, the Soul continues to sow and to wait for the seed to take root and never knows how or when it will happen; how or when that awakening may occur. Should it take root, it will grow and the Soul can then harvest the fruit unto itself and this is the Kingdom of God.
• The Parable of the Sower. This is another of the parables that the Master tells and then explains to His Disciples commenting in one gospel that “Know ye not this parable? and how then will ye know all parables?” (Mark 4:13). This, of course, should be the charge to us as well. Here we also have again a deeper idea within the Master’s explanation; for us another parable within a parable. On the whole, with the idea of God planting the seed which is the word of God, paints a picture of men as men waiting to hear the word from a minister or a teacher. Depending on what ‘type of ground’ the man is, he may never hear the word being totally oblivious to it or it may fall on his ears as just words and he goes on with his life. There is no teaching in this other than to say the facts of life in the flesh and it is not likely that this is all that Jesus meant. We, as we do with most things, take this to the more personal level which is, based on the whole of Jesus teaching, where He intended it to be taken. As in the last parable we have a sower and we have seed. We should the sower as the Soul, or Christ Within again and the seed as the word of God that comes to us from that Soul, the Inner Man. We must remember here that the idea of word is more than the gospels and epistles and more than the doctrines of any church. Christ is the Word as John tells us and we can liken our own Christ Within to our Master, Christ Jesus. We speak words, we write words and we think words and in each they are the expressions of an idea and so, in our context here they are expressions of the idea of God and of His Kingdom. And so the story as we see it; the sower, (the Soul or the Inner Man) sows the seed (the word of God as the Soul, the Christ Within knows it). The rest is up to us as conscious personalities; the Master likens us to different types of soil depending on the nature of that personality. The wayside is a man that is not paying any attention to what seed there is being sown; the stony ground receives the seed and some begins to take root but, it takes too much effort to change and the desire to change is not to be found so the plants wither and die. The thorny ground takes the seed and it roots and tries to grow but the cares of life in the flesh overwhelm it and it too dies. Then there is the good ground, those of us who are ready for the change that the seed will make in our lives; we accept the seed and we nurture it. We pray that the weather changes not and that thorns do not grow in our hearts or that our ground does not dry out and become as the stony; it takes cultivation and hard work to maintain the good ground.
• The Parable of the Servants Duty. As we said, this one is not listed on most lists of parables but it does contain a spiritual lesson and an important one at that. Any who consider themselves workers in the vineyard of the Lord need to heed the message behind this story and not become in any way self righteous or overly confident in our status or our position in the Great Scheme of Things. The Pharisees and other leaders in that day were this way; they went about thinking much of themselves and their position only to be put into their proper place by the words of the Master. If we do all that we know to do as servers and workers in His field we have only done our duty; nothing more. And, if we do this without Love we are, as the Apostle Paul tells us, NOTHING. In doing His word and serving Him in the world we do our duty and that is good and that is how we should see it; nothing more and nothing less. We can see this as the reason that the Apostle goes so far in cautioning us about this tendency of man to think so much more of himself than he should. Boast not is good; think not is better.
• The Parable of the Prodigal Son. As one of the better known parables, there are several preconceived ideas regarding its interpretation. For us, however, these do not touch upon the personal in the individual ideas that the Master sets forth in telling this story. This is the story of everyman; born in the flesh, growing up and learning the ways of the world and, if circumstances permit, learning a bit about the spiritual side of life through some form of religious training. As we mature and we break away from contact with our own Spirit and Soul and grow more and more into the ways of the world; this, of course, is neither good nor bad. Many of us come to a point where the break is full and this is the nature of the story. Do not think that any kind of religious upbringing prevents this; it is only in the reality of the call of the Soul and in living a spiritual life that this is prevented and though many may think this is their fate, if they still live in and desire the things of the flesh, it is probably not. When the break is complete we are deemed to have left our Father’s house and we are out on our own in the world of men; seeking, more or less, what all men seek. If we are listening, the Father is ever calling out to us through our own Souls and waiting for that time when we begin to lose interest or become dissatisfied with the ways of men. If that time should come, we realize the fruitlessness of what we are doing and we return to the Father although, from our perspective in form life, we believe we are coming to Him for the first time. We are welcomed with joy and this joy overwhelms our personality lives and we can live in the bliss of His Presence. There is also another story here, that of the other son that does not leave and he can be seen among those who think that they are doing right and are in His Presence. The evidence that he is not is found in his attitude of jealousy and anger and the self righteous attitude of having, in his own mind, been with the Father all along.

We have reviewed six of the eight parables leaving two more for the next post. From there we will continue with the Parables of Jesus. We should remember what a parable is an realize that some of the real life teachings of the Master can become parables for us as well because within the real life story is a hidden message and a spiritual lesson.

Note on the Quote of the Day

This daily blog also has a Quote of the Day which may not be in any way related to the essay. Many of these will be from the Bible and some just prayers or meditations that may have an influence on you and are in line with the subject matter of this blog. As the quote will change daily and will not store with the post, it is repeated in this section with the book reference and comment.

Hear counsel, and receive instruction, that thou mayest be wise in thy latter end. There are many devices in a man’s heart; nevertheless the counsel of the LORD, that shall stand (Proverbs 19:20-21).

Today’s Quote of the Day was also the verse of the day from BibleGateway.com and is appropriate to our course of discussion. It says, in its essence, what we have been saying about the relationship between the Soul, the Inner Man and his outer expression, the conscious personality. The counsel of the Lord comes to us from the Soul, the Christ Within and through it we may become wise and able to deflect the many devices that are in the heart or the consciousness of man. Remember Jesus words regarding the heart of man.