Hearing you will hear and shall not understand, And seeing you will see and not perceive

 And the disciples came and said to Him, "Why do You speak to them in parables?"  He answered and said to them, "Because it has been given to you to know the mysteries of the kingdom of heaven, but to them it has not been given.  For whoever has, to him more will be given, and he will have abundance; but whoever does not have, even what he has will be taken away from him.  Therefore I speak to them in parables, because seeing they do not see, and hearing they do not hear, nor do they understand.  And in them the prophecy of Isaiah is fulfilled, which says:

'Hearing you will hear and shall not understand,
And seeing you will see and not perceive;
For the hearts of this people have grown dull.
Their ears are hard of hearing,
And their eyes they have closed,
Lest they should see with their eyes and hear with their ears,
Lest they should understand with their hearts and turn,
So that I should heal them.'

"But blessed are your eyes for they see, and your ears for they hear; for assuredly, I say to you that many prophets and righteous men desired to see what you see, and did not see it, and to hear what you hear, and did not hear it."

- Matthew 13:10-17

Yesterday, we read that on the same day Jesus taught that "whoever does the will of My Father in heaven is My brother and sister and mother," He went out of the house and sat by the sea.  And great multitudes were gathered together to Him, so that He got into a boat and sat; and the whole multitude stood on the shore.  Then He spoke many things to them in parables, saying:  "Behold, a sower went out to sow.  And as he sowed, some seed fell by the wayside; and the birds came and devoured them.  Some fell on stony places, where they did not have much earth; and they immediately sprang up because they had no depth of earth.  But when the sun was up they were scorched, and because they had no root they withered away.  And some fell among thorns, and the thorns sprang up and choked them.  But others fell on good ground and yielded a crop:  some a hundredfold, some sixty, some thirty.  He who has ears to hear, let him hear!"

And the disciples came and said to Him, "Why do You speak to them in parables?"  He answered and said to them, "Because it has been given to you to know the mysteries of the kingdom of heaven, but to them it has not been given.  For whoever has, to him more will be given, and he will have abundance; but whoever does not have, even what he has will be taken away from him."  Here we are entering into an all-important area of our faith.  What are "mysteries of the kingdom of heaven?"  My study bible tells us that these mysteries are not merely obscure concepts nor are they religious truths that are only for the elite.  Furthermore the understanding of the parables isn't just an intellectual process (and neither is faith).  We note that even the disciples find the message hard to understand!  Rather my study bible reminds us that this message is taught to all the people, and it is the simple and innocent who are open to its message.  "Simple and innocent" implies first of all a heart that loves truth -- simple meaning straightforward, and innocence implying what we truly desire, a real and pure intent.

"Therefore I speak to them in parables, because seeing they do not see, and hearing they do not hear, nor do they understand.  And in them the prophecy of Isaiah is fulfilled, which says:  'Hearing you will hear and shall not understand, and seeing you will see and not perceive; for the hearts of this people have grown dull.  Their ears are hard of hearing, and their eyes they have closed, lest they should see with their eyes and hear with their ears, lest they should understand with their hearts and turn, so that I should heal them.'"  My study bible tells us of Isaiah's prophecy that it reveals God as giving people up to their own devices (as in Romans 1:24, 26).  God doesn't deliberately "cause" their their ears to be "hard of hearing" or their eyes to be "closed."   But Christ leaves us to our choice, a depth of true desire.  The passage is from Isaiah 6:9-10.  To be truly healed is to be reconciled, "face to face" with God, in right relationship.

"But blessed are your eyes for they see, and your ears for they hear; for assuredly, I say to you that many prophets and righteous men desired to see what you see, and did not see it, and to hear what you hear, and did not hear it."  While we know the disciples certainly don't understand everything, Jesus tells them, "Blessed are your eyes for they see, and your ears for they hear."  The important thing is what they are open to, the faith that leads them as followers of Christ.  In Him, the kingdom of heaven is present -- this is what the prophets and righteous men of all the ages have desired to see and to hear; and the disciples are blessed.

Let's think about the use of parables.  It's a way of filtering out those who really want this message that Christ has, this presence of the kingdom that's come near, from those who really aren't interested.  Faith is like a deep chord that sounds somewhere in us we can't really hear, but somehow we respond to it.  It leads us forward, as if there's a depth of being that's central to us that somehow keeps us heading in one direction.  The parables work to tease out that direction, even if we can't completely grasp the fullness of all the meanings contained therein.  And I think that's Christ's purpose in telling them.  We're not alone in this venture; it's not just all about us.  But it is about a place in which we respond to the presence of the Kingdom in our midst.  It's about a part of us that responds to the work of the Spirit in us, and allows the Spirit to work hand in hand at that depth we can't quite consciously grasp.  I once heard a description of how the human voice works:  there are two basic tones made by the larynx (or voice box) in our throat:  everything else, all sound and all capabilities of the human voice such as singing, come from how those chords then vibrate in various places in the body.  In some sense, our response to Christ, our deep inner "yes," might be like those deep basic tones, and all the help that we get in life from both human and divine sources magnifies that in us and helps that "word" radiate and become more a part of us and a part of our lives.  Scripture, for example, helps to magnify our basic "yes" into something that lives in us, and that we live out in our lives.  It is the presence in the world of Christ that builds and grows that distinction -- His parables are a key to understanding it, and His affirmative "yes" to this process of drawing out those who respond from those who do not.  That's why and how faith is not just an intellectual effort, but involves a great deal more of what makes up a human being.  Faith involves also intuition and creativity, an impulse and drive for truth, life in us that can't necessarily be quantified nor predicted.  The purpose of the word -- those seeds cast by Christ who is the Word Himself, and the Sower -- is to allow them to be planted, and take root, and grow.    Let us remember this is a lifelong process, and that spiritual fruits are generated in time.  Let us have ears to hear and to respond.