Dr. Gary Paul Nabhan describes how Jesus’ parables invited listeners to find wisdom in their daily agricultural circumstances:
When we look afresh at the parables through the eyes of Middle Eastern farmers, fishers, herders, and orchard keepers … we can clearly see that Jesus was offering them both the intangible gift of hope and tangible options for survival. Jesus guided his hearers into rethinking for themselves how to survive and build community at the very moment that they felt overwhelmed by unprecedented pressures.…
The imagery and cadence we find in the aphorisms and parables of Jesus are those of a gifted storyteller who reached his listeners through colorful but cryptic symbols, curious riddles, and circular plots that engaged listeners as participants in the process of making the story whole. There was no need for Jesus to stand behind a podium or pulpit to pontificate. Instead, he interacted with his listeners’ hearts and minds in a manner that became integral to the story itself. The only way the story could be made whole and would make wounded listeners whole was by engaging them with deep participation.
Nabhan helps us hear Jesus’ lively, earthy storytelling in his retelling of the parable of the Sower and the Seed:
Hey! Listen up, those of you who think you have ears!…
A farmer went out to sow,
and from his hand he would throw…
[Jesus] gestured with his hand, as if flinging seeds out toward them in every which way.
…a broadcasting of the seeds,
but most of them landed
far from the sower and too close to the barren road….
Some of the seed they cast out
fell where bedrock reached the surface.
He knelt upon the stony ground before them, knocking his knuckles against the hardened earth to demonstrate its impermeability. They heard a low thud. They knew all too well that seeds cannot penetrate very far into compacted earth….
Others of the seeds he sowed
landed among some thorny brush….
He grabbed a branch of spiny, tangled crucifixion thorn and forced his fist up through its barbs until the skin on his hand dripped with blood. The people themselves had felt their own arms and legs scratched and bloodied by the piercing of these thorns….
At last, the sower came to a place
where the earth felt welcoming, full of tilth,
where he could gently fling some seeds into sweet spots
where they made their way to deeper, richer soil.
He knelt down again and used his bloody hand as a trowel, but this time, he brought up fragrant, richly textured, glistening humus from beneath the stones on the surface. He raised it up, then he bowed to the fellaheen [food producers] who had gathered to hear him. He stretched out his other arm out toward them and opened his hand in deference, as if to remind them that they themselves were essential elements for sustaining the fecundity and generative energy of this earth.
| Hey COfew. (from Andrew Lang) A few years ago, my partner-at-the-time came home and found me sitting on the floor of our house with papers scattered all around me.I was curplunked on the ground, my face scrunched up, with a whiteboard packed with ideas and connections and names in front of me. Being new to the city we now lived in, I was making an elaborate plan for how to plug into the activist scene and who I needed to build relationships with to understand more about Tacoma politics. It was – to quote her, even though I hated hearing it in that moment – “a lot of words.”Looking back, that moment with the whiteboard illustrates a truth I still wrestle with frequently: I’m often afraid of “getting out there;” of doing the wrong thing; of not doing enough; of using my already-limited time, energy, and money in a way that isn’t actually that impactful.And so instead, I ruminate, I whiteboard, I plan, I doomscroll, I simmer – and sometimes I boil.Does that sound familiar to you at all?It’s a frustrating dynamic – a strange combination of wanting to act, while using planning, overthinking, and “needing to learn more” to ensure I never do; of using my “lots of words” to protect me from taking a step into the possibly-uncomfortable terrain of the unknown.And when I consider the broader societal forces that work to pull us away from our communities and collective action and toward individualism, saviorism, and the status quo, this analysis paralysis and drive to think too-big-to-be-actionable feels very much by design.For me, the way I’ve learned to counter this is to 1) prioritize actions that support folks already doing amazing work, rather than starting things on my own, and 2) look for daily actions in my own life I can take that are relational and community-focused.I’m reminded of David Whyte’s words from his poem “Start Close In: ”Start close in, don’t takethe second step or the third, start with the first thing close in, the step you don’t want to take. Here are two questions I’m working with right now to help me take these small, “close in” steps that move me from my own thoughts and into action: Who is already working on [the issue I care about] and how can I amplify, support, or join them this week? What action can I take today that helps move my community and myself toward healing? I invite you to work with these questions for yourself this week. Or if they don’t quite connect, see if there is a unique question alive in you that might help push you into the discomfort of taking action – no matter how small. |
