Koans and understanding Parables

Sermon for Pentecost IV, 2024, delivered at St. Paul's Episcopal Church, Louisville, KY
Text: Mark 4:26-34

The last sentence of this morning’s Gospel reading makes a point about Jesus’ parables, where Mark describes how Jesus uses them to illustrate a teaching, but then he explains his teachings to his disciples privately, in direct terms. Christian scriptures are not the only holy writings to include this way of teaching spirituality. Zen Buddhism does something similar using koans (Ko-ahns). Koans are short stories whose illustrations are sometimes plain, sometimes contradictory or paradoxical, and they are meant to be meditated on and understood spiritually. I’ll give two examples that are fairly straightforward.

One day Banzan was walking through a market. He overheard a customer say to the butcher, “Give me the best piece of meat you have.” “Everything in my shop is the best,” replied the butcher. “You can not find any piece of meat that is not the best.” At these words, Banzan was enlightened.

Tanzan and Ekido were once traveling together down a muddy road in a heavy rain. Coming around a bend, they met a lovely girl in a silk kimono and sash, unable to cross the road. “Come on, girl” said Tanzan at once. Lifting her in his arms, he carried her over the mud. Ekido did not speak again until that night when they reached a lodging temple. “We monks don’t go near females,” he told Tanzan, “especially not young and lovely ones. It is dangerous. Why did you do that?” “I left the girl there,” said Tanzan. “Are you still carrying her?”

There is more than one teaching from these koans, and it takes a while to uncover them. Jesus’ parables are similarly allegorical, that is, the people or actions in them represent parts of a lesson, rather than being taken literally. The gospel reading for this morning can be read as two complimentary parts that form Jesus’ teaching on what the kingdom of God is like. What would they sound like as koans?

Peter came to Jesus and said, “Lord, I have scattered seed on the ground. When will the plants that grow from the seeds be ready to harvest?” Jesus answered “When its seed is ripe.” Peter asked, “How will I know when the seed is ripe?” Jesus replied, “When it is harvest time.”

Jesus and Peter were walking down a road and came to a large mustard bush. Peter picked up a small seed that had fallen to the ground and said, “What a magnificent bush that has come from such a small seed.” Jesus replied, “the birds need a place to rest.” Peter was enlightened.

When we look at the parable in this way, we see the first part is nearly an unsolvable riddle, but looking closer it places the maturation and harvesting of the plant in the same point in time and place. How we get from scattered seed to a mature plant is highlighted as something unknown, and since this is about the kingdom of God, it suggests that God and the kingdom are the same, and our experience with both is mystical, a mystery that defies a rational explanation. The second part of the parable is more about observation, what we learn about God and the kingdom, and what the kingdom looks like has much to do with what God accomplishes in it. From this perspective, there is a purpose for and within the kingdom that becomes our purpose.

Now, these are all heady things I’ve talked about, they’re deep, and may not make a lot of sense at first. So, what do we do with this meditation? The parable draws us into looking at the kingdom of God from two different perspectives that come from how we experience it. One way to look at the kingdom is to understand what the seeds are: they could be our words or actions inspired by the Holy Spirit within us. They could be seeds that we scatter as we listen, learn, support, and love the people around us. We don’t fully understand how they awaken the Holy Spirit in others, but we see the results at harvest time, when the impressions we left in others grow and mature into seeds that they sow. The kingdom is not built up when the seeds sprout and the plant grows. Instead, it is built when maturation and harvest occur together, like when we come across someone in need and help them. That is when we know our faith has matured and is ready to harvest.

The second way to look at the kingdom is as a place where everything and everyone has a purpose within it. What our seeds grow and mature into is part of God’s Creation, and when they provide for the needs of others, we have built part of the kingdom within Creation. There is nothing sown in God’s Creation that doesn’t help someone in some way, or provide for their needs. There is nothing grown in Creation that doesn’t have a purpose, or is not useful. What we build up that becomes the kingdom benefits everyone, regardless of how plain or small it starts out as. Sometimes the smallest act, or a few words makes a significant difference to someone.

We think of sowing and reaping as the beginning and the end of a growing season within a year, when in reality they are part of a cycle that never ends. And it is that cycle that we experience and that we participate in that builds the kingdom. We don’t need to know how it happens, and we shouldn’t assume that we always know what the kingdom looks like. What we do need to know is when it is time to sow, when it is time to reap, and that what we plant helps someone in some way. This is what the kingdom looks like: having faith that what we say and do is done at the right time, in the best place, for God’s reasons. Koans, Jesus’ parables, and our own stories from our experiences don’t always make sense at first. It takes time for our faith to mature so that at the harvest, we find a new perspective that shows God’s desire for us. We can’t give up looking for that perspective, we can’t give up on the kingdom that is within our reach, because there is so much that it will offer us, like the mustard bush.