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- Speaking in parables.
- "The disciples came close to Jesus and said to
him: Why to you speak to them in parables? He answered: Because
it is given to you to know about the mysteries of the Kingdom
of Heaven and it is not given to those ones…" (Mathew
13, 10-11 and following).
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At first sight, this text is astonishing. It seems to imply
that understanding has been systematically given to the disciples
and hidden to the others. It is important to remember that we
don't know the exact words of Jesus, they have not been recorded. |
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- The Gospel reports what the first Christian communities
had retained from Jesus' teaching. Facing the lack of understanding,
even the sometime deadly opposition of the scribes and the Great
Priests, they are tending to strengthen the separation between
themselves and their opponents.
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From this text, we have in perspective a teaching that is only
understandable if we are inclined to understand it. It is not
only a question of listening to what it is said but of opening
oneself to the proposed message. A biblical text does not impose
by itself.
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Free we are to receive it or not. A good reception requests
confidence, without it no word can reach us. These words call
us personally to action; they are rich of multiple understandings
of which one cannot fulfill all what is said. |
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- Jesus was proposing and inviting" Come and see"
In using parables, he was opening diverse approaches, making
the text free of supposedly evident interpretation.
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The reading of the Bible that has taken so much importance
among the Christians, tends to replace the fixed doctrinal statements
of the past by statements with more nuances and enrichments By
alternating individual readings and group sharing, this familiarity
with the Gospel and other biblical readings does not bring an
all-made truth. It is in our own life that we are questioned
and compared to the life that Jesus had experienced. |
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- By the diversity of understandings, the Gospel forces
us to give our answer. Far from fixing the words, our horizon
is enlarged. Without excluding the reasoning and the doctrinal
reflection about the text itself, there are several ways of life
that are offered to us. We cannot avoid agreeing without changing
our way of being and acting.
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