Homilies & Thoughts

The Lord’s parable and his stated reason for speaking in parables are mutually illuminating. Which is to say, the parable draws us into the logic of parables and reveals their purpose. A parable is not a mere story or a moral lesson. It is an invitation to step inside a symbolic world and meditate. Every object within the symbolic cosmos is polyvalent and saturated with meaning. Understanding, then, is not reducible to “figuring out the message,” as if one were solving a puzzle. Understanding is discovered through participation in the parable.

A person who tells a lie must carry the weight of both the truth and the lie. First comes the story. Then comes the detail that has to match the story. Then more details. The mind has to work faster than the conversation constructing a more and more elaborate façade.

Jesus knows that hidden labor. He uses the word “burdened,” a verb. We are actively being weighed down and carrying something. He is speaking about the work of carrying the weight that stays with a person after a choice has been made. It is what stays with us after the moment has passed.

The first reading places us in the home of a woman in Shunem who recognizes Elisha as a holy man of God. She urges him to dine with her, and then, seeing his frequent travels, she and her husband prepare and furnish a small room for him on the roof. In this simple but deliberate act, she makes space in her home for the servant of God, and in doing so, she makes room for God himself.