Jesus Was a Literature Professor

Literature professors are a determined lot. Our goal is to deepen our students’ engagement with the text at hand. We desperately want them to dive for the pearls deep below the surface and come up triumphant, gasping for air and eager to go deeper next time. I am aware that literature professors weren’t a thing in Jesus’ time. Jewish students who sat under their rabbis studied the Old Testament (though not as Christians today understand it.) They became rabbis and scribes, teaching what they learned to the next generation.

And then came Jesus. He understood all the old texts and the traditional ways of reading them. But the way he read Scripture would turn the world upside down. One of his first tasks was to teach the disciples how to read the literature they had memorized as young boys before their bar mitzvah. His methodology would eventually affect the way millions read the Old Testament as well as the new.

I love the Old Testament, but I wouldn’t crave interaction with it in the same way unless Jesus had taken the time to school the disciples. I didn’t understand how this worked until very recently. I am reading through Mark 4, and I came to the parable of the sower. A man sows seed, and some falls on the road, others on stony ground, and some among the weeds. The story is simple and to its listeners, pointless. It seems a little like a Chinese fortune cookie. They sound profound but generally aren’t. The oxen are slow, but the earth is patient.

Even the disciples don’t get the parable of the sower until Jesus explains it. I got my revelation as I read how he explains it to his students. The emotion I feel is the same as when I introduce Hills like White Elephants by Ernest Hemingway to a new batch of students. They read the story and have no clue what it’s about. Never have I had a student understand what this story means right off the bat.

The story itself reads as a conversation between a girl and her lover, an older man. Like many of the conversations we have, the two characters never mention the subject by name. Eavesdropping bystanders would not be able to decode the communication, which is partly the point of the story. Only when I give my students the key to the whole story does it fall into place for them. He is pressuring her to have an abortion. She is trying to get him to love her and the baby, using various forms of emotional manipulation, all the while he is manipulating her far more effectively.

The central metaphor for the story is in the title, though one doesn’t see it until after one considers the main point. Hills like pregnant bellies and hills like white elephant gifts, unwanted and difficult to maintain as in the old Indian fable, come to mind only after one recognizes the agenda at hand. To understand literature, one must hunt for meaning the way pigs hunt for truffles. Literature, like nature, goes to great trouble to hide its treasures.

I love the parable of the sower because it is about revelation. The Bible, the Holy Spirit, countless pastors, and an army of writers sow inspiration, meaning, and knowledge. We have access to incredible amounts of information. But understanding how to read for purpose, to uncover metaphor, is something Jesus took special pains to accomplish with his 12 men. He taught them how to interact with literature in this first main parable.

He is asking them about what kind of soil do they have in their souls. When seed falls on the soil in their hearts, will it wither? Will it get choked by the cares of this world or by the world’s competition for center stage in our thoughts and emotions? Just like any good literature professor, Jesus makes his story personal. He invites them to engage with it, to reflect and process. Jesus is teaching them to read for personal meaning, not merely information.

Psychologists say that reading fiction greatly enhances emotional intelligence. We identify with the characters and, in so doing, experience new situations and emotions that prep us for real-life experiences. We learn how to grieve, to sacrifice, to have courage, and to risk through the lives of fictional characters. Literature has the power to teach, to comfort, to inspire.

How much more then, if the most excellent teacher in Heaven and earth teaches us to interact with metaphor? He invites us to interact with the Bible on a personal level, recognizing that these are not characters we read about, but real people. He gave the disciples a tool, and the world never was the same again. The very fabric of the Old Testament is revealed through Jesus’ small instructive moments. The exodus of the Hebrews from Egypt is no longer just a history lesson. All good literature links what and why. Suddenly Moses is a type for Jesus and crossing the Red Sea a metaphor for salvation for every believer.

We are all slaves to sin, and Jesus points the way out of bondage. We all must traverse this wilderness of a fallen world until we cross the Jordan into the Promised Land. This one story inspired the abolitionists and the black slaves as well as countless other people groups held in captivity. Countless hymns and spirituals exist because of this one story. It inspires us now to take a leap of faith away from those sins and hangups that keep us in chains. It encourages us to fight for truth, to discern between good and evil, and to persevere. This story, more than any other in the Old Testament, except perhaps for David and Goliath, inspired countless books, movies, hymns, and individuals to hope for freedom.

Why does this excite me? Because I can be a David standing up to my Goliath. I can be a Hebrew, trusting God for daily provision. I can be a disciple, following Jesus around, trying to understand what he is talking about, learning how to be a follower of Christ. Story in the abstract can only reach so far. It is in the concrete that we learn to stay on our knees with Jesus in the Garden of Gethsemane. Because Jesus healed the woman who touched the hem of his garment, I can cling to his robe until I am changed, too.

Jesus understood metaphor because he is also a link, a mediator. Metaphor takes the abstract and helps to link it with the concrete. We can’t define love easily, but we understand it through gifts, sacrifice, and grand gestures. In the same way, Jesus points to a distant and abstract God who defies definition and connects the Father of lights with his people through his tangible presence on earth. Jesus is what God means. I am the way, the truth, and the life, says Jesus. And we understand that, just as in literature, Jesus is pointing towards meaning and purpose. He uses metaphor to help us know him, and he is instructing our hearts today just as he guided the disciples so long ago.

So prepare the garden of your hearts to receive the mustard seed of faith. And make sure you keep your oil lamps burning.

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