GREAT THINGS ENTERPRISE
CLAUDE BLACK
Mark 4:12
In Plain Sight
In March 2008, the investment bank Bear Stearns collapsed but was rescued by JPMorgan Chase. On September 15, 2008, the investment bank Lehman Brothers filed for bankruptcy, and on September 29, the Dow Jones Industrial Average dropped nearly 800 points—the largest financial crash since the Great Depression—triggering a worldwide economic crisis.
In 2007, economists warned that there were troubling economic storm clouds on the horizon. The housing market peaked; banks were making risky subprime variable-interest home loans, and interest rates were skyrocketing. The rising interest rates increased the cost of variable-interest home loans, making it difficult or impossible for homeowners to pay their ever-increasing mortgage payments, leading to massive foreclosures. Vulnerable banks collapsed, millions of people lost their jobs, and there was a global recession. Financiers saw the warnings, but they did not perceive them; they listened, but they did not hear; otherwise, they might have taken remedial measures and not caused the massive crisis.
When he began his public ministry, Jesus spoke plainly. The Sermon on the Mount in Matthew 5-7 might be an example of that method. However, he faced ridicule and persecution for his forthright message, so he chose to teach by parables. When his disciples asked him to explain the message inside his parable of the farmer sowing seeds, Jesus began his explanation for using parables, “And he was said to them, ‘To you, the mystery of the Kingdom of God has been given; but to those outside, all things come in parables. So that seeing they might see and yet not perceive, and hearing they might hear and not understand; otherwise, they may turn and it may be forgiven them.,” (Mark 4:11-12) Jesus’ paraphrase of Isaiah 6:9-10 appears to say that he was hiding his message from outsiders; however, nothing could be more incorrect than that interpretation. In Isaiah’s message, the people had made themselves so dull of hearing that they could not perceive Yahweh’s message. One rendering of Jesus’ statement is that the parables are a forthright presentation of his message, so that if one did not understand, it was their own fault. They could see, and they could hear, but their spiritual senses were so dull that they could not perceive or understand, for if they did perceive or understand they might turn to the Father, and their sins would be forgiven.
Just as the dull and imperceptive financiers did not perceive the warnings in 2007, though they were in plain sight, so too hearers and seers of the parable’s message bear the responsibility for their own rejection of the Father’s invitation and continue to live in sin, alienated from the Father.
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