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The Word Incarnate
By David G. Duggan
Special to Virtueonline
www.virtueonline.org
Oct. 30, 2014
Since I shut down my law practice several years ago, I don't go to a lot of seminars or programs about my one-time profession. But I'm a sucker for a free meal so several days ago I awakened much earlier than normal to attend a breakfast program on the business economy and its prospects for the future.
Much of this program was conducted in what seemed like a foreign language: mezzanine financing, bridge loans, leveraged buyouts and deal platforms. By adopting these metaphors, drawn from the lingo of building and construction to describe the arcane mechanics of finance, these panelists showed how we process language: we need concrete examples to understand esoteric concepts.
As the Son of God who was the Word, Jesus knew our limits to comprehending His Father's message. Preaching to urban populations generations removed from their agrarian roots, Jesus drew on the Jews' heritage as shepherds, winemakers and fishermen to show God's love for His creation: the shepherd who left his flock to seek the lost sheep, the winemaker whose tenants stole his winepress, the fishermen who left their nets to become fishers of men.
Why Jesus did not preach from military lore or the heroic literature then prevalent in the Mediterranean suggests if not compels the timeliness of His message: no matter what our future prospects in an uncertain economy, we always have a fallback as the harvesters of the bounty that God has provided us.
Never having had to catch my own dinner or press my own wine, I am grateful that God's bounty has provided supermarkets and refrigerators. But I am more grateful that God has provided His Son to teach me that I do not live by bread alone but by every word that He utters.
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