I have a secret. Life Worth Living is not, in fact, my favorite course to teach. Don’t get me wrong; I love it. I couldn’t imagine giving it up. It’s just that there’s another class I teach that I love even more: my seminar for first year students, related but quite distinct, Education and the Life Worth Living.

I schedule the course every year for 9am on the first day of classes so that it is my students’ very first college class. Before they jump in to economics or computer science, psychology or biology, art history or the Russian novel, I want them to stop and consider “what is this all for?”

We read all kinds of folks you might expect in a philosophy of education course—contemporary voices worried about the aims of higher education like Andrew Delbanco, Martha Nussbaum, and Ta-Nehisi Coates; classic texts in philosophy of education by Jean-Jacques Rousseau, Mary Wollstonecraft, Paolo Freire, and bell hooks. But the majority of the class we spend wrestling with the ancients: the Confucian tradition from Confucius to Mencius and Zhu Xi; the Christian tradition from Jesus to Paul to Augustine.

Before they jump in to economics or computer science, psychology or biology, art history or the Russian novel, I want them to stop and consider “what is this all for?”

Students’ final writing prompt is: “What kind of person do you want to become? How will your college education help you become that person?” It’s a college course about college. It’s a class about classes.

All of which means that when we come to the Parable of the Sower, we’re right where we need to be. Because this parable, as it turns out, is a teaching about teaching.

The passage itself is clear about its topic: “Again [Jesus] began to teach beside the sea… He began to teach them many things in parables, and in his teaching he said to them…” (Mark 4:1-2) The Greek word order in v. 2 is what we Bible nerds call an “inclusio,” beginning an ending with “teaching.”

Okay, so we get it. Jesus is teaching. How does he teach? Well, as promised, he tells a parable—not just any parable, but a parable about parables. “A sower went out to sow…” (4:3) Some seeds fall on the path, some on rocky ground, some among thorns; other seed falls on good soil and bears fruit. The enigmatic story ends: “Let anyone with ears to hear listen!” (4:9)

Even before answering their questions, Jesus tells these folks: “To you has been given the secret of the kingdom of God, but for those outside, everything comes in parables; in order that ‘they may indeed look, but not perceive, and may indeed listen, but not understand; so that they may not turn again and be forgiven.” (4:11-12)

The meaning of the parable is not clear. Everyone, one imagines, comes away confused. And some of the folks who were puzzled stick around and ask questions. Even before answering their questions, Jesus tells these folks: “To you has been given the secret of the kingdom of God, but for those outside, everything comes in parables; in order that ‘they may indeed look, but not perceive, and may indeed listen, but not understand; so that they may not turn again and be forgiven.” (4:11-12)

Noting that understanding this parable is pivotal to understanding all his parables, Jesus then goes on and offers an interpretation. “The sower sows the word.” (4:14) He teaches. And his teaching comes to various hearers. Some immediately lose what they’ve heard. Some immediately respond with enthusiasm but quickly lose interest. Others hear but are distracted by “the cares of the world” (4:19). Finally there is the “good soil” who hear and accept the teaching and they “bear fruit, thirty and sixty and a hundredfold.” (4:20)

Turning to my students, many of whom have never read the bible before, I ask them: what can we learn about Jesus’ philosophy of education from this passage?

Immediately, they recognize these different moments and contexts for teaching and learning. First, there’s the lecture: the parable (vv. 1-9). The seaside is the lecture hall, replete with natural means of amplification. Then comes discussion section (vv. 10-20), a student suggests. Not quite, another student says. The smaller meeting isn’t required, so it’s more like office hours: an opportunity just for the committed, curious student.

This gets everyone on the edge of their seats. Yes, another says. It’s office hours. And that’s the secret of the Kingdom of God: being honest that you didn’t get it the first time and curious enough to seek out the teacher to press in and try to understand. Other students concur; this is a crucial component of learning.

And that’s the secret of the Kingdom of God: being honest that you didn’t get it the first time and curious enough to seek out the teacher to press in and try to understand.

And, another student suggests, maybe it makes some sense of that really confusing bit in the middle about Jesus teaching in parables so that people don’t understand. Jesus gives confusing lectures in order to find the honest and curious, to get them to come to him, to be with him.

Our own class ends but a handful of students linger. One with little prior exposure to the Bible asks: So is Jesus ultimately interested in people being with him? Is that the point of all of this? Is it worth all the confusion? We puzzle it over a bit. I confide that, at times, it seems to me that life is like Jesus’ parables—almost designed, it seems, to confuse us, to drive us, puzzled but hungry, to Jesus. Seems like that’s got to be at least part of it. I told them to keep their eyes and ears peeled for the next day when we will discuss John 15 and Jesus’ invitation for folks to abide in his love.

And, after a morning in class where Jesus’ classroom and ours seemed so close—classrooms about classrooms, learning about learning, driven by productive confusion, fueled by honesty and curiosity— I am reminded that our classroom is not just like Jesus’. My ultimate hope, I tell the few students who remain, isn’t to puzzle them in order to drive them into relationship with me. As a Christian, my surest hope for any of us finding our way into the very heart of the worthiness of our shared humanity is in the presence of Jesus, in that abiding love that we’ll talk about next time.

It is clear that each of us holds importantly different hopes for where we’re all most likely to find our ways into flourishing life.

More questions follow. “Abiding” sounds like yet another parable, one that conceals as much as it reveals. It is clear that each of us holds importantly different hopes for where we’re all most likely to find our ways into flourishing life.

As I exit the Humanities Quadrangle that morning into the heart of central campus, I can’t help but be grateful for the ways that my students have opened the way of Jesus to me. And I cannot but be grateful for the generosity of Jesus to be present to us in our questions that morning.

And I can’t wait to get back to my favorite class.

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