James Lileks at www.buzz.mn says they’re having a try-out for the game show, Jeopardy at the Mall of America tonight.

Ah well. If God had intended me to go to the try-out, He wouldn’t have scheduled a Viking Age Society meeting for tonight.

My subject, in lieu of phrasing my answer in the form of a question, is the parables of Jesus.

Most Christians think they know all about the parables. It’s my opinion that most of what we think we know is… not exactly mistaken. But inadequate.

I grew up (and I don’t think I’m alone) with the idea that the parables were essentially allegory. You go to them with the idea of figuring out what this or that symbolizes, and then you have the meaning.

But have you noticed that that approach doesn’t actually work very well when you go to the text?

It works fine for some of the parables. The Parable of the Sower (Matthew 13:3-9) is a classic of this form. In fact, the disciples ask Jesus what it means, and He gives an allegorical interpretation. The seed stands for something, and the various kinds of ground on which it falls stand for various kinds of people.

And yet… what does that interpretation tell us? That some people accept the gospel, and some people don’t. Hardly news to anybody who’s ever tried to share his faith.

So it seems to me that Jesus’ interpretation wasn’t meant to be exhaustive. I think He meant us to meditate on the story and read the deeper implications—the fact that people who want to spread the gospel have to be prepared to see most of their work appear to be wasted, holding onto faith that the portion that falls on the “good soil” will bring a return that makes up for the disappointment of the others. In other words, courage and persistence and optimism are the point, as any good salesman could tell you.

Some parables seem to be plain narrative, with no symbolism involved. Take the parable of the Rich Man with the storehouses (Luke 12:16-21). I look in vain here for any symbolism or allegory. The rich man represents a rich man. He’s accumulated so much grain (which symbolizes grain) that he’s making plans to tear down his old storehouses (which I interpret for you to mean storehouses) and build new ones to hold it all. He doesn’t know that he’s about to die, and then all his wealth will do him no good. This isn’t allegory. It’s a cautionary tale. Jesus says, “This is how it will be with anyone who stores up things for himself but is not rich toward God” (verse 21). We miss the point of this story, I think, when we look for symbolism when we ought to be taking it literally.

And then there are the “difficult parables.” There’s the parable of the Unjust Judge (Luke 18:1-8). How are we to take a story where Jesus asks us to think of God as being like an unjust judge? (No wonder the Sanhedrin considered Him a blasphemer!). Or the parable of the Unjust Steward (Luke 16:1-13). Here Jesus seems to be holding up an embezzler as an example for His disciples. What’s with that?

This is again a problem of looking for allegory where something else is intended. These two stories aren’t allegories. They’re… I don’t know what to call them. There’s probably a literary term. They’re stories intended to shock, to twist paradigms, to deliver a narrative kick to our pants. Jesus is simply telling fantastic, shocking (and somewhat comic) stories to get our attention. He doesn’t want us to take the Unjust Judge or the Unjust Steward as reliable symbols or role models. He just wants us to look at the things we do from a different perspective. These stories are like the two-by-four with which the farmer in the old joke smacks his mule, just “to get its attention.”

My point in all this is to say that the parables, considered merely as a group of stories, are highly remarkable, and far more textured and complex than we usually think.

It seems to me that even someone who didn’t believe the Christian religion would have to stop a moment in puzzlement if he encountered these stories for the first time, and was informed that they came from an obscure, First Century Jewish peasant. I think he’d say, “This must have been some peasant.”

Today’s Thinklings Quote of the Day lines up with this video post from yesterday. The quote is from A. W. Tozer: “The essence of idolatry is the entertainment of thoughts about God that are not worthy of Him.” In the post, a pastor reveals his struggle with the challenge Jesus lays before us. He said that a year or two ago he was struggling with his role as a pastor and his intimacy with the Lord. He turned to his wife and said, “If Jesus had a church in Simi Valley, I betcha mine would be bigger.” Because he didn’t challenge his congregation like the Lord challenges us.

Will Duquette became a Roman Catholic a while back, and now he’s uncovering his inner Benedictine monk. Make that oblate, not monk.

Some while ago, Jane had picked up a book, rather on a whim, called Monk Habits for Ordinary People, by a Presbyterian minister named Dennis Okholm. Okholm has, rather surprisingly, for twenty years been an oblate of Blue Cloud Abbey, a Benedictine monastery in South Dakota, and his purpose in writing the book was to make Benedictine spirituality accessible to other Protestants. I’d glanced at it at the time, but no more than that; a couple of days ago Jane reminded me of it, and I more or less devoured it.

Andrée Seu writes, “What I believe about whether McCain, Clinton, Huckabee, Obama, or Romney will be President has some — but very little — bearing on my spirits as I go about my work. What I believe about God’s attitude toward me colors every transaction — like an eyedropper of food coloring in a cup of water that permeates completely.”

“But you, O LORD, are a shield about me, my glory, and the lifter of my head.” Psalm 3:3 ESV

The weekend went as per my previous announcement. I spent it in bed or on the couch, trying to get past this latest rampaging rhinovirus. I canceled two things I’d planned to do. One of them turned out to be fairly important in regard to the situation of one of my old friends, though no one had bothered to tell me that until after I’d decided I couldn’t go. Nevertheless, the theme of the weekend was Bad Cold, plus Bad Conscience.

Today is Shrove Monday, and tomorrow is Shrove Tuesday. The “shrove” refers to the sacrament of confession and absolution—getting shriven. One was (I suppose still is, in several communions) expected to go to confession and be shriven in preparation for the forty day fast of Lent.

In Norwegian they call it Fetetirsdag, which corresponds to the French Mardi Gras, or “Fat Tuesday.” That less spiritual-sounding name rises from the fact that all red meat was forbidden during the Lenten fast. It was considered a sin even to have animal fat in your house during that period. So people would feast on all the fat that was laying around. Fat-free diets were not fashionable (or safe) in those days, when food was harder to get than it is now. You didn’t just pitch something that could provide nutrition, especially late in the winter. If you couldn’t have it in the kitchen, you wanted to carry it around on your waist with you. It would help you get through Lent.

Pancakes were a popular food for using up the fat, which is why pancakes are traditionally associated with Shrove Tuesday. Sexual relations were also forbidden in Lent, which, I suppose, accounts for Mardi Gras and Carnivale.

In many churches people still fast for Lent. It’s rare, I think, for anyone to do a real, old-fashioned, no-meat-or-meat-products-at-all plus no sex Lent anymore, one where you actually drop a lot of weight, but many people give up some indulgence—chocolate or ice cream or booze.

Many Lutherans do it too, but that isn’t part of my pietist tradition. Also I’m afraid I wouldn’t hold out, and I’d have something new to feel guilty about.

Anyway, I already don’t drink, and I have no sex life. I’m way ahead of most Lenten fasters any day of the year. Maybe I should fast from fasting during Lent. It would be hard, but good for…

No.

Again Bill meditates on strong truth: “In the Bible hope is strong, it is virile, it is tough. Hope is a warrior. Hope sees the victory, before the battle has even begun. Hope bursts forth, the fruit of suffering that has produced endurance and a character strong enough to hope. . . . Hope charges the bunkers of despair, hope outflanks its lines, hope takes the enemy camp. Hope is the flag raised on the Mount Suribachi of our fears, and hope doesn’t give heed to the bullets.”

Do not be afraid, but rejoice in the hope the Lord has for us. “Be Thou my battle Shield, Sword for the fight.”

Bill has had a moment–you know, one of those epiphany things. “I read a glowing tribute to the movie It’s a Wonderful Life a while ago (and that’s one of my favorite movies), and, apropos of almost nothing, the author of the tribute said that he believed people would be watching that movie long after Christianity is forgotten. . . . ” As if.