{"id":1474,"date":"2008-03-07T19:18:47","date_gmt":"2008-03-08T00:18:47","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/brandywinebooks.net\/?p=1474"},"modified":"2008-03-07T19:18:47","modified_gmt":"2008-03-08T00:18:47","slug":"parabola","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/brandywinebooks.net\/?p=1474","title":{"rendered":"Parabola"},"content":{"rendered":"

James Lileks <\/strong>at www.buzz.mn says they\u2019re having a try-out for the game show, Jeopardy at the Mall of America tonight.<\/p>\n

Ah well. If God had intended me to go to the try-out, He wouldn\u2019t have scheduled a Viking Age Society meeting for tonight.<\/p>\n

My subject,<\/strong> in lieu of phrasing my answer in the form of a question, is the parables of Jesus<\/strong>.<\/p>\n

Most Christians think they know all about the parables. It\u2019s my opinion that most of what we think we know is\u2026 not exactly mistaken. But inadequate.<\/p>\n

I grew up (and I don\u2019t think I\u2019m 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.<\/p>\n

But have you noticed that that approach doesn\u2019t actually work very well when you go to the text?<\/p>\n

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.<\/p>\n

And yet\u2026 what does that interpretation tell us? That some people accept the gospel, and some people don\u2019t. Hardly news to anybody who\u2019s ever tried to share his faith.<\/p>\n

So it seems to me that Jesus\u2019 interpretation wasn\u2019t meant to be exhaustive. I think He meant us to meditate on the story and read the deeper implications\u2014the 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.<\/p>\n

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\u2019s accumulated so much grain (which symbolizes grain) that he\u2019s 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\u2019t know that he\u2019s about to die, and then all his wealth will do him no good. This isn\u2019t allegory. It\u2019s a cautionary tale. Jesus says, \u201cThis is how it will be with anyone who stores up things for himself but is not rich toward God\u201d<\/i> (verse 21). We miss the point of this story, I think, when we look for symbolism when we ought to be taking it literally.<\/p>\n

And then there are the \u201cdifficult parables.\u201d There\u2019s 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\u2019s with that?<\/p>\n

This is again a problem of looking for allegory where something else is intended. These two stories aren\u2019t allegories. They\u2019re\u2026 I don\u2019t know what to call them. There\u2019s probably a literary term. They\u2019re 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\u2019t 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 \u201cto get its attention.\u201d<\/p>\n

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.<\/p>\n

It seems to me that even someone who didn\u2019t 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\u2019d say, \u201cThis must have been some peasant.\u201d
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James Lileks at www.buzz.mn says they\u2019re 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\u2019t have scheduled a Viking Age Society meeting for tonight. My subject, in lieu of phrasing my answer in the form of … Continue reading Parabola<\/span> →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"nf_dc_page":"","_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[14],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1474","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-religion"],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/brandywinebooks.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1474","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/brandywinebooks.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/brandywinebooks.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/brandywinebooks.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/brandywinebooks.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1474"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/brandywinebooks.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1474\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/brandywinebooks.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1474"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/brandywinebooks.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1474"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/brandywinebooks.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1474"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}