Writing
On Our Minds
How Do
We Read A Parable?
January 4, 2015
Sometimes,
even seasoned athletes need to return to the fundamentals of their
sport—blocking and tackling in football—rather than focus on ever more
complicated aspects of the game. And so
it is for us Christians some of whom have been at this for a long time. A return to fundamentals for Christians may
mean simply listening to the Master’s voice rather than wrestling with the
application of our faith to the issues of our time, though that can hardly be
ignored. And nowhere in the Gospels is
the Master’s voice heard with any more clarity than in the stories he
told. The most famous ones have become a
part of our Western culture. The Good
Samaritan and the Prodigal Son are known the world over, wherever Christianity
has penetrated. These would have been on the highlight reel if ESPN had
broadcast the Gospels. But, alas, as in
sports so in the Gospels—there are many less famous parables that seldom get
mentioned. So in this series, we’ll try
to focus on the lesser known parables even though they may not be quite as
memorable as the famous ones. After all,
they were stories Jesus told for a reason, and if they are his stories they
need to be our stories too.
Before we
get too far into our study, it might help to define some terms we’ll use. We’ve already used the word “stories” but, as
we shall see, not all the parables Jesus used were stories as we think of
them—descriptions of something that transpires between two or more persons
involving some tension and its resolution.
The best known parables are, indeed, the stories Jesus told, but the
word “parable” itself is a Greek word that we have taken over to describe these
teachings of Jesus. The Greek word
literally means “something thrown along side of” something else to illustrate
it or help someone understand it. So if
one laid a line drawing down beside a faded, old masterpiece, it could help us
see the figures in the original painting better. In a sense, the line drawing would be a
“parable.” Its function is to help us
understand.
Many times
in the Gospels we find something like “he told them many things in parables”
(Mt. 13:3). Scholars can’t agree on
exactly how many parables there are and, surely, some of the sayings of Jesus
are parables even though they are not labeled as such. They also have a hard time deciding just what
kinds of parables there are. Some of the
lines between the types they define are not crystal clear to most of us.
Let’s try to put a label on at least some of Jesus “parables,” those sayings he put
alongside something to help us understand it.
Parables That Are In Code
Oddly
enough, some people thought early on that the function of the parables was
exactly the opposite—to hide the meaning so only those in the inner circle
could understand the meaning of the teaching.
And because of this understanding of the parables, these teachings of
Jesus were given far-fetched interpretations that assigned some meanings to
elements in the teachings that Jesus never intended at all. When we make each element in a story a “code”
that stands for something other than what it is, we have made the story an
“allegory.” One famous example of an
allegory is Paul Bunyan’s Pilgrim’s
Progress, but perhaps a work closer to our time can serve as an even better
example of this kind of literature.
In 1900 a
delightful book was written that was subsequently made into a movie. We have all seen it. It involves a little girl and her dog who are
caught up in a tornado in Kansas and hurled into a make believe world where
there are Lion’s who have no courage, Scarecrows who have no brains, and Tin
Men who have no hearts. And there is a
Yellow Brick Road, Wicked Witches, and a Wizard with a roaring voice who turns
out to be a sham. But there may be more to this story than we realize. “Few people are even aware the The Wizard of Oz is an elaborate
political allegory about conditions at the beginning of the twentieth century
in the U.S.A., with “Oz” (the abbreviation for “ounce”) and the yellow brick road
both referring to the gold standard (which was debated at the time), the
scarecrow representing the farmers, the tin man the industrial workers, and the
cowardly lion reformers, especially William Jennings Bryan. It is a perfectly good story understandable
in its own right, but both enjoyable and powerful when the lens of its intent
is in place.”[1]
There is no
doubt that at least one of Jesus’ parables, the parable of the sower and the
seeds, has an allegorical flavor to it.[2]
The Gospels record Jesus’ own
interpretation of this parable which makes the seed the “word of God” and the
soils different levels of receiving the word. So each element was intended to illustrate why
not everyone who hears the message of Jesus lets it take root and produce fruit
in his life. And just as one can go back
and make each element of the Wizard of Oz fit a particular situation in
history, so, too, one can assign each element of this parable a meaning and
many early Christian preachers did just that.
But because of the fantastic
interpretations given to some parables when they were treated as allegories,
most interpreters today would say that “the practice of turning parables into
allegories that Jesus never intended must be resisted at every point.”[3] In most cases, scholars suggest that a
parable has one primary message or point.
We need to hear our Master’s voice as it conveyed that point to its
original audience if we can and then make the application of that point to the
appropriate situation today. With that
much introduction, let’s look first of all at the kinds of parables we find in
the Gospels and then focus on a few examples.
Parables
That Ask A Question
We’ve
already said that the most famous parables are the stories. But in some cases, Jesus starts telling a
story by asking a question. We might
call these the “what do you think?” parables.
The parable of the lost sheep is like this. It begins, “What man of you, having a hundred
sheep, if he has lost one of them, does not…. (Lk 15:4). Jesus could have just told a story about a
shepherd who left his flock of sheep to go look for the one that was lost and
then was so happy about finding it that he threw a party to celebrate. A similar story about a lost son (the Prodigal)
did not start with a question, but it could have. We all remember that Jesus said that “Whoever
would save his life would lose it…” but we may not remember the parables he
told to illustrate the cost of discipleship.
In one of those he asked , “Which of you, desiring to build a tower,
does not first sit down and count the cost, whether he has enough to complete
it?” (Lk 14:28). It’s a good question
and one that applies to virtually all of life.
Jesus had a way with questions.
Parables
That Make Us Decide
Some of
Jesus’ parables were used to confront a person about the choices she (or he)
has made much as Nathan did when he told his famous story about the rich farmer
who stole his poor neighbors one lamb for a barbecue! These are almost
lawyer-like in that they deal with right and wrong in real life. Like the “What
do you think?” parables, these may involve a question but they don’t just ask a
question. Take for instance the time
Jesus went to the house of Simon the Leper in Bethany just a few days before he
was arrested. Luke describes the scene
but does not name any of the characters.
Matthew and Mark help us fill in the names. The Gospel of John identifies the woman as
Mary, the sister of Lazarus and Martha but he is the only one who does so. Here’s the scene. Jesus and the disciples had been invited to
dine with Simon. As they reclined on the
couches around the table, a woman approached Jesus, crying. Since Jesus was reclining with his head
toward the table, his feet were exposed.
The woman’s tears fell on Jesus’ feet and then she took some expensive
ointment, perfume, and massaged Jesus feet.
The host, Simon the Leper, was obviously irritated by the
intrusion. Jesus saw it immediately and
said: “Simon, I have something to say to
you.” And then he told the story of two
men who owed a man money. One of them
owed ten times as much as the other. The
man forgave both of the debtors what they owed him. Then Jesus asked Simon the loaded
question: “Which one of these debtors
will love their banker more?” And after
Simon responded, then Jesus drew the comparison between Simon’s love for him
and that of the woman as demonstrated by their actions. Obviously, Simon had a decision to make about
how much he loved his master.
Parables
That Compare
Some of
Jesus’ parables compare two things using the word “like”. For example, Jesus said “The kingdom of
heaven is like a grain of mustard seed…” (Mt. 13:31). He compared the size of the seed (tiny) to
the size of the fully grown plant (the greatest of the shrubs). But before he
told that parable he said (Mk 4:30) : “With what can we compare the kingdom of
God, or what parable shall we use for it?” Clearly Jesus thought of a parable as a
comparison. In another “like” parable,
Jesus said “The kingdom of heaven is like leaven…(Mt 13:33) that affects
everything it touches. Jesus taught
much about the kingdom of God and much of what he taught about the kingdom he
taught by comparing it to something that people already knew about: farming, making bread, sowing seeds, finding
something valuable in the field, fishing nets, fig trees and children playing. The Kingdom of God was for Jesus like a field
of grain. The farmer does not know
exactly how the seed reproduces to make the grain, but one thing he knows,
“when the grain is ripe, at once he put in the sickle because the harvest is
come” (Mk 4:26). So the Kingdom is
coming to fruition. And when all is
ripe, God will reap the harvest.
Parables That Paint Pictures
The story
parables paint unforgettable pictures in our minds, scenes that have captured
the imagination of Christians for two millennia now. I love the way John Steinbeck described the
effect of one of his teachers on his life.
"She aroused us to shouting,
bookwaving discussions. She had the
noisiest class in school and she didn't even seem to know it...She breathed
curiosity into us so that we brought in facts or truths shielded in our hands
like captured fire-flies...She left her signature on us, the literature of a
teacher who writes on minds. …I suppose that to a large extent I am the
unsigned manuscript of that high school teacher." [4]
That’s what Jesus did with these story parables—he “wrote on
our minds.” Matthew recorded Jesus’
teaching about prayer: “when you pray
you must not be like the hypocrites; for they love to stand and pray in the
synagogues…(Mt 6:5). But Luke recorded
the story Jesus told to make this point:
“Two men went up into the temple to pray, one a Pharisee and the other a
tax collector….” (Lk 18:9) and we all know the ‘rest of the story.’ I’m glad they didn’t make a movie of that
scene and reduce that episode to just one fixed image. It lives in a million minds and speaks to all
our hearts with the voice of the Master.
Parables
That Are Proverbs
In the Old Testament, the word mashal is translated into English both
as “parable” and as “proverb.” In fact, the very name of the book of Proverbs
uses this word in its Hebrew title. So
at least in the Old Testament a wise saying counted as either a parable or a
proverb. In fact, we have this same use
of the word parable in the Gospels.
In Luke 4:23, nearly all of our
translations read: “Doubtless you will
quote to me this proverb, ‘Physician heal yourself.’ “ But the word that is translated “proverb” in
this verse is exactly the same word that is translated “parable” in scores of
other places in the Gospels. Many of
Jesus sayings sound like what we would call “proverbs.” For example, one saying that sounds like a
proverb but is labeled a parable is Mark 7:15, “There is nothing outside a man
which by going into him can defile him; but the things which come out of a man
are what defile him.” Great teachers
have a way of using unforgettable imagery to help us understand abstract
ideas. Jesus was no exception; indeed he
was the rule.
Conclusion
Parables
were a way of teaching, not a fixed format Jesus used. Mark tells us that “with many such parables
he spoke the word to them, as they were able to hear it” (Mk 4:33). But some sayings of Jesus are called parables
in one Gospel and not in the others. For
example, the sayings about new wine in old wineskins and new patches on old
garments are presented by Luke as parables (Lk 5:36-39) but both Matthew and
Mark just present these sayings as teachings of Jesus. Clearly the Gospel writers could have labeled
many other of Jesus’ teachings as parables had they been so inclined. Jesus himself did not label his teachings; he
just wrote on our minds.
[1]
Klyne Snodgrass, Stories With Intent: A
Comprehensive Guide to the Parables of Jesus (Grand Rapids, MI: William Be. Eerdmans Publishing Co, 2008) p.
16. L. Frank Baum first published The
Wonderful Wizard of Oz in 1900, and the success of that book led to several
sequels. A number of adaptations of Baum's Oz stories for stage and screen
appeared before MGM's classic movie was released in 1939. The most celebrated
interpretation came from a high school history teacher in upstate New York
named Henry Littlefield, who found that the imagery of Baum's story
corresponded to the issues and figures in American politics at the end of the
19th century. Littlefield found that he could use The Wizard of Oz to teach
history to his students, as the story functioned well as an allegory to the
Populist movement and the 1896 presidential election. In the years since Littlefield's
article first appeared in American Quarterly in 1964, several analysts have
weighed in with their own refinements to this interpretation. A number of
people have disagreed with Littlefield's premise entirely, denying that Baum
had any political intent at all, while others have suggested other political
interpretations. See the site below for
more: http://www.turnmeondeadman.com/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=51&Itemid=63
[2]
Matthew 13:3-23
[3]
Snodgrass, Ibid., 17
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