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Introduction to the Parables 1 Introduction to the Parables In the Synoptic Gospels, Jesus rarely explains his parables. They are meant to be wrestled with by each generation of hearers who allow themselves to be disturbed and challenged by Jesus’ subversive stories. The first aim of this short course is to bring together current biblical research on the parables in the hope that it will open up new vistas of meaning for participants. Second, the course offers an understanding of how parables communicate. The Synoptic Gospels show Jesus preaching primarily by means of parables, spoken and lived. A greater understanding of the dynamics and meaning of Jesus’ parables in their original context can help us to appreciate them better in our own context. Parables in the Lectionary The term “parable” covers a wide range of figurative speech: similitudes, extended metaphors, symbolic expressions, exemplary and true-to-life stories. The term parabolē occurs 12x in Mk; 16x in Mt; 18x in Lk and 2x in Hebrews. In one sense, the whole Gospel can be considered a parable. Parables are noticeably absent from the Gospel of John. The fourth evangelist never uses the term parabolē, nor does he preserve any of Jesus’ stories in the same parabolic form as do the Synoptic writers. Nonetheless symbolic speech abounds in the Fourth Gospel. The closest thing to a parable is found in Jn 10, where Jesus speaks of himself as the Good Shepherd and the gate for the sheep. and in Jn 10:6 Jesus’ disciples have the same difficulty in understanding this “figure of speech” (paroimia) as they do with the parables in Mk 4:10-12. The term paroimia occurs 2x more in the Gospel of John (16:25, 29), where Jesus assures the disciples that a time will come when he will no longer speak in “figures” but plainly. This comes on the heels of the comparison of the disciples’ anguish at Jesus’ departure with that of a woman in labour. As she forgets her pain after her child is born, so will the disciples’ grief turn into joy (16:21-24). In the first part of these notes we’ll explore the dynamics of Jesus’ parables. Understanding how a parable “works” is the first step. Then we’ll look briefly at some contemporary trends in biblical interpretation of the parables. I. Preaching in Parables Jesus was not the first to preach in parables. There is a long tradition of such story-telling in the ancient world, not only by religious figures, but by rhetoricians, politicians, prophets and philosophers too. In the Hebrew 2 Scriptures there are several examples of parables. In 2 Sam 12:1-12 the prophet Nathan tells King David a parable about a rich man who took a poor man’s only ewe lamb and made it into a meal for a visitor. The song of the vineyard in Is 5:1-7 and the sayings about ploughing and threshing in Is 28:23-29 present agricultural metaphors not unlike those used by Jesus in his parables. The Jewish rabbis also spoke in parables. One result of parabolic preaching is that the story-teller allows the listener to back away from a sensitive topic and enter into a make-believe (but true-to-life) situation, where one can see more clearly what is right. Nathan successfully brought David to repentance for taking Uriah’s wife when the king angrily pronounced sentence on the rich man of the parable. In the Synoptic Gospels we see Jesus using the same technique e.g. when addressing Simon the Pharisee in Lk 7:40-48; or when driving home his point to the Pharisees and scribes in Lk 15:1-32. The Familiar Radically Twisted In his parables, Jesus always began with the familiar. The images and situations he painted in his stories were from the fabric of the daily life of his audience. He told how God is encountered in sowing and reaping (Mk 4:1-9), in weeding and harvesting (Mt 13:24-30), in baking bread (Mt 13:33), in searching for what is lost (Lk 15:1-32). In this way he would capture people’s attention and draw them along with him to the end of the story. In Jesus’ parables no sphere of life is outside God’s realm: the political, social, economic, ecclesial and theological are all intertwined, as in the parables of the rich man and Lazarus (Lk 16:19-31); the rich fool (Lk 12:16-21); the dishonest steward (Lk 16:1-8); the parable of the great banquet (Mt 22:1-14; Lk 14:15- 24); the Pharisee and the tax collector (Lk 18:9-14); the widow and the judge (Lk 18:1-8). Jesus’ preaching brought a vision of all life as locus for the sacred; nothing is outside the realm of the holy. Holiness is not found by separating oneself from “the world”, but is encountered in all reality. We can see God in the midst of the contradictions and the chaos, in the crucifying and dying, not only in the peacefulness and the rising to new life. Jesus’ parables do not stay on the level of the familiar. There is always a catch. They were not pleasant stories that entertained people or that confirmed the status quo. They were startling and confusing, usually having an unexpected twist that left the hearers pondering what the story meant and what it demanded. Jesus’ parables are invitations to see the realm (kingdom) of God as God sees it and to act as Jesus acted. Such a vision demands profound changes in the way 3 the hearer thinks about God and the realm of God, both as it can be in the here and now and in its future fullness. By shattering the structures of our accepted world parables remove our defences and make us vulnerable to God. The Gospel is always about change. The Riddle of Interpretation One difficulty with Jesus’ parables is that they are open-ended; Jesus rarely interpreted these stories for his disciples. E.g. at the end of the story of the prodigal son (Lk 15:11-32), does the elder brother go in to the party after the father pleads with him? Or does he remain outside, angry and resentful? There lies the challenge. Jesus does not give the answer, but leaves it up to the hearer to determine the rest of the story. Over the ages each community of Christians has had to work out their responses to the challenges of Jesus’ teaching; this task is no less incumbent on believers today. Because they are told in figurative language, the parables can convey distinct messages to different people in diverse circumstances. E.g. to a person in need of forgiveness, the parable in Lk 15:11-32 is the story of a lost son or daughter, who is invited to let him or herself be found by God and be lavished with love that cannot be earned. For a person in authority, the same story may serve as a call to emulate the character of the father who searches out ones who have embarked on a destructive path and runs to meet them and bring them back, at great personal cost. For those who try always to be faithful to following God’s ways, the story invites them to let go of joyless resentment and slavish attitudes in their service of God. The point of the story depends on one’s point of entry and the character one identifies with. We can’t settle for one stock interpretation, but must continually plumb the depths of the text for other possible meanings. On each occasion in prayer we need to discern which of the many possible messages is the word that now needs to be heard. The parables of Jesus are short and to the point. Some are only one line long. Jesus knew the art of pithy expression. The brevity of the parables makes them easy to remember and enhances their ability to communicate forcefully. Stance with the Marginal While multiple interpretations are possible, the slant of the story given by Jesus invites us to take a particular position in the narrative. and the stance to which he invites his hearers is with the marginal. E.g. when addressing Pharisees and scribes that complained against him welcoming sinners and eating with them (Lk 15:1-2), Jesus asks them, “What man among you having a hundred sheep 4 and losing one of them would not leave the ninety-nine in the desert and go after the lost one until he finds it?" (Lk 5:4). Jesus deliberately asks them to take the stance of the shepherd. To understand the twist here, it’s important to know that although “shepherd” was used as an image for God (e.g. Ps 23), and as a metaphor for religious leaders (e.g. Ezek 34), real shepherds in Jesus’ day were seen as dishonest and thieving. Jesus asked the Pharisees and scribes, religious leaders who thought themselves upright, to consider themselves as despised shepherds. The power of the story lies in the invitation to identify with people who are marginalised and to take their part. If that were not shocking enough, in the next parable (Lk 15:8-10), Jesus asks them to put themselves in the place of a woman who invests enormous energy to seek out a lost coin. The challenge to the religious leaders was not only to emulate shepherds and women who expend themselves greatly to bring back the lost, but also to be able to see a despised shepherd or an “inferior” woman as embodying God in the same way they imagined of themselves.
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