Parables

Review: Opening the Parables

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Cover image of "opening the Parables" by M.D. Hayden

Opening the Parables, M. D. Hayden. Wipf & Stock (ISBN: 9798385200306) 2024.

Summary: A study of the parables asserting that the message of all the parables is that compassionate love is all that matters.

One of the distinctives of the teaching of Jesus is his use of parables. One of my discoveries in seminary was the diverging conclusions different scholars reached in interpreting the parables. My own conclusion was that this may be a function of the idea that we not so much interpret the parables as that they interpret us as we give heed to them. M.D. Hayden, a teacher and minister out of the Quaker tradition reaches a simpler conclusion. Specifically, Jesus had one message running through all the parables. All that he taught “was about love in the infinite, here-and-now Kingdom of God.”

She argues that this idea is central in the teaching of the Old Testament as well as the good news of the kingdom preached by Jesus. She observes that the parables are truth taught obliquely. They avoid direct confrontation with the hostile powers as well as to avoid the allusion that we can pin down their meaning that results in failing to have “ears to hear.” From here, she explores what it means to hear and the use of love as a key to interpretation. In taking this approach she contrasts Quaker with traditional interpretation of the parables.

Then, she proceeds to discuss a number of parables, applying her hermeneutic of love. This works with many of the parables. For example consider the good Samaritan, the lost coins, sheep, and sons, the workers in the vineyard. However, this is difficult with other parables. For example, what do we make of the parable of the talents where God calls the one talent servant “wicked and lazy”? What about the judgment of the unmerciful servant? Or what about those who refuse the invitation to the banquet?

This brings me to several difficulties I had with the book despite my appreciation for some of her insights. First of all, her approach was one of eisegesis. She starts with an idea, the principle of love, and reads it into every parable. In some places, that fits, but not others.

Second, she adopts a Thomas Jefferson approach to scripture. She proposes that much of the New Testament is a later accretion, and where it focuses on something other than love, it may be discarded. Often, I find truth is held in tension. But there is no tension here. All is love.

Except that it isn’t. I found the author uncharitable in her regard of the rest of the church through history, except in the instances where individuals agreed with her. What I thought would be a study of the parables was a polemic against most Christians. And the book came across as advocating the superiority of Quakerism.

In sum, I cannot commend this book.

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Disclosure of Material Connection: I received a complimentary copy of this book for review from the publisher through LibraryThing’s Early Reviewer Program.

Review: The Parables

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The Parables: Jesus’s Friendly Subversive Speech, Douglas D. Webster. Grand Rapids: Kregel Academic, 2021.

Summary: A study of the parables of Jesus, why he used them, how they conveyed his message and what that message was, and what they mean for our preaching.

I’ll say it straight out, this is one of the best treatments of the parables of Jesus I have read. Douglas Webster explains why Jesus spoke in parables, his friendly subversive speech, and how this plays out in all of the parables. He both draws on scholarly work and roots his explanations in the text but uses stories, both those of the parables and contemporary illustrations to convey the meaning of the parables.

He begins this work by positing that Jesus turned to parables after encountering resistance and increasing opposition to his teaching and works. He writes:

“In the face of growing opposition, Jesus’s communicational strategy hit the wall. Straight-up authoritative teaching was becoming counterproductive. This is why I think Jesus switched to parables. Through the medium of story he was able to communicate to the crowds without giving his enemies a clear target. The general audience hung on his captivating stories—stories they could hear superficially, almost as entertainment. Or they could hear Jesus’s stories provocatively as world-upending stories. The disciples knew full well that Jesus was doing more than telling simple stories, and he invited their questions. I suspect the scribes and Pharisees also knew that Jesus’s parables were operating at a deeper level, but this indirect mode of communication offered little leverage for their campaign against Jesus” (p. 10).

Webster focuses on the texts of the parables found in Matthew and Luke and the context of the parables in these books. He begins with the seven parables in Matthew 13, starting with the parable of the sower, then the parable of the wheat and the weeds, the mustard seed and the yeast, and the concluding parables of the hidden treasure, the pearl, and net. They tell us the kingdom is rooted in the hope of harvest despite the resistance of many, that the kingdom works without coercion, that there will be growth from small beginnings, incomparable joy, even as there is a final judgment. These are stories people hear, but the disciples question and understand.

He then turns to the parables of Luke (in Luke 10-18), setting them in the context of questions about neighboring, prayer, the follies of worldly wealth, readiness and unreadiness for the kingdom, the fruitlessness of Israel’s religion, like the barren fig, the religious inhospitability to “sinners” and the urgent concern for the lost. In the parable of the lost son, I appreciate that Webster doesn’t only consider how we might be like one of the two sons, but might also embrace the role of the father. In the rich man and Lazarus, he considers Lazarus as a Christ figure and the chilling indifference of the rich man to the poor. In the Pharisee and tax collector, I love the way Webster contrasts merit and mercy.

Webster then returns to Matthew and the Passion week parables. In the parable of the workers in the vineyard I was struck by the generosity to the latecomers–am I so generous as a fifty-year Christian to newly minted believers and joyful that we all share the same gift? We consider the “no” and “yes” of two sons, wicked tenants, joyful banquets and who is in and who is out, and the four parables in Jesus “End of the World” sermon–the faithful and faithless servants, the ten virgins, the talents, and the sheep and goats. All these point me toward the return and rewards and judgments of the King, and what it means to keep faith to the end.

The concluding appendix discusses ten reasons to preach the parables. I’ll share just one:

“The most important thing to remember about preaching the parables is that Jesus is telling the story.“

They are not just general utterances about religion, but set in the context of Jesus life, death, resurrection and rule. They are his utterances and they point to the one speaking.

Douglas D. Webster has given us a work not only useful in understanding the parables, but one that holds the mirror up to us, asking, “What do you see? Are your eyes open?” We’re invited to open our eyes to the light of the gospel and encouraged to use these stories with the hope that God will give eyes to see and ears to hear to our friends who listen to this “friendly subversive speech.”

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Disclosure of Material Connection: I received a complimentary review copy of this book from the publisher in exchange for an honest review. The opinions I have expressed are my own.

Review: Every Job a Parable

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every job a parable

Every Job a Parable,  John Van Sloten. Colorado Springs: NavPress, 2017.

Summary: A theology of work proposing that our different jobs are “parables” that reveal various aspects of the character and ways of God, and therefore that all work matters and that God speaks to the world through our callings.

John Van Sloten has approached the theology of work in a way I’ve not seen before. He notes how so many of the parables of Jesus focus on the various kinds of work his hearers would readily have recognized and observes:

“When Jesus wrapped a parable around a particular vocation, he was affirming the creational goodness of that job.

I think Jesus is still doing the same today–through the parable that is your job.”

For him, this sheds new light both on how we image God in all of our endeavors, how God is revealed in our work, and how we might more effectively image God in our work. He traces the significance of our work from creation where God speaks through our work and our world; the fall and the ways we are hindered from experiencing God in our work; redemption and the transforming power of naming God’s saving presence in the world, and the New Earth that reminds us that our work is a foretaste of our eternal destiny.

He did something else I’ve not seen before. He interviewed and studied scores of workers from different occupations: astronauts and Walmart greeters, forensic psychologists and restaurant servers, emergency response personnel and asphalt contractors and explored how God meets them in their work and reveals himself through it. One of the powerful experiences for both Van Sloten and the various workers was to see their work in new light as they revealed that it all matters to God.

Perhaps one of the chapters that most resonated with me was his discussion of our lives as part of God’s great story, that he speaks through us–where we have the sense that we are participating in something greater than ourselves, where Someone greater than ourselves is speaking or singing or composing or caring or building or crafting through us. He calls this entering into the spokenness of our work.

Through short chapters that weave stories of workers with theological reflection, Van Sloten offers one of the richest and most accessible treatments of the theology of work I’ve read. He invites individuals and groups to join him in this reflection on the significance of our work with reflection questions titled Lectio Vocatio at the end of each chapter. Van Sloten has also created a series of YouTube videos around different vocations. One example is a sermon on restaurant servers. He includes a list of links to all the videos in an index.

There are many people who sit in our churches who wonder what connection their work has with the things we speak of Sunday by Sunday. They spend the major portion of their waking hours at work in many cases. John Van Sloten offers the tremendous news that God not only speaks on Sundays but through us in our work, which matters greatly. God “calls” to the world through our callings. Rather than a necessary evil, our work images the good and beautiful and true God. The book may serve as a great resource for an adult education class, or a preaching series, giving people hope that it is not simply through their involvement in the church, but also through their work in the world that they may know the pleasure of God upon their lives.

Stranger Danger!

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Source: _chrisUK at http://www.flickr.com/photos/_chrisuk/6500365853/. Used under Creative Commons License.

Source: _chrisUK at http://www.flickr.com/photos/_chrisuk/6500365853/. Used under Creative Commons License.

From the time I was young, I was taught to fear strangers. “Don’t talk to strangers!”, “Don’t accept candy from a stranger”, and “Never get into a car with a stranger.” That was good advice then, and still is–at least for our children. But will the fear of “the stranger” govern all my relationships with strangers as an adult? Will that fear keep me from being a neighbor to a needy “stranger” and stand in the way of that stranger becoming a beloved neighbor and friend?

Those were the questions posed to me from the message this past Sunday on the Parable of the Good Samaritan in Luke 10:25-37.  In case you are unfamiliar with the story, a man, presumably a Jew, gets mugged on the road from Jerusalem to Jericho. Both a priest and a Levite (really respected religious types) cross over to the other side of the road to avoid him. Even at best, this would make them late and “unclean” for their religious duties. At worst, it could be a trap and they could be mugged as well.

Then a “despised stranger”, a Samaritan comes along. In contrast to the others, he does seven things, at least whereby he becomes a “neighbor” to this Jew in distress: he takes pity on him (he sees his distress and allows it to move him), he goes to him (rather than crossing to the other side), he bandages his wounds, he pours on wine and oil to soothe and disinfect, he puts him on his donkey (which means the Samaritan walks), he cares for him at an inn (giving him shelter and time to recover), and he pays for an extended convalescence and guarantees his room fees. “Loving the neighbor” means sacrificing time, money, comfort and possibly putting himself at risk–and he does this for someone who, in other circumstances, may well have hated his guts!

It is interesting to think about who might the “Samaritan” be if Jesus were telling the story to us. I could easily envision this person being someone from the LGBT community. Perhaps Jesus would cast the person showing care as an undocumented immigrant. It might be that the person extending care would be a Muslim. Or maybe an atheist. Maybe it would just be that guy down the street who throws large parties attended by some unsavory folk. Would it change me to be on the receiving end of compassion from such a person?

Taking it a step further, does it required being cared for by the “Samaritans” in our lives to see them as beloved neighbors rather than hostile strangers? Must the “other” take the first step? Or might this story of Jesus challenge me as one of his followers to be the one who begins the “neighboring” process?

Doing this is scary. Our pastor spoke of the fact that this is risky business that involves courage. And it will change us. We could get hurt. We might be taken advantage of. And fellow believers might misunderstand us (“What, you are making friends with them?”).  What this calls us back to is the only safety any of us can really count on, the love of a God with whom we are completely secure.

We might also see a stranger become a beloved neighbor, if not a fellow believer. I have no idea where this can take you or me. What I do know is that if Samaritans can be neighbors, then anyone qualifies. Unlike the teacher of the law who delimited “neighbor” to his extended kin or maybe his own ethnic group, Jesus story breaks all the boundaries.

Questions for going deeper: Who is the “Samaritan stranger” in your world? Who are the “Samaritan strangers” for your church? What invitation might the Lord be giving you to be a neighbor and what practical step can you take?

This post also appears on our church’s Going Deeper blog.

Love and Lostness

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The parable of the prodigal in Luke 15:11-32 is among the most famous Jesus told. Rembrandt did a famous painting of this story that has moved many. Yet to read the parable is always unsettling. I wonder why on earth a father would give half his estate to a son he knows is planning to squander it? That just does not seem like good parenting. It also doesn’t seem fair that this son receives such a lavish welcome on his return without even having to grovel! At least a part of me is with that older brother in pitching a fit and staying away from the party.

One of the insights from our pastor’s message this past Sunday that really helps me is to see how both of the sons are lost. What they share in common is that both are lost in selfishness. In different ways, each is a prisoner of his own self-absorption. They are different only in the way they express it, which might help explain why the older brother is upset. Down deep, I suspect the older brother was confronting the reality of his own selfishness in that of his brother, but didn’t want to see it.

Rembrandts-The-Return-of-the-Prodigal-Son1

Rembrandt: The Return of the Prodigal Son

Both brothers are absorbed in themselves to the exclusion of any concern for either their father or their other brother and for the future of their family. The younger brother essentially wishes his father dead and wants the present value of his inheritance now, not willing to share in his older brother’s labors that might have enhanced it. All he cares for it seems is maximizing his pleasure in the moment. Even his approach to his father, as repentant as it is, masks a shrewd appraisal that he might do better as a servant in his father’s home than he is feeding the pigs.

The older brother is lost in self absorption as well. He is absorbed in his personal rectitude and his resentment of the younger brother. Seeing his father’s distress, he makes no effort to find his younger brother. And when the younger brother finds his way home, he seethes in anger both against his brother and his father for not throwing him a feast, when he could have had this at any time!

There are so many ways I can be lost to the captivity of selfishness! There are so many ways I create a cosmos that revolves around closing myself off to God and others! In the end we dehumanize ourselves, whether in unrestrained hedonism or an ugly self-righteousness that is both angry and envious toward those who don’t match our personal rectitude. I vacillate between “I want what’s mine!” and cries of “It’s not fair!”

Rich pointed out that it is easy in this story to try to identify which brother we are most like. But identifying the kind of selfish we are can do little to liberate us from being lost in selfishness. The only thing left for us is to stop focusing on ourselves and rather on the Father who is truly extravagant in love. Both sons lived in a “zero sum game” world. By contrast, the Father is one who is extravagant in love, who always has enough to go around and who would much rather throw parties for those liberated from lostness than leave either son on the outside.

I’m struck that in Christmas, we celebrate this extravagant, prodigal love. The birth of Jesus reflects this collusion of Father and Son to rescue us in all the ways we are lost in self-absorption. Jesus becomes the truly loving and righteous Elder Brother and Father’s Son who rejoices not in condemning people in their failure but in finding lost people and restoring them to the Father.

Christmas is rightly a time of parties. It rightly reflects the parties of heaven over the lost who are found by the Savior whose birth we celebrate. The question for each of us is will we turn from our own forms of self-absorption to join the Father’s party or will we remain on the outside, a party of one in a cosmos centered around self?

[This post also appears on my church’s Going Deeper blog for this week.]

Crying Out Day and Night For Justice

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I never saw this before.

This past Sunday, I preached on the Parable of the Persistent Widow in Luke 18:1-8. I’ve often heard others preach, and have myself taught the message of this parable that we should “always pray and not give up” (v. 1). I’ve thought in terms of things like seeing people come to faith, praying for the sick, praying about needs related to our work and our lives. I don’t think that is wrong, but as I studied this parable I was struck by the fact that the widow was seeking justice from the unjust judge (v. 3). Furthermore, in Jesus’s own application of the parable verse 7 says, “will not God bring about justice for his chosen ones, who cry out to him day and night?” Verse 8 reinforces this theme: “I tell you, he will see that they get justice, and quickly.”

One of the basic things I learned about Bible study years ago was to pay attention to repeated words. They are a clue to what the writer or speaker considers important. Clearly in this passage, one of the things Jesus considers important is justice, and praying for it.

In recent months and weeks, we’ve been inundated with news stories about the death of a young black man in Ferguson, a black youth in Cleveland, and an older black man in New York City. In two of these cases, local grand juries refused to charge police with any wrongful death and there has been a great outcry in the press and in social media either decrying the injustice of these decisions and the deaths that occurred at the hands of police, or in defending the police officers, who often put themselves at risk in protecting public safety and have to make split second decisions that, if wrong, may cost them their lives or the lives of others.

While I personally have decided that it is fruitless to raise my voice on one “side” of this discussion or the other in social media, I will say a couple things. One is there is something wrong with this pattern with so many dying in the streets, some at the hands of police. It is clear to me that we still are a racially divided society. If nothing, the vehemence in the outcries on both sides of the discussion reveal we are a long way from what Martin Luther King, Jr. envisioned as “the beloved community.”

It seems to me that in the predominantly white church community (the one I know best) we either resort to attempts at personal justification (“I’m not racist” or “I’m personally colorblind”). Or we attempt to join and justify one side of the outcry, and, from what I can see, simply perpetuate and deepen the divisions in our society.

None of this is to say that the bereaved and their communities shouldn’t pursue justice nor that police shouldn’t be supported in their hard work. In fact, in a society where the rule of law is upheld, our legal system should be the place where these things are adjudicated, and it is right for those who believe that justice is denied to continue to pursue it via legal means. It’s not a perfect system, but the best we humans can devise in a fallen world.

But the parable (remember the parable!) also exhorts us to prayer to God for justice as well. For those of us who are Christ-followers, obedience to Jesus means that we keep praying for justice. Our first work in these matters is to seek the Lord. But the parable also says it is to be our persisting work. And this is where I fall down. I see advances in civil rights. I see a president of African-American descent in the White House. I mistake progress toward King’s “dream” with fulfillment. And I stop praying.

What the succession of events in Ferguson, Cleveland, and New York do is challenge me to renew my efforts in prayer and become aware that this is an area where persistence is vital. As I look for God’s answers, such praying can also change me. Praying helps me listen both for God’s invitations to join him in pursuit of the “beloved community” and opens my ears and my heart to listen to other voices than simply the ones that most resonate with me, voices that need to be heard if real reconciliation and not simply self-justification are to occur.

I’ve concluded that I need to persist in crying out to the Lord to bring justice (all that that means) into the racial divides in our country. I pray the Lord’s prayer each morning and night. As I pray, “Thy kingdom come” I will include in my prayers the coming of Jesus’s just rule into our racially divided land. It occurs to me that I could be praying that the rest of my life. I hope not, but Martin Luther King, Jr. was fond of saying, “The arc of the moral universe is long but it bends toward justice.” What sustains our persistence over that “long arc” is the promise of a God who will grant justice, who will bring a kingdom of shalom.

Going Deeper question: For what do you believe God wants you to persist in prayer? How is a concern for justice a part of that?

This post also appears on my church’s Going Deeper blog for this week.