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Parables
Parables Entries in Parables (30)
The Parable of Shrewd (Good Guy) Manager
Saturday, January 7, 2012 at 07:36AM How do you argue with a story? One of the joys reading of the parables of Jesus is discovering the multiple meanings layered in by the Storyteller. Just when you think you understand his meaning, along comes another possibility.This eight-minute video suggests that the Parable of the Shrewd Manager is actually a tale of righteousness breaking into (previously) shady business dealings. I think you'll be surprised:
Does this video open up new understandings? How have you interpreted this parable in the past? Join the conversation and let us know.
The Parable of the Old Man's Vineyard
Saturday, December 24, 2011 at 12:03AM 
If you blog long enough you end up meeting great people. Shawn Smucker is the friend of a friend of a friend--and I met that friend via blogging. Shawn, his wife, and four kids live in Paradise, literally (Paradise, PA--although I smell a tourism board at work somewhere). Everything I know about Shawn I know through the magic of the Interwebs, but I can tell you this: I like what I know, and if you check out his blog or follow him on the Twitter you will like it, too.
The old man bends over and picks up a handful of soil. Fertile soil. He runs it through his finger – it crumbles and falls heavily to the ground. The sound is like the pounding of the first raindrops.
All around him, activity: carts arriving with stone, hammers pounding boards together, and men shouting to one another. A high stone wall rises against the horizon. Inside it, huge green leaves drape down over the tiniest orbs: the beginnings of grapes. A tower rises in the center, overlooks the vineyard and the stone wall and the surrounding countryside. It is like the eye of God, the center of the universe.
The old man owns the vineyard, but something leads him away. Something demands his attention elsewhere. He leases the land to a group of farmers; they are eager to make their fortune on this man’s fully prepared estate. They don’t have to spend a penny – everything is ready. The crop is even planted. All they have to do is harvest it.
The old man leaves.
* * * * *
Months later, the harvest. The old man cannot return – perhaps he is frail. Perhaps he has many such vineyards and cannot be everywhere at once. In any case, he sends three of his most trusted servants to collect his share of the grapes.
The farmers stand in the tower they did not build, looking out over the vineyard they did not plant, surrounded by a wall of stones they did not hew. They see the servants approaching from a long way off. Perhaps they are worried that the old man is coming back to end the lease. Perhaps they have gotten used to their newfound wealth, having made no initial investment.
They meet the servants outside the stone wall. They beat the first one until he can only watch. They kill the next one instantly. But they surround the third servant and begin the slow work of murder by stoning until he is nothing but a hunk of bloody meat and exposed bone, his heart still beating. Then they draw closer and throw stones at his head until he dies, his skull crushed.
The farmers walk back inside the stone wall. The beaten servant returns to the old man. His is a slow, painful journey.
* * * * *
The old man sends more servants. Perhaps if they see that he is persistent, and that he can come in greater numbers, they will simply give him his fair share.
But the farmers have gone too far. They cannot reverse their course. When this new batch of servants arrives, the farmers beat some, kill others. Blood forms small pools on the road leading up to the vineyard. The bodies draw flies. Inside, the farmers continue to harvest the grapes, their fingers stained by the juice.
* * * * *
The old man stares out from his house, far from the vineyard. He ponders the news – more servants killed. Still no payment. The sun sets, yellows and reds and oranges streaking across the sky. He can walk away, count the venture as lost. Or he can still try to reconcile with them.
He calls out to a servant who approaches with humility.
“Yes, my Lord?”
The old man pauses, and as the sky slips toward darkness, he whispers something. He does not tell the servant to gather an ever larger contingent. He does not tell the servant to send for mercenaries by which he will win back his vineyard. No, he asks for something different.
“Bring me my son.”
* * * * *
Sending his son is not a power play, at least not in the brute force sense of power. The son is not some special forces operative planning on sneaking in and killing them all in their sleep. He is not leading a group of soldiers. He is going alone.
His father sends him in hopes that the farmers will be reminded. Who owns this vineyard? Who built the stone wall? The tower? To whom does all of this belong? The old man is hoping that the farmers will see his son as the embodiment of himself, and that they will respect his son as they respected him before he left.
But as the son approaches, the farmer’s meet him outside the stone wall. There is a moment of silence as the son stares at the men. They kill him without remorse.
The old man has no other heir to take over his estate, they reason. We can own the vineyard.
The son lies dead outside the vineyard. It is finished. Or so the farmers believe.
* * * * *
What will the old man do to the farmers? Jesus asked the leaders.
He’ll kill them and lease the vineyard to those who give him his fair share, they exclaimed.
So I tell you, Jesus said, that the kingdom of God will be taken away from you and given to people who do the things God wants in his kingdom.
* * * * *
What do I say to God when he asks me to return these things that have always been his? Do I trust him with my children? With my money? With my dreams?
Am I prepared to do the things he asks me to do, even when it involves giving my most precious possessions back to him?
Offering, and not acquisition, has always formed the entrance to the kingdom.
The Parable of the Lost Tree Ornament
Saturday, December 17, 2011 at 12:03AM 
My friend Amy Durham and I go back at least a decade--maybe more. She puts the multi into multi-talented: mother of three, wife of one, musician, teacher, and writer of “paranormal teen fiction.” She’s J.K. Rowling waiting to be found, only better. Amy is a charter member of the Vineyard Writer’s Group in my hometown (no, you don’t have to go to the Vineyard to join in). Every couple of weeks she shows up and dazzles us with her work, plus plenty of encouragement and direction for the rest. I’m thrilled you get to meet her. She blogs here and tweets there.
Tonight my two youngest sons and I put the Christmas tree up. It’s a joyous time of course, as little folks always get excited about the holiday decorations. As they were pulling the ornaments from the box and sticking them on the tree with great speed, I began to wonder… “Where is my nativity ornament?” It’s a nice little wooden ornament, carved from one thin piece of wood to look like Mary and baby Jesus. To anyone else it might seem ordinary, nothing all that special. It has no sparkly stuff, no bright colors, nothing that would set it apart from the other beautifully crafted ornaments in my supply. But I remember buying that ornament at Marlow Woodcuts in Americus, Kansas. I remember walking through the shop, staring in awe at the intricate carvings--both large and small--created by the craftspeople there. I remember the very special people I was with on the day I bought that ornament. I remember the picture my then-boyfriend (now-husband) and I posed for outside the shop that afternoon.
It took some time, and some digging in the ornament box, but I finally came across that little nativity ornament. I hung it, as I always do, in a place about eye-level for me, so that when I walk past the tree I can glance over at it, think about that place, that day, those people. I gave it a place of honor.
I didn’t shout “I found it” when I located it near the bottom of the box, though there was a part of me that wanted to. Because for all its ordinariness and nothing-specialness, I was so happy to see it, to touch it, to place it on my tree.
There are hundreds of little moments like that in my life, in your life, in everyone’s life: when a lost item is found, when something we thought was long gone is suddenly there in front of us. There’s a little spark of joy that ignites inside us in those moments, a smile that begins somewhere in the vicinity of our hearts and spreads outward. The joy of finding never really goes away, no matter how many times something goes missing, only to be found again.
I imagine it’s just that way for the Father, multiplied about a million times over, when he “finds” another lost one. I imagine the spark of joy in his heart is more like an inferno of delight when another person comes to know Him in that redeeming, life-changing way. In just the same way that I experienced excitement at finding that ornament, I believe the Father’s smile beams bright and brilliant each time His love captures a new heart. And just like I remember the day I bought that ornament, the people I was with, the picture that we took that day, the Father’s intimate knowledge of each heart gives Him the same opportunity for those sweet memories to bloom.
He illustrates this for us in Luke 15:8-10, where He describes a woman who searches the whole house over for a lost coin, inviting her neighbors to come rejoice with her after she finds it. Even though she had nine other coins, her joy at finding the one that was lost inspired a party!
Those people who frustrate me: like the person who blocks the entire aisle at the grocery store to stop and have a lengthy conversation with someone else, the kid who despite my best efforts will not be quiet and respectful in my classroom, anyone with the last name Kardashian who bombards the media with materialism and self-interest--all of these people create the same joy in the Father’s heart that my little wooden Christmas tree ornament created for me. I remind myself of this often, that my perspective on people is not the only one that matters, if it matters at all. Because there is a smile in the Father’s heart that is reserved for just those folks, and His smile at finding them will be even more brilliant than the one I had when I hung that ornament on my tree.
The Parable of the Incomprehensible Parable
Saturday, December 10, 2011 at 02:20AM 
Jennifer Luitwieler is my cyber-buddy. I'm pretty sure we could BFF's if I liked to run long distances at the expense of great personal pain, but I don't so we aren't. She's intelligent, unpredictable, and for some reason known only to her, has chosen to make her home in Oklahoma. I'm hoping the seven readers of Students of Jesus will not hold that against her. She's the author of Run With Me: An Accidental Runner and the Power of Poo. (I told you: unpredictable. And no, I will not run with her). She also has a unpredictable blog, or you can follow her on the Twitter.
When Ray asked for reflections on the parables, I thought he couldn’t have given an easier assignment. Those of us who grew up marinating in scriptures might feel like those particular wells have been mined dry. I thought I would dash off a few luminous paragraphs and let the people stand in silent awe. Then I did the goofy thing. I chose a parable that’s always been a challenge for me to wrap my puny human brain around.
Luke 19:11-27 always throws me for a loop. The long and the short of it is that a wicked ruler was leaving his estate to be awarded a new kingdom. His servants disliked him so much they campaigned against him. But he still got the job. Before he left, he entrusted some money to a few servants, mandating they take care of what was his. Two servants invested the money and earned a return. One servant held onto the cash and returned it to the master when he arrived home.
Every time I read this passage, I think the ending will change. I cross my fingers and hope that the guy who did as he was instructed, who took care of the money, will be praised. Every time, at the end, I’m hit with a bucket of cold reality. I want to stomp my foot because that is just not fair.
I don’t get it. I don’t get how the guy who strictly obeyed got the tongue lashing. I don’t get why this unjust man was being given even more to steward. I don’t get the way the parable ends: Jesus tells the disciples that those who have will be given more, and those who have nothing will be stripped even of that.
What the what?
Parables are designed to be tough lessons disguised as palatable stories about a friend. You know, where Jesus tells us something sort of ugly about the human condition but it’s easier to digest because we’re given a little word picture. Like a spoonful of sugar with the Nyquil. Parables are meant to be comprehensible. There’s a beginning, a middle and an end. A good guy. A bad guy. A lesson. Even a way to make it not about us, if we try hard enough.
There are two strategies we can employ to help us with scripture we don’t understand. We can use my old stand by: chosen ignorance. I used to avoid this parable, precisely because it remained to resolutely incomprehensible. If I just pretended it wasn’t there, then I didn’t have to worry about what it meant. That is a tried and true strategy, one that many of us have in our toolboxes. Problem is, it won’t work forever.
The other strategy we can use, one which proves worthwhile in uncovering scriptural truths, is to actually….study it. Which is why I chose to focus on this parable; because I needed to struggle with it. I read the parable in context, in Luke, just prior to the triumphal entry into Jerusalem. I flipped around looking at words and phrases, chasing sentences on the rabbit path in the garden of God’s word.
Guess what? I still don’t understand it. I’m still wrestling with this passage. And that’s a good thing. God is big enough to handle my doubt. Thankfully, he is so strong that my understanding is not required for my redemption. He is able to withstand my perplexity. The more time I spent thinking about this passage, the more drawn into his Word I became, never a bad thing. In this case, I continue on the path toward understanding, choosing not to ignore the things I just don’t get. Because God is big enough to wrestle.
Parable to Make a King Cry
Saturday, December 3, 2011 at 12:02AM 
Jason Hood is that rarest of God's creation: a deep-thinking theologian who writes with style and good humor. He's also a bit of a contrarian, because he submitted an Old Testament parable, but we'll allow it because apparently Jesus read the Old Testament--who knew? Jason is a graduate of Rhodes College, Reformed Theological Seminary, and Highland Theological College and the University of Aberdeen. Jason works as Scholar-in-Residence and director of Christ College Residency Program at Christ UMC. He blogs at SAET, or you can follow him at twitter.com/jasonbhood.
Sometimes we treat the parables of Jesus as if they are simply putty for our fidgeting hands, sculpting their message however we wish. But that’s not the point of parables.
No parable does more to disabuse us of this approach than the parable Nathan tells David. I’m sure you know the story from 2 Samuel 11. King David should be leading the nation, but he’s not. He checks out porn and commits adultery (maybe rape). His target gets pregnant. Her husband is too good to take time off from the battle to enjoy her, so David resorts to murder: he arranges for a catastrophic military action that kills this good man and those he had the misfortune of standing next to him. As the dust settles, he shrugs and “encourages” his general with this gem of a line: “Hey, it's war. The sword sometimes gets people.”
Actually, it’s sin that kills people, spoils relationships, steals love and cars and reputations. And because we sin, we sometimes need a parable or two to kick us down to our knees in repentance.
Perhaps we could try this one: “There was a local pastor, and about all he had was his reputation. He took a few stands you didn’t agree with. And you felt it necessary to tear down his reputation and make him look little and ignorant in the eyes of more enlightened Christians...”
Maybe it’s not really a parable. But it’s a kick-in-the-teeth, and sometimes we need really hard words.
In the next chapter, God sends Nathan the prophet to David to tell him just such a parable. A rich guy with loads of sheep and cattle steals a wonderful little ewe lamb loved by another man, and kills him for good measure. David is incensed and demands that the man die.
Imagine Nathan the prophet's words in 12:7-10 being read by Samuel L. Jackson. “You ‘da man, David! You killed a man, David! I gave you all Israel and Judah—I’d have given you more! But No! You had to have that little ewe lamb!”
David gets it. He immediately confesses. At some point he writes Psalm 51 and promises to become a missionary (literally--read verses 13-15). Here's the sign of true religion: a broken and contrite heart. Not a good defense attorney. No cover-up, spin, image control; there’s no hitting refresh on our moral track record. There’s nothing to put to use but knees and lips.
Parables like Nathan’s only work if they kick us in the teeth, shaking us out of our rhythm of self-assurance and the complacence of immorality. And when they work as intended, they have a lasting impact. Note what happens to David and Bathsheba. According to 1 Chronicles 3, they name their third child Nathan. (Admit it: you thought genealogies were boring!)
I’ve never heard of a man naming a child after a pastor who kicked his butt. But maybe we need to revisit that trend, just like we need to revisit the parables.