The Richness of the Parables

Presenter: Gloria Reinhardt Majerus

Our Sunday Visitor

Religious Education Presenter

Teaching Style of Jesus

  • Pronouncement stories, Short sayings, Instruction to the Apostles

Parables

• Parables provide a religious and moral lesson about the Kingdom

• Parables were taken from everyday life’s circumstances

• Parables reveal truths to believers and conceal truths from non-believers

• Parables have surprise endings

• Parables are conveyed on two levels- the literal and spiritual level

• Parables present listeners with a challenge to respond to the word of God.

P

arables, though not exclusively, proclaimed the imminence of the reign of God. The parables impact to their hearers Jesus’ experience of the Reign of God. They are not concerned with the reign of God but with the experience and/or subsequent activity of men and women confronted by the reign of God at work. Example: joyousness that results from the Hidden treasure or Pearl.

Through the parables, Jesus makes the Reign of God happen. He makes the reign a present reality for those who are truly open (faith) to him and his telling of the parable.

Parables are:

More than a mere story or allegory. Allegory is a literary, dramatic, or pictorial device in which characters and events stand for abstract ideas, principles or forces, so that the literal sense has or suggests a parallel, deeper symbolic sense.

Parables as a simile. A simile is a figure of speech in which two essentially unlike things are compared, often in a phrase introduced by like or as.

Parables are a sustained metaphor or a little story whose heart is a metaphor

Metaphor is a figure of speech, which put things together (Para-ballein in Greek) which do not belong (living flame – army intelligence etc.)

Most of the parables and most parts of each parable are among the most indisputably authentic sayings of Jesus in the Gospels.

In The Parables

•Jesus has 3 main topics of interest:

–The graciousness of God

–The demands of discipleship

–The dangers of disobedience

•Implied claims to deity.

–Raises the question of Jesus’ identity

•The Central theme is the Kingdom of God

Techniques in a Parable

  1. Story is as concise as possible - only includes the characters needed or information needed
  1. Follow the “law of stage duality” - only two characters acting or speaking in a scene at one time
  1. Law of single perspective - told in one scene at a time & told from one single point of view
  1. Characters are shown by what they do rather than by general description- only exception is in ten maidens and the judge in Luke 18
  1. Parables only mention emotions, feelings and motives when critical to the story –ex. we do not know how the foolish virgins felt about the wise virgins
  1. Secondary characters only appear as they are central to the story- no unnecessary description is shown.
  1. The motives behind the actions of most characters are left unknown - we don’t know why the vineyard owner went away to a far country or why the younger son wanted his inheritance
  1. Often parables don’t have an outcome – ex. barren fig tree. Certain items are left up in the air
  1. All unnecessary descriptions are left out- economy of wording is the rule in describing all actions and events. No mention of background
  1. Use of direct speech is important in the creation of parables. This is seen in the Lost Coin
  1. The law of repetition is common to extended narratives. Same wording is often used in other parts of the story
  1. Often the law of end stress is used. The most critical events take place at the end of the story.
  1. Moral judgment is sometimes suspended. We are not call to make judgment on the morality of the event

The importance of the reign or kingdom of God

  1. The Central aspect of the teaching of Jesus was that concerning the Kingdom of God. There is no disagreement with this. He appeared as one who proclaimed the Kingdom. All else in his ministry and message serves a function to this proclamation and derives its meaning from it.
  1. The challenge to discipleship, all the ethical teaching, the disputes about oral tradition and ceremonial law, even the pronouncement of the forgiveness of sins and welcoming the outcast in the name of God – all these are to be understood in the context of the kingdom proclamation. The title that best sums up Jesus is Proclaimer of the Kingdom.
  1. In Israel’s understanding and history, God’s definitive self-revelation or self-appearance would only OCCUR at the end (the Eschaton). The sign of the Eschaton was the resurrection from the dead. Thus Jesus as raised is the total self-revelation of God; in him is found all the divine reality and thereby salvation.
  1. Jesus proclaimed the imminence of the Reign of God and in effect (i.e. in the way he proclaims and makes present this reign) understood himself to be the eschatological prophet. (I.e. the final, definitive, unsurpassable spokesperson of God, through whom the Reign of God is now beginning to break into history.
  1. The most important reality that would move us from the man Jesus to the Jesus who is the Lord, the Christ and Son of God was the resurrection and the disciples’ coming to the Easter faith. It was the resurrection of God’s confirmation of Jesus’ person, words, and deeds, but also through the resurrection of Jesus himself achieved his own eschatological fulfillment … through the resurrection Jesus became what he was already.

What did Jesus mean by the Reign of God …?

  1. Activity of God
  1. In the prophets the reign becomes eschatological because it refers to a decisive, future, ruling act of God for the salvation of his people. But with the prophets it is future and otherworldly.
  1. It meant this world and its history must come to an end. The sure sign of the end, the presence of the reign, the new age is the Resurrection. In the teaching of Jesus the new age is the reign of God.

How to read Parables

•Rule 1

–Check the setting of the parable. To whom does Jesus address the parable? What led up to it? Does Jesus tell it to defend teachings or actions? Did the evangelist insert it here because he was developing a certain theme?

•Rule 2

–Understand what the story is saying as a STORY. Don’t try to interpret the parable until you know what the story is about?

•Rule 3

–Find the main point of the story. It is usually at the end. Find a point of comparison to some theme in Jesus’ teaching. Is Jesus talking about God, salvation, himself or forgiveness?

•Rule 4

–Try to state the theme in one sentence. Use this formula…Just as…………so……

•For example

–Just as seed sown in good soil will increase, so God’s reign will increase beyond human imagination despite the opposition it will meet

Classification of Parables

•Description of the Kingdom …these parables deal primarily with God’s nature, qualities, attitudes in dealing with people

–Parable of the Lost Sheep, Lost Coin and Laborers in the vineyard

•Kingdom Responses… these parables emphasize how we should act if we hope to enter the kingdom

–Parables of the Tax Collector, Rich Young Man, and Talents

•Relationships with our neighbor…these parables address people’s relationships with one another and the world at large

–Parables of the unforgiving servant and the Good Samaritan

•Fulfillment of the Kingdom…these parables refer to the future coming of God’s kingdom in its fullness.

–Parables of the wedding feast and the weeds and ten bridesmaids

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