Of Parables: Parables tend to be Relational or Participatory Rather than Categorical. 3 7.25.2024

  Let’s end our discussion of parables this month with a final illustration of how these powerful word-pictures function in human discourse. My hope is not just to provide insight for how you and I can interpret and apply the parables of Jesus and other Biblical examples.  I also want to suggest that this sort of thinking can improve the way we all write and speak as preachers and teachers of Scripture. 

    Much of the language we use can be described as categorical. Technically (from Aristotle to the present) categorical thinking is a process of classifying predicable terms. In English, A category can function as a subject/object. We can talk about it. Now, how we talk about a category is limited by its nature. That is fine. When Mrs. Beckman and I are eating at our local diner I may say “This bacon is crisp!” I have made a categorical statement regarding the bacon I’m eating. Clear, plain, and prosaic. Much of our speech throughout the day falls into that basic pattern of communication. We use well-worn categories to do things with words that make our thoughts and intents know to others. 

    That is not the only way to communicate. We can, and often do, go beyond mere categorical speech. We imply. We evoke. We color. We cajole. We invite. All these communication strategies transcend basic categorical speech. They are participatory and relational. They depend on far more than the arrangement of words into proper syntactical categories.  That is the magic of parables. That is the secret sauce. While categorical speaking does the necessary task of keeping things straight and organized; picturesque literary forms like parable go beyond categories addressing all our senses simultaneously.  I concede that Jesus was both the Son of God and a genius, yet his communication strategy and style of story-building is learnable. It is an example to be followed. It is a model to be emulated. 

    Once again, we are talking tendency. Jesus could think and teach both abstractly and concretely. If we are following His example, we need to be wholly immersed not only in the message of Scripture but in its conceptual structure. We need to think in Biblical categories not those forged by our own hermeneutical situation. 

    This is hard because most conservative Christians have been taught to force the ambiguous, tentative, inquisitive, opaque parts of scripture into rigid categories. Sometimes our misunderstanding of scripture our own fault. 

    If we wish to make our preaching more participatory, if we want to share in the powerful and image-driven speaking style of Jesus there are a couple of adjustments we must make to ensure that our Biblical exegesis flows faithfully and effectively into 21st century communication categories.

    First, comes a comfort with ambiguity. Jesus did not always close the communication loop. He trusted His faithful listeners to draw appropriate connections and conclusions to His stories. When He said “Which one of you who has a…” those words form a mental invitation to participate in the dialogue. Those who have ears to hear will accept the invitation, their faithful listening to Jesus will allow them to draw the intended conclusion without Jesus stating it. 

    Next, we must develop a comfort with asking rhetorical, even open-ended questions. Our approach to preaching and teaching is so steeped in the Pauline tradition of forensic argument that both audience and preacher may find this a little unsettling. We like telling people things. We are propositional thinkers—many of us were taught to use that very term as the thesis statement for our sermons. It is a hard habit to break. The best place to begin breaking that habit is when preaching the parables of Jesus, who Himself was clearly comfortable with this level of audience participation. 

    Finally, we need to lose our fear of the culture around us. It is very difficult to imagine Jesus telling a Kingdom-comparison story (The Kingdom of heaven is like...) with no understanding of the culture in which His audience was embedded. Understanding the world in which we live does not mean succumbing to its social or intellectual outlook. We live in our time and place, and it is not only silly to think and act otherwise, but also pointless. How can you use relational comparisons if there is no contemporary peg upon which to hang the comparison? This in itself may be a part of the reason that much contemporary preaching is often anachronistic, simplistic, or vacuous.  

    To conclude this essay, as well as this month’s topic let me say this, it will take work. We must know the scriptures and we will have to know the culture in which our audience lives and to which we wish to speak. We must rely less on turning the text into propositions and more on discerning patterns and principles. These are not the same and in fact the rush to turn every text into a definitive proposition may result in missing signals about the intent of the author, particularly when he is trying to be abstract, elusive, relational, or participatory. 

    Image-driven thinking and speaking should not intimidate us. We live in a media-saturated world. Your imagination and creative thinking can invite your listener into the message as a participant rather than a mere spectator. 

    Yes, it takes work. You’ll need your dictionary and thesaurus. You’ll need to read a lot of literature—books of all kinds. You will need to consume enough media to know what is going on in the world. You will need to draft, edit, redraft, rephrase, cut, add, change, recolor, refashioned, rethink, and reformulate a message prior to delivering it. That’s OK. We are called to communicate Christ! We are called to preach and teach the Scriptures. Sermon structures are formats for the message. You may be surprised what happens when you challenge your congregation by showing them more and telling them less.

Of Parables: Parables tend to be Illustrative Rather than Didactic 7.18.2024

    “There is more than one way to skin a cat.” As a cat owner, I would resent this sentiment, but I understand it’s not really about cats. It is a proverbial or parabolic saying that conveys an elemental truth. Actually--more than one truth. It addresses the fact that many if not most activities can be done a number of different ways. The same parable also teaches patience, problem solving, and varieties of persuasion. One of the strengths of analogical reasoning and teaching by storytelling is that it is powerful, immersive, and in itself—flexible. 

    Parable thinking is simply one more way to “skin the cat” of teaching the foundational truths of scripture. It is good to have a variety of teaching tools available in our toolbox. If we are to use them well, we will need to learn how to use them in a specific, targeted way. We need to choose the right tool for the right job and that begins with understanding how they differ. 

    Since our subject this month is parables, the first important clarification is how parables function. They are illustrative, not didactic. To be effective a parable reframes or refocuses words, images, activities, or pursuits that we already understand.  In fact, if we did not already understand the basic building blocks of the story if we did not understand the matter contextually, the parable would not work. 

    This whole thread started with a story I told a lad at a picnic. The next thing I knew I attached that little fable/parable to an important insight regarding discipleship. The lesson was related through the image. The same lesson could have been taught with a reference from scripture, a thesis statement, and a couple of essential points. Sometimes you skin a cat one way, sometimes another. Flexibility is a hallmark of good teaching and simply preaching parables in all of their narrative power is what makes them powerful today. 

    We do need to be aware of the limitations of this method and ensure that our preaching and teaching ministry provides a variety of “cat-skinning” goodness. 

    First, parables do not convey “new” information. When Jesus taught in parables, He did not give new information about farming, fishing, searching, or shepherding. Parables are illustrative and necessarily relational. They lose their force when explained or converted into “propositions.” 

    Next, parables tend to be rather open ended. We are told the “end of the story” but not always its purpose. We are told why, but then left on our own when it comes to application. This is not a kind of thinking which we are accustomed to. It requires the hearer/reader to assimilate the image and make the connection intended by Jesus.  Many Christians love to be told what to do. The last thing they want is to figure out how to live out the plot and principles of a story. And when it comes to creating or creatively teaching Jesus’ parables preachers need to follow Jesus’ own level of comfort with unexplained ambiguity. Let’s face it—preachers like to convey clear unambiguous directives. To teach this way will require that we take the “foot off the gas” allowing our hearers to “have ears to hear.” 

    Finally, parables are participatory. Since we read the Bible from the page (screen) as a written text it can be difficult to remember that these stories were dynamically told—performed might be the better word—before the original hearers. 

    Let me illustrate; we all know the parable of The Man Who Had Two Sons. This story is the culmination—really the last scene of a series of parables about lost things. It begins with the words “There was a man who had two sons…” For this story to be written down somewhat dilutes the dynamism of what is a great story. Don’t misunderstand me, please. Yes, it is the words of Jesus. It is inspired, authoritative Scripture. The hermeneutical process always serves scripture best when it recovers or displays the dynamism that is inherent in the text rather than ignoring it or interpreting it out. That is the “art” part of understanding hermeneutics as the art and science of interpretation. What we “hear” as a bland opening to a narrative parable they likely heard as a familiar episode of tragic neighborhood gossip. “Ya know that guy with the two sons. Ya, heard what the young’un did?” Others heard it as a familiar and oft-repeated circumstance, the “a man”, to them becomes “any man”, to others “that man”, and for some “me”. If stories did not work that way they would not work. It is the universality, flexibility, and illustrative nature of parables that Jesus leveraged to reveal difficult truths to people who had been just about “Bible-ed” to death. 

    The genius of Jesus, at least as a teacher, was His ability to involve His audience, to sneak the truth, past their defenses, and disarm the natural, human resistance to new or refocused truth. We may not be Him, but as His Church and His people, we need to embrace this illustrative and dynamic way of teaching. 

    There are times when the text or circumstances demand a different exegetical strategy and hermeneutical approach. Too often, however, we choose one common methodology and follow it regardless of the contours of the text. In so doing we are hardly faithful to the intended message of the text. Narratives are to be understood as narratives. Psalms must be approached as Psalms. Ethical instructions should be examined for what they are. If we think of our job more of figuring out the correct strategy for skinning each different cat perhaps, we will find (to mix metaphors) that the cats respond better and are easier to "heard" if they hear the Biblical truth according to each passages desired intent.

Of Parables: Parables Tend to be Observational not Exegetical 7.11.2024

    A key word here is “tends”. While I appreciate those who try and provide formal categories for analyzing parables (Snodgrass, Klyne. Stories with Intent: A Comprehensive Guide to the Parables of Jesus. Grand Rapids, Mich: William B. Eerdmans Pub. Co, 2008.; comes to mind, and even Jeremias was a useful older work), that process of formalism in some ways actually contributes to misunderstanding. Dogs tend to be friendly. Not all are. New Cars tend to be more dependable than used, but anyone who has purchased a lemon knows this is not an axiomatic truth. Herein lies a central issue in parables research and preaching. They are not axioms. We will try to nail down some “tendencies” of parables for the rest of this month. Do all follow and share in those tendencies? No. If so, we would use more definite heuristic categories. By considering tendency we avoid the fate of being pecked to death by ducks, by dealing with the vast numbers of formal, contextual, and material differences presented in parables.  

    These essays do not presume to be the last word on parables. Having “last words” on parables, from experienced observation, is a part of the problem. There are places where Jesus gives very direct, specific, (often Biblical) directives. Even when a parable is embedded in a larger discourse (The Good Samaritan for example), the application provided by Jesus is outside of the “storyline” of the parable. Turning an abstract story into something concrete may give a clearer path to a sermon, at the risk of misunderstanding what Jesus meant in the first place (sagacious duplicity). Like providing the punchline to a joke, over-interpreting a parable negates the reason a parable was used in the first place, making the interpreter (you and me) seem cleverer than the parable teller (Jesus). This should give us pause. 

    Let us consider the first tendency of parables. Parables tend to be observational, not exegetical. Jesus could and often did teach the Scriptures. Though there are identifiable similarities with contemporary Rabbinical exegesis, Jesus did not typically follow those conventions. This departure from the expected norm was noted by His audience who exclaimed that he “taught as one with authority” rather than following the traditional Rabbinical process of piling on authoritative precedents. In considering the parables as a whole, then, we want to set aside Jesus’ approach to Scripture and think through the story-telling process in itself. 

    Jesus was clearly the composer or originator of His stories. See Hedrick, Charles W. Parables as Poetic Fictions: The Creative Voice of Jesus. Peabody, Mass: Hendrickson Publishers, 1994., For an example of how to evaluate Jesus’ stories as extra-historical. Herein we must be careful about how we think. Creative and fictional do not signify that they are not true, or that Jesus never told them but that He created them. This is often lost on both scholars and preachers who try and concretize Parables beyond Jesus’ own intent. There are circumstances where Jesus does seem to make such a connection. For example, I find it plausible that the Parable of Lazarus and the Rich Man is citing the historical Lazarus of John 11 as the one who will be ignored “even if he rises from the dead.” Jesus makes the implied connection. 

    The wholesale allegorizing of the Medieval period did not stop with the Protestant Reformation—at least as applied to the parables. Parables are prickly things that can be hard to turn into clear, balanced, propositional sermon points. The parables are based on observation. Most often Jesus goes no further than “the Kingdom of God is like…” And leaves it up to us to discern the application or punchline. (as good storytellers and joke-tellers do). Occasionally a parable like The Sower provides an interpretive matrix, yet even then, the context demonstrates that Jesus is teaching disciples how to understand parables, presumably intending not to provide such insight into future parables. 

    Generations of Christians have asked the question “Why was Jesus so opaque? Why did he leave so much up to us? I can’t really say except that mysteries will be mysterious, and illustrations will escape us--unless we have ears to hear. Maybe the telling of the tales is not the problem. Maybe it is our nearly inescapable, instinctive materialism. Perhaps we need to faithfully climb our way past the idols of concrete perception that prevent faithful understanding. Maybe the propositional pronouncements of the Law were too complicated for us—or too easy to explain away. Maybe Jesus wants us to follow close enough to hear His voice even after two millennia. We need to learn the Kingdom lessons of leavening bread, sowing seed, finding lost things, and sorting fish. Maybe He spoke this way to keep the Kingdom ever beyond our grasp so that we might walk in faith.

 

Swimming 7.4.2024

     Once upon a time, three babies met in the pond. They became instant friends intrigued by their differences. One of the babies was a duck. He was proud of his waterproof feathers and wide webbed feet which moved him quickly and silently across the surface of the pond. The second of these friends was a turtle. She giggled when she saw how smoothly the duckling swam so she dove down to the bottom of the pond, burrowing through the mud. When she rose, she stopped just below the surface poked her head ever so slightly above the water, and winked at her new playmate. The third of these new friends was a fish. He swam and leaped and dove and rolled and “lolled” in the shallows. He enjoyed the company of his new friends but soon it became clear that though they all shared the same pond they were very different, and each swam in a distinctive way. 

    The duckling swam across the surface of the water. He occasionally dove and he sometimes would dip his head under and hold his breath, but he only did so rarely, and doing so frightened him. Like mama duck, he was graceful in a way--swimming beautifully back and forth across the placid surface of their charming pond. One day the duckling asked Mama duck “Why don’t we swim beneath the surface like my friend the fish, or bask in the muddy shallows like turtle?” The Mama replied “OH my heavens! The depths are dangerous! We need not be so zealous about our swimming. We are beautiful to gaze upon with our freshly preened feathers and silent movement. The surface is fine for us.” The baby duck shook his head and wondered why such a notion had ever escaped his bill.

    The baby turtle swam as deeply as she wished, stayed beneath the surface as long as she wanted, and even left the pond to bask on a log or even the bank. She was not so gracious as the duck, couldn’t dive as deep as the fishy but was completely in control of how she swam, or when she swam, or where she swam. “I’m the boss of me” she said. When she wanted to swim deep the turtle acted like she owned the pond. She was proud of her abilities but somewhat fickle. One day she wanted to spend all her time in the deep water, the next she sulked on a log. She could wallow in the mud or stick her head up ever so slightly and it felt for a moment that she was a part of the surface world and all it promised. 

    The baby fish, though she befriended turtle and duck, was not really a part of their world at all. He could not glide along the surface arching his graceful neck. He could not bask on a log when he got tired. The pond was his environment. Swimming was not a part of his life—it was his whole life. He lived, breathed, fed, moved, and matured fully immersed in his watery environment. Even at a young age when prompted by his friend the duck and the turtle to join them in their mixed environment, the fish knew that to leave the water was not possible. Out of the water he could not live. He swam because swimming was who he was. 

    Our tale tells of three kinds of swimmers. One who only swims on the surface. One who swims according to personal convenience or preference. One who swims, fully immersed in the environment. To what, then does this little parable refer? 

    There are three kinds of swimmers in the Church. Those who only swim upon the surface. They may preen their feathers and move with exaggerated grace, but they do not wish to go any deeper. Avoiding the challenge of diving into the deep, their faith is always limited by their visible horizon and risk aversion. 

    They may not be visible, but most ponds (churches) are filled with turtles. Turtles swim when it suits them. Sometimes fully immersed, other times sitting on a log. You get a glimpse of them peeking their head above the surface, looking to see if you are looking at them. They pretend to be shy and reserved but they are really just selfish. They don’t wish to be directed or led and they choose where they will swim, when they will bask, and when they will play in the mud. Turtles usually get mud on everything else around them and dirty up the water. 

    Fish are all in. The water is their environment. They live there. They thrive. They mature in the water. They build whatever relationships fish have (no analogy is perfect…) in the water. The pond is not where they preen for the crowds, nor is it where they do as they darn please. The world outside of their pond is not their home. They are fully committed creatures of their environment who simply cannot conceive of doing anything else but swimming. 

Your Church, your congregation, is your pond. Don’t be a duck. Don’t be a turtle. Be a fish.  

(Thank you for the assist, Henry!)