Parables

WEBVTT
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The kingdom of heaven is like. The kingdom of
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God is like. These are things that Jesus seemed
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to say a lot. Welcome back to the Gospels and
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Acts with a really short lecture here on the
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parables. We've talked a lot about the historical
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Jesus now. We've talked about the Gospels of
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Matthew, Mark, and Luke enough to know that Jesus
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frequently speaks in parables. In fact, in each
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of the Gospels, each of the synoptic Gospels,
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he's asked, why does he speak in parables? Now,
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let's just debunk something real quick. It was
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once thought that One of the really distinctive
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things about Jesus was that he spoke in parables,
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that this was sort of unique to Jesus. And that's
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sort of true, but not really. It's true that
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it's distinctive of Jesus to speak in parables.
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That is to say, our Gospels seem to have Jesus
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speaking in parables quite a bit, but he's not
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the only one to speak in parables. In fact, there
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are parables in the Old Testament called Mashalim.
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And so, and there are Aesop's fables and there
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are rabbinic parables after Jesus. And so, this
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doesn't make Jesus necessarily unique. And it's
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not entirely clear that these parables necessarily
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go back to the historical Jesus. But again, Jesus
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as he was remembered. It's possible that these
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do go back to Jesus, but. But it's not necessarily
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that if we want to find the heart of Jesus's
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teaching, we should look to the parables. And
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that's good because the parables are not exactly
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easy to understand, are they? Let's start with
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the name. What is a parable? Parabole in the
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Greek means to cast alongside. Bolo means to
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throw and para means alongside. And so to cast
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alongside. In other words, This is a story that
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gets thrown out alongside of kind of the life
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that we're living. And it's meant to the tension
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between the two in that comparison is meant to
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do something. What though? It's kind of interesting.
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They're a little like Koans. They're a little
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like riddles. And we'll see that other scholars
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have had other ideas of how this how they function.
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But certainly in the Synoptic Gospels, there
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are lots of parables. The Gospel of John never
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uses the word parable, but does occasionally
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talk about paraemia or something like a proverb
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or a maxim, which is not so different. The Gospel
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of Thomas, on the other hand, does share with
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the Synoptic Gospels a number of parables as
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as does the Apocryphon of James, but let's stick
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to the Synoptic Gospels. There are some parables
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that are in all three of the Synoptic Gospels
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and actually also in Thomas, and these are the
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parable of the sower, which is found in Mark
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4, Matthew 13, Luke 8, and the Gospel of Thomas
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9, the mustard seed, and put an asterisk by the
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Gospel of Thomas because they're always slightly
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different. Sometimes considerably different in
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the meaning that is taken from them. There's
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the parable of the mustard seed, also in Mark
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4 and in Matthew 13 and in Luke 13, and then
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the parable of the vineyard in Mark 12, Matthew
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21, and Luke 20. And then there are some that
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are just in two of the synoptics, especially
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in Matthew and Luke. So there's the parable of
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the leaven of the lost sheep, of the feast of
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the unclean spirit of the setting out of the
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of settling out of court of two houses the entrusted
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money you get the idea there's a lot of them
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right and those are all in remember now the double
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tradition that's all in Matthew and Luke so or
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possibly from Q right and then there are quite
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a few that are only found in one source, and
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the majority of these are only found in Luke.
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So you have two that are unique to Mark, you
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have five that are unique to Matthew, and you
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have, I think, about 15 or so that are unique
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to Luke. So Luke highly emphasizes the parables.
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Why? No idea. Except... It's a good idea then
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to look at the parables in Luke and those unique
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parables and see what Luke finds important. We're
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not going to go there right now. I just want
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to stick with what the parables are and how we
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can go about interpreting them. So there's a
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whole lot of parables and you can find them.
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You can find various lists of them and go through
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them. There's a number of excellent books on
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them. that you can also check out. But why did
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Jesus speak in parables? And the arresting answer
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that Jesus gives, usually in the context of the
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parable of the sower, is that he speaks in parables
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so that seeing they do not perceive and hearing
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they do not listen, nor do they understand. Or
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if you want to go to Mark's version, so that
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they may not turn again and be forgiven. So the
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idea is that it occludes. It actually makes it
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difficult for people to understand about the
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kingdom of God. And that's why he speaks in parables.
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That should tell us something about the parables.
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It's common to treat the parables as though they're
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simple allegories. of God and Jesus and humans.
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And there is some allegory at work, but it's
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almost never a simple one -to -one analogy. Now,
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the parable of the sower does get interpreted
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in each of the Gospels and therefore kind of
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has a stable meaning that is given by the Gospel
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writers themselves. But most of the parables
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don't receive an interpretation, and we are left
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to wonder what exactly these mean? What is their
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purpose? So a few things that we can notice about
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the parables. So how do we read them? Well, let's
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notice a little bit about the form that they
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take. Usually, Jesus says it's a parable about
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the kingdom or just maybe a parable, but it usually
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says something like the kingdom of heaven or
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the kingdom of God is like. It's a similitude.
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It's a comparison. But it's not a simple comparison.
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It's sort of an aphorism, isn't it? So some scholars
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have said, you know, and many popular interpreters,
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well, this is clearly just an allegory deliberately
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composed to make sense of greater realities in
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small stories. Or... There's simply example stories
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like the injured man on the Jericho Road Which
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is explained as a simple story to to tell you
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what love of neighbor looks like or there's sort
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of exhortations Luke has a story about a farmer
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with an unexpected heart abundant harvest in
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chapter 12 And the point is that materialistic
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Christians are fools for true wealth is spiritual
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something like that, right? I'll build bigger
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barns and well, that's not helpful. But most
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of them are comparing the kingdom of God or the
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kingdom of heaven and trying to evoke what the
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kingdom, what the reign of God is like. So the
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comparison is something like, as things go in
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this parable, so they go under the reign or the
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authority of God, right? And there's about 40
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of those. I'm sorry, out of 40 of our stories,
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15 are comparing God's reign. So they're a large
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subset, but not the only subset of parables,
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even though those are the ones that we tend to
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focus on. So a few other features. The parables
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usually have a considerable realism, don't they?
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That there's something deeply And usually from
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common life or everyday life. But there's something
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that is vividly and just seems normal about it.
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And then usually there's a twist, right? So you
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have the laborers who come and... The the realism
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is well, of course, this is a realistic situation
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people are standing in the marketplace and Jesus
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goes and the sorry and the the master goes out
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and Hires some and then goes back and hire some
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and goes back and hire some and all that seems
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Right the part that up ends the whole flow of
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it is when the last are paid First and they get
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the usual day's wage, but then so do the first
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and and that's the the rub right there I'm not
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going to interpret that parable for you right
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now, but just to show that these are realistic
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sort of stories about everyday life, sometimes
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about village life and so forth. So how do we
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treat these parables? Obviously allegory is one
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way. There are some scholars who thought that
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following the parable of the sower that all of
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them are allegorical in some way shape or form.
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But another option in the late 19th century especially
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was that there's one moral point to be drawn
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out of these parables. But I think as we can
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see there's a great deal of variety in how the
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parables can be interpreted and they're not easily
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resolved most of the time by allegory or by coming
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to a single point. So one of the more popular
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and I think still very helpful ways of looking
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at the parables is as metaphor. The kingdom of
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God is like, and metaphor depends both on dissimilarity
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as well as similarity. And sometimes metaphors
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can radically alter how we think about something.
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So C .H. Dodd in In 1935, wrote a book on the
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parables and he wrote, I like this a lot. And
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what I like most about it is the idea that parables
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are not really meant to communicate meaning in
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any simplistic way. They're meant to, to befuddle
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us just enough that we actually think about it,
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right? That we actually think about what the
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kingdom of God is like, that we actually think
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about how we ought to be in the world. That I
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think is, is an incredibly powerful insight into
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what the parables are and how they function.
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Of course, that's not the only way we can see
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it. Some have said these are existential narratives,
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which is not so different from what Dodd is saying,
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but they're freely invented fictions and they're
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meant to be to evoke from us a kind of existential
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response or a sense of authentic existence. It's
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just that's an extension. I think to some extent
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of what of what Dodd was saying Some have argued
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that these are stories for social reform that
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they all have essentially a political point and
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You know, I think I think that's pushing it.
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I think that might be true of some of them But
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I think I think the idea is rather think about
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that parable the labor laborers Is it fair? Well,
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no. Is that how economics should go? Well, probably
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not. Like we might have these wild fantasies
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that that's how anything can really function
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in this in the real world. But that's almost
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certainly a fantasy. So what is being communicated?
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How is this meaningful for us is what it's meant
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to make us ask. It's meant to make us a little
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bit. a little bit mad, and a little bit pulling
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our hair out. What is he talking about? Others
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have said that maybe these are poetic fictions
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that these come out of Jesus' creative imagination
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and observation about the world about him, realistically
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portraying aspects of Palestinian or Judean antiquity.
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And they're successful narrative fictions. by
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being, but not by being deliberately referential.
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They're not simply saying this is what it's like.
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It's meant to kind of invite you into an imagination
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of the world. So I don't know. I think that's
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kind of similar, but for my money, Dodd's definition
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or brief definition, is still outstanding. And
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I bring all this up largely to say, when we go
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to examine the parables, and when we think about
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why the early Christians hung on to these parables,
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one of the things that we must reckon with is
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it might just be that they were as stumped by
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them as we are, some of them, and they retained
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them because they were meant to be returned to
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time and again as meditations, as opportunities
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to open our hearts and minds a bit more, just
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as, you know, Buddhist koans and other sorts
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of meditations are meant to open us up by returning
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again and again and again and sort of running
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into this wall again and again and again, but
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seeing something new each time, guessing at something
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new each time. In other words, leaving our minds
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in sufficient doubt about its precise application
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so as to tease our minds into active thought.
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Or another way to put it is to draw us closer
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to God in prayer in our work of meditating on
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these scriptures. I think the parables are meditative
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sorts of works. And when, if you end up preaching
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the parables, a number of things can happen.
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But one of the things that's delightful about
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preaching the parables is that they are so open
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ended. Tom Long has a recent book, maybe it's
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five years old or so now, on preaching the parables.
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It's very good and worth your while. But the
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idea of sometimes they work as allegories, but
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we need always to be careful because the master
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isn't always what we want God to be. And the
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servants aren't always where we ought to be,
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or we can think about it as us versus them. Well,
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we're not like those idiots who came at the end
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of the day and said, but where's my money? So
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taking time to sit with the parables, the parables
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are delightful to preach on. They're also difficult
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to preach on for just this reason. It's not as
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simple as saying, well, this is what this means.
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It invites us into the work of our imagination,
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of our prayerful, our prayer -filled imagination
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and real spiritual discernment. And so that's
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what I'm going to suggest to you the parables
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are for and what they're about. And this has
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been my public service announcement for you on
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the parables We can talk about this more in our
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synchronous session and until then This is me
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signing off