Parables

In the synoptic gospels there are around thirty parables. Some are rather long like the Parable of the Sower or the Parable of the Prodigal Son, but most of them are rather short and to the point.  It’s never as easy as one might think to determine the primary meaning of a parable. Often we get lost in the details of figurative language or the illustrations used and miss the meaning.  A good example is the Parable of the Sower; is the emphasis on the seed, the soil, the results or all three?  Another is the Parable of the Mustard Seed, the point is not that a mustard seed produces a tree bigger than all other trees or garden plants, as obvious as that might be. The point is the tiniest of seeds produces a disproportional result.

It has been noted that Jesus began using parables late in his ministry once he had realized that the plain truth was not being heard or believed. Whether parables were a “plan B” or not, is somewhat negligible. What is important, for whatever reason, parables became a way to proclaim truth to those eligible to hear and receive it. Those not eligible might “see but not perceive” or “hear but not understand” (Mk 4:12). Now it is strange that Jesus makes that observation and then immediately it is followed up with the group of his disciples (including the twelve) NOT understanding the Parable of the Sower. As a result, he explains it to them, as he does other parables (Mk 4:34). 

In thinking about parables, I began to let my mind follow a path regarding interpretation. What if we did not have commentaries and theologians to “explain” the parables to us. Would we understand them?  Would we, as I suspect Jesus intended, hear the parable, ponder it and then perhaps an hour later, a day later or even a month later, go “ah ha! I get it. Now I understand what his point was.”  Unfortunately we do have commentaries and theologians, bloggers and religious pundits (preachers) who are more than willing to help us understand what the parables mean and how we should apply them in our life. But don’t we miss something when we follow that route?  It’s similar to the ancient axiom, “give a man a fish and he eats for a day, teach a man to fish and he eats for a lifetime.”

It seems that all too often the commentators and preachers want to make more of the parable/story than is often necessary. Somehow they seem to want to make it all more profound than it might otherwise be either in its original setting or its original intent. They want to take a five minute story and turn it into a forty-five minute life lesson. We all do that from time to time I’m sure. But does that process have value?

We get caught up in the story and often lose sight of things that may have more value surrounding the story.  A good example is with Mark’s introduction of parables in the ministry of Christ.  Large crowds were gather and Jesus was teaching them “many things in parables.”  Once he finished what Mark records as his first parable, “those around him with the twelve asked him about the parables. At that point Jesus says something far more profound than the Parable of the Sower. “To you has been given the secret of the kingdom of God, but for those outside everything is in parables” (4:11).  My gosh, forget the sower stuff, his followers -including the special twelve – are being told they have been given the “secret of the kingdom of God!” What is that secret? Furthermore, what is this “kingdom of God?” That’s the story, not the other story, at least in this particular text. Taking it a step further, is this “secret” something only they now know, or is it something others will know? If so, how will they know they know? Is the secret revealed when one believes? Is it hidden until one walks the “roman road?” Does it come with a secret handshake and a special formula that let’s others know we know and now together we know?   THAT’S the story. The parable is simply a complement to this marvelous truth that has just been revealed.

I like the parables. I enjoy thinking about them and finding the truth in their power of simplicity. But I often have to slow myself down to make certain I don’t miss huge truths that may be posited in the full context of the parables.

Do Details Matter?

It’s been said, “the devil is in the details.”  We’ve all heard the quote. Well, apparently it was originally “God is in the details.”  Rather interesting twist.  Nevertheless, the reason I going down this road relates to knowing the facts before making a judgment. This will flesh itself out later in a post I’m planning on the parables and the use of certain pronouns. However, before that, I thought I would share some information that was rather shocking to me.

In Glen Beck’s book Common Sense he starts section three, “The Political Weapon of Choice,” with this sentence; “The tax code that started in 1913 as fourteen pages now exceeds sixty-seven thousand pages” (p 36). That seemed rather astounding to me so I did a quick bit of research and discovered this: Back in 2006, when twelve different Republican representatives commented on the size of the Title 26 of the United States tax code, there were twelve different answers. When President Bush commented on the same thing, he added a thirteenth answer. The replies ranged from 2,500 to over two million pages in length. One thing most of them had in common however was that the tax code was definitely longer than the Bible. 

Back then, according to the Government Printing Office, the part written by the IRS was over thirteen thousand pages. If you added the part written by Congress, that’s an additional 3,300+ pages. Combined, it amounts to over 16,000 pages. If, in the past three years it has mushroomed to over 67,000 pages, no wonder Secretary Geithner couldn’t get his taxes right!   (Beck does not sight his source for that number.)

Now, I’m not certain how you feel about detail, but 16,000 or 67,000 pages, either one seems to me to be a bit much. Perhaps it’s time to rethink the flat tax idea. Perhaps then we could trim a couple hundred pages off the document!

Switching gears and reflecting on my current study of the Gospel of Mark, I find myself combing through the parables in Ch 4 of Mark. They offer some fascinating details. Not so much the parables themselves, for trying to ascribe detail to elements of a parable is fraught with danger. But rather examining the text that surrounds the parables is what  caught my interest this time. In that context, details can be important and add to the meaning of the overall text.

I suspect that often, in our rush to get to the meat of the matter, we miss some of the nuances of the general text in Scripture. There are times when that is not overly significant other times when it is. For example, who is present, who is Jesus talking to, who is listening if he’s talking to a crowd, etc.. That information can be important. It is similar to the same principle of dealing with the twelve disciples. Yes, Jesus selected twelve specific men to “be with him” but there were many others who were disciples – follower/learners. People who believed in and I suspect followed Jesus virtually everywhere he went.  People who may be nothing more than “extras” on the set. Nonetheless, people that count in the Kingdom of God. We best not dismiss them too easily. They often provide a backdrop for details pertinent to the text and its meaning. That being so, perhaps “God is in the details,” and details do matter.

“Other Things”

In Mark’s account of the Parable of the sower, the emphasis – as in the other accounts, seems to be on the “soil” not so much the “word.”  That may indeed be the key to interpreting the parable. However, when one focuses on the soil there is a tendency to lose sight of the response to the word. Responses that are not always flattering to the impact of the word, but nonetheless are accurate descriptions of types of responses to the word. To put it another way, the word does not always have the impact we would hope. Like it or not, some folks are going to walk away for one reason or another. It’s simply a fact. However, that is not my focus.

What appeared interesting to me is the group who “hear the word but the cares of the world and the deceitfulness of riches and the desires for other things enter in and choke the word and it proves unfruitful (Mk 4:19 ESV).” The primary emphasis, at least for me, being desires for other things.

What are these other things if not “cares of the world and the deceitfulness of riches?” It seems those two factors could encompass most of what distract and disengage us from the word. What else is there in a person’s life that could literally strangle the effectiveness of the word?   Then I began to think on my own life and look at times when I was so distracted by other things that my spiritual life took a backseat. It was not an issue of money or culture wars, it was an issue of passions. NO – not sexual passions, rather passionate pursuits.

I’m rather myopic when it comes to outside pursuits. That’s part of my nature, it’s who I am. Over the years I could name a myriad of interests that, in some sense, choked the life out of me spiritually. I become so consumed with something that nothing else really matters. For example, when I started racing bikes, nothing else mattered. I worked out three days a week at the gym, trained three days at home and rode every day including weekends. Being in the saddle was all that mattered. It was something I was good at and something that brought me a deep sense of self worth. I invested thousands in bicycles, training equipment, personal trainers, and the list goes on. For me, it was indeed an example of “other things” that choked my interest and desire for spiritual things.   I might add, when I was teaching Bible studies at our local church, I had the same passion. It too, in a very real sense, was choking the word but in a different way. I could go on and name other pursuits; golf, motorcycles, cars, softball, business pursuits, writing, etc., all taking a strangle hold on my life in one form or another.

Learning this, my tendency toward passionate pursuits, has helped me understand some of the “why” when I do certain things. It has also helped me to understand, going in, that a particular area – regardless of how good it is – can handicap me in other areas. So I’ve learned to try and temper new pursuits and force my self to keep a certain balance. It does not always work, but at least I am cognizant of it and realize the potential for damage to my spiritual life. It is indeed a constant struggle.

Yes, “cares of the world”, “desire for riches” bring their own levels of baggage. However, for me, it is often the “desires for other things” that trip me up and begin choking the life out of my spiritual self, rendering me unfruitful. And God does not appreciate the unfruitful (John 15).

It Begins With God

“It all begins with God — what we think about God shapes what we think about ourselves and those around us and our world. It begins with God. What is our “narrative” of God? What are the narratives that hinder our perception and life in God?”

These were the opening words of a blog post I read recently. Thinking about those initial five words, “It all begins with God” stuck with me during some of my other readings and writing. They prompted me in several ways: Whose God, the God of the OT or the NT (and many make a distinction), Jesus as God or God himself, the God of the Bible or the god we hear preached about on Sundays, the Christian god or the pagan god, and so it went. 

When I hear people talk about God I want to know what God they are talking about. When I hear people refer to God as a God of love, I wonder how jealousy fits in to that equation or how vengeance or even monotheism fits.  I wonder if the God I believe in is simply a product of what I want God to be like or an accurate representation of how God IS  according to scripture.

It’s my belief that God is. However, the picture of him as reflected in the Old Testament is often separate from what we see in the NT and I’ll confess I find that hard to reconcile at times. Did God change so that now he is represented through the son and that representation is what God is like now? When Jesus says “you’ve seen me, you’ve seen the Father” does that mean he is equal to God in every way? 

The idea of righteousness as described in both testaments has a great deal to do with God. Is righteousness possible as we relate to God? Is it only through Christ that one is righteous and if so, what does that say about those who did not have that medium called Christ? Was the second plan for righteousness better than the original plan?

Yes, “it begins with God.” More than that, it begins with an accurate understanding of God. If we do not understand our “narrative of God” than I suspect a right relationship to him is a misnomer.

Righteous Anger

The other day a friend sent me an article regarding anger…I’ll call it righteous anger. In a nutshell the article talked about why Christians (Pastors in particular) are not angry about the seemingly inevitable adoption of the gay, lesbian and trans-gender lifestyle as a regular part of our culture.

A portion of the article talked about Nazi Germany and why the pastors there did not stand against the merciless acts of Hitler. It also talked about the early years of America and how pastors seemed to ignore the plight of slaves. Now, in present day, the author of the article seems to say that pastors are not willing to risk it all when it comes to denouncing aberrant lifestyles. Of course, most of them risk nothing compared to those pastors in Germany or even those in the early days of the United States.

In the same time frame I was reading Mark 3:1-6 about the man with the withered hand that Jesus chose to heal on the Sabbath. In that portion of scripture it is noted that Jesus looked around at the religious leaders of the time with anger. He was not only angry, he was “grieved at their hardness of heart.” Translate that into to this…they were more concerned about their tradition of the Sabbath and the artificial rules imposed on the Sabbath than the man with the whithered hand. Now it seems right that Jesus was angry. He should have been.

Any time we put “policy” before people, it should make us angry. However, even though some of the churches in America choose to jump on the bandwagon with the gay and lesbian crowd, that should not necessarily be the focus of our anger. We should be angry that they are in our face about their agenda and pushing it through not only our government bureaucracy but the public square as well.

Now my friend, who has labored long and hard in a small town ministry is a wonderful man. He’s a great husband and a terrific father. He has stood up on more than one occasion to say what’s happening in our country is WRONG – flat out wrong. And he has done so with a passion. Even anger. However, is it right to compare the gay and lesbian agenda with the likes of Nazi Germany or the slave trade? I suspect not.

Here is my reply to his email:

Dear Friend, 

As you might suspect, it did give me some pause when I read the article you sent. Naturally, for me, comparing the homosexual agenda with “slavery” and “Nazism” is perhaps a stretch. Kindling anger toward such an agenda has its place, but does it bear equal footing with such demonstrations of evil as the extermination of thousands, even millions, of Jews?  For me, I suspect not.

Having said that, let me just point out a few personalobservations. First, Jesus – nor any of the Apostles for that matter ever once uttered a word against abortion. A far greater evil than homosexuality or trans-genderism. Second, slavery in the NT era was commonplace and not even Paul in his letter to Philemon took time to speak in opposition to such a practice. It is only through – if I may use the term – domestication of the issues and abuse of the practices that the Western culture, specifically, the United States, begins to take issue with these two agendas in particular. At least, that is my cursory understanding.

 It is true, the Lesbian-Gay-Trans-gender agenda is a vocal and supposedly powerful group that is desperately attempting to modify the moral landscape of our country. The fact that they are infecting our schools, businesses, governments and moral codes in many communities ought indeed to give rise to anger and being “grieved at (our nation’s) hardness of heart” when it comes to taking a moral stand against such intrusion. However, it also seems in many instances the church does so with punitive indifference to the individuals who have come under the spell of political correctness and feeling that their lifestyle is not a choice as much as the way they were created.  For example, one can preach with power and angst against alcoholism, but expecting someone to stop drinking (for their lifetime) because the “Church” says alcoholism is a “sin” may be a bit naïve.

 Now, let me be clear. The killing of babies is abhorrent. The extermination of any population is an anathema. Slavery as known in our history is just plain wrong. Homosexuality and its many manifestations is wrong, specifically according to Scripture. Should we speak against such a moral aberration? Yes.  Yes, because it is wrong, but more so because that “agenda” is being thrust face first into the mainstream of the public.

 My friend, we are losing the battle. Indeed, I suspect we will continue to lose the battle. But the WAR has been won!

 “Stand up, stand up for Jesus, stand in his strength alone; the arm of flesh will fail you – you dare not trust your own…”

 Now, let me be clear. We should stand up against the forces of evil. Not because, as Christians, we somehow live morally superior lives. Often we don’t.  We should stand up because it is wrong to force one’s beliefs, even Christian beliefs, on another set of individuals or groups.