Jesus Speaks in Parables
Jesus said, “I will speak to you in parables and reveal to you things hidden since the foundation of the world.” —Matthew 13:35, quoting Psalm 78:2
Father Richard Rohr describes how Jesus uses parables to challenge our ways of thinking:
A parable is a unique form of literature that’s always trying to subvert business as usual, much like a Zen koan or a Confucian riddle, which both use paradox to undo our reliance on what we think is logic. Yet we typically do not let parables do that for us. Our dominant consciousness is so in control that we try to figure them out inside of our existing consciousness—or, more commonly, we just ignore them or consider them out of date. Parables aim to subvert our old consciousness and offer us a way through by utterly reframing our worldview.
Often, the biblical text isn’t transformative and doesn’t bring about a “new creation” because we pull it inside of our own security systems and what we call “common sense.” At that point, no divine breakthrough is possible. Frankly speaking, this makes much of Scripture become largely harmless and forgettable. [1]
Father Richard uses Jesus’ parable about workers in a vineyard (Matthew 20:1–16) to illustrate how God’s logic is not our own:
We often think that justice means getting what we deserve, but the Gospels point out that God’s justice always gives us more than we deserve. In fact, “worthiness” is not even the issue! In Matthew’s Gospel, Jesus tells the parable of a landowner who hires laborers in the morning, at noon, and in the afternoon to work in his fields. In the evening when he pays them all a day’s wages, the ones who worked all day complain that they deserve more than the ones who worked only a few hours. But the landowner turns to them and asks, “Why are you looking so resentful just because I am generous?” (Matthew 20:15). God’s justice is really magnanimity, being more than fair to everybody because God is being true to God’s nature. As Matthew says elsewhere, God makes the sun to shine and the rain to fall on the just and the unjust alike (5:45). In other words, God provides all everyone needs in order to grow.
We have a hard time with that kind of justice. We’re capitalists, even in the spiritual life. If we work more, we expect more and we don’t know what to do with a God who breaks that rule. Yet God’s justice is just another way of thinking about God’s unconditional love. All through the Gospels, people receive what they don’t deserve. Relentless generosity is hard for us to comprehend, much less practice. That kind of unconditional justice is beyond our human power. Yet the Gospel is showing that it’s possible for Jesus to be fully human and divinely just, because he lived in the power of the Spirit. Likewise, it is possible for all those who, like Jesus, open themselves to receive the Spirit.
The Wedding Banquets
Father Richard describes how several of Jesus’ parables use the image of a wedding banquet:
In the New Testament, and particularly for Jesus, the most common image for what God is offering us is a banquet. It’s not a trophy, not a prize, not a reward reserved for later, but a participative and joyous party now. A banquet has everything to do with invitation and acceptance; it is never a command performance.
Matthew’s Gospel contains the parable of the wedding banquet (Matthew 22:1–14). A king sends out his servants to let the guests know that the banquet has been prepared. “But they were not interested: one went off to his farm, another to his business” (22:5). These are not bad things, but just “busyness with many things” that keep them from “the one important thing” (Luke 10:41–42), which is the banquet of conscious divine union. At the end of the parable, the king instructs the servants, “Go out and invite everyone you can find to the wedding feast.” The servants returned with “the good and the bad alike” (22:9–10). That phrase has been shocking to most Christians, because we have been taught to believe that Jesus’ message is primarily a moral matter in which “bad” people would clearly not belong. Once we know it is primarily a mystical matter, a realization of union, it reframes the entire journey. Almost by accident, we find ourselves becoming “moral,” but morality did not earn us a ticket to the banquet.
In Luke 14, we find three different banquet parables. People are either avoiding them, trying to create hierarchies at them, or simply refusing to come. Just as in Matthew 22, the host almost has to force people to come, and Jesus even offers a bit of nonsensical advice: “When you give a lunch or a dinner, don’t ask your friends, brothers, relations, or rich neighbors” (Luke 14:12). He lists the people that we’d logically invite and says, “Don’t invite them … for fear they might repay you in return.” (Remember, all rewards for Jesus are inherent, not about expecting something later.) But his message is also a warning against ego systems of reciprocity, and an invitation to pure gratuity.
Jesus is always undercutting what we think is common sense. This passage calls us to nondual thinking and to change our entire form of consciousness. “When you have a party, invite those who are poor, crippled, maimed, or blind, because the fact that they cannot pay you back will mean you are fortunate” (14:13)—because now you are inside of a different mind that will allow you to read all your life from a worldview of abundance instead of a worldview of scarcity. God is clearly into abundance and excess, and God’s genuine followers share in that largesse: first in receiving it and resting in it, then in allowing it to flow through them toward the world.
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| Grace and Peace, Friends! This past week, the Eastern University community heard the news that Tony Campolo, 89, had passed away at his home in Bryn Mawr, PA. Tony was a charismatic teacher and preacher who proudly described Eastern as one of the best Christian colleges. He will be most remembered for emphasizing social justice, the poor and vulnerable, and the importance of engaging in politics. As an Eastern University and Palmer Seminary graduate, I had my fair share of run-ins and meet-ups with Tony Campolo. He was a Baptist minister and sociology professor who helped to found Red Letter Christians. I first played basketball with Tony in the university gym without knowing who he was, only to see him preach at chapel the next day. He gave a stellar sermon and showed me what a “Pentecostal preacher” truly was. We had several good conversations, had the chance to interview him for a youth ministry podcast, rode the train in Philly with him, and even went to a prayer demonstration in front of the White House called Reclaiming Jesus. Tony’s enthusiasm for Jesus and justice influenced me and many of my peers. Seeing so many of my former classmates post kind words about how he impacted their lives has been encouraging. A 7-minute video is later in this week’s newsletter. I hope you watch it because it is classic Tony. Onto this week’s five quotes! |
1.”Modern man can’t see God because he does not look low enough.”- Carl Jung, Swiss Psychologist I love the idea that God is not only in the highest heights but in the deepest depths. We are prone to focus on the Transcendent so that we forget God is also Immanent. God is infinitely beyond our limitations but also infinitely present within them. We don’t need to look beyond humanity to see God; we can find God already present in our depths. 2.”I want to help you grow as beautiful as God meant you to be when he thought of you first.”- George MacDonald, Scottish Preacher George MacDonald is an endless fount of good quotes and insights. In his lifetime, he was removed from his preaching pulpit because of what he would say in his sermons. However, I wonder if it wasn’t because he was an iconoclast and challenged the status quo of his day. Whenever I read MacDonald, I get the sense that he stumbled into the same kind of speech/rhetoric/wisdom as the early church desert monastics. 3.”The Church is the Church only when it exists for others… not dominating, but helping and serving.”- Dietrich Bonhoeffer, WWII-Era Lutheran Pastor Bonhoeffer’s legacy is a touchy subject right now. In our era of American political anxiety, some people are taking Bonhoeffer and reinterpreting his life in such a way that he would be in favor of Christian nationalism. This couldn’t be further from the truth. As a theologian and ethicist, he was always suspicious of Christianity becoming too aligned with the rich and powerful. As soon as Christianity associates itself with the pharaohs and the caesars of the current arrangement, then it has lost its legitimacy. The Ekklesia exists to be an eclectic gathering of people who give witness to their own lives and faith before and alongside the teachings of Jesus of Nazareth. 4.”Life is not a matter of reaching a stagnant end point, but is rather an ongoing process in which one, hopefully and with grace, grows ever more deeply in love.”- Gerald May, American Psychologist and Theologian This fall, I have been doing more spiritual direction sessions with people. It has been a slow build, but every one of them has been enormously rich and encouraging. It truly is a privilege to talk with so many of you. A common theme or experience we discuss is the Dark Night of the Soul. It is a normal experience that people go through, yet so few people know how to talk about it. Merton often cautioned against talking with people about your Dark Night of the Soul if the other person has not also gone through it themselves. Merton said this partly because, for some, life is a matter of achieving a “perfect state” of ease, comfort, or stability. However, life is more about constant evolution, growth, and becoming. Gerald May, whose work I have not encountered before, highlights this growth mindset. I have two of his books in my Amazon cart now. 5.”How gently and lovinglyyou wake in my heart,where in secret you dwell alone;and in your sweet breathing,filled with good and glory,how tenderly you swell my heart with love.”- The Living Flame of Love by St. John of the Cross This is the last stanza of St. John of the Cross’s poem, The Living Flame of Love. In some ways, it is a follow-up poem to The Dark Night of the Soul. It highlights the love of God, which wounds as it heals. If you need something that can help describe how elusive and extraordinary the love of God is, this poem is a beautiful place to start. |
| From Tony Campolo: A Story of Throwing a Birthday Party for Prostitutes at 3:30am in Honolulu Take seven minutes out of your day and watch this sermon excerpt. I guarantee it is worth your time. |
