Jesus Is God's Parable

Jesus, Parable of God

Parables commonly are understood as “earthly stories with heavenly meaning.” Ordinarily we associate parables with religion or morality. Official dictionary definitions see the parable as a story, usually simple and short, told to make a religious or moral point, occasionally to make some other kind of point. The root meaning derives from the idea of comparing one thing to another in order to gain a better understanding of that which is being compared.

A story, usually short. What does this mean? How long might a story be and still serve as a parable? How do we distinguish a short story, from a “short story” written to make a point, especially if that point is religious or moral? Good question. As a type of literature, the short story has never been given a clear definition.

A simple story. Perhaps, but the meaning of a parabolic story may be multilayered, difficult to understand, and sometimes mystifying–anything but simple. The meaning, at least, of a parable is sometimes complex.

Clearly, or so it seems to me, when we try to grab the word, “parable,” by its ears and try to shake out a precise meaning, it is unlikely that we will succeed. Therefore I feel free to call the Jesus story, “The Parable of God.”
_________________

Without question, the Jesus story is a short story. Most of us know that Jesus commonly spoke in parables, was a storyteller. Short, often crisp, always to the point, and usually open-ended. If his stories had a heavenly meaning, more often than not, he left it to the listener to figure that meaning out for himself.

The history of the efforts to explain what Jesus meant is long, and unsatisfying. For centuries these stories were subject to an array of subjective interpretations. At times, wild imagination ruled. At other times inspired imagination caught fire and these stories burned brightly.

The 20th Century saw the emergence of a rule, supposedly objective, that was to settle the meaning of Jesus’ parables. Between Joachim Jeremias and C. H. Dodd, we learned that Jesus told these stories to make a point, to make a single point. All we have to do is “get the point,” and we will understand what Jesus was after.

For several decades many of us were schooled to this rule. It sounded good. We believed it and tried to read the parables with this in mind. But. But we found ourselves in trouble when we read more than one book that interpreted specific parables by this rule.

The first book would sound good, but the second book, seeing only one point, saw a differing point from the first. Reading a dozen books on the parables, books written by highly respected authors, sometimes led to a dozen diverse explanations of “the single point.” Which one point was the one point?

Jeremias’ and Dodds’ idea makes a point that should be considered seriously, but is it just possible that they might have missed the point? I will leave it at that for now . Which is what Jesus usually did.
____________

The parables of Jesus are not the point of this blog. The note to listen for is the underlying bass tone--mostly an undertone–that says: “Jesus is the parable of God.”

The Jesus story is a short story. In the Bible, we hear the story told in four different voices: a revenuer, a young man who was slow coming around, an M.D., and a professional fisherman. Each “voice” frames for us a short story. Depending on the format of your Bible, the revenuer’s story is only 25-30 pages long; that of the young man–who finally did come around–runs a short 15-20 pages; the M.D. gives us 30-40 pages; and the fisherman takes 20-30 pages.

These numbers are only approximations. If we were to publish the four together (separate from the Bible), the story would still be relatively short: 90-120 pages or so. The length of a novella.

Actually, within this number of pages, we see a structure that is common in literature: a story told by four different voices from their perspective as characters in the story. Matthew, the revenuer, was one of twelve that Jesus picked as one of his trainees. Mark, the young man, many of us think, was a minor, in fact, anonymous character (maybe later I’ll tell why we think so). Luke, the M.D., was not involved in the story, but as perhaps the earliest researcher of the facts he is a helpful outside, but well-informed voice. John, the pro fisherman, was another of the twelve–one of the earliest–that Jesus chose to be a members of his select group of trainees.
_____________

All I’ve done so far is to review and, I hope, clarify the definition of parables, and raise question about their interpretation. Secondly, I have made a case for the Jesus story as a short–but not simple–story. Last, I’ve indicated that I intend to ground this blog in an understanding of the Jesus story as The Parable of God; the story of Jesus is an earthly (Middle-Eastern Palestine) story with a heavenly meaning.

I myself will be interested in seeing what grows out of this ground. We might consider Jesus from the perspective of The Jesus Seminar, Charles Stanley, Hans Kung, Brian McLaren, Rudolf Bultmann, someone else, or none of the above. Wherever we come from, by looking at the story of Jesus we should come to know God better than we do now.
__________

If this is your first time to log on to one of my blogs (and if you are interested), I have others at:
http://aintsobad.typepad.com/ikant/ where I write philosophy for Rick Davis’ blog; and several more can be found at the bottom of the page: http://www.blogger.com/profile/08339539145393176843