New Series – parables of Jesus – Timeless narratives from the world’s greatest story-teller, and Jesus was a consummate story-teller

Even the logo is a like a parable – you can’t see all of the word, but your mind has easily filled in the gaps! We’ll see this over and over again in Jesus’ parabels.

• they are important because over 1/3 of Jesus teaching was in parables
• parables still speak to us today
• it’s almost impossible to understand who Jesus is and what he teaches without understanding his parables.
• Today – an overview and one example

What does ‘parable’ mean?

Noun – parabolh –

Verb – paraballw – to parabolise – to tell a story as a parable

Both of these words can be divided into two in two parts –

• para = alongside, <ppt>
• ballo = throw <ppt>

So every time someone talked about a parable in Jesus’ day they spoke of ‘throwing things alongside each other’ – a delightfully graphic way of explaining a parable.

And it sill works today! When Jesus tells a story, we’re instantly thrown alongside that story in our mind’s eyes.

• And that’s how Jesus’ parables speak to us

In general terms a parable is comparison or an analogy in which we are meant to take concepts from the world of the parable’s story and re-apply them in the world where we live.

• Jesus used them extensively to teach eternal and spiritual truth to fallible humans like us

How do parables work?

The idea is of a story or incident that runs in parallel with the lives we live

<ppt: graphic of two lines – our lives – the story – with linking points>

• We can identify with the people or the situation – there are certain things that tie up

these links may be …

• things we do; Jesus: “he said this” – oops, I’ve caught myself saying that!

• attitudes we hold “She reacted like that” – hmm, I’ve been there too!
• This is why parables are so powerful at conveying God’s word to us today.

The Lord uses a story from there and then uses to impart his truth to us here and now. This explains why they are timeless

• Notice – they are (usually) complete fiction! >>>
• different from an allegory or a fable (?how)

A parable is a short story to illustrate a universal truth

• earthly story with a heavenly meaning
• not as one child put it “a heavenly story with no earthly meaning!”

Most parables follow a similar pattern

there’s a setting <ppt> – the story-teller sets the scene – there’s a man walking down the road from Jerusalem to Jericho – we can identify with that – we all walk from place to place (occasionally!)

there’s an action <ppt> – something happens in that scene – he got mugged and left for dead. The people we would expect to have taken notice all ignored him. (Yikes – how many times have I ignored someone I should have paid attention to?)

there are results <ppt> – that accrue from the actions – it was left to an outcast (a Samaritan) to help the man. (He’s the hero – so I want to be that man!)

there are consequences – God’s punch line – this is the punch line, the lesson, the eternal truth that we take away from the parable. Helping people in Christ’s name is a good thing to do.

Why do parables work?

… so effectively to convey God’s truth to our hearts?

What mechanism here?

(See Haslam (Ed) “Preach the Word” p348-349)

They tap into our imagination.

Parables invite us into another world that is sufficiently similar to our own for us to understand, but different enough for us to receive a different message.

• Many of us like relaxing with a novel or a thriller
• I believe this is one reason why God included so many stories in the Bible and why Jesus taught in parables

In fact it is imagination that makes us most like our creator.

• What is creation other than the results of the imagination of God? Having made us in his image God has given us the ability to imagine and parables engage that capacity that he has embedded in us.

Parables depend on a well-crafted plot

My telephone directory has many characters but no plot! A good story always has a plot, and some development of the characters. The unique feature of parables however is that the characters are often there to point us to, or to stand for, something else. There is a dual layer of meaning.

It can be very helpful to try to read the parables as if you were the first person encountering them.

Think, for example, of the persistent widow, pleading with the judge for justice >>>

parables have impact because of compelling characters

E.g. lost sheep and lost coin.

There is a tendency for us to characterise people as either goodies or baddies, but parables often steer round this kind of caricaturing to reveal the complexity of the situation – E.g. the elder brother in the story of the prodigal son. (Who was he, what was he really like, could he be me?)

Some parables have gaps in them.

And those gaps are left for us to fill in. E.g. what really did happen to the prodigal son after his return?

They leave the hearer to work out the meaning.

Good storytellers do not tell their hearers what to think, instead they leave it to their judgement – allow them to draw their own conclusions.

• E.g. the parable of the prodigal son – the people saw one angle of it, the Pharisees saw another – and they were both right

On Old testament example – Nathan spinning a story to King David about the ewe-lamb that had been taken by the king – David was enraged – Nathan said “that’s you!” >>>

 

Now for an example. We’ll look at it in two different accounts, Matthew and Luke

Matthew 7:7-12

… we may not immediately recognise this as a parable because there is no obvious narrative content to it.

It’s the parable of the good father.

“Which of you” Jesus is putting us in the position of the father here.

Imagine the scene

• a father being asked by his son for a sandwich >>>

(We’ll use our setting – action – result – punchline framework)

Setting?

an ordinary family

• an interaction between a father and a son – the son asks for something

Some things are immediately obvious from the son’s request

• he’s not a materialist. He’s not asking for an iPhone or a fast car – he’s asking for are the basics of life – bread and meat (actually fish – a staple source of protein in Israel)
• He’s asking for the things any half-decent father would be expected to provide for his son without so much as blinking.

Action?

The action – (the thing being done here) is not mentioned – it’s assumed.

The Father considers the request. “Shall I give it to him or shall I not?”

At this point several option are available to father

• give it all, give nothing, give some, give something similar (if he has no bread in the cupboard)
• or give something totally different (and disjoint from the son’s request) – this option would be ridiculous. It’s not what my son asked for, it’s not what he needs, it’s not what he expects!

And Jesus makes this clear by using a rhetorical question “If he asks for bread, will you give him a stone?”

• What kind of father do you think you are if your son asks you for something to nourish him and you give him something completely inedible!?

Result?

The son gets what he asks for

• again this in implied by the rhetorical question
• Is your heavenly father going to give you the opposite of what you ask for? Of course not!

The father acts to please the son and to provide for him!

Then Jesus uses an type of argument – from lesser to the greater

V11 If you then, being evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will your father in heaven give good gifts to those who ask him

The lesser part – us being sinful people – the greater part – God being sinless and of infinite power. >>>

Then Jesus makes a vital parallel for us – the missing piece of the jigsaw

• the human father in the story is like your heavenly father in real life

so this is a parable. Not about us. But about Him

And there Jesus could have left it –

• and in some parables he does. He leaves us in the air to work out the punchline for ourselves

Not in this case

• He goes on to tell us what it is he’s saying through the parable.

V12 So in everything, do to others what you would have them do to you; for this sums up the law and the prophets

How does that lesson come out of the parable?

Put yourself in the boy’s shoes.

>>>

• You want you farther to be generous to you – then you be generous to others.
• You want your father to provide for you – the you do the same for others.
• You want your father to be kind to you …
• You want your father to be civil to you …

 

Model the behaviour you want to experience yourself.

(contra – grumpy people make others grumpy!)

 

 

Now turn to …

Luke 11:9-13

Same parable – but look a little deeper and you find something really unexpected – the punchline is different!

Jesus puts this parable in to his preaching to illustrate

• He does what any preacher does – uses his stories to make different points on different occasions – he adapts to his hearers.

So what’s going on in Luke’s gospel? Jesus is teaching about prayer (which he’s not in Matthew) and tells another story

A man has an unexpected guest and needs to feed him – but he’s run out of bread.

• It’s midnight and the shops are shut so he goes to a friend and rattles the door
• friend objects “I’m in bed, the wife is in bed, the children are in bed, the dog’s in bed – GO AWAY!”
• But the man persists and eventually the friend in the house gets up and gives him the bread, not because he’s his friend, but because he’s being a nuisance!

And Jesus now uses our Father-son parable with a very different purpose

If you’re coming to God with a request, like the friend at midnight, then “Ask and it will be given to you!, Seek and you will find, knock (even at midnight) and the door will be opened for you!

And to illustrate this he uses the same scenario <ppt> we know from Matthew – a Father being asked for the basics by his son (in this instance it’s fish and eggs)

Jesus also uses the same argument, from the lesser to the greater “How much more will your heavenly father give

But here things go in a radically different direction! <ppt>

Instead of “If you, being evil know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will your heavenly father give good gifts to those who ask him

Jesus says

“If you, being evil know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will your heavenly father give the Holy Spirit to those who ask him

in fact the definite article isn’t in the text so a literal translation is

“… how much more will your heavenly father give Holy Spirit to the ones asking him”!

So the punchline here is ‘Your heavenly father is generous – ridiculously generous! He won’t just give you the basics you ask for he’ll give you so much more besides!

In fact – he will give you his very self – His spirit – His attitudes – His thinking – … if we keep on asking.

 

Pray >>>