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“Thy Kingdom Come” – The Parables of Jesus

“Why do you speak to them in parables?”

When we think of the ministry of Jesus, we probably think of great miracles &
small moments of grace. We think of shared meals, healed bodies, & grateful,
forgiven hearts.

We probably think of parables too. Jesus taught his disciples & the crowds that
followed him in both actions & words. Sometimes he spoke in simple
statements – “Blessed are the poor” - & at other times he issued warnings.
Stern ones too, mostly to religious leaders: “Woe to you Pharisees…” On many
other occasions he told stories. Not just any kind of stories, not anecdotes, epics
or fables. What Jesus told were parables.

The English word “parable” is a translation of the Hebrew term mashal. It is not
entirely clear what this word meant in its original culture setting but it may have
had a link with Jewish prophecy. Prophetic knowledge comes from a visionary
experience & this can only partly be expressed in normal language. A mashal
involves analogy, where one thing is said to be “related” to another thing.

In Greek, the word parable comes from a word that means “comparison.” We
call Jesus’ stories parables because they invite us to see a comparison: between
the kingdom of God & a banquet, between God & a landowner, between
ourselves &… which are we, anyway? The Pharisee or the tax-collector? The
older son or the younger? The bridesmaids who are prepared or those who are
caught short? The workers who toil all day or the latecomers?

If you are already familiar with these parables, your answer to those questions
might well be different today than it was 5 or 10 years ago. That is because
Jesus’ parables, like the rest of God’s word, are living words. They speak to us
now in a different way than they did in the past. The way we hear them changes
as our lives change & as our understanding of life deepens. Jesus told the
parables to crowds gathered in Palestine a long time ago. But he also tells them
to us, today. Our willingness to clear away the obstacles to open listening to
their message for us will determine how fruitful our reading of the parables will
be.

What kind of stories are Jesus’ parables?

Parables are not literary short stories like those we read in anthologies or
magazines. Short stories give attention to plot & character development. Jesus’
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parables are rarely longer than a couple of hundred words, & the motives of the
characters are often not explained at all. E.g. why would a landowner hire
workers throughout the day rather than hiring all he needed in the morning?
Was he so short-sighted that he failed to think through how many workers he
would need & found himself having to hire more during the day? Jesus doesn’t
explain the landowner’s odd behaviour. His motive, it seems, is not important.
Something else must be, but what?

Nor are Jesus’ parables fables. We are all familiar with Aesop’s fables, such as
the race of the tortoise & the hare, in which the characters are often animals &
the narrative ends with an enlightening or cautionary lesson. We might be
tempted to put Jesus’ parables in the same category: short tales with a moral at
the end. But Jesus doesn’t tell stories about animals. Nor are his stories always
constructed as narratives that provide an obvious moral. Often Jesus does not
explain his stories at all, much less provide an easily understood lesson. If Jesus
doesn’t provide us with an application, how are we to respond? If the moral
isn’t the key to understanding Jesus’ parables, what is?

The point of Jesus’ parables, as the name implies, is the comparison. In

listening to a parable, we are invited to perceive the God we cannot see through
a comparison of him & his ways with what we can see. Jesus compares & then
invites us to compare. He calls us not just to listen but also to respond to his
invitation to encounter – here & now – the reality of God & his reign over us.

Jesus was not the first Jewish teacher to tell parables. As with much of his
ministry, he drew on a tradition that was familiar to his hearers & transformed it
into something new.

In the OT, we find about 10 stories similar to Jesus’ parables. One of the most
famous is the story that the prophet Nathan told to King David (2 Sam 12:1-4).
David, the great king of Israel, fell in love with Bathsheba, the wife of Uriah, an
officer in his army. In order to have Bathsheba to himself, David had Uriah sent
to make a foolhardy attack on the enemy so that he would be killed, & he was.

Nathan was David’s chief spiritual advisor. Hearing of David’s act, Nathan
entered David’s court & told him about a wealthy man who had stolen a poor
man’s only sheep. After telling the story, Nathan asked David what should be
done about such an act. David, enraged, said that the wealthy man should be
killed. His rage turned to grief & repentance when Nathan told him, “You are
the man!” David realised that his taking Bathsheba was like the wealthy man’s
theft of the poor man’s sheep. The comparison – the parable – shocked him into
a realisation of his sin.
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Parables were a well-used style of teaching in the 1st century. E.g. Rabbi
Gamaliel II, who taught about 60-70 years after Jesus’ death, is quoted as
beginning a parable as follows: “I will tell you a parable. With what shall I
compare this? It is like an earthly king who went forth to war…” (Mekilta 68a,
Par. Jethro 6). Jesus began parables in a similar way & like Gamaliel he
illustrated God’s activity by comparing him to an earthly king or lord (e.g. Mt
18:23; 22:2; Lk 14:31-32).

But there is an important difference between Jesus’ parables & those of the
rabbis. The parables told by the rabbis usually illustrated a point in Scripture.
These parables were usually tied into a broader argument. Although Jesus’
parables are obviously tied into his broader message about God’s kingdom &
our place in it, their purpose is not exactly that of an anecdote inserted in a
larger discussion to illustrate certain points. Jesus’ parables are not designed to
reinforce interpretations of Scripture. Jesus tells parables in specific situations.
Sometimes they are responses to specific questions. Sometimes Jesus directs a
parable to a particular person – as Nathan hurled his parable at David. While
Jesus’ parables contain lessons, they are more than that. Jesus spoke directly to
his first followers with his parables, & through them he continues to address us
directly today. As we encounter the parables, we are challenged to a deeper kind
of listening, a listening in which we allow ourselves to be confronted by Jesus’
words in the present.

But why parables?

Why doesn’t Jesus simply speak directly, without the comparisons of parables?
Why doesn’t he present his message about God’s kingdom in a more
straightforward way & tell us how we should respond to it? Why these stories?

If we ask this question, we’re not alone. The Gospels tell us that the disciples
asked Jesus the same question. The disciples asked Jesus why he was
instructing the crowd in parables? The question implies that he did not use
parables in his conversations with the disciples. They were understandably
puzzled by this. Jesus answered: “To you it has been given to know the secrets
of the kingdom of heaven, but to them it has not been given… The reason I
speak to them in parables is that “seeing they do not perceive, & hearing they
do not listen, nor do they understand”’ (Mt 13:11, 13).

We may easily feel frustrated by Jesus’ explanation. What did he mean? He tells
stories because we are spiritually blind? But the parables are so confusing at
times. How could they help to clarify things?
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Our bafflement may only get worse when we turn to Mark’s version of Jesus’
words in this incident: “For those outside, everything comes in parables; in
order that ‘they may indeed look, but not perceive, & may indeed listen, but not
understand; so that they may not turn again & be forgiven’” (Mk 4:11-12).
Now, this is really distressing. Is Jesus saying that he speaks in parables because
he wants to confuse us & direct us away from, instead of toward, the truth?
How could that be?

There is no easy way of interpreting Jesus’ answer to his disciples. The passage
in Mark is one of the most discussed verses in the Bible. Perhaps you are now
experiencing a vague disorientation, a creeping impression that all is not what
you believed it to be – that maybe there’s more to these parables & to the Jesus
who told them than you thought….

Then maybe you’re ready to start reading, thinking about, & talking about
Jesus’ parables! For that feeling of disturbance & perplexity is exactly what
Jesus’ parables are intended to provoke. They often leave us wondering if all is
really as it seems to be. That moment when we start wondering, is the moment
when our eyes become uncomfortably opened to perceive something beyond the
familiar, to catch a glimpse of the God who never runs out of surprises.

The parables are found in the Gospels of Matthew, Mark & Luke. Although
there are comparisons in John – Jesus compares himself to a vine, a door, & a
shepherd – there are no narrative parables in his Gospel. Scholars debate the
reasons for this, & since John didn’t give an explanation, the debate will go on
for a very long time.

While some parables are found in only one or two of the Gospels, many are
found in all of the Synoptics – Matthew, Mark & Luke. Synoptic is from a
Greek word that means “seeing together.” These three Gospels have so many
parallels that it is possible to put them side by side & look at them together,
comparing the episodes in them with one another.

If you want to go deeper into the study of the parables, you will find that there
are sometimes differences between the versions of the parables in the synoptic
Gospels. E.g. the parable of the sower is found in all three synoptic Gospels, &
each version is slightly different. How are we to understand these differences?

Firstly, it is possible, even likely, that in the course of his teaching Jesus used
each parable more than once & gave it slightly different twists & details for
various audiences. That is what any good speaker does. So some of the
differences may have originated with Jesus himself.
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Secondly, some differences in the parables would have arisen as Jesus’ disciples
told & retold them after his death & resurrection. These earliest Christian
teachers probably adapted their accounts to the particular groups of people they
preached to in order to bring out the message most effectively for each group.
So some of the differences arose during the period of oral tradition between
Jesus’ resurrection & the Gospel writers’ composition of the Gospels – a period
that probably lasted 30 years or more.

Thirdly, the Gospel writers themselves revised the oral & written material that
came to them. Most scholars think some of the variations between the synoptics
are the work of the evangelists themselves, as one Gospel writer drew on the
work of another. The most widely held theory is that Mk wrote first & Mt & Lk,
probably unknown to each other, used Mk’s Gospel as a source for their own.
What was the basis of the changes Mt & Lk made? To some extent they may
have been guided by the variant traditions available to them. At points, they
may have wanted to convey the parable in a form that would have been more
easily understandable to their particular readers.

Throughout the process of teaching & writing about Jesus, the Holy Spirit was
at work. The Spirit guided Jesus’ disciples to understand him better after his
resurrection than they had been able to do before. Their subsequent experience
of Christian life in the Spirit probably helped them to see more clearly the
importance of certain elements of Jesus’ parables. The Gospel writers had the
special help of the Spirit as they wrote their accounts of Jesus. The writing of
the Gospels was a complex & in some ways mysterious process. But we can be
confident that the resulting four portraits of Jesus are historically authentic &
convey Jesus’ teaching in a way that is consistent with his intentions.

Challenges to Understanding Jesus’ Parables

We face challenges to understanding Jesus’ parables & grasping their message

for us. One problem is familiarity. Many of us have heard Jesus’ parables since
we were children. We may have a tendency to switch off as soon as we hear the
well-worn introductions: “A sower went out to sow…”, “A man went down
from Jerusalem to Jericho…”. Ah yes, we think. Some seed will grow; some
will not. The man will be robbed; the hated one will help him. Be good soil, be
tolerant, be helpful. We’ve got it. Next story, please.

They look but do not see. They hear but do not listen. How can we be sure that
our eyes & ears are indeed open to the living word in Jesus’ parables, not dulled
by familiarity? A couple of tips may be of use.
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Firstly, it is helpful to try to see the parables against their cultural background.
We don’t need to become scholars in the history & sociology of ancient
Palestine, but it is useful to learn a little about the world in which Jesus
delivered his parables in order to get an idea of how the parables might have
sounded to the people who lived in that world. This short course will offer some
background information, not to weigh you down with historical data but to help
you hear Jesus’ words with more clarity & with an appreciation of the
sometimes startling effect they had on his first listeners.

Secondly, as we read & listen to the parables, it is crucial to keep God himself
at the centre of our thinking. Many of us have a tendency to dilute the parables
down to bland, general exhortations to treat other people more kindly. As
Christians, we need to ask ourselves: if that was all Jesus was up to, why did he
bother? Wasn’t kindness already covered in Jewish law & tradition? It was. The
Judaism of Jesus’ time, which formed his listeners’ thinking & behaviour, was a
deeply compassionate tradition, mindful of God’s instructions through the
prophets to care for the poor, the widowed & the orphaned.

So while the right treatment of others is surely a part of Jesus’ parables, often
it’s not the only point. Jesus is about much more than suggestions for right
living. He began his ministry by proclaiming “good news” - & this good news,
embodied in Jesus’ miracles & vividly illustrated in his parables, is about the
activity of God, God’s expression of love & mercy. The good news is also about
right living, but that right living is not a matter of following abstract rules – it is
about responding to the God who is at work now, among us, & shaping our
lives in relationship to him.

As we go through life, we develop an impression of who God is & expectations

for how he will act towards us. Many of our expectations may be solidly rooted
in the truth we have been taught & in our own experience, but some are not.
Some of our expectations about God flow from ideas we have absorbed from
our less-than-Christian culture. Some of our pictures of God may be distorted
by negative experiences we have had – negligent or abusive parenting,
unanswered prayers, the loss of those we love.

In the parables, Jesus offers a corrective to our mistaken ideas. Whenever we

find ourselves confused about who God is, how he relates to us, & what he
expects from us, it’s good to turn to the parables, in them we find the truth.
When we listen to Jesus’ parables, we hear stories told long ago, but told anew
to us, now. If we pay attention, the ancient images will interact with our own
expectations & needs & we will hear good news about the God who lives &
moves among us here & now.
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THE PARABLES IN THE GOSPELS

Parable MARK MATTHEW LUKE

1. New cloth on old 2:21 9:16 5:36
2. New wine in old wineskins 2:22 9:17 5:37-39
3. The sower 4:1-9 13:1-9 8:4-8
4. A light under a bushel 4:21-23 5:14-16 8:16-17
5. The seed that grows secretly 4:26-29
6. The mustard seed 4:30-32 13:31-32 13:18-19
7. The wicked tenants 12:1-9 21:33-46 20:9-19
8. Fig tree as herald of summer 13:28-29 24:32-33 21:29-31
9. Salt 5:13
10. Houses on rock & on sand 7:24-27 6:47-49
11. The weeds in the field 13:24-30, 36-43
12. The leaven 13:33 13:20-21
13. Hidden treasure 13:44
14. Pearl of great value 13:45-46
15. Drag-net 13:47-50
16. Lost sheep 18:12-14 15:1-7
17. Unforgiving slave 18:23-35
18. Workers in the vineyard 20:1-16
19. Two sons 21:28-31
20. Wedding feast 22:1-14
21. Ten maidens 25:1-13
22. Talents 25:14-30
23. Last Judgement 25:31-46
24. Faithful servant 25:45-51
25. Creditor & the debtors 7:41-43
26. Good Samaritan 10:25-37
27. Friend at midnight 11:5-8
28. Rich fool 12:13-21
29. Alert servants 12:35-40
30. Fig tree without figs 13:6-9
31. Places of honour at the wedding feast 14:7-14
32. Great feast 14:15-24
33. Counting the cost 14:28-33
34. Lost coin 15:8-10
35. Prodigal son 15:11-32
36. Unjust slave 16:1-8
37. Rich man & Lazarus 16:19-31
38. The master & his servant 17:7-10
39. Unjust judge 18:1-8
40. The Pharisee & the tax collector 18:9-14
41. Gold coins 19:11-27
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Suggestions for Further Reading

Anyone studying Jesus’ parables will find a wealth of material in the standard
Gospel commentaries. There is also much to be gleaned from reference works
such as Bible and Theological Dictionaries.

Classic Studies

C.H. Dodd, The Parables of the Kingdom, London: Collins, 1935; 1967
J. Jeremias, The Parables of Jesus, London: SCM, 1954; 1972

More Recent Studies

J.R. Donahue SJ, The Gospel in Parable: Metaphor, Narrative, and Theology in
the Synoptic Gospels, Philadelphia: Fortress Press, 1988
W.R. Herzog, Parables as Subversive Speech, Louisville: Westminster, 1995
A.M. Hunter, Interpreting the Parables, London: SCM, 1967
A.M. Hunter, The Parables Then and Now, London: SCM, 1971
R. Longnecker (ed.), The Challenge of Jesus’ Parables, Michigan: Eerdmans,
2000
D. McBride CSsR, The Parables of Jesus, Clawton: Redemptorist Publications,
1999
P. Perkins, Hearing the Parables of Jesus, New York: Paulist Press, 1981
D. Wenham, The Parables of Jesus, Illinois: IVP, 1989