Lately I've been thinking a lot about parables. I've always noticed them and enjoyed reading them, but often approached them like a story problem on a math test. You know, "A freight train leaves a station traveling at 30 mph. A passenger train leaves 1 hour later traveling at 50 mph. At what time will the passenger train overtake the freight train?" It looks like a story, but we all know there is a specific formula, you find a few important pieces of information, stick them into the formula, and then, (as every math professor I've ever had in college has said repeatedly), you "plug and chug".
It's viewed as a machine or a computer: You put the right pieces of information in the right place (what we call "input"), turn the crank or push a button or click the mouse, and "automagically" the machine processes the information and gives you a concrete, clear, concise answer (output). The entire computer world is build around this idea of input->process->output. Nearly everything you do on a computer is engineered around this principle.
For example, probably nobody here understands *exactly* what happens when we search for something on google. All we know (and care about) is that you go to google.com, enter some words you are interested in (this is the input), click "Search" (process), and then google comes back in a second or two with thousands or millions of matches (output). I don't know what google is doing during that time. I know that it has already searched billions of websites collecting information and storing it in databases and ordering it in special ways, so when I search for a few key words it only needs to look in it's own database for the information I want. It's not really searching billions of websites right then. But I have no idea what kind of algorithms it does in order to find out what pages are the ones that are most relevant to my search words, and I don't care. I don't understand very well the protocols that help my computer connect with a google computer through multiple other computers, all passing around 1's and 0's with perfect accuracy, and I don't need to know. All I care is that I get some websites that help me out, and then I go on with my life.
We have been trained to think like this. I used the term "automagically" earlier, which is sort of a computer joke. It's a cross between "automatically" and "magic". We use it to describe what happens in the time that someone clicks "Search" on google and gets back a list of links. We don't know what it does or how, we just know that it does it. Automatically and almost magically. Honestly, there are probably only a handful of people in the entire world that understand everything happening in those split seconds. After 14 years total of playing around with computers, 4 years of which were a university teaching me about computers and then 5 years of developing software professionally, I don't know what is happening most of the time. I have a high level idea of how a computer processes info and does math and appears to do multi-tasking and how graphics work and what the internet is and how it works, but there is simply too much detail to know everything about what my computer is doing at any time. NOBODY knows it all. And that's just computers.
I always get-annoyed-with/roll-my-eyes-at people who are know-it-alls, because they must be extraordinarily arrogant and also quite ignorant. They simply don't know how much they don't know, but they think it doesn't exist because they don't know about it! In our world, we have to specialize. And most of the time we understand this. Our entire culture functions this way. Most things are "somebody else's problem", but we learn how to use the things that somebody else figured out, and we are usually pretty happy with this.
Which is fine for computers, or cars, or microwaves, or light-switches, or showers, or bridges, or footballs, or McDonalds cheeseburgers (although maybe we *should* question the process that last one went through). But are there some things we shouldn't outsource? What happens when we don't think about the way we live or what we believe? Part of the problem is that we outsource our philosophy and theology. We assume that since these are such deep, important things that only the people who are highly trained with PhDs should even try to grapple with them. And then we just take what they tell us. But I think that philosophy and theology are the very things that make us who we are. We all understand them so deeply that we are all qualified to talk and think about them. My parents, for example, have never studied philosophy or theology and don't have advanced degrees- but they both have so much wisdom and awareness and understanding of what is happening in their lives. They may not be able to quote some famous thinker, but often when I read one of these "brilliant" people I see that my parents taught me that idea years ago through their actions.
And that's one of the things I love about Jesus. He *was* brilliant. He could debate with the leading theologians and philosophers and social activists of his time (pharisees and rabbis were a hybrid of all of these, because Jewish thinking doesn't try to separate what you believe about God and what you think and what you do). And these people were brilliant- they had memorized the entire Tanakh (the Old Testament) plus all the interpretations and stories and questions that stemmed from hundreds of years of studying the Tanakh, and then formed their own opinions and questions and stories. So Jesus could discuss these ideas with them, and understand exactly the point they were trying to make, and then turn their words upside down to make his own point. BUT, the people he spent his time with, he ate with, he talked with, he lived with, were the regular Jewish peasants. They all would have left school by the time they were 10, or maybe a few would have studied until they were in their early teens. But think about. They all would have had less schooling than any of us who completed high school, or even junior high. And yet Jesus is teaching them the deepest things of the Kingdom of God. And he did it with parables.
The beauty of parables is that they can speak to anyone. Yes, Jesus uses plenty of cultural references and it's helpful for *us* to learn that background to get his point. But, that's even more of a reason why parables are special: They use everyday phrases and pop culture so that EVERYONE who wants to understand can get them. Jesus doesn't attempt to express some high, logical, timeless truth for all the world (now, don't take that to mean I'm saying that we can't find value and beauty and truth in Jesus' words - that's NOT what I'm saying at all - stick with me). He speaks to anybodys on a dirty hillside by a lake in their language. And he doesn't attempt to teach right and wrong answers to some universal questions. He tells stories that are rooted firmly in daily life. Stories about water and dirt and farming and sheep and a faithful woman and a dad and his sons and the city dump. But at the same time, he tells stories that are so much bigger and deeper than an hour long discourse. He leaves the stories unfinished or unclear so that people have to wrestle with the ideas and ask their own questions. He doesn't want to teach people yes or no answers, he wants something to come alive in their hearts. He is okay with the ambiguity.
But most of the time we aren't. We study the parables and look into the Greek and Hebrew and Aramaic and read commentaries, and all of that is fine. It helps us to put our minds into first century Palestine. But we can't reduce these stories to formulas. We can't think of them like math problems or computers. We can't approach parables with the "correct" input, then hit the process button, then get back the "right answer".
That would be like trying to find timeless truth in the Lord of the Rings or Narnia or some other work of "fiction". There may be some bits and pieces of timeless truth in them, but they are not scientific documents. It might help to understand what was happening in England and the world when Tolkien wrote his books, so you can get into his head an see why he makes such a big deal about something (like Sarumon destroying the forest to build his underground-city/orc-breeding-ground), but if that's all you focus on you lose everything.
We love the Lord of the Rings because we all know what it's like to leave innocence behind and confront a confusing, twisted, broken world (like hobbits leaving the Shire). We all understand so deeply the burden of carrying a weight that seems too heavy for us (like Frodo and the Ring). We all long for friends to walk with us on our journey and carry us when we can't go on (like the Fellowship), and we know the pain that comes when our friends betray us or leave us. And we are inspired by these things to believe that somehow, even when it seems impossible, good will overcome evil and light will push out darkness, and we find hope and awe and joy in it. Though the actual characters of Frodo and Samwise and Aragorn and Gandalf aren't historically and factually real, they are true and real in a bigger, deeper way than reality or history can contain. They are stories that live and breathe and awaken our imaginations and invite us into something so much bigger.
And that's what Jesus does with his parables. When you hear the parable of the Prodigal Son, you are invited to find yourself in the story. Are you the younger son who betrayed your father and ran away? Have you returned in shame and fear only to find your father with arms outstretched running to you? Or are you the father who has been betrayed and embarrassed by the one you love more than anything? How will you respond when you have the chance for restoration? Or are you the older brother? Are you jealous of the forgiveness and grace given to someone else? Do you feel forgotten and unappreciated? Or are you a servant, watching the whole thing unfold in someone else's life? Can you celebrate with the father, or encourage one of the brothers? Have you been the younger son at one time in your life, and the father in another time, and the older son in yet another time of life? Have you been one of these characters over and over and over? Which one are you now?
Because, you see, these parables are works of fiction. Yes, I believe Jesus really taught them, but even then, he made them up. There wasn't *really* some son who ran away and a father who waited and an older brother who got mad. This didn't *historically* happen, but at the same time it's completely true and real and it happens everyday all around us. And it's just as true in Jesus day as it was 6,000 years ago as it is now as it will be in another 2,000 years. It IS timeless truth, but only if it is left alone. If it is processed and boiled into some one line sentence about who is right and who is wrong or the right way to live, it is brutally slaughtered and twisted out of shape and manipulated to benefit one person at the cost of another. Kinda like a cow turned into a Big Mac. I can't believe I just said that...
What would the news do today if Jesus were walking around Los Angeles?
Imagine the reporter:
"So, Jesus, tell us about your organization. What is the Kingdom of God?"And Jesus would respond,
"Well, the Kingdom of God is like a tiny seed that grows into a giant tree, and birds will nest in it." "Umm, so what are you trying to accomplish right now?" "Well, there was a shepherd with 100 sheep, but he discovered one had wandered away. So he left the 99 and went in search of the one, and when he found it, he called all his friends and celebrated with them.""Wow, uh, that's great, but how can people get more involved?""Only those who eat my flesh and drink my blood are-"*beeeeeeeeeeeeeeeep**We apologize for the technical difficulties. Evening News at 6 will return shortly*Why then, today, are we so insistent on reducing Jesus into 3 easy steps, a "plug and chug" formula with a "right answer", or a slogan for our t-shirts and bumper stickers?
