Virtual Worship - 6 June 2021

Parables for Bradford - Week 1

Service Sheet (pdf)

Opening Prayers:

O God of all, lead us from death to life, from falsehood to truth. Lead us from despair to hope, from fear to trust. Lead us from hate to love, from war to peace. Let peace fill our hearts, our world, our universe. Amen.

Peace to the nations, to east and to west. Peace to our neighbours, to rich and to poor. Peace to all races, all women, all men. The peace of Christ above all peace. The peace of the Prince of peace, to you and to me. Amen.

Song

STF 262 All glory, laud, and honour.

Address:

Mark 4. 34 tells us that Jesus did not speak to the crowds unless he used parables. Matthew 7:28 tells us “Now when Jesus had finished saying these things, the crowds were astounded at his teaching.” In the gospels, there are at least 9 verses like this, where we hear that the Crowds were astounded at Jesus’s teaching. Much of his teaching was in Parables. In the next few weeks, we will be looking at some of his Parables, his more familiar ones. I will leave it to my co-preachers to explore those with you. But today let’s look at some less familiar ones.

Matthew 13:33. “The kingdom of heaven is like yeast that a woman took and mixed in with three measures of flour until all of it was leavened.” Can I ask you a question? At first hearing, are you surprised or amazed or astounded by that piece of Jesus’s teaching? Does this bowl you over?

Or this one: Luke 15.8 “What woman having ten silver coins, if she loses one of them, does not light a lamp, sweep the house, and search carefully until she finds it? When she has found it, she calls together her friends and neighbours, saying, ‘Rejoice with me, for I have found the coin that I had lost.’ Did the crowds go wild? Were they stunned into silence at something profound having been said? Were these words a revelation? Are you astounded? No? You’re probably a little puzzled. It seems we’re missing something that the crowds of Jesus’s day could understand and that we, at 2000 years distance, cannot.

When I started reading the Bible seriously, I was puzzled by the crowd’s reactions to the Parables. As stories, the parables are fairly mundane. Often, they don’t seem to have a much of a point, and certainly not much of a punch. I realised that in recent generations we have been taught to look at Parables as ‘stories that have a message’, and the message is usually interpreted by us as a Moral message. This puzzled me too, because people, especially crowds of people, are not eager to hear messages about moral behaviour, and if they do hear such messages, they really don’t get excited about them. And certainly, are not astounded by them. So, what are we missing in the Parables that the crowds in Jesus’ day understood? Because something did surprise, excite, or astound them about Parables, while we are left cold by them, or at best lukewarm.

Here’s another Parable. What’s the moral message?

“There were two men in the same city—one rich, the other poor. The rich man had huge flocks of sheep, and large herds of cattle. The poor man had nothing but one little female lamb, which he had bought and raised. It grew up with him and his children as a member of the family. It ate off his plate and drank from his cup and slept on his bed. It was like a daughter to him. One day a traveller dropped in on the rich man. The rich man was too stingy to take an animal from his own herds or flocks to make a meal for his visitor, so he took the poor man’s lamb and prepared it as a meal to set before his guest.”

This is a Parable you probably don’t remember well. That’s because it isn’t one that Jesus told! This was told a thousand years before Jesus was around, by the prophet Nathan, to the King David in his court. It’s in 2 Samuel 12. What’s the message? We’d probably say “It’s wicked to exploit poor people”. Seems odd to tell a parable like that to the King unless Nathan was criticising David for exploiting people by taxing them too much? But if so, Nathan and David would probably get into an argument about budgeting income against expenditure and if that was really what Nathan was worried about why dress it up as a parable? Better to have it out with the king and the Chancellor of the Exchequer in a committee meeting! Imagine, though that you were there, you’re one of the courtiers and you’re all gathered to hear legal cases brought for the king to judge.

When you hear Nathan telling David about these two men and the poor man’s lamb being killed by the rich man everyone thinks this a real legal case Nathan is bringing. You will have a gut reaction: “That man has done wrong! He must be made to pay for what he has done!” And David thinks the same, and angrily shouts out ‘As GOD lives, that man deserves to die! He must repay for the lamb four times over for his crime and his lack of pity!’

Then Nathan raises his arm and points at the King, ‘YOU are the man!’ he says.

There is a stunned silence, everyone is astounded. The King too. King David says nothing. The moment is electric.

Then Nathan says to David: Why have you despised the word of the LORD, to do what is evil in his sight? You have struck down Uriah the Hittite with the sword, and have taken his wife to be your wife. You ordered him to be killed in the battle with the Ammonites.’ Nathan spares the King, just a little, by not mentioning that David’s adultery with Uriah’s wife and that this was the reason he had arranged for Uriah’s murder. Bathsheba, Uriah’s wife, had become pregnant by David and Uriah’s murder was David’s way of trying to cover this up. David was guilty. Very guilty. And he had already passed judgement on himself, without realising it!

Now, this puts the parable in a very different perspective, doesn’t it? It is no longer possible to see this Parable of the little ewe lamb as simply a story with a message about the immorality of stealing, or exploiting the poor. In Nathan’s mouth it is a story with a very different purpose. To expose the wrongdoing of the King, and get him to pass judgment on himself and to get him to change his attitude. He succeeds. What this Old Testament passage shows us that the whole point of a Parable is not the Story – but the situation in which it is told. It’s about the effect it has on someone when they are confronted with the truth about themselves that they have been hiding. How excruciatingly uncomfortable it must have been for David. How embarrassing, how humiliating, how humbling. Going forward in this situation, David has to change. We have the professional court scribe to thank for recording both the story (the Parable), and the situation (the context in which the Parable makes an impact).

Unfortunately, with Jesus’s Parables we didn’t have such a skilled scribe or reporter on hand to record them for us. Instead, the Parables of Jesus would have been remembered by individuals that were there in the crowd, and over time, with countless retellings, although the story was remembered pretty well, the situation in which Jesus had originally told the parable would have been forgotten. So generally, with Jesus’s parables, we only have the story, but not the context. And the context, the situation, is the thing we are missing today and that the crowds gathered around Jesus would have understood. Them knowing the situation, the context, would have been the reason that they were astounded at what Jesus did with the telling of his Parables.

For the sake of brevity, I bring one example, possibly the only example in the gospels where the situation has been accurately remembered alongside a very simple ‘Parable’:

Matthew 22.15. 

The Pharisees plotted a way to trap him into saying something damaging. They sent their disciples, with a few of Herod’s followers mixed in, to ask, “Teacher, we know you have integrity, teach the way of God accurately, are indifferent to popular opinion, and you don’t pander to your students. So, tell us honestly: Is it right to pay taxes to Caesar or not?”
18-19 Jesus knew they were up to no good. He said, “Why are you playing these games with me? Why are you trying to trap me? Do you have a coin? Let me see it.” They handed him a silver piece.
20 “This engraving—who does it look like? And whose name is on it?”
21 They said, “Caesar.”
“Then give Caesar what is his, and give God what is his.”
22 When they heard this, the Pharisees (and the crowds?) were amazed. They went off shaking their heads.

Notice there is a clear situation. That Jesus is directly addressed by individuals, and he addresses them back. The coin used to pay the taxes here takes the place of a parable story, but Jesus uses that coin in the same way as a parable. Jesus gets them to say aloud, in answer to his question, what everyone would say about the coin- that with Caesar’s head upon it, it belongs to Caesar. And then he says something that reveals the truth about this situation- “Give therefore to the emperor the things that are the emperor’s, and to God the things that are God’s.” – which is the equivalent of Nathan saying to King David “You are the man!” Everyone can now clearly see that the intention of these Pharisees was to trap him. The Pharisees were hiding their true intention, and the Parable showed them up. How excruciatingly uncomfortable it must have been for them. How embarrassing, how humiliating, how humbling. Going forward in this situation, what are they going to do? Change and acknowledge Jesus as a worthy Rabbi, or as the promised messiah? No. They became even more determined in their plot to kill Jesus. No wonder Jesus’s teaching caused the crowds to be astounded. This ‘Parable’ isn’t about whether it is right or wrong to pay taxes, but is about getting the Pharisees to expose, and judge themselves, from out of their own mouths.

As you join with preachers reflecting on the Parables in the next few weeks you may find yourself wondering about the situations in which the parables would have originally been told, and wondering about who Jesus would have told them to. It seems they wouldn’t have been told to the crowds, they weren’t that type of teaching, but would have been told to specific individuals, individuals who came and asked Jesus questions. We cannot know who they were. That information is simply lost in the passing of time. But what we can do is recognise that the Parable ‘story’ was very likely a very powerful tool to make someone who came to Jesus with a question see themselves in a radically knew light. Sometimes that would result in a wonderful change of attitude (perhaps the exploitative taxman Zacchaeus was told a parable that made him do what the law required, to give recompense of four times the amount that he had cheated from people, and to become an honest citizen). Sometimes it would help people understand what Jesus was about (the disciples are prime suspects here! It seems they wondered when Jesus would bring about a political revolution, bringing in God’s kingdom as a political restoration of the state of Israel). Sometimes it would show people the falsity of their intentions (like the rich young man who would follow Jesus, yet really worshipped his riches).

If Jesus told parables to ‘get under people’s skin’ so they saw themselves as they were, then what would get under our skins, and make us see ourselves for what we are? Would we change? Or not? We are expert at fooling ourselves. What does it take to get us to see ourselves as we are? Perhaps pone of the parables you hear in the next few weeks will make you uncomfortable as the spirit speaks to you through it. Perhaps it will be through the words of the preacher as they talk about the parable. Or through something someone says to you, or about you, during the week. When we see ourselves as we are, perhaps only then will we see others as they truly are.

3 Why do you see the speck in your neighbour’s eye, but do not notice the log in your own eye? 4 Or how can you say to your neighbour, ‘Let me take the speck out of your eye,’ while the log is in your own eye? 5 You hypocrite, first take the log out of your own eye, and then you will see clearly to take the speck out of your neighbour’s eye. Matthew 7:3-5

Song

STF 662 Have you heard God's voice?

Prayers:

• Jesus, for our world and for ourselves: We pray for more stillness and less rush, more discernment and less defensiveness.
  Teach us how to live your way.
• Jesus, for our world and for ourselves: We pray for better listening, and less bullying, more giving and less taking, more co-operation and less thirsting for revenge.
  Teach us how to live your way.
• Jesus, for our world and for ourselves: We pray for more tolerance and understanding, for more encouragement, and less condemnation and blame.
  Teach us how to live your way.
• Jesus, for our world and for ourselves: We pray for comfort in our pain, forgiveness in our brokenness, and assurance in our anguish.
  Teach us how to live your way.
• Jesus, for our world and for ourselves: We pray for your presence, love and mercy in our every need, now and always.
  Teach us how to live your way. Amen.

Lord’s Prayer

Song

STF 664 Lord, you call us to your service, each in our own way

Blessing

The blessing of God be upon you to keep you. May God’s face shine upon you to give you grace. May God’s eyes be light upon you to bring you peace. Amen.