Parables Series - Jonathan Clatworthy's talk at St Bride's 2nd October.
St Brides
Sunday 2 October 2011, 10.0 am
Bible reading: Matthew 13:33
The Parables of Jesus
Aim of the series: to explore new research on what Jesus would have meant when he told the parables.
A parable is a short fictional story. After 70 AD there are many records of parables by other Jews, all designed to interpret Scripture. Jesus’ parables are designed to illustrate ‘the kingdom of God’. Nearly all our records come from the gospels of Matthew, Mark, Luke and Thomas.
Oral culture. Things need to be memorable, so:
Repetition
lists of three
well known stock stereotypes.
The closest parallel today is the joke. As with jokes, the exact wording is not memorised. The idea – what makes the punch-line a good one – is remembered. Just as we may ‘perform’ the same joke many times, using different words each time, so Jesus may have told the same parable more than once, varying it according to the occasion.
Jesus encouraged his followers to use their own wording and develop their own stories. Matthew, Mark, Luke and Thomas had their own agendas. Sometimes the point of the parable as it is written in the gospels cannot have been the point of the story as told by Jesus.
To distinguish between Jesus’ point and the evangelist’s point, scholars look for:
a) similarities and differences between different versions of the same parable
b) the theological agenda of each evangelist; whether it is expressed in the other gospels, and whether it could have been Jesus’ theological agenda
c) characteristic styles of writing.
d) How Galilean peasants might have responded to the stories – eg the stereotypes and what they symbolised.
Jewish debate in Jesus’ day
What future for Judaism? Formed as a distinct tradition in the Persian period, a small self-contained community with its own God, laws and culture, believing that well-being depended on obeying God’s laws. By Jesus’ time they were part of the Roman Empire. The traditional Jewish laws were often outdated or impossible to maintain. Would Judaism be absorbed into the tolerant polytheism of the Roman Empire, and lose its identity? If not, how could it survive?
The Pharisaic movement reaffirmed distinctive symbols of Judaism: male circumcision, the Sabbath and the food laws. Jesus emphasised that God is the God of the whole world and relates to everybody. Should the boundaries between Jews and non-Jews be rebuilt, or destroyed?
Parable of the leaven
‘Leaven’ was the mouldy bits of old bread used to provide yeast for the next loaf. Throughout the ancient near east it was a symbol of impurity. Thus Paul:
You were running well; who prevented you from obeying the truth? Such persuasion does not come from the one who calls you. A little yeast leavens the whole batch of dough. I am confident about you in the Lord that you will not think otherwise. But whoever it is that is confusing you will pay the penalty (Galatians 5:7-9).
Your boasting is not a good thing. Do you not know that a little yeast leavens the whole batch of dough? Clean out the old yeast so that you may be a new batch, as you really are unleavened. For our paschal lamb, Christ, has been sacrificed. Therefore, let us celebrate the festival, not with the old yeast, the yeast of malice and evil, but with the unleavened bread of sincerity and truth (1 Corinthians 5:7-10).
The Jewish Feast of Unleavened Bread (Exodus 12:15-20):
Seven days you shall eat unleavened bread; on the first day you shall remove leaven from your houses, for whoever eats leavened bread from the first day until the seventh day shall be cut off from Israel. On the first day you shall hold a solemn assembly, and on the seventh day a solemn assembly; no work shall be done on those days; only what everyone must eat, that alone may be prepared by you. You shall observe the festival of unleavened bread, for on this very day I brought your companies out of the land of Egypt: you shall observe this day throughout your generations as a perpetual ordinance. In the first month, from the evening of the fourteenth day until the evening of the twenty-first day, you shall eat unleavened bread. For seven days no leaven shall be found in your houses; for whoever eats what is leavened shall be cut off from the congregation of Israel, whether an alien or a native of the land. You shall eat nothing leavened; in all your settlements you shall eat unleavened bread.
To Jesus, it seems, the Kingdom of God is to be found in the most ungodly things.
Questions
What are the symbols of holiness to you? How important are they?
Do you find it easy, or helpful, to relate to God through ordinary everyday activities?
Does our society today use religious things to build barriers between insiders and outsiders?