Jesus said lots of wacky stuff, it seems.
I made a point like this once to a man I had just met, and it didn't go well. As part of a group-building exercise, a speaker asked each of us in the audience to discuss a passage from the Bible with our neighbor. Early in the course of my conversation with this stranger, I offhandedly noted how Jesus appeals to absurdities to make a point when he warns about salt losing its taste or someone sticking a burning lamp underneath a basket -- which are comments from his Sermon on the Mount (Matthew 5:13-17).
"There's nothing absurd about it," my conversation partner snapped. "Jesus didn't deal in absurdities."
Clearly we were no longer discussing specific details of the biblical passage. He thought I was being flippant or not taking Jesus as a serious authority. I had offended his piety and he felt a need to defend either Jesus or the Bible. It's kind of an occupational hazard for people in my line of work.
Still, I couldn't help but wonder, "Does this guy really think Jesus is all about giving it to us straight? Has he even read the Gospels?" If you can't appreciate absurdity, and the positive effects it can have, then how will you understand all the parables?
Jesus has his moments when he speaks plainly, but much of what the Gospels convey is a lot more elusive. That's what makes his teachings so evocative, and sometimes offensive, and sometimes restorative. This is particularly true with his parables.
Parables were hardly uncommon in the ancient world. Thinkers and writers from various cultures in time before Jesus used them to teach. They're illustrations, comparisons.
The fun thing about Jesus' parables is he rarely bothers to offer explanations of them. Usually he just tells the story and leaves his hearers to contend with it for themselves. Gospel readers know this doesn't always work so well, especially if we've wrongly assumed that parables are supposed to make us feel good about everything. Mark's Gospel even proposes that Jesus' parables are meant to keep "outsiders" unaware of the truth and unable to find forgiveness (Mark 4:11-12) -- a deeply disturbing claim whose offense gets mitigated in Matthew 13 and Luke 8, which make adjustments to the wording.
When I was a kid, a well meaning teacher told me parables are "earthly stories with heavenly meanings." Unfortunately, that's not very helpful. It implies that parables somehow orient us away from this world, or that we can't quite participate in their real meaning from "down here." It suggests a greater divide than the Bible itself depicts between "heavenly" stuff and its visibility or accessibility in human experience.
I think Jesus spoke in parables because he wanted to describe a state of affairs he could imagine, but one still utterly foreign to business-as-usual, as the rest of us understand it. He describes a manifestation of God's presence -- a "kingdom" or "reign" of God. It's a state of affairs that remains very "earthly," in that it's expressible in real-life things: ordinary terms, familiar images, intimate relationships, common injustices, and refreshing acts of mercy. Yet it's different.
This is where absurdity comes into play. Most of Jesus' parables include a preposterous element or two. Someone apparently unaware of cost-benefit analysis leaves 99 sheep alone and vulnerable in the wilderness to look for one that got away. The reign of God grows from a tiny seed not into a magnificent cedar but into a mustard shrub, an invasive plant -- certain to stick around but a serious nuisance to our carefully planned landscaping priorities. A father whose son has utterly disgraced him not only welcomes the loser home but spots him from a distance and runs to embrace him. (Dignified men did not run in antiquity. At least, not unless they were in athletic contests. Or something was chasing them.)
That is, there's always something a little off in these parables. The parables are not mere moralisms, exhorting people to tidy up their lives. They are ways for Jesus to announce realities about life with God that are at once familiar (his listeners knew well how it goes with losing sheep) and radically different (absurd, from the perspective offered by conventional wisdom). Those are the places for our imaginations to linger and consider what kinds of comparisons the parables encourage us to draw between our status quo and the desires of God.
A shepherd who walks away from 99 sheep in the wilderness to locate one is irresponsible, a fool. Could it be that God's commitment to humanity is so all-encompassing that it appears recklessly obsessive, utterly frustrating to our typical methods of moral and religious calculation?
A parent eager to forgive a wayward child is a welcome sight if you're the one who's returning home, but the neighbors will grumble about the dangerous consequences stemming from authority figures who behave so indulgently. Could it be that God's willingness to forgive and restore is so overwhelming that God will risk the chance of being made to look like a chump?
Jesus' parables are supposed to be weird. Their atypical elements are supposed to rattle us -- not simply because strangeness possesses motivational shock-value, but because what Jesus announces is genuinely unsettling.
The parables, like a poem wielding a poignant metaphor, rouse our creativity from the patterns imposed by normal expectations, especially religious ones. Jesus' parables make us consider life and our place in it differently. They make us dream of outcasts getting seats at lavish banquets, and the trouble this can cause.
Their point isn't to summon us to the heights of a single, otherworldly meaning. In lively and even uncontrollable ways, Jesus' parables prompt us to imagine how God, in the here and now, surprises and even subverts our regular perspectives and convictions about what's possible.
And all this usually strikes people as rather absurd.
Parable - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Christian scholars Borg, Crossan encourage greater focus on Bible's parables
Parables of Jesus open-ended stories that lead to unconventional conclusions
"The statement of Jesus: “I am the way and the truth and the life; no one comes to the Father but by Me” means that only through awareness can we reach the Almighty. This truth is personified in Jesus in the Christian tradition. If you ‘de-personify’ this truth, it can be understood as the principle of awareness."
- World Teacher Maitreya through an associate as reported by Share International
*
Hey New Yorker,
You do realize that WISDOM refers to the APPRECIATION of KNOWLEDGE, correct? However, you seem to unwittingly use an awful LOT of inherently FIGURATIVE language (in your above post) without seeing fit to acKNOWLEDGE it as such.
I can't say that strikes me as wise. ;|
7:19 Every tree that bringeth not forth good fruit is hewn down, and cast into the fire.
I would guess we're not talking about fruit trees or a bonfire?
36Then Jesus sent the multitude away, and went into the house: and his disciples came unto him, saying, Declare unto us the parable of the tares of the field.
37He answered and said unto them, He that soweth the good seed is the Son of man;
38The field is the world; the good seed are the children of the kingdom; but the tares are the children of the wicked one;
39The enemy that sowed them is the devil; the harvest is the end of the world; and the reapers are the angels.
40As therefore the tares are gathered and burned in the fire; so shall it be in the end of this world.
41The Son of man shall send forth his angels, and they shall gather out of his kingdom all things that offend, and them which do iniquity;
42And shall cast them into a furnace of fire: there shall be wailing and gnashing of teeth.
As a nonChristian, I think Jesus meant, I'm a tare. I'm not wicked, but since I'm not a Christian, I think Jesus is saying I am. When he explains the parable, he says at the end of the world, the people depicted as tares will be burned (with wailing and gnashing of teeth, so he's not talking about tares).
What do you all think? Are nonChristians tares? Atheists? Who gets burned? Is it just for not believing Jesus' words?
First, we should know that what is translated as "tares" is a kind of false wheat (ζιζάνιον in Greek)-- it is a plant that grows in Palestine and looks like wheat, but is actually useless. St. John Chrysostom says that the tares are heretics within the Church who say they are bringing Christian teachings, but really are not. Most ancient commentators agree this is a parable about the church as a body of believers. Note that it is about a plant that closely resembles wheat, but isn't wheat. Moreover, this is a typical focus of Matthew which can be considered "Torah" in its goals, scope, and audience. Some people within the community of the church are overly zealous and want to rid it of any perceived or actual impurity. The parable emphasizes patience. The "weeder" cannot know the hearts of all the members. It is not theirs to judge and this kind of weed looks almost identical to wheat. It would be easy to make a mistake. Christ will judge, it is not the business of the Church as a body of believers.
The entire Gospel of Matthew is concerned about the believer, not the non-believer.
cont.-
In the parable I quoted, Jesus divides the world in two classes, those who are tares and those who aren't. He divides them by belief. If he didn't mean all who don't follow him, he should have said so, because as written, he said all those who don't believe are wicked and will burn. He's doing what many Christians do to me--trying to scare his audience into belief.
A group of people is going to burn and wail and gnash their teeth, and it's tied directly to whether or not they are buying what he is selling.
You say it's about patience (though I don't think that's true). Then you think the impatient are burned up?
Who specifically, since Jesus is talking about people, burns? It's everyone who isn't wheat, so that's a lot of people.
Am I a tare? Are all atheists? Are all nonChristians?
I am often told to consider context, which I always do. And if you look at the whole New Testament, Jesus repeatedly says that it takes belief in him to be saved. So, your explanation goes against the rest of the New Testament, Salvation--avoiding the burning--is always tied to belief.
If you think nonbelievers aren't burned because of the second parable, you've just identified a contradiction in Jesus' words. There are plenty of them.
Another Eastern Orthodox teaching about this parable is as follows:
‘I read the Gospel daily, and I respond to it very seldom. But I read it daily because I never know whether today, or tomorrow, or on another day I will be the barren roadside, or the weeds by the way, or, of a sudden, whether this word will not fall on a small patch in me which is capable of receiving it and bearing fruit’.The spirituality of the Eastern Orthodox is to keep one's death in constant remembrance and live like every day could be one's last. So one is cognizant of the final judgment.
There is a parable that the Eastern Orthodox hear right before the start of Lent. So we heard it this past Sunday. And this one is addressed to believer and non-believer. It is Matthew 25:31-46.Here Christ says to those who have been filled with compassion and love, "You have done all these things: you have fed the hungry, you have given shelter to the homeless, you have visited the sick, you have not been ashamed of recognizing as your brother the one who was in prison", and so forth, all those people will say, "But when did we see You. And Christ will say "What you have done to the least of My brethren, you have done to Me". The Last Judgment is not about belief. It is about action.
Lesus used things that were - visible to compare_ the spiritual character of God. Like using the value of a gold coin, all people knew the great value of a coin, it was needed, to provide a better life, the families needs. One had to labor for that coin. Such is Life is valuable, need to labor, to know God, become one with God. And so on. body and blood, is your food, for Jesus gave his body and blood, to pay the debt of our sins in the flesh, for eternal life. Same with the shepherd Staff, all knew why the Shepherd carried a Staff, to direct, protect, discipline, bring back the sheep. We cannot find God with our physical senses, for God is Spirit. We only know flesh body, have not see all things or know all things.
Materialism, the worship of money, lovers of money, lead all into thinking materialism of products is the way to build a Nation prosperity, its economy is false. Prosperity, is human beings, LIFE itself and some profaned, what God had intended human life to be. Love, Righteousness, equality rights for all,Peace, Joy, Life to be experienced.
They were supposedly given to the Hebrews before they either had or used writing. They could not have read them. There was no written Hebrew at that time. This story was written around the sixth century BCE - 850 years after it supposedly happened. The stone commandments never existed.
Exodus 20:
17 “You shall not covet your neighbor’s house. You shall not covet your neighbor’s wife, or his male or female servant, his ox or donkey, or anything that belongs to your neighbor.”
And this doesn't include the fact that the Gospels were originally composed in Aramaic, Hebrew, Sumerian, Greek, and Latin and didn't get to the first archaic English version until 1,200 years later and the King James Bible until 1611. In contrast, Hindu and Buddhist scriptures were written in Sanskrit which is still read and spoken to this day.
I have learned to really like that since it them emphasizes the father and his relationship with his TWO sons.
Sometimes, people forget about the other one - the son who didn't rebel. At the end of the parable, the father tells this son "all that is mine is yours". But, how can that be when you are still giving stuff to my brother. It, obviously, can not be in this material world. But, again, that is not what Jesus is talking about - he opens this parable like many others with: "the kingdom of heaven is like". A simile meant to compare and highlight the difference between the two "worlds" (the kingdom of heaven can be lived in the here and now). In this world (the kingdom of heaven) of infinite rich and graces, the elder son can indeed have all that is the father's.
One jealousy is not good nor accepted, and like God said. All have been given to so NO ONE BOAST.
The other son who remained with his Father, labored, served his father on his land. But did so, NOT because he truly LOVED his Father, but because he expected even more, ALL that the Father had. that son felt he was entitled, to inherit everything, not the son who left and spent his inheritance.
Father said, did I not share all that I have with YOU also? The son who remained, did so not because he LOVED His Father, but because HE felt because he labored, it was HIS Right, to get it all. That son did not do it out of LOVE of His father did he? No.
The son who returned, realized after his Father, great Love for HIM, all that the Father had given HIM< and knew how much HIS father truly Loved him. That son knew that what he had been given, he to did not earn. Thus he repented and returned and TRULY LOVED HIS FATHER. Even saying let me eat with the animals or what ever, to WORK for you.
2- Sons both learned each a lesson. About pure HOLY LOVE, to love with a pure heart, soul, mind and all your strength toward God . Do so expecting nothing in return and counting your blessings of Love given from God our Father, who also has provided for all.
11 reasons why I do not wash myself:
1. Because they made me wash myself when I was a kid.
2. Those who wash themselves are hypocrites - they think they are cleaner than others.
3. I Cannot decide which soap is better.
4. I Will start to wash myself when I become old and dirty.
5. I do not want soap producers to make money on me.
6. All soaps are the same. Different soaps were invented by swindlers.
7. All wars in the world are because of the soap.
8. Every soap has it's flaws. I wash myself with 3 different soaps at once. Only this combination of soaps is correct.
9. Science has proved it already since the 19th century, no soap, even the ideal, can wash down all molecules and atoms of dirt. That is why washing yourself is a hoax and "opium for homeless".
10. Every soap contains hazardous chemical ingredients affecting your skin.
11. You shouldn't teach your kid to wash himself. When he will grow up he will be able to freely decide whether to wash himself or not, and which soap to use.
At least own it if you're going to try to sneak in a jibe at people who don't believe what you do.
On these threads I have met many people of integrity. Some with wonderful senses of humor that make all of us laugh with their quick wit or appreciate (if disagree with) the vigor of their youthful rejection of everything status quo including what they saw as their religious upbringings. Some make us think with their interesting philosophical questions or their poetry. Some share some of their woundedness and help us see the world as they have experienced it.
If you base your life on parables rather than evidence and rationality you are probably heading for a gigantic screwup
I must say though that I came to fully appreciate, at a very literal level, the parable of the Podigal Son after my children's often frightening journey through their late teens and early 20s. When they come back home safe and sound, no matter what they have done, it really is cause for giddy celebration for any parent.