Thank you, it's lovely to be here with
you all and it's also lovely to be here with the people who are watching
on livestream Facebook. I thought it'd be nice to say hello to them so if those of
you who are in these rows can you all just turn around and wave all together
and we'll say hi. Sorry, I hope everyone on Facebook feels as welcome as everyone here. Christine was very generous in her description of my next book. What she
ought to have said was that the plan was that the book would have been available
here at the Festival of Preaching the problem with that is books need to be
available once they've been written. Since it hasn't yet been written, it
was difficult to make it available but now I finally know what it is that I
want to say and one of the things that I'm going to be doing this morning is
sharing with you some of the ideas that I've been exploring while I've been
working out what I would say when I got around to writing the book. So I'll then
start in a bit. And the other thing that I just want to
say to you - can we have the slides up on the screens please - is that
after what happens when you're asked to do a talk like this is that months and
months and months in advance the organizers rightly write to you and
say can you give us a title for your talk at which point you go "oh something
like..." and so the "something like" that I came up with was Preaching the
Parables. But once I actually sat down to write the talk I realized I didn't want
to write that talk anymore and I wanted to write something else. So you will see
that I've subtly changed the title to Preaching and the Parables. So it's still
about preaching it's still about parables but it's not about preaching
the parables and the reason why it's not about preaching the parables is actually
that's one of the trickiest bits about engaging with the parables.
I think preaching parables is a little bit like explaining a joke, you
know in a way the parables stand for themselves and the
minute you start explaining what they're about you kind of spoil them. And
therefore I didn't want to spend a whole talk talking to you about something that
I think makes the parables worse rather than better so instead what I thought
would be more fun would be to talk to you about what we might learn from the
parables for our own preaching given that parables were so important for
Jesus's teaching and actually what we might learn from that as we begin to
reflect on what skills we use in preaching. So hence I changed the title
with the important word "and" to Preaching and the Parables. So let's begin by
reflecting therefore a little bit on what we can learn from Jesus's own
teaching in the parables. I think the first thing to note is this. That
there is a case to be made for parables being the most characteristic feature of
Jesus's teaching. The minute I say that the other half of my brain goes all
steady on steady on with your bold statements about characteristic features
of Jesus's teaching. There's a case to be made for it. I might disagree with
myself having made the case, but I think there is something actually important
about making that case. You will have noticed I'm sure that one of the really
striking things about Jesus's teaching is that it's really difficult to find
anything that looks like what we would think a sermon was. You will know of
course that there is something called a sermon in the Gospels and the Sermon on
the Mount and but can I gently gently suggest to you that you don't preach a
sermon that looks exactly like the Sermon on the Mount? I don't think it
would work very well as a sermon because as you will know it's a collection of
teachings, it's a collection of sayings, some of which go together, others not so
much. Actually as a structure, as a tool of engagement, as a tool of
communication, it's not the best example of how you might go about doing this. So
how do we then begin to understand features of Jesus's teachings? If you have a look through the Gospels you'll discover three intriguing
things I think about Jesus's teaching. There are lots of short aphorisms
those little landing phrases you know they're the Sabbath wasn't made for this
look no the Son of Man wasn't made for the Sabbath I can never get that one the
right way around we've got the son of man for the Sabbath those kind of things,
the little short um snappy things which are not very long statements they're
just short aphorisms. Jesus as I'm sure you know loves questions, question after
question after question, and his most clever thing whenever asked a difficult
question is that he answers it with a difficult question. A classy move I always think. So recognizing that questions is important.
But the third and this is why I want to make the case for parables is that there
is something about parables which seems to characterize particularly how Jesus
taught, how Jesus communicated, how he began to engage people. Now here's an
interesting thing which fascinates me. Is that when you have a look at books on
parables there are a few examples, a few exceptions, but most books on parables
cherry-pick your parables so you will have books that have about fifteen
parables in them and from that people begin to work towards a definition of
parables - we're coming on to definitions of parables in a moment - but
for me the really interesting thing is actually taking a step back and saying,
what if we look at the broadest extent of parables. And here's a little
trivia quiz for you for the morning. How many parables in total did Jesus really
talk about? Anyone? A number? Sorry what was that? 32. I love that very precise number fabulous. No not 32. Any advance on 32?
I think I heard 60. It's in the region of 60 and by 60 I mean different ones so
you could go larger if you count the parable of the lost sheep
twice in Matthew and Luke - I've not - that these are just the unique parables of
Jesus around 60 of them and that's really interesting of course of course
it all depends how you define a parable. I was having dinner with a friend
recently and I told her I was writing a book on the parables and I said, and I
thought it'd be really interesting to go wider and have a look at John's Gospel
and use the I am sayings as well. And she said, yeah but they're not parables, and I
went, why not? And she said, because they're not stories.
At which point I went, ha ha it all depends how you define parables. So hold that in
your mind for a moment and I'm going kind of maximal understanding of
parables which is images. Images that Jesus uses in order to explore points.
You're very welcome to disagree with me later but just have a think about those
kinds of things that Jesus used. So first point therefore it is one of the most
characteristic features of Jesus's teaching. So the next thing we just
need to explore is the recognition that parables aren't unique to Jesus. One of
the things that people have this kind of real fascinating obsession with is
uniqueness. It's only characteristic if it's unique to them. You will
recognize it I think from descriptions about ministry. When people try and
describe a bishop they talk about what is unique to the ministry of a bishop. When
they talk about being a priest they talk about what is unique to being a priest. The
problem is once you get into deacons and lay readers such as myself, is that we
don't have stuff which is unique and therefore kind of undermines the
definition of the ministry sometimes. And I think it's interesting when you have a
look at Jesus and parables is that people try and say Jesus uniquely taught in parables. Well no he didn't, and it's important to
recognize that. Parables can be found in all ancient cultures across the ancient
world, it was how people taught within them. What is interesting however is
Jesus's breadth of use of parables is bigger than anyone else's. What he does is
how he uses them and it's that that is striking and challenging. And this is
where we get into the real problem of parables and how scholars over the years
have really really wrestled with this. And I'm going to say this more than once
because it's the one thing I want to make sure that you take away when you're
thinking about parables. The only thing that can be said about parables with any
certainty is no one thing can be said about them all. And one of the reasons
why this is very very important is that people try and define parables and they
say well they're this. But in order to do that you've got to lose a few in order
to make this to be true. And you can feel the sideway steps that people are making
in order to define the parables, in order to interpret the parables if you want to
say one thing clearly and certainly you've got to lose a few in order to be
able to say it. And that gets you I think into some fascinating territory, some
questions about how Jesus plays with the understanding of parables. So let's have
a quick look at Jesus's use of range in parables. They range from long complex
allegorical type parables such as the parable of the sower. And the allegory bit there is really important. So you say this bit is that, this is that, it's a
one-to-one correlation. So this person is that person, this person is that person.
The interesting thing about that as we'll come on to when we have a look at
the interpretation is that that works beautifully for some parables. And
actually it works best for the ones that Jesus did it with. The parable of the
sower being the case in point. The problem is if you pick that up and then
put it on to another parable it doesn't quite work. You know you try
an allegorical interpretation of the woman and the yeast. It's tricky because
it doesn't fit, it doesn't work. So one of the things we need to be careful
about is allowing the different parables to be different in their own right. So
you've got long complex allegorical parables, you've got rich those sparse
narrative worlds, they're normally Luke's parables. You know those kind of
delicious stories that pull you into the world and don't give you enough details
for anything. So you know for example the parable of the prodigal son, did he have
a mother? What did she think when the father split the inheritance? What
happened actually to the oldest son while he was left behind? There's a whole load once you get into those rich sparse worlds there's just more and more
questions you have no answer to. And that's what's beautiful about them. And
though interestingly they're the ones that people most often love the most
because you can answer your own questions in this sparse world provided by
them. You also have snapshots, those little
tiny snapshot parables. The kingdom of heaven is like... fish, treasure, yeast,
mustard seeds, those kind of things. Where they're just they're barely anything,
they're just a couple of sentences and off you go. But what you will often
forget is that actually Jesus uses other kind of parables as well and we forget
them because they're less easy to make sense of. That's the brief comparisons.
The children sitting in the marketplace, you know when Jesus says, what should I
compare you to? To children sitting in the marketplace. Actually that is also a
parable but he just does it in a slightly different way. So Jesus kind of
ranges across all of these different types of parables. So when therefore
we're beginning to explore what we think parables are, why they're important, what
they give to us, and we struggle because the range is so broad. So one of the
things you might think was a sensible thing to do is actually to look at how
Jesus uses the word parable because that'll make it much more
straightforward, won't it? Of course not. But let me show you, because I think this is quite interesting. So you have some
parables, so what I'm about to do is give you a list of all the occasions
where Jesus has used the word parable. You will notice that is unsatisfactory
in all sorts of different ways. So the first are things that you would expect.
So Matthew 13 and that whole chapter of parables where he starts and ends with the
word parable, so therefore we understand that everything inside chapter 13 is a
parable. And so you've got the parable of the sower, the wheat and the weeds, the
mustard seed, the woman, the yeast, the treasure in the field, fine pearl, fish in
the nets. Lots of parables all kind of stuffed together
in its parable chapter. He also uses the word parable for Matthew 21 which is the
parable of the tenants in the vineyard. And it comes when the Pharisees work out
that he's talking about them and then they say they understood that the
parable was about them. It comes back for a very very odd parable in Matthew 21, the
wedding banquet. You know the one where they turn up in the wrong clothes and
get chucked out despite the fact they didn't know they were going to the
banquet. That lovely, fair parable, that one is also called a parable. Then we
have a statement which we will come on to later in the talk about those outside.
The one that troubles everybody about parables - to those outside everything
will be in parables but to those inside everything will be explained - and we'll
come on to that later. And then so you might be thinking, oh well that's okay, I
was expecting all of those roughly for parables, there's a googly. And the googly
I think is a really interesting one. It comes in Mark 23 where Mark says, he told
them a parable, and then Jesus says, how can Satan cast out Satan, a house divided
against itself cannot stand. And you go well that's not a parable
because it's not a nice story, it doesn't compare anything, it doesn't fit into my
category. At which point I like to remind you, the one thing that you can say, you
can't say with any certainty everything about all the parables, it doesn't work.
So recognizing that actually parable is a big and squishy term, it's a flexible term, it's used in all sorts of different ways. So when
we're trying to work out what a parable is, what we need to do is kind of take
them all, and all the different kinds of parables, and lay them on allow alongside
each other and see where we get to. So the next thing I just want to draw your
attention to is the variety of images that Jesus uses and the images are
really interesting. We start with some that are absolutely everyday images and
these things you will be expecting. Parables that are about agriculture and
farming. Lots and lots of those. Parables about stuff you find in the house, lots
and lots of those. And so those are kind of everyday examples of how you live
your life and incidentally I again will come back to this later, it's worth
reminding ourselves that if you were somebody who lived in Galilee in the
first century and Jesus started talking about, you know when you go out to sow
seed, they's all go, yeah yeah yeah we know what it's like when we go out to
sow seed. One of the issues we have is Jesus says, you know when you go to sow
seed, and we go, not so much, haven't done it recently, and one of the challenges is
that Jesus is using everyday images all the time in his parables and we struggle
with it because it's not our experience. But then having done a range of
absolutely everyday events he also does special events as his examples. So you've
got stuff around society and relationships, weddings, banquets, kings
and kingdoms, judges and judgements, those kind of way in which society functions
together. And then you've also got money, either having it or not having it, and
they come back again regularly in the parables. So Jesus has kind of various
themes that he explores, some absolutely every day, some more special
circumstances. I mean incidentally what I'm doing in laying all of this stuff
out is I'm kind of laying it out for you and then at the end we'll do a little,
well what can we learn from this when we're doing our own
preaching. Which gets me nicely to one of the more difficult things I need to talk
about. What is a parable? And one of the things that
we need to recognize right at the start is that the range, Jesus's broad range
of using parables, makes them almost impossible to define. And that's kind of
the point that I'm trying to get through to you really is that Jesus uses
parables in such different ways to try and achieve such different ends, that it is
actually really difficult even to try and define them. So some people define
parables as illustration. And here I need to have a little rant, I hope you're
ready, sit down in your seats while I have my little New Testament
scholars rant. The reason why people define parables as illustrations is
because of the etymology of the word parable. So the word prarbole which is
there up on the screen and comes from two Greek words, bole which means to
throw and para which means alongside, therefore a parable is something that
you throw alongside. And for years and years and years people had used that as
the definition of a parable. Now the problem with this is a little technical
phrase which I will tell you about and then I'll tell you why it's problematic.
James Barr who always should be remembered in Oxford as one of the great
Old Testament professors here wrote a book called the semantics of biblical
languages in about the 80s. And it was, it is, slightly toe curling,
absolutely visceral attack on various things that lots of people do
regularly. And I'm not in the James Barr category but he wasn't completely wrong.
And his problem in this particular instance is with what he called
etymological fallacies. And do you know what, the thing that preachers love more
than anything else is an etymological fallacy. If you're ever preaching happily
in your church you suddenly hear somebody shouting from the back row
"etymological fallacy!" it's me. There's an issue and it's worth just
noting the issue and after I've noted the issue you will all hate me forever
and that's absolutely fine. But the problem is that one of the things we
love to do in preaching is we take a word and one of the favorite words that
people love to do this on is ecclesia. So the word ecclesia comes from two Greek
words, plasia meaning called outs, eck meaning out, so the word ecclesia means people who are called out, doesn't it? No.
And this is the really important thing, because where a word comes from is not
what it means. Where a word comes from is where a word comes from. And it's
interesting to look at where the word comes from, but you can't then say, and
now that's what it means. Let me illustrate it for you to give the idea.
The word understand comes from two words one of them is stand, the other one is
under. So therefore the word understand means to locate yourself under something,
doesn't it? Well no, not really. It might give you a little bit of a teensy-weensy
bit of an insight into what the word understand means, but it's not
what understand means. In the same way ecclesia, called out is not what the word
means. You understand what a word means from how it's used in its
context. So you can start with the etymology but you can't say and therefore this is what the word means. Rant over. But as a result the word parable
doesn't mean something that's thrown alongside. It came from something that
was thrown alongside, the word parable means something else. The question is,
what else? So let's have a look at them and see and what we can learn from them.
The first thing is that some parables are narratives, others are not narratives.
Some parables are metaphors or similes, some are much much bigger, way
bigger, than any kind of concept of a metaphor or simile. And this is a really
important one which I think is very interesting. Some parables are very very strange. And some parables are really clear about
what they mean. And actually recognizing that is also. You know when you see the
lectionary coming up and you see one of those strange parables coming up and
your heart sinks to your boots? There are some like that, but there's also some
that are really easy to understand and we mustn't have our heart sinks to our
boot every time a parable comes up because some of them are relatively
straightforward. So how do we come up with a definition of the parables you
will know that I'm about to say this. Oh no I'm not, sorry I was on the wrong
slide, I was like completely the wrong side, don't worry about that, I'm not
gonna say that at all. So a few definitions. One of the interesting
things is seeing New Testament scholars bend themselves out of shape in order to
try and work out precisely how you define a parable. I've got a few that I
just think are tantalizing and fascinating and help you do your own
thinking about what you think a parable is. There is somebody who's written an
utterly brilliant book on the parables and if you buy only one book on the
parables - Christine won't want me to tell you this - don't buy mine, buy Klyne Snodgrass's. Apart from anything else you've got the
best name in the world, Klyne Snodgrass. And his book is called Stories of
Intent, it's absolutely superb treatment, really really thick big fat fat book on
the parables. And Snodgrass says, where am I there I am, there I am, Snodgrass suggests that we think of parables as imaginary gardens
with real toads in them. And it's just a lovely lovely image. Parables, some of
them, not all of them, but a lot of parables are fantasies, they are
completely made-up. But one of the things that you will often find in most, not all
parables, is there's some actual real stuff in there. Something that you
recognize as the real toad, you know that thing that disrupts, that kind of... So
things like the prodigal son. Think about the prodigal son as an imaginary garden
with a real toad in it and it begins to make sense, it kind of gives you that
sense of what he's talking about. Another possibility is by someone called
David Stern, an elusive narrative - and you'll see the problem with that as
not all of them are narratives - but an elusive narrative which is told for an
ulterior purpose. There's a reason why you're telling the story and you want
people to try and get to them. The problem with that is that some parables
have a clear ulterior purpose other parables, guess what, don't have a clear
ulterior purpose, they kind of hang in an oddly surprising way. One of my favourite definitions comes from Soren Kierkegaard,
who says, a parable is an indirect communication which deceives the hearer
into truth. It's wonderful, it's really fabulous. And the reason why I love it is,
that being deceived into truth seems to me to lie at the heart of a lot of what
Jesus is doing. He doesn't kind of come at you full frontal and say what you
absolutely must think about the kingdom of God is... if only, for those of us who
have to write essays on the kingdom of God. But he never did. Instead what
he says is the kingdom of God is like... yeast, mustard seed, fish, net, off you go
and work it out. But there is something about that indirect communication which
kind of deceives you, tricks you into truth and all of a sudden you find
yourself in truth unawares. The rabbis fascinatingly called
their parables, which in Hebrew are called mashal, as handles for
understanding Torah. So they saw parables as the way in which you would
have a handle and then you would go to Torah and then you would kind of
understand it more because you had a means by which you could get into the
truth of what Torah was talking about. You'll get the idea that we could go
wrong with this all day and what I could give you endless endless possibilities
and you'd go yes, oh doesn't quite work, oh yeah maybe, oh
no doesn't for all of them, and, but that gives you
the idea about the parables is they defy definition. Almost impossible to be able
to say a parable is... always in every case. It can't be done. Instead parables
tantalize us, they tickle us, they leave us discomforted, trying
to work out where it is that we're going. So let me give you a few things that
I've observed about the parables in the work that I've done. And I think all of
these for me are fascinating as we think about how we go about preaching. Parables are visual not conceptual. I am a massive visual thinker so it's probably why I
love the parables quite so much. I had a colleague when I taught at one
of the college's I taught at, who was a conceptual thinker. And he would chuck
out these word pictures which for him were just word pictures and I would sit
there going oh I've got to imagine that now, I think kind of the image of it
would stay with me for the whole of the morning. Whereas for him he was just a
concept person and he just put a whole random word selection of words together
and it worked for him. So there's something about the visual-ness. Think
about Jesus's parables and there's a very high chance that many of you will
have a picture in your mind. If I say to you the Good Samaritan you've got a
picture now in your mind of something that happened. Or if I say to you the parable of the sower, again you've got a picture comes into your
mind. Which is why I would argue that the John's "I am" sayings fits best with the parables because Jesus says, I am The Good
Shepherd, and into your head comes a picture. And therefore for me there's
something about the visual-ness of them which is really important.
They are elusive not concrete. The thing about the parables, most of them, not all
of them, but most of the parables, is that they tickle the truth, they don't land
you with a big conceptual propositional truth on your lap. What they do is they
kind of suggest to you that you might like to think in this direction, or maybe
in that direction, or you could maybe think over there, and it's the
elusiveness about them which I think is fascinating. They are based in real life,
not entirely fantasy, but you will get some fantasy elements in them. The most
important thing about parables which you already know, they're profoundly hard to
tie down. Profoundly hard to say, and this is what this means, except for when it's
easier to say that this is what this means, and then you can do it because not
all parables are the same. And then really really interesting, they leave
loose ends hanging. One of the things I would love to have asked Jesus is did
you mean us to interpret the parables in a clear and very easily understandable
way. If the answer is yes, you should have given as a few more clues. Because as you
will know for 2,000 years of history, with those that are not the allegorical
parables, we've spent ages working out did he mean
this, did he mean this, or did he mean that, and I would say that's the point.
And there is something in that which is really interesting for us to reflect on
when we're thinking about preaching. And so now let us turn our attention to -
we've done definition, a very clear and understandable definition of parables
we've achieved, not - and now we're going to have a look at interpretation,
interpreting the parables. And this is where you get into real turf wars in New
Testament scholarship. So anything I'm about to say you will find somebody who
disagrees with, so don't worry about it but recognize that interpreting the
parables is really really complex. So let's have a look at some issues
interpreting the parables. And I've referred to one of these already. Should
you interpret the parables as though they are allegories, one-to-one
correlation, this person is that person, this person is that person, when you go,
like with the parable of the sower, or should you interpret them as open-end,
illusive images. Now for me the fascinating thing is I could bring you a
New Testament scholar, a live one, stand him on the stage,
and say this person thinks you should interpret all parables
allegorically. I could also bring you a live New Testament scholar, stand him on that
stage there, who would also say you should never interpretable the parables
allegorically, they're always elusive, open-ended narratives. And then I would
get them to talk to each other for hours on end until you didn't care anymore. But the really really interesting thing is, back to this point that I have been
made making, is the only thing you can say about parables is that no one thing
can be said. So actually your allegorical person is right, your open
end illusive person is right, because you can find different kinds of parables. The
fascinating thing is, how easily we slip into making some of the parables
allegorical and whether we're right to do it or not. I've been debating ever
since I started writing this whether I'm going to really upset you or
not, and I've decided I will. So the thing that is guaranteed to light people's
fires more than any other thing that you can say about the parables is: the
prodigal son's father might not be God. Can you feel, can you feel it? I did
this at a couple of clergy conferences, nearly died. But let me just tell you
something about the prodigal son parable which I think is really really
interesting, and then you'll begin to see how we can slip into making them
allegorical. The thing about the prodigal son and the story, is that
actually the father is a pretty bad father. Everything in rabbinic law
says, whatever you do, do not split your inheritance before you die, because if
you do, you will destroy your family. Prodigal son. Then having split your inheritance, the other reason why you shouldn't split
your inheritance before you die, is having done it, it then belongs to your
sons and not to you anymore. So having split it before you die, you
then have given them money. So prodigal son goes off, spends all his
money, comes back, the father sacrifices the calf, which now belongs to
the older son, without telling the older son that he's sacrificing his own calf,
and doesn't even invite him to the party. I would submit to you gently that that's
not really who God is. But if I say that then you'll get really upset with me
because of course we have so much interpreted the prodigal son in the way
that we have that we're absolutely fixed. My own interpretation of the prodigal
son is, if, in this absolutely dysfunctional human family, a father can
behave like this, how much more so will your heavenly Father behave. So I'm
saying it's it's not that it's there's nothing to do with God in this at all,
but what if God isn't in them. And then you start going through the other
parables and going or what if God's not in that one? And what if God's not in
that one? And the other fascinating one, then I will stop, I
could talk about this for hours, the parable just before the prodigal
son in Luke 15, coming up on Sunday, is absolutely fascinating. And if you read
traditional interpretations, hysterical really. So you've got three; the parable of
the lost sheep, the parable of the lost coin, the parable of the lost son. Parable
of the lost sheep, is the shepherd God? Yes. Parable of the lost son, is the
father God? Yes. Parable of the lost coin, is the woman God? No, just a woman. And it's really really interesting, isn't it?
And in that you realize that we are seduced in our interpretation of the
parables into ways that other people have decided we should interpret them.
And for me one of the most important things we need to bear in mind, is that
we should, Jesus left them hanging for a reason. And if you come to a parable and
you know, I know exactly what this parable is about, you probably don't. And
this is for me one of the next things to say about interpreting the parables.
The thing about parables which makes them close to metaphors is that I would
say most, not all parables to continue my theme, but most parables are meant to
make you go, what? The kingdom of heaven is like really? And our difficulty is,
that we come along and I say to you, the kingdom of heaven is like yeast, are you
going, yeah of course it is, I knew that all along? And at that point the parables
died, because actually what you're meant to be able to do is go, but but yeast is
toxic, it's compared, you know the Pharisees, through yeast the Pharisees is
compared to something really evil, how could you say the kingdom of heaven is
like yeast? Go away, think about it. And there is something I think actually
really quite important about recognizing that we struggle with parables because they have died for us, because we know what they mean. Another issue which I have alluded to already, it's the challenge of understanding the
world of Jesus and means that actually we often miss some of the points of the
parables. And one of my favorite examples of this comes from Kenneth Bailey. You
know in Sunday school the parable of the wise man and the foolish man and all
your pictures are the wise man's built his house on the top of the cliff and
the foolish man's built his house on the beach. And you go, you should have
recognized, this isn't gonna go well. But of course actually in Jesus's
world that wasn't what it was like at all. In Jesus's world, if you live in desert territory, what happens is in the middle
of the summer the ground bakes solid so that it looks the same as the ground
that's got rocks underneath it. You cannot tell until the rains come. Think
the parable. When the rains come, the ground that was sand but that has been
baked solid in the sun, turns back into what it always was sand, the rain the
grounds that was rocky and stays as it was because it's rocky. And so therefore
it's that kind of understanding, that kind of world is something that we really
struggle with I think in understanding Jesus's parables. I think we also
struggle with leaving loose ends hanging, that Jesus didn't try and tie it down. He
didn't say, now let me sit you down and explain exactly what this precise
parable means. He did sometimes but he didn't at other times. And that gives us
of course, what I alluded to at the start, the challenge of preaching on them. How
do you preach on a parable in a way that doesn't kill it, that doesn't kind of
ossify it, that doesn't kind of make it no longer, any longer tantalizing, and
I haven't got an answer for you. If I had I'd have probably started with it. But
there is I think something just to kind of have in your mind every time you
preach on a parable. Am I killing it a little bit more, or am I making it more
elusive, more tantalizing, more loose end-ish, because if you are tying it down in
a way that the text doesn't appear to support, then the problem, the challenge
is, that you probably are killing it a little bit. And then quickly, before I get
onto the lessons that I've learned, that passage. I'm gonna mention it now because otherwise you'll ask me in the questions. You know the one I mean, don't
you? When he was alone those who were around him along with the 12, asked him
about the parables. And he said to them to you has been given the secret of the
kingdom of God but for those outside everything comes in
parables in order that they may indeed look but not perceive, may indeed listen
but not understand, so they may not turn again and be forgiven. And he said to
them, do you not understand this parable, then how will you understand all the
parables? To which we go, great questions, could you give us a hint? Of course he
then does because he then does an interpretation of the parable of the
sower. But this is the passage that really upsets lots and lots of people,
because surely surely communication about the kingdom, isn't it about getting
people to see and understand and know? Isn't it? And for me one of the
really interesting questions is, is it? Actually, does Jesus in fact say to us
that the purpose of the parables is to dumbfound you a little bit, to get you to
scratch your head, to say I don't really know what's going on. It's one
of those kind of really striking things, actually is the purpose of a parable to
make you go, I have no idea what you're talking about, but you've caught my
attention and I'm going to go away and think about it a little bit more. Of
course the beauty of this particular bit of Mark's Gospel, is Mark sets up
gloriously, you've got the insiders, the disciples, you've got the outsiders, the
ones who get the parables, so we know fabulously from Mark 4 onwards, the
disciples are gonna understand everything, unlike the outsiders who don't understand a thing. Until you get the
beautiful moment in Mark 8 when they're in the boat and Jesus says, beware of the
leaven of the Pharisees, and they go, he's talking about bread again, and they
haven't understood it, and Jesus says exactly these words to them, do you look
and not perceive, do you hear and not understand, and all of a sudden you
realize that the insiders have become the outsiders, as opposed to the
outsiders in Mark 4 to 8 who've all, who are all insiders. At which point Mark has
started to mess with your minds and you need to go and lie down a little bit. But
I think there is something really striking about that whole question of
should you be getting people to understand, is that what the parables are
about? So what can we learn from the parables
in our own preaching. Variety. I think for me if I learn one thing from the
parables about preaching, it's about the fact you cannot say one thing about all
the parables. Jesus mixed it up. He sometimes told a long story, he sometimes
told a short story, he sometimes had an image, he sometimes had a phrase, he
didn't do the same thing all the time. And that upsets us as preachers, doesn't
it, because actually we love to have a little formula. And our little formula
goes, entertaining story, think about the passage, life application, job's a good'un. It works, kind of, and when I'm going, I have no idea what I'm going to do, I do my little formula and
life is happy. But Jesus didn't. And it raises us the question, of whether we
should be as variet-ous, you know using variety, as much as Jesus did.
Actually what would it be like if you mix it up a little bit more, told a long
story, told a tiny story, kind of made a statement, ask some questions, actually
what would the variety be like in our preaching. Is there something to be
learned from that. There's also something really really really important about the
significance of story and image. Of how our stories capture people. This great
book I was telling you about has this really really brilliant
quotation and which I love. "Apart from personal experience, stories
are the quickest way to learning. We learn most easily in the concrete, but
because we cannot easily remember hundreds of concrete accounts, our
brains store most easily in the abstract. In teaching and preaching, the shortcut
is to repeat the abstract idea we already know, forgetting that others need
to learn it in the concrete." I kind of want to go, discuss, because it's a really
really interesting idea, but I think there's something in that to explore. Did
you learn the facts that you know as a list of facts. Some of you will go,
I love a list of facts there's nothing that makes me happier, but actually there
will be a lot of people who actually learn what they know through stories. And
in preaching we don't give it back to them in stories, we give them back to
them in a list of facts. So the question is, how do we can get back into getting
people to understand, to do their learning through stories. How do stories
function in our sermons. What else can we learn? We can also learn the importance
of using everyday analogies. Jesus and his absolutely grounded, on the ground
yeast and seeds and fish, things that people knew every day. What would it be like, next time you preach on a parable, if you translated it into an everyday
image that would work today. And what would that feel like for people, would it
make sense to them, and would it cause problems? Do we, I know the answer to
that for me, but do you, have the confidence to leave threads hanging and
allow people to make of your sermon what they will. You do know they do anyway,
don't you? You know that awful moment when you're standing at the door and
somebody said, oh I loved it when you said... and you go, I never said that.
Because they do. But actually what if we allowed more of the threads to hang? What
if we were able not to tie things down quite so much, and what would it be like,
what would it feel like, for us? I mean the thing I'm really conscious of, is I
would feel really anxious about doing that. But actually, all the evidence we've
got from the Gospels is that's exactly what Jesus did. So what would it be like
if we had a bit more confidence to do that. And then the final thing which I
think is worth just reminding ourselves of time and time again, even the
disciples didn't know what Jesus was talking about. So if at the end of your
most spectacular sermon series in which you have laid out everything that
everyone needs to know and there's one person in your congregation who hasn't
understood it all, it's okay. Don't worry. And there
is something I think actually really quite interesting about the slow act of
preaching. It's something that I wrote in the afterword for the book that
Christine mentioned. For me preaching is the ultimate slow food. It drops and then
it grows, and actually the sermons that I remember most most vividly, are probably
the ones from five years ago, where something was said, a seed was planted,
and then I go back to it and I go back to it and I go back to it. There's
something about having the confidence for your sermons not to be quick food.
They can be slow food. They can grow and develop in their own way. So I think
there is lots and lots and lots to be learned from the parables, for
understanding how we do preaching. And the most striking thing of all, I think,
is that actually it undermines most of the things that we are taught about what
makes good preaching. And one of the things we need to do is to sit with a
discomfort of that and say we know this isn't how preaching is ought to be, but
it's apparently what Jesus did, and maybe we feel a little bit more confident just
to sit with that and allow it to be as it is. So we've now got 10 minutes for
questions and the rules for the questions remain the same as they were
for Brian; short-winded is much better than long-winded. We've
got two microphones traversing the room, there's one over there and there's one
over there, if you can be stacking yourselves up for the questions and
we'll crack on through as many as we can. The only thing that's slightly different
is it's just possible we might have some questions from Facebook live. And if they do, now is your moment, if
you're watching on Facebook live, to send in your questions and we'll put pop them
in as well. Who's got the questions coming in if they're coming in? Yeah over
there, right so you'll notice a hand waving over there if there's questions
come in as well. So then where are we going to go for questions? Lovely. "If a
parable is ambiguous, if there are a number of possible interpretations, is it
legitimate to preach one interpretation in one sermon and then when it comes up
again three years later to preach a different interpretation?" I would say, yeah. And see if anyone notices. That would be the key thing but I think I think for me one of the really
interesting things is is allow the parables to play in you and in the
congregation and is there a way in which you you can even trail it? And I mean one
of the things I've done occasionally for some of the very short parables is to
preach three different interpretations in the same sermon. People find it quite
difficult and then you need to have a time for questions and conversation
afterwards but I think there is something about allowing people to
recognize that parables and that that's of stuff about kind of being kind of
tricked into truth or deceived into truth, is that actually it's not that the
parables mean... you know this parable means this, but the parable means in me,
and so the me that is different when I read it the next time is actually going
to produce a different interpretation. So I think there's some some interesting
things, but it's about having confidence again in allowing them to be as they are.
Where are we for our next? "I am not a preacher where I preach every Sunday" - me neither! It's lovely, isn't it? - "It's really nice. But so I at the previous church I was at, I did this and I think I didn't mean to, but I would leave my sermons and
I would I would have questions at the end and they would be open and I just, I
don't know, that's just how it went. And after one Sunday a member came up and
said, can you please not ask questions any more at the end? Because they were
getting tired not having an answer, so and this was
only maybe once a month, and I thought oh my gosh do I do that every time? But what
does that exhaust people though, I mean I did then consciously think about it
later." Yes it does, is the first answer. Should it, is the other question. And I
think it's a, I mean I'm in a way I'm kind of back to where what Brian was
saying, so I'm looking over there, he's not there anymore, somewhere else, but
back to what Brian was saying about isn't it okay to disrupt people, and
maybe alienate them a little bit, and leave them a little bit uncomfortable?
The thing that people most love above everything else is for you to tell them
this is what it means, it only means this, it's very very clear, you don't have to
think about it, I've told you the answer. And they go, oh thank you very much, and
off they go very happy. The problem is they shouldn't really be reading the
Bible if they want that, because actually the Bible doesn't deliver that in that
kind of way, and don't hear me saying, it doesn't deliver truth, of course it
does, but actually it makes us work, makes us work really hard to be able to be
deceived into truth. And I think there is something about the culture of our
churches which we need to stop and think about quite carefully, is that if people
only want a nice clear answer, are we good with just kind of going with that,
and I would say no we probably shouldn't be. So I wonder what I'm trying to say
to you is, carry on. Even if it annoys them, carry on. Where are we, over here. "My name is Edmond Marshall, reader in the Diocese of St Albans, one definition of
a parable which I've always found helpful, is that it's an earthly story
with a heavenly meaning. And the point of the parable is where the unexpected
element in the parable meets the heavenly dimension." Yes, ish. It's Charlie Model, is that quotation, I absolutely love it. It is an earthly story, I think where I
hesitate, is that kind of contrast between heaven and earth. I think I would
want to say it's an earthly story with a heavenly meaning and the heavenly story
with an earthly meaning, because I think one of the things that you've got,
because the whole point about a parable is you live it, you're not just meant to
kind of go away and think fine thoughts about it, it's actually meant to change who
you are, how you act, what you do in the world. And I think there is something
quite important about not just leaving it has an earthly story with a heavenly
meaning, back to what Brian was saying earlier, but actually saying it's an
earthly story with a heavenly meaning that has an impact on how I live my life
in an earthly way. So I would want to kind of circle it round. So yes ish is the answer. Where are we now? "Re discomfort and disruption are there any ethics around storytelling,
types of stories you wouldn't, you don't think are helpful?" Yes. Unfortunately Jesus
told most of them. I think, I think the discomfort is, we need to be very
very careful, and that's what you're alluding to, aren't you, about how you take
people out of their comfort zones in such a way as they can cope. I have been
in contexts where people have done storytelling which I felt has been
irresponsible, because it hasn't given people a safety net, kind of a
recognition that actually it's all right. And I think it's, so do we need to
add in the word pastoral discomforting in the telling of the stories, so that
actually we discomfort people to the extent that they can deal with it. Of
course the problem is as I discovered when I was doing my cheery littl
Luke 15 the prodigal son's father isn't God, is that what different
people can deal with is different in a different context. So actually I thought
I was, I did it at a clergy conference, I assumed I was in in safe hands, but actually I deeply
deeply really deeply upset some people. And I'm really sorry that I did, because
I didn't want to do that. So how do you kind of tell stories in such a way that
actually takes people to a challenging place but isn't
too challenging. And I think the answer to that is making sure we talk a lot to
people afterwards and making, you know, and learning from what it is that we've
learned from that, I think. "Paula, you've indicated that the parables may be
open-ended, is there any evidence that the Gospel writers themselves tries to
close up some of those loose ends, whether that perhaps happened in the
oral tradition, which the evangelists then wrote down?" It's a great question and of course the answer is, who knows? So there are some people you know yeah biblical scholar who was standing here,
who likes all the parables to be elusive and open-ended, would say well
actually it wasn't Jesus who gave the interpretation, it was Mark or Matthew or
Q or you name it, whoever it was that did it. I think it's, I find it very difficult,
I always find scholarly explanations that get you off a hook are something I
don't trust. So because I am an elusive, open-ended person, as you will have gathered, and therefore I would really like Jesus not to have interpreted the parable of
the sower, because then all the parables would be uninterpreted and then I would
be happier. But I kind of feel the need to stay on the hook, that actually maybe
Jesus did interpret some of them and maybe he did intend us to do some
allegorically. But what we can't know is what happened in the afterlife of the
parables. How the Gospel writers put it down how they began to kind of
explore it, except for I think it is worth noting that probably, I know
none of you have ever done this but I think Jesus might have told his stories
more than once. Nobody else would have done it. But for example, the parable of
the lost sheep, look at it in Matthew, look at it in Luke, it means something
different in Matthew and Luke. In Matthew it's about being lost from the church, in
Luke it's about the losing and finding in the whole of that kind of strand of
that particular chapter. So it means it's located differently in Matthew and Luke
and therefore has a different meaning because of its
context. Who did that? I would say probably Jesus, I think he
probably told a story with this, and then he told it again with that, and we've got different versions. It might have been Matthew, it might have been
Luke, it's very hard to know. So there's a really unsatisfactory answer, who knows?
But interesting. Very nevertheless interesting. Shall we have one more
and then we'll close. "I suspect I've probably killed the odd parable or
two. Any top tips for CPR or resurrection?" A brilliant question, lovely last
question. I would say making them unfamiliar again, that's the way. Because
the way parables die is where you hear it, you go yeah I know exactly what
that's about, and then you switch off. You don't do the wrestling. So is there a way
in which we can bring them back to life by making them unfamiliar, just
a kind of bit odd? And there are different ways you could do that, you can
either do it by translating it into a modern day everyday scenario, which might kind of give it new life, other ways is to look at unusual interpretations of
the parable. Some of you will know that one of my favorite of these is the
parable of the mustard seed, and now a lot of scholars would argue that the
mustard seed actually is a pernicious weed, and it was well known by Pliny the
Elder in the first century, so when Jesus says the kingdom of heaven is like a
mustard seed, he's saying the kingdom of heaven is like a pernicious weed,
once you sow it you'll never get rid of it, and then he grows into a great
whacking tree that attracts all the birds into your wheat field, you really
don't want it, that's what the kingdom of heaven is like. And the reason I like it,
is it kind of makes you go, really? And then I think you're back into the
old territory of parables making you jump. So it's the, can you make a parable
kind of strange again, and if you can re-strange the parable then you've
given it CPR, I think. you
