For about 10 years now I’ve been preaching through the Gospels in our morning service.  This includes Mark, John, and now Matthew.  I’m finishing up Matthew this Lent and Easter season and will probably move on to The Gospel According to St. Luke after than.

 

Time in the Gospels has forced me to think about Jesus’ use of parables.  Although there is some variety in the way the authors of the synoptic Gospels record the parables, there is nonetheless  a common perspective that can be discerned.  The bottom line is that propounding parables to Israel was a form of judgment.

 

The parables are designed to obscure and obfuscate, to hide truth from those who are “outside.”  This is explicitly stated in Mark 4:10-12:

 

 

And yet in spite of this most preachers and Christians erroneously assume that Jesus used the parabolic form of teaching in order to effectively illustrate truth.  Surely you’ve heard this before.  What an ingenious and effective teacher Jesus was.  He is our model.  Look at how marvelously he embodied truth in these lovely parables, stories that were so well suited to his hearers’ culture and situation.  How quaint they are.  How powerful.  Jesus really knew how people hear.  How people listen and what they retain.  And so, being the perfect teacher that he was, knowing his audience so well, knowing that people tend to be able to seize and relate to images more readily than they do to propositions and principles, Jesus sought to embody his teaching in these memorable parables so that people could really understand him better.  Now, there is a measure of truth in this.  For us who are on the “inside” the parables do serve to illumine and explain, but we need to be careful not to put the cart before the horse.  The parable may nicely communicate the nature of Jesus’ kingdom to us NOW, but at the time, they were anything but simple, homely sermonic illustrative devices.

 

 

The few examples of “parables” from the Old Testament are very revealing:

 

 

 

Jotham, the youngest of Gideon’s sons, and the only survivor of Abimelech’s murderous coup, declaims a parable from Mt. Gerizim against his bastard brother--the parable of the trees (Judges 9).  Jotham does not speak plainly, but craftily as a judgment against Abilemech.

 

Nathan the prophet is sent by the Lord to rebuke David after his adulterous affair with Bathsheba.  The first word out of his mouth is the parable of the ewe lamb (2 Sam. 12:1ff.). Without any explanation, David is clueless. David thinks it refers to someone else.  The parable has masked the truth.  Nathan must speak plainly: you are the man!

 

The Psalmist in Psalm 78, begins his long historical recollection with the words: “I will open my mouth in a parable: I will utter dark sayings of old” and then he proceeds to recount the rebellion, sin, and failure of God’s people as a warning for future generations.  They kept not his covenant is a constant refrain. The story of God’s people and their failure is parabolic.  Who will listen to it and hear?

 

The prophet Isaiah sings a parable to the people of Israel, one of his most famous, the parable of the vineyard (Isaiah 5). It is spoken in righteous indignation as a judgment against Israel.  Later the Lord commands Isaiah to propound another parable: “take up this parable against the king of Babylon, and say: ‘How the oppressor has ceased, How his fury has ended’”(Isa. 14:4).

 

The Word of the Lord came to Ezekiel in Ezek. 17, "Son of man, pose a riddle, and speak a parable to the house of Israel.”  It is propounded to “the rebellious house of Israel.” Again, in Ezekiel 24, the Lord says, “Utter a parable to the rebellious house, and say to them, `Thus says the Lord Yahweh: Put on a pot, set it on, and also pour water into it.’”

 

 

Now, finally, Jesus appears “teaching them many things in parables” and what are we to conclude? The parable is the medium of judgment, the grammar of God’s wrath and curse against his obstinate people.  The parable is propounded to a people that deserve his judicial blinding.  Parables are uniquely suited to engage and challenge the hearers to judge their own situation. The parables by their very nature are wisdom devices, call for careful thought and spiritual discernment.  Parable’s mask, they veil the truth.  They hide as much as they illustrate. Only those who have ears to hear can understand them.  Parables hide precisely what dull hearted, conscience seared people cannot find.

 

And unless you are predisposed to search out and understand the meaning, like the disciples, and unless you are  graciously enlightened by God, as the disciples were, they will serve as a judgment against you.

 

Now, the question becomes acute: who are these thick hearted, spiritually dense people who deserve nothing but the judgment of veiled truth?  Answer: they are the “outsiders” (read Mark 4:.11-12).  They are the people of Israel, God’s own covenant people, especially as exemplified in their leaders: the Pharisees, priests, teachers and scribes of the law, and the Herodians.  So for them the parables serve as a judgment.  God punishes their disobedience and stubborn ears by veiling the truth. A parable is the genre of obfuscation.  “He who is often rebuked, and hardens his neck, Will suddenly be destroyed, and that without remedy.” (Prov. 29:1)

 

When the disciple asked Jesus why he taught with parables, Jesus clearly says that the reason he did so was to prevent people from understanding his teaching.  He taught in parables so that people would not perceive, so that they would not understand, so that they would not turn and be forgiven.  What could be clearer? We have the same explanation recorded in Matthew and Luke.

 

Parable are not the transparent sermonic illustrations that they are often thought to be.  The parabolic form is intended to provoke thought.  It is a wisdom form of teaching.  It does not have one single moralistic or religious “point.”  Forget everything you have heard said about parables having only one point and all the warnings about not paying too much attention to the details.  In fact, Jesus makes it clear that there is more to these parables than appears on the surface.  You have to have “ears to hear” (v. 9).  Jesus’ own interpretation of his parable highlights the details.

 

The parables are not moralizing illustrations; they are symbolic stories representing Kingdom realities that Jesus has come to inaugurate. They build on OT themes.  Parables are much more like allegories than they are like illustrations.  They may not be primarily vehicles of judgment to us because we can look back and take the time to analyze them.