Jesus said, “I will speak to you in parables and reveal to you things hidden since the foundation of the world.” —Matthew 13:35, quoting Psalm 78:2
Father Richard Rohr describes how Jesus uses parables to challenge our ways of thinking:
A parable is a unique form of literature that’s always trying to subvert business as usual, much like a Zen koan or a Confucian riddle, which both use paradox to undo our reliance on what we think is logic. Yet we typically do not let parables do that for us. Our dominant consciousness is so in control that we try to figure them out inside of our existing consciousness—or, more commonly, we just ignore them or consider them out of date. Parables aim to subvert our old consciousness and offer us a way through by utterly reframing our worldview.
Often, the biblical text isn’t transformative and doesn’t bring about a “new creation” because we pull it inside of our own security systems and what we call “common sense.” At that point, no divine breakthrough is possible. Frankly speaking, this makes much of Scripture become largely harmless and forgettable. [1]
Father Richard uses Jesus’ parable about workers in a vineyard (Matthew 20:1–16) to illustrate how God’s logic is not our own:
We often think that justice means getting what we deserve, but the Gospels point out that God’s justice always gives us more than we deserve. In fact, “worthiness” is not even the issue! In Matthew’s Gospel, Jesus tells the parable of a landowner who hires laborers in the morning, at noon, and in the afternoon to work in his fields. In the evening when he pays them all a day’s wages, the ones who worked all day complain that they deserve more than the ones who worked only a few hours. But the landowner turns to them and asks, “Why are you looking so resentful just because I am generous?” (Matthew 20:15). God’s justice is really magnanimity, being more than fair to everybody because God is being true to God’s nature. As Matthew says elsewhere, God makes the sun to shine and the rain to fall on the just and the unjust alike (5:45). In other words, God provides all everyone needs in order to grow.
We have a hard time with that kind of justice. We’re capitalists, even in the spiritual life. If we work more, we expect more and we don’t know what to do with a God who breaks that rule. Yet God’s justice is just another way of thinking about God’s unconditional love. All through the Gospels, people receive what they don’t deserve. Relentless generosity is hard for us to comprehend, much less practice. That kind of unconditional justice is beyond our human power. Yet the Gospel is showing that it’s possible for Jesus to be fully human and divinely just, because he lived in the power of the Spirit. Likewise, it is possible for all those who, like Jesus, open themselves to receive the Spirit. [2]
References:
[1] Adapted from Richard Rohr, Things Hidden: Scripture as Spirituality, rev. ed. (Cincinnati, OH: Franciscan Media, 2008, 2022), 174.
[2] Adapted from Richard Rohr and Jospeh Martos, Great Themes of Scripture: New Testament (Cincinnati, OH: Franciscan Media, 1988), 78, 79.
Image credit and inspiration: Providence Doucet, Untitled (detail), 2016, photo, Canada, Unsplash. Click here to enlarge image. Like Jesus’ parables, we can look closely at fallen leaves and see things new.
Story from Our Community:
I just retired after 38 years as a pastor, serving in a conservative denomination in a conservative state. For many years, I could see the mystical core of the world’s spiritual traditions. I tried to find gentle, tactful ways to share that common thread with my congregations over the years. True to the concept of the seeds falling on “good soil” in Jesus’ Parable of the Sower, there were never more than 4 or 5 people who were open to this kind of universal outlook. In the Daily Meditations, I’ve understood the universal aspects of spirituality are shared by many others around the world.
—Scott W.
