Tag Archives: parables of jesus

Ravi Zacharias

Ravi Zacharias Ministry – Minds Upset

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Wherever one might be in declarations of belief, God is so often not the God these declarations expect, and often it is shocking to discover it. God comes near and offends our sense of understanding; God affronts our categories and overturns our sense of familiarity. Jesus of Nazareth does the same; quite particularly so in the language of the parables. With his stories, he offends the believing and unbelieving, disciples, scribes, and crowds alike. With the same stories, he continues to jar hearers awake and move followers near.

The Greek word for parable literally means “a placing beside.” It is a comparison of one thing beside another, an association of pictures that teaches. In a wider sense, the parable is a figurative discourse, a riddle full of light and shadows. In his parabolic language, Jesus vividly lays a full and layered picture beside us: The kingdom of heaven is like a man who sowed good seed; it is like yeast, or a mustard seed, or a master who prepared a great banquet. His comparisons often offer simple scenes or everyday images, and yet they are bafflingly difficult. How on earth is the kingdom of heaven like a seed?

We are pulled into a parable on multiple levels. At the narrative level, there are countless nuances and peculiarities that compel us to listen and question. We react to the characters before us—to the foolish prodigal son and what almost seems a foolishly loving father, to the master of a great banquet and the guests that cruelly shun him. But we also react to the character of God on some level, his kingdom and its economy. Just what kind of a kingdom is this? How is this forgiving, welcoming father like God? How am I like this wasteful son or this frustrated older brother? And how, then, does this image call me to live? We are jarred awake by a story; but so we are moved to reckon with its implications.

In other words, we are moved to reckon with nothing less than the kingdom itself and the one proclaiming it. The parables were not just spoken by anyone; they were spoken by Jesus of Nazareth, whose preaching fulfilled the ancient cry of Isaiah and the promise of a savior:

“[T]he people living in darkness

have seen a great light;

on those living in the land of the shadow of death

a light has dawned.”(1)

As with his preaching, the parables of Jesus call hearers to respond to the presence of God today, the kingdom in our midst, the person standing before us. We are remiss to interpret the parabolic language of Christ apart from his entire ministry, his shocking narratives apart from his shocking death, or the peculiar notion of the kingdom he describes apart from the unfathomable notion of his resurrection, which touches both this world and the next. And like Isaiah before the throne, our visions of God are undone by the God in our midst.

 

Craig Hawkins, Blind C., oil on canvas, 72 x 80 inches.

God will not let us remain blinded by our ideas of who God is. A prayer by Walter Brueggemann expresses the power of our expectations and the danger of clinging to them:

We are your people and mostly we don’t mind,

except that you do not fit any of our categories.

We keep pushing and pulling and twisting and turning,

trying to make you fit the God we would rather have

and every time we distort you that way

we end up with an idol more congenial to us.(2)

The parables draw pictures that, like Jesus, turn everything upside down, exposing idols that look curiously like us. It is in the light of his words that we see the insufficiencies of our own perceptions and the incongruence of our behavior. Like the one who voiced them, the parables order a mandatory reframing of perspective. “Thus it is with the kingdom of God,” Jesus declares, and he overturns our worlds and kingdoms like the money-changers’ tables. Jesus calls those who will see to see, and sometimes it is a call for a different way of thinking. Other times it demands an entirely new frame of reference. But he is always calling. For who God is in our minds must always be shattered by who God is.

Jill Carattini is managing editor of A Slice of Infinity at Ravi Zacharias International Ministries in Atlanta, Georgia.

(1) Isaiah 9:1-2, Matthew 4:16.

(2) Walter Brueggemann, Awed to Heaven, Rooted in Earth (Minneapolis: Augsburg Fortress, 2003), 35.

 

Ravi Zacharias

Ravi Zacharias Ministry – Beyond Grace

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Ravi Z

“Instead of giving a firm foundation for setting the conscience of man at rest forever, Thou didst choose all that is exceptional, vague and enigmatic” rails Ivan Karamazov against God in Dostoyevsky’s classic work The Brothers Karamazov.(1) Those who encounter, or are encountered by the parables and stories of Jesus often feel a similar sentiment. For the parables of Jesus are often exceptional in upsetting religious sensibilities, sometimes vague, and many times enigmatic in their detail and content.

The parable of the laborers in Matthew 20 serves as a case in point. A landowner hires laborers to work in his vineyard. They are hired throughout the workday and all the workers agreed to the wage of a denarius for a day’s work. The enigmatic and exceptional punch line to this story occurs when those who are hired at the very end of the day—in the last hour—are paid the same wage as those who worked all day long. The long-suffering laborers cry out, “These last men have worked only one hour, and you have made them equal to us who have borne the burden and the scorching heat of the day” (20:12). Those workers that were hired first are not paid any additional wage. The first are not first, in this story. Instead, the landowner replies with a radical reversal: the last shall be first, and the first last.

Not only is the conclusion to this story exceptional and enigmatic, it also seems wholly unfair. For how could those who worked so little be paid the day’s wage? Yet this upending of any sense of fairness is a recurring theme in other parables of Jesus. Indeed, the parable of the prodigal son in Luke 15, while a familiar story for many, functions in a similar manner and upsets our sense of what is fair and right, just as in the parable of the laborers.  A careful reading presents an extravagant display of grace towards all wayward sons and daughters, even as it illuminates a human parsimony with grace.

Jesus presented the story as a crowd of tax-collectors, sinners, and religious leaders gathered around him. All who listened had a vested interest in what Jesus might say. Some hoped for grace; while others clamored for judgment. “A certain man had two sons,” Jesus begins. The younger of the man’s two sons insists on having his share of the inheritance, which the father grants though the request violated the Jewish custom that allotted upon the death of the father a third of the inheritance to the youngest son.(1) With wasteful extravagance, the son squanders this inheritance and finds himself desperately poor, living among pigs, ravenous for the pods on which they feed. “But when he came to his senses” the text tells us, he reasons that even his father’s hired men have plenty to eat. Hoping to be accepted as a mere slave, he made his way home. “And while he was still a long way off, his father saw him, and felt compassion for him, and ran and embraced him” (Luke 15:20).

The religious leaders listening to Jesus might have gasped at this statement. How could the father extend such grace towards a son who disowned him and was so wasteful and wanton? The father’s action towards the son is truly prodigal; extending grace in an extravagant way, and upsetting every sense of justice and fairness for those hearing the story. His prodigal heart compels him to keep looking for his son—he saw him while he was still a long way off. And despite being disowned by his son, the father feels compassion for him. With wasteful abandon, he runs to his son to embrace him and welcome him home. The father orders a grand party for this son who has been found, “who was dead and has begun to live.”

The older brother in Jesus’s story provocatively gives voice to a deep sense of outrage.(2) In many ways, his complaint intones the same outrage of the laborers in the vineyard. “For so many years, I have been serving you and I have never neglected a command of yours….But when this son of yours came, who has devoured your wealth with harlots; you killed the fattened calf for him” (Luke 15:29-30). We can hear the implicit cry, “It’s not fair!” The text tells us that “he was not willing to go in” to the celebration. He will not hear the entreaty of his gracious father both to come in to the celebration and to recognize that “all that is mine is yours.” Just as in the parable of the laborers the last shall be first, and the first last.

While not vague in their detail or content, these two parables of Jesus are both exceptional and enigmatic. If we are honest, they disrupt a traditional sense of righteousness and of fairness. Both portraits of the prodigal father and of the landowner present a radical fairness of God. God lavishes grace freely on those often deemed the least deserving. Perhaps the sting of the exceptional and enigmatic aspects of these parables is felt deepest by those who see themselves beyond the need of grace.

Margaret Manning Shull is a member of the writing and speaking team at Ravi Zacharias International Ministries in Seattle, Washington.

(1) Cited in Mary Gordon, Reading Jesus: A Writer’s Encounter with the Gospels (New York: Pantheon, 2009), x.

(2) Fred Craddock, <i>Interpretation: A Bible Commentary for Teaching and Preaching</i> (Louisville: John Knox Press, 1990), 187.

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Ravi Zacharias Ministry – What Is Fair?

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“Instead of giving a firm foundation for setting the conscience of man at rest forever, Thou didst choose all that is exceptional, vague and enigmatic” rails Ivan Karamazov against God in Dostoyevsky’s classic work The Brothers Karamazov.(1) Those who encounter—or are encountered by—the parables and stories of Jesus often feel a similar sentiment. For the parables of Jesus are often exceptional in upsetting religious sensibilities, are sometimes vague, and are many times enigmatic in their detail and content.

The parable of the laborers, as told in Matthew’s gospel, serves as a case in point. A landowner hires laborers to work in his vineyard. They are hired throughout the work day and all the workers agree to the wage of a denarius for a day’s work. The enigmatic and exceptional punch line to this story occurs when those who are hired at the very end of the day—in the last hour—are paid the same wage as those who worked all day long. The long-suffering laborers cry out, “These last men have worked only one hour, and you have made them equal to us who have borne the burden and the scorching heat of the day.” Those workers that were hired first are not paid any additional wage. The first are not first, in this story. Instead, the landowner replies with a radical reversal: The last shall be first, and the first last.

Not only is the conclusion to this story exceptional and enigmatic, it also seems wholly unfair. For how could those who worked so little be paid the full day’s wage? Yet, this upending of any sense of fairness is a recurring theme in other parables of Jesus as well. Indeed, the parable of the prodigal son in Luke 15, while a familiar story for many, functions in a similar manner and upsets all expectations of what is fair and right, just as in the parable of the laborers. A careful reading presents an extravagant display of grace towards all wayward sons and daughters, even as it illuminates a human frugality with grace.

Jesus presented this story as a crowd of tax-collectors, sinners, and religious leaders gathered around him. All who listened had a vested interest in what Jesus might say. Some hoped for grace, while others clamored for judgment. “A certain man had two sons,” Jesus begins. The younger of the man’s two sons insists on having his share of the inheritance, which the father grants though the request violated the Jewish custom that allotted a third of the inheritance to the youngest son upon the death of the father.(1) With wasteful extravagance, the son squanders this inheritance and finds himself desperately poor, living among pigs, ravenous for the pods on which they feed. “But when he came to his senses” the text tells us, he reasons that even his father’s hired men have plenty to eat. Hoping to be accepted as a mere slave, he makes his way home. And while he was still a long way off, his father saw him, and felt compassion for him, and ran and embraced him.

The Pharisees in the crowd might have gasped at this statement. How could the father extend such grace towards a son so wasteful and wanton? Yet, this father is the true prodigal, extending grace in an extravagant way. His prodigal heart compels him to keep looking for his son—he saw him while he was still a long way off. And despite being disowned by his son, the father feels compassion for him. With wasteful abandon, he runs to his son to embrace him and welcome him home. The father orders a grand party for this son who has been found, “who was dead and has begun to live.”

The older brother in Jesus’s story provocatively gives voice to a deep sense of outrage.(2) In many ways, his complaint intones the same complaint of the laborers in the vineyard. “For so many years, I have been serving you and I have never neglected a command of yours… But when this son of yours came, who has devoured your wealth with harlots; you killed the fattened calf for him.”  We can hear the implicit cry, “It’s not fair!” The text then tells us that the older son was not willing to join the celebration. He will not hear the entreaty of his gracious father both to come into the celebration and to recognize that “all that is mine is yours.” Thus again, the last shall be first, and the first last.

While not vague in their detail or content, these two parables of Jesus are both exceptional and enigmatic. If we are honest, they disrupt our sense of righteousness and our sense of fairness. Both portraits of the prodigal father and of the landowner present the radical fairness of God. God lavishes grace freely on those we often deem the least deserving. But perhaps we feel the exceptional and enigmatic aspects of these parables most keenly when it is we who are seeing ourselves beyond the need of grace.

Margaret Manning is a member of the writing and speaking team at Ravi Zacharias International Ministries in Seattle, Washington.

(1) Cited in Mary Gordon, Reading Jesus: A Writer’s Encounter with the Gospels (New York: Pantheon, 2009), x.

(2) Fred Craddock, Interpretation: A Bible Commentary for Teaching and Preaching (Louisville: John Knox Press, 1990), 187.