In the weeks before
Advent, the Gospel lessons in Cycle A of the lectionary readings focus
on a series of parables. As we know from biblical archaeology and
textual criticism, much of the material in the Synoptic Gospels (Mark,
Matthew and Luke) and the Gospel of John was created by the early
church, and is not from the lips of Jesus. Mark, written
approximately 30 to 40 years after the death of Jesus, was used by
Matthew and Luke in constructing their own gospels. The Gospel of
Thomas, not included by the early church councils as part of the New
Testament Canon, is dated by some as coming from a period 15-25 years
after the death of Jesus. We now have a complete manuscript of
Thomas written in Coptic, the ancient Egyptian Language of the Coptic
Church. The striking thing about this early text is that it is a
list of sayings with radical and disturbing images, and no narrative
linkages. The earliest written sources appear to be lists of
sayings and deeds. The genius of Mark’s gospel is that it puts
together sayings, deeds and narrative material in one form of writing.
A copy of Mark’s gospel, along
with “Q”, a source for which we have no manuscript, was used by Matthew
and Luke (along with other oral and written materials) to construct
their gospels. John’s gospel represents a much later tradition,
and in style and content it is radically different from the
Synoptics. It reads like a Greek or Roman philosophical treatise,
using language and idioms coming directly from the Platonic and
Neo-Platonic tradition.
In short, biblical scholars
have known for centuries that the New Testament is as much a construct
of the early church as it is a witness to an historical Jesus.
However, there is amongst all biblical scholars, no matter their
theological stripe, agreement that at least the parable form goes back
to the lips of Jesus. If we want to experience the historical
voice of Jesus, as distinct from the witness of the early church, then
we can do no better than tuning to the structure of the parables.
II) The Parables: Radical Change,
Cosmic Reversal, The End of a World and Openness of the New Creation
Parables are a unique form of speech,
common to the rabbinical teaching of Jesus time. They all have
elements of paradox and surprise, but the parables of Jesus appear to
be have a radical and disruptive edge that runs counter to the common
sense and religious understanding of his time.
In the parable in Matthew’s
Gospel for Sunday November 6th, we encounter a later editing over of an
original radical structure of surprise at the unexpected arrival that
overcomes the normative or usual practice. The changes to this
parable made by the early church are obvious, and have to do with
making sure that the hearer identifies from the beginning who is
foolish and who is wise. The wise bridesmaids have oil for their
lamps, while the foolish have none; they have, in other words, useless
lamps. It would be obvious and totally ridiculous for the first
hearers of this parable that anyone would have such a lamp without
oil. No one at the time would go without oil, unless they could
afford neither the oil nor the lamp. The usual action of a parable in
reversing expectations is lost by the introductory explanation.
This explanation is a later addition to a parable that keys into the
experience of the unexpected arrival of a bridegroom. The coming
of the Holy in Jesus’ parables is always in the night or as a reversal
of expectations or even religious custom.
What the church did with Jesus’
original parabolic structure was to indicate that those who followed
after Jesus are those who are prepared to receive the holy
surprise. Jesus spoke the parables to bring into people’s
experience the surprise of the Holy. He was not speaking to a
Church already prepared to receive, but rather to a people
searching. In other words, he was giving to his hearers the
experience that would lead to the creation of the church that would
prepare itself for the surprise, not to those who had already
experienced and knew the nature of the holy surprise!
The spiritual form of the
parable is to reverse and release us (the hearer) from all that holds
us (or that we hold onto) that prevents us from receiving the new
creation, God’s gift given in each moment as a new world. The
parables in this week's and last week's lectionary may not go back to
the Jesus of History, but they do have a structure that reveals the
surprise and radical nature of the Holy Event Jesus wished to bring
into people's consciousness.
In the gospel parable for the
week of November 13th, this action of the “holy surprise” of God’s
grace is strongly linked to the overarching idea of the “end” of a
world. The theological language for this is Eschatology, meaning
"end times." The structure of a parable has the impact on its
hearers—those who receive it rather than trying to explain it away—of
ending the way the hearer looks at the world. It reverses all
expectations about the way things are, and introduces a possibility for
the advent of a new way of being in a world. The parable of the
talents, seen as not authentically from the lips of Jesus in its
present form, shows signs of this radical reversal. The servant
who is damned at the end of the parable is the one who behaved in a way
that would commonly be understood as correct and ethically well
founded. To bury the talents in the ground would have been
understood as the only legitimate behaviour. It should have been
rewarded.
This parable reverses common
sense, and its message is about being open to such radical reversals,
allowing the newness of every human experience, every day, to be
greeted as a new creation and a new possibility for human love, care
and creativity. The parable ends a world, the world that is
controlled or expected, and gives birth to new hope and possibility
that are not contained by past expectations.
The greatest mistake made in
theology and by the church was to make the “eschatological” vision of
Jesus into a prediction about the end of history and creation.
The frightening aspects of this bad theology have come in the acts of
terror committed by Christians and others in their attempts to speed up
the end of history in order that they will receive their reward as true
believers. This theology, now prevalent in North American
Fundamentalism, appears to be the opposite of what the parables of
Jesus might bring to someone attentive to their structure and
power. Yes, they shatter the hearer’s world. This
shattering is of religious and secular expectations that history is
meant for a spiritual elect.
The parables shatter our
arrogance in assuming “we” are the elect and open us to receive a new
creation that is constructed by God’s compassion, justice and love for
all human kind and the whole of creation. The parables of Jesus
do not give us the inside track, or reveal to us the day and the hour
of the end of history. Rather, they liberate us into a grace that
comes anew every instant. The new world the parables announce is
one of living open to each moment as a gift, and every person as The
Christ coming to meet us. Eschatology is realized when we allow
the parable of Jesus to awaken us to the beauty born anew, even as we
mourn the loss of past beauties. Parables can bring us into the
presence of God by releasing us from the arrogance and rigidity of
religions of certainty, into the Holy Way of God’s amazing and
surprising grace. Parable moves us from certainty to surprise,
and from expectation to hope.
For your further reading:
John Dominic Crossan. Jesus: A Revolutionary Biography.
(Harper, San Francisco, 1995). This is still the best and most
easily read book on the historical Jesus. Crossan remains the
greatest living Jesus Scholar.
John Dominic Crossan. The Birth of Christianity.
(Harper,San Francisco, 1999). This is the best introduction to
how the church was born.
John Cobb. Becoming a Thinking Christian.
(Abingdon Press, 1993). John was my teacher of theology.
This is a very helpful guide to thinking, scholarship and faith.
John Cobb. Progressive Christian’s
Speak. (Westminister John Knox Press, 2003). John
co-founded the progressive Christian organization in the USA. It
now has a Canadian network found at http://www.progressivechristianity.ca.