The Parables

Thursday, February 23rd, 2023

An effective teaching tool of Jesus’ were the parables. When the people He was engaged with couldn’t figure out the meaning of what was being taught, He would use parables to bring the Gospel truth into everyday life circumstances.

All 47 parables provoke us to look at our attitudes towards each other. Do we behave maturely and respectfully? Will everyone know that God really and truly lives amongst us?

This ‘looking’ sounds a little like Lent.

Parables are as ageless as they are contemporary. We’ve heard them many times yet some remain straight forward and others more complicated.

The unforgiving debtor (Matthew 18:21-35) simply asks: can we likewise play generosity forward when we didn’t protest when accepting another generosity.

The unscrupulous judge & the persistent widow (Luke 18:1-8) encourages us never to stop praying and hoping no matter the severity of being in a no-win situation.

The Good Samaritan (Luke 10:25-37) directly states to do the right thing is often about slicing through prejudices, financial classes and warnings not to get involved. No time for any risk assessment.

I find myself slightly defensive with the parable about the vineyard workers. (Matthew 20:1-16) I say it’s unfair to give the same rate of pay regardless of hours worked. As an ex-union delegate, I would hope Jesus would be sitting on our workers side of the negotiating table, particularly presenting the argument for the living wage.

But the bottom line is this: – God’s indescribable graciousness is for all. God’s call to all, stretches right ‘across the board’. There’s no jostling for position whether we’ve lived the Gospel all our lives or at a deathbed conversion.

The most touchingly beautiful parable, is about God’s redeeming love contained in the parable of the prodigal son. (Luke 15:11-32)

At a family level, it’s about a father and his 2 sons, tough love, selfishness, growing up pains, integration, sibling rivalry, but above all, it’s about the ease with which God pardons.

One son asks for his inheritance. Heading off to live the high life in the big city, until that inevitable day arrives when there were insufficient funds. At the point of seeing what sin had turned him into i.e. acting like a pig – did he simultaneously come to realize that God’s forgiving love awaits him. In that moment he decides to head home.

The father didn’t drill about his bedraggled state, but rushes to greet him, embraces him, slips a ring on his finger, sandals on his barefeet, flings a robe over his shoulders and throws a party to celebrate.

“Bring the calf we have been fattening and kill it. We are going to have it to feast”.

I can smell that joint of meat on the spit – can you?

The other son catches up with these unfolding events when he hears music coming from the house. The reconciliatory party in full swing, he confronts his father demanding clarification. Fair enough I say, he’d kept the farm running while short staffed.

“I have slaved for you and never once disobeyed your orders, yet you never offered me so much as a kid for me to celebrate with my friends”. He protested.

“All I have is yours.” (Luke 15:31) the father says back to him.

The beautiful truth stares him in the face: the need to mature from believing that the ‘law brings reward’ mentality is enough to bring us to our truest inner self. It’s not! God’s gift of forgiveness is to be experienced. The difference between the 2 brothers is one had discovered this for himself and other had not.

You see, we are already God’s gift. This is not so much earnt through obedience to the law only, but discovering at that Easter weekend, how God has loved us right from the get go. Granting forgiveness isn’t solely about recognising how sin can turn us into a toxic human person, but that pardoning is so just so much greater.

It’s certainly not a mystery to knock our heads against, but one of entering into it.

So now, what about a prodigal mother and her 2 daughters. That’s for another time!

Sue Seconi – is a member of the Catholic Parish of Whanganui – Te Parihi Katorika Ki Whanganui
First published by Kotahi Ano. Reproduced with permission of the author.