Posted by Jason on: 06.16.2008 /
Last week Mike asked who we thought Jesus was as a man. We just don’t have enough evidence to make a fair assessment but a few points came out. One thing I mentioned was that Jesus taught through stories. There are over 30 parables, many deal with worldly matters like the parables of the Good Samaritan or the Prodigal Son. Others, like as the parables of the Drawing in of the Net or the Pearl, deal with the idea of heaven as a reward or example.
I love stories. I love reading them, I love listening to them, I love telling them. We have a long walk to school each morning and sometimes tell each other stories on the way. A bag blown in the wind becomes a blue cloaked witch, a red car becomes a fire breathing dragon or a dog comes a dancing bear in a story. We take turns telling the story, asking questions about the witch or the bear or the dragon, each of us adding a part. It’s a way to pass the time and make the walk more interesting.
Beyond being entertaining stories can also be educational. Some of my favourite complex ideas are made accessible through stories. Attempting to illustrate a problem with the Copenhagen interpretation of quantum mechanics Erwin Schrödinger used the story of a cat in a box that could be either dead or alive (or simultaneously both) in his thought experiment. The story simplifies a very complicated idea and makes it interesting and easy to explain. Einstein’s train (or tram) is another example.
The problem with teaching in stories is that they mean different things to different people. To one person Romeo and Juliet might be a romantic tale of love, to another it might be about two families keeping lovers apart, to a third it might be about the folly of youth and the foolishness of suicide. We interpret stories in relation to our own lives and apply their lessons in ways that make sense to us. That’s why reading a story for the first time elicits one response but reading it again might provide another.
I suppose that’s also what makes stories so compelling and, by extension, what makes Jesus’ parables so compelling. Indeed viewing the life of Jesus as a story is an education in itself. It’s entertaining and sometimes enlightening but, like all stories, open to interpretation. For me, as an atheist, I find that I can gain an appreciation for life and for compassion from Jesus and the stories surrounding him. I don’t have to believe that they are real to do so. Equally I don’t have to reject the lessons because I think that they are nothing more than stories.
Update:
I’ve added my own interpretation of the Parable of the Guests to Bill’s Friendly Christian site. I wonder how much it differs from the interpretation that a Christian might offer.
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Comment by: Mike O
1 06/16/08 8:17 AM | Comment Link |I interpreted it exactly the same as you did. Humility and not seeking after recognition are the points of these two stories.
I also agree that he was taking a poke at the religous leaders, that they weren’t all they thought themselves to be - at least in God’s eyes.
Comment by: Jason
2 06/16/08 9:07 AM | Comment Link |Thanks Mike, did you take a look around on Bill’s site at all?
Comment by: Daniel Porter
3 06/16/08 2:23 PM | Comment Link |I must confess that I am a believing Christian (Episcopalian). I found your post excellent.
Dan Porter
Comment by: One Episcopalian
4 06/16/08 2:44 PM | Comment Link |I just posted this on my blog: http://www.one-episcopalian-on-faith.com/
If you haven’t discovered this site, click in and browse about. There are some very interesting posts. This one (above) caught my attention.
(Some excerpts)
Read this post in its entirety. Then take the time to browse the blog. Read the About page. Read several posts. Enjoy and learn.
Comment by: Ir (Helen)
5 06/17/08 4:45 AM | Comment Link |I love stories too, Jason, and part of what I love about them is that we are free to find our own meaning in them - if they are genuine stories rather than a moral/agenda-wrapped-in-a-narrative.
When my children were little I was intrigued to notice that British authors seemed much better at writing genuine stories than US ones. So many US books were atrociously (imo) moralistic/agenda driven. I didn’t want books to help my kids not be afraid of a younger sibling, potty training or their first day at school. Why even introduce the idea those were things they needed to fear? I just wanted to read them fun stories. I loved the Kipper stories - they were a fun discovery.
Anyway it took me longer to realize I also wanted to read genuine stories (again). For a long period of my adult life I didn’t - maybe because I’m too obsessive to read them as slowly as I had to when my children were younger and my reading to myself time was more divided into small pieces.
A few years ago I started reading fiction again - books which left me free to find my own meaning any way I wanted - and found that stimulating and enjoying. I also noticed that the Jewish and conservative Christian approaches to the Bible are different. Conservative Christians look for ‘the right answer’ (because it’s so eternally disastrous to get it wrong, probably). Jews have freeform discussion whose purpose seems to be learning and finding meaning rather than ‘finding the right answer’. In my experience they happily read between the lines finding alternate subplots and even plots. Years ago when I was a conservative Christian I visited a Jewish Bible study and was shocked to hear a woman wonder if Joseph was a flirt who led on Potiphar’s wife (the story blames it all on her). Now I look back and appreciate how she had freedom to do that and wish Christians had the same freedom with their sacred texts. Admittedly that was a fairly liberal group. But as long as we have records, it was the practice of Jewish teachres to make up stories that fit between the lines of the Bible text, that teach us something. The issue with them is “what can we learn from this?” not “is it true?”
Which I like, because we can never know for sure (imo) what’s true.
Assuming Jesus told the stories ascribed to him in the Bible, I think he did it to challenge peoples’ thinking, not to say “Here’s the ‘right answer’ but I’ll do all professional Christians a favor and wrap it in a story that you’ll need professionals to decode for you”. He didn’t seem to like the religious professionals of his day. Assuming he ‘encoded’ things in story so we’d be dependent on professionals to decode them seems to be the opposite of his desire to connect with ‘ordinary people’ and help them find what they needed in life.
Ok, now I’m off to read what you said on FC :)
Comment by: Jason
6 06/17/08 9:03 AM | Comment Link |Thanks for the comment Helen, I’ve been giving this particular parable some extra thought and I’m planning on revisiting it here on Monday.
I think like most people with kids I read an awful lot. Not just to escape them either. :) I used to vet my kids books but they read far too much for me to cope with that now. I still get to read with Al though. As he’s dyslexic we try to keep his interest in books by reading a page of an information book and discussing it. He’s an expert on 17th century man of war ships, dinosaurs (of course), the Orion nebula, the black death and a host of other topics but he has a lot of trouble reading about them. Instead he can cope with much simplet stories but they don’t interest him.
I’ve gone off at a bit of a tangent. Oh well.
Comment by: Mike O
7 06/18/08 7:08 AM | Comment Link |Not really - I read your post, but that’s about it.
Interesting points, Helen. You may be right.