WHY Did Jesus Speak In Parables?

Gisborne Herald, Volume LXVI, Issue 20014, 12 August 1939, Page 11

WHY Did Jesus Speak In Parables?

|M “Saturday Papers," T. R. Clover answers in an interest inti manner the question of why clicl Jesus speak in parables? Tie writes: “A scholar in New York was once talking to me on the tram about Jesus, and dropped the remark: ‘Jesus liked talking.’ A little irreverent? Well, a little unexpected, and from n new angle: but it set me thinking. Jesus did enjoy men, and He did enjoy exchange of mind; I cannot see very well how else He could enjoy them very much. Tails came naturally -a joyous oceiflow fworn happiness and aiToction, or, ,n more authorised words, ironi the abundance of the heart.’

“Jesus had the gift of conveying meaning as few have ever had it. and people grumbled that they did not know what He meant: why could He not be explicit and quit talking in parables?

Anybody could understand a sign from the sky! Scholars tell us that the parable, tiro apologue, was the Eastern way—witness Jotham’s story of the trees, Nathan’s tale of the ewelamb. No doubt; but Jesus was criticised as obscure: and I suspect He knew it and took the risk.

“Shakespeare lias, been accused of sluggishness in invention; he never made a plot for a pia.y if he could help it; he borrowed wherever he could, and (as Heine said) all lie did was 1o give what he borrowed the spirit that made it live. That was all! . Curious Parallel “Jesus, I think, borrowed stories and settings. The obscure episode of the servant cut in sunder, seems to come from a very old Aramaic tale. But things grow vivid when He looks at them. I would not say outright that Jesus borrowed from Eeclesiasticus, but in that book is a curious parallel to a famous parable.

“The author points out the folly of a rich man hoarding without a thought as to who will come after him —a fairly obvious reflection. 11l Jesus' hands it becomes a tale, and falls quickly into dramatic form. A rich man enters—-very prosperous; fresh from his steward and the accounts of his returns from field and farm, tie .soliloquizes: 'What can [ do? Pull down my barns, and build greater! And then I will say to my soul'—-mbi'e dialogue, and more .self-revelation--‘Soul, thou hast much

Contributed by the Ministers’ Association

goods laid up for many years; take thine case, eat, drink, and be merry.

A genial, successful, human sort ol person, whom we all would envy and perhaps would like —and for some reason we call him the Rich Fool. Yes, for suddenly, as we watch him and listen to him. we hear another voice, and are as startled ns he. He feels a little tap on the shoulder

he wheels quickly round—and there is God! He had forgotten God. Dramatic Question

“What in Eeclesiastieus was the commonplace observation of an ordinary moralist, is here a dramatic question from the lips of God Himself, a question crammed with .surprise and tragedy. And tragedy conveys meaning more lavishly than you think, or than the artist tells you.

“It has long since been pointed out that the fabric of the ‘Last Judgment’ was common properly—the usual stock effect of patriot and moralist —the judgment-seat, the judge, the right hand and the left, Jew on one side and Gentile on the other, nationality or merit the decisive issue.

“Jesus altered all that, and He has been misunderstood. Christians have nervously directed our attention to the borrowed fabric—throne, assize, and hell, and away from the mind of Jesus. Genius seems to involve an infinite liability to be misunderstood. The commonplace mind will always ignore irony, quotation, playfulness, every bright mode of

speech, and, when you arc desperately plain, it will credit v you with exactly the opinions you try to refute. “Then there is the story of Dives and Lazarus. Perhaps this, too, has a borrowed framework. It has certainly suffered from the literalists. What did Christ mean? Lazarus and

Abraham gravitate together, and the bad gravitate away from them. The great gulf is not, essentially, between heaven and hell; it is far more profound. Right and wrong go different ways for ever. That sort, of Dives makes hell wherever lie is: and Abraham and his like make heaven, and you cannot mix them. Jesus always bids us trust the great results of religious experience, jus.* as we trust weather-signs to tell Us the weather."