Jesus’s Truth: Life in Parables

By Yung Suk Kim

Parables of Jesus are stories about everyday life, ranging from a person's worldview to economic justice in society. This book examines most parables of Jesus from a critical literary perspective. Twenty-three narrative parables in the Synoptic Gospels are rearranged by their source: Markan parables, Q parables, Matthean unique parables, Lukan unique parables. Each parable invites readers to reengage Jesus's stories in the contemporary world.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Resource Publications
• Release date: Jan 10, 2018
• ISBN: 9781532643996

Yung Suk Kim

Yung Suk Kim is professor of New Testament and early Christianity at Samuel DeWitt Proctor School of Theology, Virginia Union University. Kim is the author of numerous books, including How to Read Paul: A Brief Introduction to His Theology, Writings, and World (2021); Christ’s Body in Corinth: The Politics of a Metaphor (2008); and Toward Decentering the New Testament (Cascade, 2018; co-authored with Mitzi J. Smith). He also edited 1–2 Corinthians: Texts @ Contexts (2013).

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Jesus’s Truth

Life in Parables

by Yung Suk Kim

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Jesus’s Truth

Life in Parables

Copyright ©

2018

Yung Suk Kim. All rights reserved. Except for brief quotations in critical publications or reviews, no part of this book may be reproduced in any manner without prior written permission from the publisher. Write: Permissions, Wipf and Stock Publishers,

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Table of Contents

Title Page

Acknowledgements

Chapter 1: Introduction

Establishing the Original Parables of Jesus

Chapter 2: Markan Parables

Sower

Seed Growing Secretly

Mustard Seed

Tenants

Budding Fig Tree

Chapter 3: Q Parables in Matthew and Luke

Leaven

Lost Sheep

Entrusted Money

Chapter 4: Matthean Unique Parables

Wheat and Weed

Treasure

Pearl

Vineyard Workers

Unmerciful Servant

Two Sons

Great Banquet

Ten Virgins

Chapter 5: Lukan Unique Parables (I)

Good Samaritan

Rich Farmer

Father and Two Sons

Chapter 6: Lukan Unique Parables (II)

Unjust Steward

Rich Man and Lazarus

Unjust Judge and Widow

Pharisee and Tax-Collector

Bibliography

Acknowledgements

This book is the result of years of studying and teaching of Jesus’s parables. I thank all my students at Samuel DeWitt Proctor School of Theology at Virginia Union University for their diligent study and engagement with my teaching. Through numerous classes taught here, I have become very much motivated to write a new book on the parables of Jesus, which challenge our world today. I also give thanks to the faculty and staff in this great institution. Our new Dean, Dr. Corey Walker, is very supportive my work, and I thank him for his lead and service to our school. I also give special thanks to my colleagues in biblical studies department: Dr. Boykin Sanders and Dr. Robert Wafawanaka. I love their genuine collegial care and support for my life and research. I feel so great and honored to work in this beloved community. I also give my special thanks to Professor Larry Welborn at Fordham University for his sharing of wisdom in New Testament studies and his encouragement to my work. Above all, I cannot forget my wife, Yong-Jeong’s sacrifice and love for our family. I also give my special thanks to my daughters (Hyerim, Hyekyung, and Hyein) and my son-in-law (Alex) who are all very supportive of me.

1

Introduction

Allegorical interpretation deprives us of the true meaning of a parable by spiritualizing it. Allegory, derived from allegorein (meaning to speak differently), is a way of reading the text by focusing not on the internal story but the hidden spiritual meaning. In doing so, what readers do typically is to make a one-to-one correspondence between story and particular outside the story. This allegorical interpretation has been popular with the Alexandrian School (Clement, Origen, and Augustine). In the parable of Samaritan (Luke 10:25-37), the allegorical matchings go like this: Jerusalem as Paradise; Jericho as world; a robbed person as Adam; robbers as evil; priest as the law; Levite as prophets; the good Samaritan as Jesus; injury as disobedience; donkey as Jesus’s body; inn as church; the innkeeper as bishop of the church; and the promise of return as the second coming of Jesus. We can hardly think that Jesus applied himself to a Samaritan as in allegorical interpretation. Rather, we can read this parable as a story and wonder why first two religious leaders pass by without helping the needy person. They also have to think about the third person, who is not an ordinary Jewish person but a despised foreigner who need not respond to the needy person from the perspective of Jews. He could pass by without looking at this man robbed, but he stopped by and did everything he could to help him. Hearers must grapple to understand the act of this man from Samaria, a district of contempt by Jews. Who is this guy? He was not considered a neighbor by Jews. But he became a neighbor to them. This mysterious act and presence of the Samaritan raise a metaphorical imagination to hearers.¹ How can a Samaritan become a neighbor? From a traditional perspective of Jews, the neighbor is found among themselves. But the Samaritan became a neighbor to a person in need.

Another famous parable of Jesus, the father and two sons (Luke 15:11-34), also has been read allegorically. Namely, the older son/brother represents Jews, the younger son/brother represents newly converted Gentile sinners, and the father represents the compassionate God. So much so, the older brother/son is blamed for his narrow mindset, and his father welcomes the younger brother/son because of his repentance. But inside the parable, there is no such clue that this story is understood with such representative interpretation. Rather, this story is taken from everyday life where Jesus emphasizes the importance of mercy and forgiveness in God’s rule. Hearers must wonder about the status of a dysfunctional family and the ideal role of each member in eventual reconciliation. Here the metaphorical link is found between God’s rule and home. ² In what way can home be restored to that rule of God so all members are reconciled with each other? What does each person in the family must do toward that goal of peace and reconciliation? This small dysfunctional family is like a broken rule of God in the world.

To avoid allegorical interpretation, we need to put a parable in context. Parables appear both in the Hebrew Bible and the New Testament. The Hebrew mashal means to represent or to be like. Mashals in the Hebrew Bible include: Jotham’s mashal of the trees (Judg 9:7-15), Nathan’s mashal of the poor man’s only lamb (2 Sam 12:14), Jehoash’s mashal of the thistle (2 Kgs 14:9), Isaiah’s mashal of the vineyard (Isa 5:16), and Ezekiel’s mashal of the vine and the eagle (Ezek 17:1-24). In the New Testament, Jesus also tells many parables preserved in the Synoptic Gospels (the Gospel of Thomas, an apocryphal gospel, also contains parables).

The word parable comes from the Greek parabole, which means to be cast alongside.³ This word has two parts: para meaning alongside and bole meaning to be cast. So it is a story cast alongside of life for the sake of leading the audience to see something differently.⁴ A parable is a fictional story that employs daily lives and challenges hearers to see beyond their customary views of the world.⁵ C. H. Dodd succinctly defines a parable: At its simplest the parable is a metaphor or simile drawn from nature or common life, arresting the hearer by its vividness or strangeness, and leaving the mind in sufficient doubt about its precise application to tease it into active thought.⁶ Similarly, Dodd emphasizes both vividness and strangeness of a parable through which hearers grapple with an effectively applicable meaning of the parable. All the parables of Jesus are taken from the everyday life: ranging from farming to social life. The parable of the sower is so vivid that hearers can imagine that story as theirs. The parable of the vineyard laborers also reflects the very reality of an economic life in the community. The parable of the leaven is also realistic in ways that people can visualize the process of bread making by a woman. With this vividness of a parable, readers are given the opportunity to rethink what it means to live as God’s people or how they can live out the rule of God. The strangeness of parable subverts, shatters and reconstructs the hearers’ worldview. In the parable of the leaven, there is strangeness because leaven is usually perceived as something corrupt or the seed of evil, as it is associated with a swollen corpse in the street. But Jesus uses it as a metaphor and emphasizes the importance of hidden service or hidden potential in the rule of God. In the parable of the vineyard laborers as well there is strangeness because all workers receive the same amount of a usual daily wage. In this story, Jesus challenges hearers to rethink justice in the community and consider the need for others. He knows how to capture hearers’ attention and how to challenge their lives to accept and live with the rule of God in the here and now. His pedagogical style is not didactic but invitational. He does not tell them what to do but invites them to engage with the story. In other words, he never explains the meaning of a parable.⁷

Because of the parable’s nature, it has double-entendre. On the one hand, readers may find parables easy to understand because they are taken from everyday life. However, they are very difficult to understand because parables involve figurative language which needs careful attention and skill from the reader. In the parable of the sower (Mark 4:1-20; Matt 13:3-23; Luke 8:5-15; Thom 9), there are at least four metaphors we have to interpret: the sower, soil, the seed, and the harvest. The interpretive task and question are how can we relate God’s intent with each of these metaphors? How can we understand a link between God’s sovereign rule and metaphorical language? It is like swimming on the surface of a deep sea where we have to decide what to do and how to explore the depths of such a place.

A parable is open-ended, and readers must come up with their responses to it. The case is found in the parable of the father and two sons (Luke 15:11-32). The story ends where the father explains to his older brother why he welcomes his younger son. Otherwise, hearers do not know what will happen to this dysfunctional family in the parable. Will this older brother enter his house and talk to his younger brother? Will all of them in the family reconcile with each other eventually? The parable does something to readers/hearers who may re-create their transformative stories through God’s presence in the here and now.

Establishing the Original Parables of Jesus

The parable of the lost sheep is found in Matthew and Luke (Matt 18:12-13; Luke 15:46; Thom 107). Though we do not know exactly in which context Jesus spoke this parable, what is obvious is that this parable was edited by both Matthew and Luke in their own ways to fit into their theological agendas. While Matthew interprets the lost sheep as one of these little ones, Luke reads it in connection with a sinner.⁸ In Matthew’s vision of God’s rule, the least is greater than the prophet (Matt 11:11). Luke, however, uses the same parable of Jesus to support his theology that repentance is more important than anything else. But the parable proper is not about repentance. The parable is a story about the lost sheep, which is found by the shepherd. Indeed, the lost sheep cannot repent either. Nevertheless, Luke reads this parable proper in light of its theology of repentance.

Obviously, we cannot know for sure the original form of Jesus’s parable. However, it is not impossible to get close to it if we remove later coloring by the evangelists. The bare fact story goes like this: Once upon a time, a shepherd had a hundred sheep. Suddenly, he lost one sheep. Then, what would he do? Leaving the ninety-nine, would he not make any and every effort to find it? In a way, not all shepherds can follow the logic of this story because one sheep can be lost and given up in some situations; the culture says the ninety-nine are more important than the one lost. In light of Jesus’s storytelling technique characterized by vividness and strangeness, this parable of the lost sheep must be Jesus’s. He seems to prefer wholesomeness or completeness even if the ninety-nine might be temporarily jeopardized to achieve that.

If we do not separate the later Matthean addition from the parable of talents in Matt 25:14-30, the message of Jesus would be very confusing or morally dangerous to hearers because the one who is given one talent is harshly punished. So much so, some scholars argue that the master in this parable is evil. He is a tyrant in society who maximizes his profit by harshly managing his slaves.⁹ But I do not concur with that reading. In my reading, the master is a good one. The problem is that people read the whole text (Mt 25:14-30) as Jesus’s parable. To illustrate, I like to use my experience with one of my friends, who asked me about the perplexity of this parable because