The chapter "The Message of the Parables" has a first half that is exploring the meaning of "parables" and the second half examines three specific parables from St. Luke. It is an important chapter, but it is important to remember that Pope Benedict wrote in his forward that this book is "solely an expression of my personal search 'for the face of the Lord.'" The reason I remind readers of this quote before discussing this chapter is that the Pope is rightly concerned with scholarly methodologies that are in favor during various times, some of them quite harmful because they are misleading due to insufficient context of faith or understanding of the Old Testament context of Jesus' actions. However this means that Benedict, in his own search, is not structuring this chapter to just be plain spoken interpretations of the parables. He goes into interesting analysis of what is an allegory and what is a parable, and all the "cousins" (my word for it) of stories that people tell: "riddle, similitude, fable, proverb, apocalyptic revelation, riddle, symbol, pseudonym, fictitious person, example (model), theme, argument, apology, refutation, jest..." He goes through all this analysis of what "literary type" and "genre" the parables of Jesus falls into because that's what so many scholars dispute over in their analytical approach to comprehending the words of Jesus. Any plain spoken non scholarly person (like all of the people who gathered to listened to Jesus at the time he spoke) can tell you the problem with that... Jesus spoke the way he did in order to, as Benedict later writes in this chapter:
By means of parable he brings something distant within their reach so that, using the parable as a bridge, they can arrive at what was previously unknown (page 192.)
This is one of the most of many illuminating statements in Benedict's book. I think that if those who are reading "Jesus of Nazareth" and also deepening their understanding of the parables and other sayings of Jesus, to view each parable as this bridge is immensely illuminating.
I am reminded of a bold friend of mine, who is very feisty in personality in both raising her children to adulthood as a single parent, creating and running several of her own businesses, being a landlord, and even packing a truck and driving cross country with it many times, in bad weather and road conditions. Not much scares her until we came to a tourist site outside of Taos, which is a bridge over the Rio Grande gorge. People would park their cars and walk out onto the bridge to look into the gorge and let me tell you, brothers and sisters, it's a view that is dramatic and a long way down. She would not come out onto that bridge to look. She'd drive over it in a truck without a second thought, but she could not on foot come onto the bridge and look, being very squeamish about heights. Jesus' parables are like that. They are all bridges to what is unknown. Some of them are easy boardwalk foot paths a few feet off of the ground, showing close up sights that one would not otherwise see. But for some people, certain parables are terrifying in the full potential of what they reveal, like that bridge over the Rio Grande for my friend. While others of us were thrilled to see a sight (for free) that is of an amazing river and canyon, she stuck close to the car and like some of the disciples told Jesus "this is hard to hear." Benedict wrote a great first half explanation to this chapter, and the crowning glory of the chapter is this analogy that he uses about the bridge. But if I were writing a prayer book or book of explanation of the parables of Jesus, I'd use that bridge analogy throughout and skip over all the scholarly methodology disputes. However, this was not the purpose of Benedict's book, because he is "putting straight" (my words) the problems with many of the "scholarly" methodologies and so he gives them a lot of "shelf space" in this book, and this chapter.
So I wanted to point out for you the money quote, the great summarizing statement, the flash of insight of this chapter, which is the bridge statement on page 192, that I highlighted.
Benedict then analyzes three parables from Luke: The Good Samaritan, The Prodigal Son, and The Rich Man and Lazarus. His analysis and illumination of the first two parables, The Good Samaritan and The Prodigal Son, are wonderful. He approaches them full of cultural and faith context, and gives them such a fine treatment that indeed you feel that you have gone "across that parable bridge" along with him and now understand the "previously unknown" that Jesus presents in these parables. I agree with him wholeheartedly and find that he takes a full yet correctly directed view of the people and messages in this parable.
I was disappointed, however, although not surprised, that Benedict is not able to do the same with his discussion of the third parable, The Rich Man and Lazarus. He starts out strong in context, but then loses the path over the bridge by trailing off into the side trails of excessive symbolism. And I understand why, as I've often preached this parable (and readers will see that I've dealt with it in detail previously in this blog) and found that this is the parable bridge that is for many people, the one "hard to hear," the "scary view deep into the Rio Grande gorge right under one's feet." When you read this part of the chapter, his treatment of this parable, you'll see immediately what I mean. Now, I'm not saying the Pope is afraid of the bridge that this parable reveals, far from it. But he is part of the overall society that pulls back from speaking some of the plain truth harshness about the reality of heaven and hell that Jesus had to preach. The Pope is a loving man and far from being a "rottweiler " he pulls back from "hurting" people by really explaining the deep, dangerous, and dizzying view that is seen on that parable bridge. That is exactly what makes the parable all the more important to understand, and not to try to mitigate and dilute its message by using touchy feely symbolism. It's important to realize this: Whenever Jesus speaks of heaven and hell, of salvation or of being lost, he is not using fictional symbolism. If he says that Lazarus is in the arms of Abraham, he means that Lazarus is in the arms of Abraham. It's fine to read all sorts of meaning into the use of the words "arms" by looking at other times that arms indicate the presence of God, but not to then conclude that the actual holding of Lazarus by Abraham is an analogy. And I was a little shocked that the Pope too quickly offers the "in case the reader is too uncomfortable with this message" lifeline that maybe Jesus was speaking of purgatory (Protestant friends ought to agree with this gleefully, since they are always pointing out that purgatory is not mentioned by name in the Bible.) I flat out disagree with Benedict's interpretation of this parable from page 215-216. He's not a hell and brimstone kind of guy, our Pope Benedict, but he needs to be more open to when Jesus was, through need, when needed, a hell and brimstone kind of preacher. If you don't look at that bridge and see it for what it is, especially if the message is "hard," then one is almost guaranteed to fall, because one avoids the warning of an unpleasant and very real consequence.
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
No comments:
Post a Comment