My Homepage

There are a thousand or more theories about Jesus' parables-what each one means,
and why it means what it does. I have not read all of the theories-no one has-but
quite a few of them. And they seem to keep coming, so just keeping up is not easy.

The preacher, though, faced with preaching a sermon on a particular parable, has
to come up with something to say about it. In front of this congregation at this
particular time, the preacher has to say the bottom line: here is what this parable
means; or here is what this parable is all about. The books are read. A dozen or
more different interpretations of it have been read from the commentaries or from
the various works on the parables themselves. Most preachers have a lot of such
books and are conscientious about trying to keep up.

It comes down, though, to the preacher saying, first to himself or herself: You
know, this is what I think the parable means. And then deciding to say that to the
congregation in this Sunday's sermon. "Let me tell you what I think this parable
means."

Is it possible that one could make a suggestion to the preacher, however, about
preaching a lot of the parables? Is it possible that, from the back pew, a tiny voice
with a timid hand raised, could make an observation?

Do you realize, preacher, that this parable does not make a lot of sense? I know you
have studied it, turned it over, flipped it sideways, folded its wings under and all
that, but when you really try to listen to it, it is not all that coherent-even then. One
of the problems that, as preachers, we are up against is that everything in the
Bible-including, or particularly, the parables-HAVE to make sense. It wouldn't be
in the Bible if it didn't make sense.

But these stories that we have which we call parables probably had a fairly long and
rocky history BEFORE they made it into the biblical writings. And while I am no
form scholar, what a number of the parables seem to show-even without the
blessing of scholarship-is that, first, they underwent a lot of change as they were
passed from place to place orally; and, second, that when it did come to the point of
someone writing them down, they were summarized, drastically shortened or
edited, in some cases with a brutal, if friendly, hand.

Read any of them aloud. How long did that take? Thirty seconds? A minute? Two
minutes? When the story was told, say, in front of a crowd of people, how long do
you think the telling of the story took? A minute? Two minutes? Not likely, wouldn't
you say? It took seven, eight, ten minutes, and probably much longer. The story
was "spun," not summarized.

Is it possible that, in both the transmission-like whispering a few lines around a
circle in the children's game-and in the summarizing, the story is reduced to a point
that makes it difficult to decipher? There is nothing particularly mysterious about
that, or how that happens. Nor is it difficult, knowing what we know about the
history of the biblical documents, to imagine this happening. And with the very best
of intentions all along the line.

What is interesting, and I think very important, is that many of the lay people to
whom we preach-active, thinking, more-skeptical-than-we-imagine people-know
when we read a parable that it doesn't make a lot of sense, in a lot of cases. They
hear what we read from the text. They then hear us struggle with our verbal
gymnastics to try to say why this story "makes perfect sense." It has a heavenly
meaning, and here it is. But the general appetite for such verbal games is not very
high these days.

Read Luke 16, verses one through nine. For every interpreter of this parable there
is a different interpretation. There has to be. Nothing will be agreed on here. And
every preacher gives it his or her best shot, too, when forced to preach on it.

There comes a time, in my judgment, for the preacher to go at the parables with a
kind of honest innocence. Not that one should not try to find something useful or
worthwhile in the biblical parables. One should. At the same time, though, one
should be very reluctant to try to impose meaning on something that clearly does
not want to "give up" very much coherent meaning.

One could avoid such parables, I understand; which, of course, is what many
thoughtful preachers do. But even that is probably not the best course. One CAN
and probably SHOULD take on the tough parables, the ones that the scholars over
hundreds of years have never reached a consensus on-and never will. There are
reasons for that, and they are not at all devious. The preacher should, on occasion,
handle certain texts-including many parable texts-as problems that cannot be
solved. That is just the way it is. I have my ideas about this parable; and all of you
here may form yours. But when it comes right down to it, we do not know what this
means.

For many people who hear us preach, such sermons are long overdue. They are
sermons of common sense, sermons of honesty, and sermons that engage everyone,
whether in pulpit or pew, in the task of confronting a biblical text together.

Some say such preaching will drive people out of the church. My proposal-and,
indeed, my experience-is quite the opposite. Many people will be drawn to just such
candor from the pulpit.

--Joseph M. Webb