The Parables of Jesus: Are They Some Kind of a Joke?

Approximately one third of the “teachings” of Jesus recorded in the Gospels are identified as “parables”. However, it is arguable that many of the recorded words - and even acts - of Jesus, though not identified as such, could also be considered parabolic. For instance, many of the teachings of Jesus in the Gospel of John, which does claim a single “parable”, might actually be better understood if we heard them as “parables”. But what are “parables”?

First, the English word “parable” comes to us directly from the Greek utilized by the writers of Christian scripture. The prefix of the word - “para” - means in Greek, as it does in English, “beside” as in being along or to the side of something. Think of parallel lines beside each other or of the paranormal being something which is not exactly a straight-forward way of looking at normality. Paraphrase, paradox, and paramount can all be understood in similar ways. The root of the word - actually “bol” in the Greek - eventually evolves into the English word “ball” as in baseball or basketball or football. However, in Greek the word leans more toward being a verb than a noun. It implies the tossing or throwing of something.

[Just a brief aside here as the Greek word which, somewhat misleadingly, gets translated as the “coming of Jesus” - leading, often unfortunately, to some cataclysmically cosmic understandings of some “Second Coming of Jesus” - is “paraousia”. The root of this word - “ousia” - a word which occupied a good deal of the thought which brought about the faith of Nicaea, identifies the essential substantial being of something (thus the Creed’s claim that Jesus is of One Being - ousia -with the Creator God). Thus, the “paraousia” of Jesus refers less to some “coming” of Jesus as it does to us coming to a realization that the essential substantial being of God in Christ is already and always standing right beside us.]

Parables, as such, are something which are thrown to the side of us, off to the side along or beside us. What this implies is that if we listen to parables looking for some straight-forward meaning in them, we are not very likely to hear them for what they are trying to get us to hear or see. Jesus’ use of parables may well be about trying to get us to turn our gaze from the common straight-forward ways of thinking and understanding by which we want to define, well, just about everything. So, as we listen and consider and investigate the parables of Jesus, let us first ask our selves what there is in them which makes us turn our head simply because there are elements which make very little if not absolutely no sense whatsoever.

To initiate this consciousness within us, let us consider just a few of the shorter parables of Jesus and identify those elements of these stories which are so askew that we might be tempted to think that Jesus is just telling jokes.

“Who out of you, having one hundred sheep and losing one from them, is not abandoning the ninety-nine in the wilderness and goes for the lost one until it is found?” Frankly, this is crazy. There could not have been a shepherd among Jesus’ listeners who would have taken this advice sitting down. And any person actually paying shepherds to tend their sheep would instantly fire them for risking losing the whole flock to the wiles of the wilderness for the sake of a single one. We need to irrationality of Jesus’ words or perhaps the angered frustration they raise for us before we can even begin to see what he is tossing to draw our attention away from only that which is foremost in our minds.

Or again. “The kingdom of heaven can be likened to somebody who had sown good seed in their field…” This parable continues with an acknowledgment that weeds appeared in the midst of the growing wheat. Those apparently entrusted with the care of the field inquired somewhat incredulously about where the weeds had come from and if perhaps there was an expectation to extract the weeds. Right here, if you have had any experience in gardening, you are undoubtedly beside yourself - which may be a good thing providing you can get out of your own way to actually see what Jesus might be tossing beside you as well. Otherwise, the parable’s conclusion, wherein the landlord prohibits the would-be gardeners from weeding the field lest the wheat itself be torn from the ground as well, will send you into absolute conniptions. Whatever this is about, it is not about a straight-forward means of caring for what we think should be taking root among us.

Then, again, Jesus tells us that heavenly blessedness among us can be likened to somebody who, hiring a group of people to work a vineyard at the typical daily wage, continues to sporadically send additional workers to the vineyard 3 hours, 6 hours, 9 hours, and even 11 hours after the initial workers. After what must have been an incredibly long 12 hour work day for the original hirelings, those who worked a mere hour are paid the usual daily wage. The other’s were already spending in their minds the windfall of an early Christmas bonus when they are handed the usual daily wage. Frankly, the only way we can begin to catch any glimpse of what Jesus is tossing beside us here is to throw out all the common scales of justice and fairness which, again, frankly, if we’re honest, we are perpetually packed and ready to fire on if our sensibilities about such are slighted in the least possible way. And these words of Jesus are way beyond any minor affront to these values of ours.

Rarely, only twice, do the Gospels provide a supposed explanation to any of the parables Jesus tells. Personally, I am with the biblical scholars who suggest that these “explanations” are quite possibly embellishments added by the later church through the composers of those Gospels. Jesus just seems too fond of concluding his parables and teachings with an insistent spirit that those who have ears should listen attentively to what has been said without benefit of an explanation. In the two cases where an explanation does follow, the attempts at establishing meaning are so analogically straight-forward as to actually betray the confounding bewilderment of the initial words Jesus throws at us. That these may be later glosses added by our Christian forbears, I believe, should be a powerful witness to how we, like them, can become so desirous of having certitude (and control) over the great mystery we are confronted with in Christ, that it becomes all too easy for us to oversimplify and dumb down the all-encompassing challenge of changing our perspectives to listen for and see those things which will bring us all lovingly closer to the mind of Christ and the heart of God and to one another. However, let’s give some slight possibility that the explanations may well be from the mouth of Jesus. If so, I can see the explanations, for the way in which the analogies given do not really hold together in any actual consistent way, as in no way actually illustrative of the parables they supposedly explain. Rather, the explanations might better be seen as entirely new parables in and of themselves. Understood as such they become akin to Jesus saying, “So, y’all want straight-forward explanations for matters that are and never will be exactly straight-forward? OK, let me throw these equally puzzling, inconsistently rich analogies across the path y’all seem hell-bent to travel on.” The great mysteries, among them life, love, and God, can never be controlled or fuller understood by any kind of straight-forward thinking. They can only be riskily embraced by an equally mysterious act of trust or not at all.

The apparently intentional inexplicable nature of Jesus’ parables may well be compared to jokes in at least one very significant way: something is undoubtedly lost if we need to have them explained. There really is no point in either giving or receiving any fool-proof explanations to the parables of Jesus. Afterall, perhaps like songs or poems, at different times and in different places in our lives, we may well hear something radically different beckoning to us every time we hear them. Perhaps they are at their best when they are blessedly beyond any definitive explanation.