“… and they all lived happily, for a while, after.” That’s how Jesus could have ended the Parable of the Dishonest Steward. A rich man gets a bad report – just a rumor, perhaps – about one of his estate managers and fires him. The employee makes a last-ditch effort to save himself from a life on the streets. He offers his soon-to-be-former clients some substantial debt relief. The master sees how happy his debtors now are and takes a... Read more
Jesus told a parable in which a widow crosses the boundaries of social acceptability and obtains justice from an unjust judge. That is the story, but that is not where the usual interpretation of the Parable of the Unjust Judge ends up. This is the tenth in a series of posts on the parables of Jesus, following William Herzog’s interpretive model of Jesus as “pedagogue of the oppressed.” Herzog interprets the Parable of the Unjust Judge, or Persistent Widow, in... Read more
“Translator, traitor.” The saying sounds better in Italian than in English, but it applies to the Parable of the Friend at Midnight equally well in either language. And so my two favorite newer Bible translations – NABR and NRSV – have to take a back seat to the old Confraternity edition. That’s if William Herzog in Chapter 11 of Parables as Subversive Speech is right about this parable. Jesus’ Parable of the Friend at Midnight gets its first interpretation by... Read more
The Parable of the Pharisee and the Publican occurs only in the Gospel of Luke. Prayer is a main theme of Luke’s, and this parable seems to be all about two ways of praying. There’s the humble prayer of the publican and the proud prayer of the Pharisee. Scholars believe that the Pharisee’s was a decent prayer in that story. He tells the truth about himself and the publican, as he sees it. With a touch of pride, perhaps, but... Read more
I always pitied the third servant in the Parable of the Talents, the one who got one talent from the master and buried it. Sure, he could have been more enterprising, like the other two servants. They got five and two talents and made five and two talents more. But he wasn’t a bad sort, just timid, not one who takes risks. He kept the money safe, didn’t lose a penny of it, and gave it all back when the... Read more
The crowd on Palm Sunday hailed Jesus as the new King David. Jesus twice (at least) laid to rest the idea that the Messiah would bring back the days of that famous king. Once it was in a provocative question: “David himself calls him [the Messiah] Lord; so how is he his son?” (Mark 12:37) Once it was by means of a parable, the subject of this post. Jesus disowns the popular conception of and hope for the Messiah. That,... Read more
In the Parable of the Rich Man and Lazarus, Jesus, the pedagogue of the oppressed, features a pedagogy of the oppressor. And this pedagogy fails: the rich man doesn’t learn. This post in a series on William Herzog’s Parables as Subversive Speech turns to his Chapter 7, “The Unbridgeable Chasm.” Previous posts in the series: William Herzog Reads Jesus’ Parables, Brings them Down to Earth Paulo Freire, the “Pedagogue of the Oppressed”: Is This a Good Fit for Jesus? Laborers... Read more
Sometimes in real life it’s hard to tell the good guys from the bad guys. It can be the same in a parable that Jesus tells. The Parable of the Wicked Tenants may be a story of the bad guys and the really bad guys – just like in real life. In a series of posts I’m thinking about Parables as Subversive Speech, following William Herzog’s book by that title. (See note below.) Previous posts in the series: William Herzog... Read more
Reading Parables as Subversive Speech, I’m letting William Herzog challenge my older reading of many of Jesus’ parables. Those down-to-earth stories might not be earthy metaphors for a far-off heaven, as often supposed. They could just be stories about day-to-day life on earth. The Parable of the Laborers in the Vineyard begins, “The kingdom of heaven is like….” But that may be the Gospel writer Matthew’s idea and not part of Jesus’ parable. Or, if it is, it might be... Read more
Pope Francis on Saturday spoke to a gathering of about 1000 young people in Assisi. Assisi is the Italian birthplace of St. Francis, the pope’s namesake. Pope Francis was in Assisi for the final day of a meeting of young peoples’ Economy of Francesco. The title of this article paraphrases what the pope said about the heritage young people are receiving. The Guardian quotes Pope Francis: Our generation has left you with a rich heritage, but we have not known... Read more
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