The Other Side, May-June. With Eric Debode. 6 pp
THE PARABLES OF JESUS IN THE SYNOPTIC GOSPELS represent the very oldest traditions in the New Testament. Despite this (or perhaps because of it), our churches often handle these stories timidly, if they handle them at all. Perhaps we intuit that there is something so wild and subversive about these tales that they are better kept safely at the margins of our consciousness.
Many Christians simply ignore the parables, believing that Jesus’ teachings were eclipsed by later theological developments: either by his work on the cross (fundamentalists), or by Pauline doctrine (mainstream Protestants), or by the Church and its magesterium (Catholics), or by the Enlightenment (liberals). The parables are apprehended at most as quaint and poetic, but hardly relevant or substantive for Christian discipleship.
Full Article: Towering Trees and “Talented Slaves” SKU: 99-6-Pa
Ched Myers 