Lukes Artistic Parables

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2014 68: 403InterpretationMatthew S. Rindge

Luke's Artistic Parables: Narratives of Subversion, Imagination, and Transformation

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Interpretation: A Journal of

Bible and Theology

2014, Vol. 68(4) 403 –415

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DOI: 10.1177/0020964314540406

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Luke’s Artistic Parables: Narratives of Subversion, Imagination, and Transformation

Matthew S. RindgeGonzaga University, Spokane, Washington

AbstractLuke’s parables are narratives of disorientation that subvert conventional wisdom about many issues such

as the use of wealth and possessions. The parables use specific rhetorical strategies (character identification

and premature closure) in order to transform the lives of Luke’s readers/hearers.

KeywordsParables, Jesus, Gospel of Luke, Wealth, Possessions, Subversion, Character Identification, Imagination,

Rhetoric.

Introduction

Jesus was a storyteller. This perhaps obvious remark is worth noting because it is often overshad-

owed by other perceptions of Jesus—Messiah/Christ, Lord, Son of God, Savior, etc. But in the

beginning were the stories. Before all the titles attributed to Jesus and before the stories about him

were the stories he told. His storytelling is one of the relatively few things about Jesus—in addition

to his being Jewish and crucified—of which scholars are certain. The artistic nature of the parables

is a reminder that of the many legitimate titles given to Jesus, artist should be chief among them.

Following a pattern throughout much of the Hebrew Bible, stories were Jesus’ preferred vehicle

for speaking about life and humanity. The Synoptic Gospels (Mark, Matthew, and Luke) attribute

approximately forty-nine different stories (parables) to Jesus.1 About one-third of Jesus’ teaching in

Luke is in the form of parables. Luke’s Gospel has more parables than any other Gospel (between

thirty and thirty-four), and roughly half of these (between fourteen and eighteen) are unique to

1 Estimates vary between thirty-two and fifty-three, due to the different criteria used to determine what

constitutes a “parable.” See Arland J. Hultgren, The Parables of Jesus: A Commentary (Grand Rapids:

Eerdmans, 2000), 2–5.

Corresponding author:

Matthew S. Rindge, Associate Professor, Department of Religious Studies, Gonzaga University, Spokane, Washington.

Email: [email protected]

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404 Interpretation: A Journal of Bible and Theology 68(4)

Luke, not appearing in Mark or Matthew. This essay highlights some of the salient themes in many

of these unique parables in Luke.

Parables of Subversion

Although many people think of Jesus’ parables as stories that communicate a moral or a “heavenly

truth,” Jesus’ parables usually do the opposite. Far from inculcating morals, Jesus’ parables often

undermine them. They provoke rather than comfort, disturb rather than appease. John Dominic

Crossan describes parable as a narrative that subverts the world that is established by myth. He

outlines a spectrum of five different types of stories (Myth / Apologue / Action / Satire / Parable),

and notes their respective functions: “Story establishes world in myth, defends such established

world in apologue, discusses and describes world in action, attacks world in satire, and subverts

world in parable.”2 As Bernard Brandon Scott similarly writes, “The threat of the parable is that it

subverts the myths that sustain our world.”3 A myth, here, is understood as a narrative that provides

a community with meaning. Myths inscribe and enshrine a community’s core values. All commu-

nities—nations, religions, churches, and families—subsist on a steady albeit largely unconscious

diet of myths.

Luke’s parables shatter conventional myths. The parable of the Samaritan (Luke 10:30–35) is

a classic example.4 The parable is preceded and followed by this important dialogue (10:25–29,

36–37):

Lawyer: “Teacher, what might I do so that I will inherit eternal life?”5

Jesus: “What is written in the law? How do you read it?”

Lawyer: “You shall love the Lord your God from all your heart and with all your self and with all

your strength and with all your mind, and your neighbor as yourself.”

Jesus: “You answered correctly. Do this and you shall live.”

Lawyer: “And who is my neighbor?”

Jesus: (Parable of Samaritan)

“Which of these three—does it seem to you— became a neighbor to the one who fell upon

the bandits?”

Lawyer: “The one who showed him mercy.”

Jesus: “Go and you, you do likewise.”

2 John Dominic Crossan, The Dark Interval: Towards a Theology of Story (Niles, IL: Argus Communications,

1975), 9.

3 Bernard Brandon Scott, Hear Then The Parable: A Commentary on the Parables of Jesus (Minneapolis:

Fortress, 1989), 424.

4 See Matthew S. Rindge, “The ‘Good’ Samaritan,” Bible Odyssey (Society of Biblical Literature; June

2014) http://bibleodyssey/passages/main-articles/good-samaritan.

5 Unless otherwise indicated, all translations of biblical texts are my own.


http://bibleodyssey/passages/main-articles/good-samaritan


Rindge 405

The presence of the Samaritan in the parable Jesus tells subverts two conventional perceptions

among ancient Jews and contemporary Christians. Some cultural context is necessary to appre-

ciate this subversion. Samaritans were ethnic and religious outcasts to many first-century Jews.

Descended from intermarriage between Israelites and foreigners, Samaritans were only part Jewish.

They were “Mudbloods,” to use J. K. Rowling’s phrase.6 Religious differences between Samaritans

and Jews were significant. Samaritans regarded only the five books of the Torah as “canonical,”

and they had their own version of these texts (the Samaritan Pentateuch). Samaritans worshipped in

their own temple at Mount Gerizim rather than in Jerusalem (see John 4:20). Moreover, acts of vio-

lence occurred between Jews and Samaritans (Josephus, Ant. 11.174; 20.118–36; J.W. 2.232–46);

John Hyrcanus and a group of Jews destroyed the Samaritan temple in 129/8 B.C.E. (Josephus, Ant.

13.254–56; J.W. 1.62–63).7

In light of the preceding dialogue, the parable upends the belief that eternal life is the exclu-

sive privilege of one’s own religious or ethnic community. The character who inherits eternal life

(because of his love for the needy man) is the ethnic/religious outsider and enemy. Potentially

disturbing as well is the tacit claim that the priest and Levite would not inherit eternal life due to

their failure to love the man in need.

The story dismantles a second ancient Jewish perception. Referring to the Samaritan, Jesus

concludes the dialogue by saying, “Go and you, you do likewise” (10:37). Jesus thus presents the

Samaritan not as someone to pity—or even love—but as a person to imitate. The ethnic and reli-

gious enemy is not only the story’s hero; he is also the moral exemplar. One is to become like him.

Such a message—part of Luke’s broader interest in depicting social outcasts as moral exemplars—

is far more threatening than trying to convince Jews to love or be kind to Samaritans.8

This threat posed by the Samaritan is evident if we consider that the twenty-first-century ver-

sion of a Samaritan for Christians in America might be a member of al-Qaeda. Like the Samaritan,

a Muslim terrorist is an ethnic (usually) and religious outsider and enemy. How might American

Christians respond to a proposal that such a person could inherit eternal life? Or that such a person

should be a model of behavior or moral exemplar?

Because they subvert conventional myths, Jesus’ parables function as narratives of alternative

wisdom or stories of disorientation. As the wisdom books Ecclesiastes and Job reject promises of

conventional wisdom found in Proverbs and Deuteronomy, so too do Jesus’ parables interrogate

and find wanting much conventional wisdom.

6 J. K. Rowling, Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets (New York: Scholastic, 2000), 112.

7 While perhaps exaggerated, the remark in John 4:9—“Jews don’t associate with Samaritans”—might

reflect an animosity familiar to Luke’s audience. In John 8:48, “Samaritan” is used as a derogatory term.

8 Luke’s Gospel regularly depicts women, children, the poor, physically disabled, and tax collectors as

models of behavior. Six of the seven episodes in Luke 18:1–19:10 feature social outcasts, and in each

case the outcast is a moral exemplar.




Subverting Myths about Wealth and Possessions

Many of Luke’s unique parables subvert myths related to the use of wealth and possessions. Here

is the parable of the Rich Fool (12:16–20):

The land of a certain rich person produced fruitfully. And he began to converse with himself,

saying: “What shall I do, for I do not have [a place] where I will gather together my crops?” And

he said, “This I will do: I will pull down my barns, and I will build larger ones, and I will gather

together there all my grain and goods. And I will say to myself, ‘Self, you have many goods laid

up for many years; rest, eat, drink, enjoy.’” But God said to him, “Fool! On this night they are

demanding your life from you; and the things you prepared, whose will they be?”

God’s labeling of the rich man as a “fool” is puzzling because the man’s plans—storing goods

for an uncertain future—appear to epitomize prudence. Some have suggested that the man mod-

els his plans after various biblical stories and precepts.9 His stated intention (to “eat, drink, and

enjoy”) is an allusion to Eccl 8:15 (“there is nothing better for a person under the sun than to eat

and drink and enjoy”). Perhaps even more bewildering is that no clear explanation is offered for

why God calls the man a fool. Like many parables, this one ends with more questions (a literal one

in this instance) than answers. God’s remark does intimate that storing goods for the future—in

light of death’s potential imminence—is foolish.10 God’s question might hint that the man fails to

use his possessions to enhance the lives of others (a point Jesus confirms in 12:33). This parable

then would seem to indict the prevailing economic plan of most Americans—retirement—that is

similarly based upon the notion of saving wealth for one’s future use.

The parable of Lazarus and the Rich Man (Luke 16:19–31) shatters expectations regarding the

criteria used to determine one’s eternal destiny. The rich man and poor man in this story both die,

but they end up in radically different places: the rich man suffers in agony in Hades, while the

poor man is comforted in Abraham’s bosom. Nothing is said about the internal state (faith, belief,

attitudes, motives) of either man. Commentators on this parable have been so distraught by this

lack of detail that they were compelled to supply it themselves. Several interpreters amplify the

rich man’s wickedness by attributing to him an extensive range of moral deficiencies.11 Another

tendency among interpreters—undeterred by the parable’s silence on the matter—is to magnify

the noble stature of Lazarus. John Chrysostom (ca. 347–407 C.E.) alleges that Lazarus had a “soul

inside more precious than any gold.”12 (One wonders, however, if the actual element would have

9 Bernard Brandon Scott suggests that the man’s plan imitates Joseph’s recommendation to store up goods

for seven years (cf. Genesis 41) (Hear Then the Parable, 133–34).

10 For a much more detailed argument, see Matthew S. Rindge, Jesus’ Parable of the Rich Fool: Luke

12:13–34 among Ancient Conversations on Death and Possessions (Atlanta: Society of Biblical

Literature, 2011).

11 John Chrysostom describes the rich man as one who gives daily drinking parties, is scented with per-

fumes, feeds flatterers, and whose soul is “buried in wine” (St. John Chrysostom: On Wealth and Poverty

[trans. Catharine P. Roth; Crestwood, NY: St. Vladimir’s Seminary, 1984], 6:105–6).

12 Ibid., 1:35.



Rindge 407

held more appeal for Lazarus.) Martin Luther even claims that Lazarus was so satisfied with God’s

blessings that he “would have heartily and willingly suffered even more misery, if the will of his

gracious God had so determined.”13 Perhaps misinterpreted texts are the opiate of the people.

These commentators reveal how easily the subversive edge of parables can be dulled and

domesticated. This emphatic effort—to force parables to conform to a predisposed conventional

mentality—demonstrates how threatening they can be. Yet these taming impositions upon the text

undermine Abraham’s explanation to the rich man: “Child, remember that you received your good

things in your life, and Lazarus likewise evil things; but now he is comforted here, but you are in

agony” (16:25). Unlike the Egyptian tale upon which this parable might be based—and to the con-

sternation of many readers—Luke’s story shows no interest in the internal moral state of Lazarus

or the rich man.14 The most explicit reason given for Lazarus’ comfort and the rich man’s punish-

ment is their socio-economic status during life. The parable’s apparent “class warfare” perspective

is anticipated earlier in Luke when Jesus blesses the poor and curses the rich (6:20–24). Martin

Luther’s adamant rejection of this plain sense of the parable (“poverty and suffering make no one

acceptable to God”) points to the pervasive yet largely unconscious power of myth.15 Its mainte-

nance requires a relentless rejection or radical reshaping of contrary (parabolic) perspectives.

Perhaps the most perplexing parable of Jesus is the “Unjust Steward” (Luke 16:1–8a). After

being fired for financial irresponsibility, a manager calls in his master’s debtors and tells them to

reduce the amount of their debts to his master. He hopes that doing so will ingratiate himself to

them, and that they might in turn welcome him into their homes. When his employer discovers his

manager’s actions, he “praised the unjust manager because he acted shrewdly” (16:8a).

The shock of the parable comes in this concluding line when the master praises—rather than

punishes—the manager’s criminality. With his commendation, the parable seems to extol not

merely theft but also the selfish motive that prompted it! (Unlike Jean Valjean, in Victor Hugo’s

Les Miserables, who steals bread to feed his starving nieces and nephews, this manager steals to

benefit himself.) Efforts by interpreters to reduce or eliminate the tension provoked by the praising

13 Martin Luther, Sermons on Gospel Texts for the 1st to 12th Sundays After Trinity (vol. 4 of Sermons of

Martin Luther; ed. and trans. John Nicholas Lenker et al.; Grand Rapids: Baker, 1983), 23.

14 The Egyptian story of Si-Osiris concludes with this overt moral: “He who has been good on earth, will

be blessed in the kingdom of the dead, and he who has been evil on earth, will suffer in the kingdom of

the dead.” For a translation of this Egyptian tale, see Joachim Jeremias, The Parables of Jesus (trans. S.

H. Hooke; 2nd ed.; Upper Saddle River, NJ: Prentice Hall, 1972), 183. Cf. Hugo Gressmann, Vom reichen

Mann und armen Lazarus: Eine literargeschichtliche Studie (Abhandlungen der Königlich Preussischen

Akademie der Wissenschaften, Philosophisch-Historische Klasse 7; Berlin: Königlichte Akademie der

Wissenschaften, 1918).

15 Martin Luther, Sermons, 22.




of this vice are legion and unconvincing.16 As John Donahue cautions about parable interpretation

generally:

The revelation of God in parable cannot be reduced to a series of theological platitudes or moral

maxims. Here we touch on one of the major problems of preaching on the parables: the tendency

to soften their shock by moralizing them, that is, turning the good news into good advice.17

This is not to say that Luke’s parables lack an interest in the moral or ethical transformation

of readers/hearers. Altering how people use wealth and possessions is a primary aim of several

parables, including those previously mentioned. Far from an inherent evil in Luke, such goods are

viewed as a potential benefit to vulnerable people living in poverty. The parable of Lazarus and

the Rich Man remains pertinent in a world where the wealthy fail to cross the chasm to feed the

18,000 children under five years old who die daily from poverty.18 The parables of the Samaritan

(10:30–35), Friend at Midnight (11:5–8), Banquet (14:15–24), Father and Two Sons (15:11–32),

and Unjust Steward (16:1–8) depict wealth and possessions as a vehicle of compassion. How

Luke’s parables seek to transform readers/hearers is another story.

Luke’s Rhetorical Strategies: Parables of Invitation and

Imagination

Luke’s parables utilize specific rhetorical strategies in order to transform their audiences. Parables

construct imaginative worlds and invite audiences to dwell and live within them. A parable invites

readers/hearers to participate in a fictive drama that has the potential to unfold in their own lives.

Character identification and premature closure are two devices that facilitate and deepen such

imaginative participation within the story of the parable.

Parables contain characters with whom readers/hearers are encouraged to identify. Such iden-

tification can help a person imagine herself into the narrative. The parabolic characters typically

have a crucial decision to make, but parables often end abruptly before the character can make

this important choice. Ending the story prematurely welcomes readers/hearers—who have already

identified with this character and imagined themselves into the story—to wonder what choice they

might make in their place.

16 Jeremias reads the parable as a general encouragement to act in the face of a terrible crisis (The Parables

of Jesus, 182). J. D. M. Derrett argues that the amount of debt the manager lowers would have been

his own cut of the deal (“Fresh Light on St. Luke XVI. I. The Parable of the Unjust Steward,” NTS 7

[1960–61]: 198–219). Such efforts to make sense of the parable’s provocative nature begin as early as

Luke’s Gospel with the series of sayings (16:8b–13) appended as a form of commentary to the parable.

17 John Donahue, The Gospel in Parable: Metaphor, Narrative and Theology in the Synoptic Gospels

(Philadelphia: Fortress, 1988), 16–17.

18 Statistics from UNICEF’s “The State of the World’s Children 2014.” http://www.unicef.org/sowc2014/

numbers/documents/english/EN-FINAL%20Tables%201-14.pdf.


http://www.unicef.org/sowc2014/numbers/documents/english/EN-FINAL%20Tables%201-14.pdf


Rindge 409

The parable of the “Father and Two Sons” (Luke 15:11–32) is a classic example of this rhetori-

cal device.19 The following narrative frame introduces the parable and is vital for understanding it:

And all the tax collectors and the sinners were drawing near to [Jesus] to listen to him. And both

the Pharisees and the scribes were grumbling, saying, “This one welcomes sinners and dines

with them.” (15:1–2)

Jesus replies to the critique of the Pharisees and scribes with three parables. The parable of the

Father and Two Sons has three main characters, and each character mirrors one of the characters in

Luke’s introductory frame. In the parable, a sinful younger son is welcomed by his father to share

in a meal (15:22–24), an act the elder son critiques on the grounds that the younger son is unde-

serving (15:28–30). The parable reflects Jesus’ present conflict: tax collectors and sinners (younger

son) are eating with Jesus (father), which elicits critique from the Pharisees and scribes (elder son).

The parable is not only a defense of Jesus’ meal-sharing with the marginalized, but also an

invitation to the Pharisees to join the meal.20 The parable concludes in a crescendo of escalating

conflict between the father and the elder son. The elder son is angry and refuses to join the feast for

his younger brother, and the father goes out to plead with him. The elder son expresses his anger

at the lavish celebration, and the father explains his festive welcoming of the younger son. The

parable builds to a crucial choice facing the elder son: will he relent and join the feast or remain

steadfast in his opposition?

But the parable ends prematurely, without any hint at what the elder son will do. There is no res-

olution; dénouement is denied. By positioning the Pharisees as the elder son, the parable presents

them with his choice. As the father defends his lavish party and invites the elder son to join, so too

does Jesus (through the parable) invite the Pharisees to share a meal with him, the tax collectors,

and sinners. This parable works effectively if the Pharisees and scribes identify with the elder son

and realize that his choice has now become their own.21 Although Jesus abruptly ends the narrative,

there is a sense in which the parable does not end. For it continues in the scenario with Jesus, the

tax collectors, sinners, Pharisees, and scribes. And its ending will be determined by the choice of

the Pharisees and scribes—will they share a meal with Jesus, the tax collectors, and sinners?

The parable also has the potential to live on in the lives of Luke’s readers/hearers. Like the

Pharisees, they are also—by identifying with the elder son—invited to contemplate what marginal-

ized persons they might join at table. The ethnic tensions in the early church during the writing of

19 The title “Prodigal Son” fails to recognize that the Father is the dominant character: he is the only one in

the introduction (15:11) and in each of the two subsequent acts (15:12–24, 25–32). In disregarding the

elder son, this title also ignores the entire second act of the story (15:25–32).

20 To identify the father in the story with God is to miss entirely this primary point of the parable.

21 The killing of the fatted calf—referenced three times (15:23, 27, 30)—might enhance this identification

between the Pharisees and the elder son, especially if the animal is understood to be used for a temple

sacrifice.




Luke’s Gospel provided ample opportunity for this parable to have an ongoing afterlife. The choice

presented to the Pharisees might simultaneously be a decision facing Luke’s earliest readers/hear-

ers: would Christian Jews be willing to dine with Christian Gentiles? Perhaps this is why Luke’s

author—echoing the parable’s premature closure—ends the story without describing which choice

the Pharisees make themselves.

Specific elements in the parable of the Rich Fool invite characters in Luke’s narrative and Luke’s

readers/hearers to identity with this rich man (12:16–20).22 The parable begins with a crisis (the

land’s abundant production coupled with inadequate storage space) that can enable readers/hearers

to imagine themselves in the same (or similar) quandary. The rich man’s question in response to

this dilemma (“What might/should I do?”; 12:17) provides a second opportunity for readers/hear-

ers to pause and wonder what they might do in his place.

Like the Father and Two Sons parable, this one also ends prematurely. We are not told what the

rich man does in response to God’s declaration (12:20). Although his death is relatively imminent

(“this night”), we know neither how much time he has until he dies nor what he does before its

realization. Will he, for example, use his possessions in a different manner than he had planned?

Will the divine decree of his imminent death—and the question God poses—lead him to enjoy his

goods in the present? Or share them with others in need? God’s announcement of a future death

encourages readers/hearers to consider—and evaluate the relative meaningfulness of—their own

use of possessions in light of their own potentially imminent deaths.

Another parable that utilizes character identification and an open ended conclusion is Lazarus

and the Rich Man. This story invites characters in Luke’s narrative (the Pharisees) and readers/

hearers of the Gospel to identify with the rich man’s five brothers (16:27–31). For unlike the rich

man tormented in Hades, the fate of his brothers is not yet sealed. And it is their fate that takes

center stage in the parable’s final act. The rich man pleads for someone to warn them about their

possible agonizing fate in Hades, and Abraham’s refusal to grant this request increases suspense

about the brothers’ fate: will they avoid a future trip to Hades or join their brother in agony? Their

future, like that of the elder son in the parable of the Father and Two Sons, is left open. Given the

rich man’s lifestyle, and assuming that his brothers live similarly, it seems that avoiding Hades will

require a radical shift in how the five brothers use their wealth and possessions. What will they

do? The same dilemma and challenge facing the five brothers is simultaneously presented to the

Pharisees—who hear the parable—and to Luke’s readers/hearers.

22 These strategies are even more obvious when compared to the parallel version of the story in the Gospel

of Thomas: “Jesus said, ‘There was a rich man who had much money. He said, “I shall put my money to

use so that I may sow, reap, plant, and fill my storehouse with produce, with the result that I shall lack

nothing.” Such were his intentions, but that same night he died. Let him who has ears hear’” (Gos. Thom.

63). The translation of the Coptic is by Thomas Lambdin in The Coptic Gnostic Library: A Complete

Edition of the Nag Hammadi Codices (ed. James Robinson; 5 vols.; Leiden: Brill, 2000), 2:76–77.



Rindge 411

By ending prematurely before characters make crucial choices, these three parables invite audi-

ences to compose endings to these stories themselves. Luke’s parables delay closure because that

finality will be embodied by the creative choices of Luke’s readers/hearers. They put the finish-

ing touches on these stories by writing the script with their own lives. They become the living

authors of their own unfolding drama. To the unfinished endings of these parables one could read-

ily append —as Wim Wenders does to his film Wings of Desire—the tagline “to be continued. . . .”

Luke’s commitment to delaying closure is also evident outside of a parable. The story of a man

who asks Jesus how to have eternal life appears in all three Synoptic Gospels, and in each instance

Jesus informs the man that he must sell his possessions, give to the poor, and follow him. There

is, however, a pivotal difference in Luke’s version of what the rich man does after hearing these

words of Jesus:

“But when he became gloomy at the word, he departed, grieving.” (Mark 10:22)

“But when the young man heard the word, he departed, grieving.” (Matt 19:22)

“But when he heard these things he became very sad.” (Luke 18:23)

Luke altered his Markan source so that the rich man does not depart. Having him stay is a sig-

nificant change, for it allows the rich man to hear Jesus’ subsequent words: “How unpleasant it

is for those with wealth to enter into the kingdom of God. For it is easier for a camel to enter the

eye of a needle than a rich person to enter into the kingdom of God” (Luke 18:24–25). Jesus also

utters this remark in Mark and Matthew, but the rich man—who has departed—does not hear it.

His fate, sealed in Mark and Matthew, is left open by Luke to the possibility that he might choose

to relinquish his goods, give to the poor, and follow Jesus. Luke never tells us what the rich man

decides to do. His fate, like that of characters in several parables, is to be determined by the actions

of those who read and hear the story: will they respond to Jesus’ call and divest their wealth so that

the poor may live?

By refusing to impose closure on characters, Luke invites his readers/hearers to make such

choices themselves. The generative rhetoric of the parables seeks animation and embodiment in the

lives of actual readers and hearers. Luke’s rhetorical strategies thus provide opportunities for a nar-

rative fusion between characters in his parables, characters in the Gospel, and the lives of Luke’s

readers/hearers. Responsibility for action is transferred from literary characters to Luke’s audience.

The parable’s ending is determined not within the literary contours of the parable or Gospel, but

in the lives of its readers and hearers.23 Yet this entire rhetorical enterprise requires readers/hearers

who are capable of imagining themselves into the parable and identifying with certain characters.

In our own contemporary context these kinds of skills are unfortunately in short supply. Reading

23 The parable, in the words of Robert Funk, “opens onto an unfinished world because that world is in

course of conception. This means that both narrator and auditor risk the parable; they both participate

[in] the narrative and venture its outcome. He or they do not tell the story; it tells them” (Parables and

Presence [Philadelphia: Fortress, 1982], 30; emphasis original).




(and listening) closely to written texts is a lost art, and becoming ever more so. Developing such

skills is a fundamental spiritual need since their lack stymies these parabolic rhetorical strategies.

Luke’s rhetorical strategies resemble to some degree the pedagogical technique Jesus employs

in his dialogue with the lawyer (10:25–37; see above). Jesus’ Socratic technique consistently mir-

rors the lawyer’s questions: he responds to the lawyer’s two questions not with answers but with

questions of his own (vv. 26, 36). Jesus never replies to a question with an answer, and he only

gives answers in response to answers the lawyer gives (vv. 28, 37). Jesus thereby invites the law-

yer to participate actively in discovering and composing answers to his own questions. Parables

employ a rhetorical strategy similar to this dialogic mirroring, one that empowers people to engage

more fully in creating and constructing meaning. As Dodd notes, a parable is “a metaphor or simile

drawn from nature or common life, arresting the hearer by its vividness or strangeness, and leaving

the mind in sufficient doubt about its precise application to tease it into active thought.”24

Character identification is a key rhetorical strategy in the prophet Nathan’s confrontation with

King David. Nathan tells David the following story:

There were two men in a certain city, the one rich and the other poor. The rich man had very

many flocks and herds; but the poor man had nothing but one little ewe lamb, which he had

bought. He brought it up, and it grew up with him and with his children; it used to eat of his

meager fare, and drink from his cup, and lie in his bosom, and it was like a daughter to him. Now

there came a traveler to the rich man, and he was loath to take one of his own flock or herd to

prepare for the wayfarer who had come to him, but he took the poor man’s lamb, and prepared

that for the guest who had come to him. (2 Sam 12:1b–4, NRSV)

When David hears the story, his “anger was greatly kindled against the man. He said to Nathan,

‘As the Lord lives, the man who has done this deserves to die; he shall restore the lamb fourfold,

because he did this thing, and because he had no pity’” (2 Sam 12:5–6). Nathan’s response to David

is succinct and searing: “You are the man!” (v. 7a).

Nathan’s parabolic strategy leads David to condemn himself.25 Nathan’s story follows David’s

adulterous encounter with (and possible rape of) Bathsheba, his murder of Bathsheba’s husband

Uriah, and his taking of Bathsheba as one of his many wives or concubines (2 Sam 11:2–5).

Nathan’s parable invites David to witness and testify against his own unflattering reflection. Key in

this process is David’s empathy with a character and his outrage at this character’s unjust treatment.

Although Jesus’ parables are less explicit (lacking the unambiguous tag-line “You are the

man!”), appending a version of this line to several of the parables would reflect their rhetorical aim

of inviting readers/hearers to identify with certain characters: “You are the eldest son!” . . . “You are

24 C. H. Dodd, The Parables of the Kingdom (rev. ed.; New York: Scribner’s, 1961), 5; emphasis mine.

25 A similar rhetorical strategy is employed by Lars von Trier in his film Dogville (2004), which seeks to

lead American viewers to condemn themselves for their neglect of the poor and vulnerable.



Rindge 413

the five brothers of the rich man!” . . . “You are the rich fool!” (and similarly, in a non-parabolic

story: “You are the rich ruler!”). All these endings capture a chief aim of the parables, that charac-

ters in Luke and readers of his Gospel will make transformative choices as a result of seeing their

reflections in these characters.26

Luke’s Grammar of Possibility

Luke’s commitment to delaying closure and keeping stories open-ended is conveyed even through

his grammar. A recurring question characters ask throughout Luke and his second volume Acts

is: “What might/shall I do?” (Ti poiēsō).27 Three of the ten uses of the question are in parables

(Luke 12:17; 16:3; 20:13), and the question is almost always associated with the use of wealth or

possessions (3:10, 12, 14; 10:25; 12:17; 16:3; 18:18). This question not only facilitates character

identification (by inviting readers/hearers to ask the same question), but also underscores the fertile

world of potential action that lies open before literary characters and readers/hearers of the Gospel.

A brief grammatical review will explain. The Greek language has various “moods” for verbs:

the indicative is the mood of reality (“Tom kicked the ball”); the imperative is the mood of com-

mand (“Tom, kick the ball!”); the subjunctive is the mood of possibility (“Tom might kick the ball”

or “Should Tom kick the ball?”). The question that surfaces throughout Luke (“What might/shall I

do?”) is in the subjunctive mood of possibility. It is a mood that conceives of potential options yet

to be determined.28

The implicit assumption underlying each use of ti poiēsō (“What shall/might I do?”) is that

a range of possibilities exist for the questioner (the literary character) to follow. This mood of

possibility or potentiality reflects an assumption throughout Luke—that narrative characters and

readers/hearers forever dwell at the crossroads of possibility. Luke’s grammar resonates with and

reflects this worldview. Within this subjunctive realm there is less room for certainty since possible

choices perpetually lie before the reader. The subjunctive is also a mood of empowerment since

its frequent use in Luke reminds readers/hearers that their future path can—by their choices—be

crafted and lived into. Like the subjunctive mood, Jesus’ parables resist closure by transferring

such conclusions and responsibility into the lives of readers/hearers.

Infusing Luke’s imaginative worlds of possibility are repeated invitations for transformation.

This process of conversion begins with Luke’s readers/hearers appropriating the question “What

would/shall/might I do?” as their own, and reflecting upon what paths they might then pursue. In

constructing alternative worlds of meaningful living, parables invite people not only to inhabit

these fictive worlds but also to realize and embody these fictive visions in their own worlds.

26 Luke’s parable of the Two Builders (6:47–49) also relies on character identification. Noting that these

two characters “hear” Jesus’ words invites the audience of the Sermon on the Plain—who have been

listening to Jesus—to see themselves reflected in these characters.

27 Luke 3:10, 12, 14; 10:25; 12:17; 16:3; 18:18; 20:13; Acts 2:37; 22:10 (cf. Luke 18:41).

28 The optative mood (relatively rare in the Greek NT) typically expresses a wish (“May it never be so!”).




These rhetorical strategies reflect a dialogic quality at the heart of many parables. The dialogi-

cal tenor of the parables is often explicit, as when Jesus poses a pointed question to his audience:

“So which of them will love him more?” “Which of these three was a neighbor . . .?” “Who among

you who has a friend . . .?” “To whom will they belong?” “What person among you who has one

hundred sheep . . .?” “Or what woman who has ten drachmas . . .?” “So what will the lord of the

vineyard do to them?” (see Luke 7:42; 10:36; 11:5; 12:20; 15:4, 8; 20:15). Such questions expect

active engagement and participation from hearers. In many instances this conversational interplay

between speaker and hearer (or between text and reader) is disclosed less obviously, yet these less

overt techniques still summon a response.

Parables of Sacramental Imagination

A striking feature of Jesus’ parables is their lack of explicit religious or theological elements. God

appears as a character in only one of the fifty or so parables. Populating Luke’s parables are the

everyday, ordinary materials of first-century Jewish (and, occasionally, Greco-Roman) life: sheep,

seeds, leaven, coins, houses, brothers, feasts, farms, banquets, roads, robberies, managers, mas-

ters, debt, neighbors, tenants, manual labor. Employment and economic predicaments are common.

Amos Wilder writes of the “secularity” of Jesus’ parables because “these stories are so human and

realistic. . . . The persons in question, the scenes, the actions are not usually ‘religious.’”29 Paul

Ricoeur calls attention to the parables’ “essential profaneness” and their “profane language.”30 The

parables display no overt interest in the abstract, the philosophical, or the systematic.

By embracing the concrete materials of everyday life as the locus of sacred activity, the para-

bles reveal and illustrate a sacramental imagination. What differentiates Jesus’ parables from other

ancient literature, Wilder contends, is that the “deeper dimensions” of humanity and divinity “are

married to such ordinariness and secularity.”31 The parables, he writes, reveal Jesus to have a

“Jewish mind and heart … where religion becomes secular without loss.”32 Jean Epstein’s descrip-

tion of film as “profane revelation” might be applied to Jesus’ parables as well.33 For as in the

biblical books Song of Songs and Esther (neither of which mentions God), the human element in

Jesus’ parables is paramount.

29 Amos N. Wilder, Early Christian Rhetoric: The Language of the Gospel (Cambridge: Harvard University

Press, 1971), 73.

30 Paul Ricoeur, Figuring the Sacred: Religion, Narrative, and Imagination (trans. David Pellauer; ed.

Mark I. Wallace; Minneapolis: Fortress, 1995), 57, 66.

31 Wilder, Early Christian Rhetoric, 76.

32 Ibid., 87; emphasis mine.

33 On the ways in which certain films function as parables, see Matthew S. Rindge, Cinematic Parables:

Subverting the Religion of the American Dream (Waco, TX: Baylor University Press, forthcoming in

2015).



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Conclusion

The development of Christianity coincided with an eventual abandonment of the use of parable

as a dominant form of discourse. Christianity generated its own sets of myths (anti-parables) as

it sought to provide the kind of security required in the transition from an incipient faction to an

established religion. The radical ethnic shift in the early stages of Christianity (from entirely Jewish

to entirely Gentile) was accompanied by a fundamental paradigmatic and perspectival shift: from

deconstructing myths to propagating them. Christianity’s roots were in the destruction of myths,

but for the past two thousand years, it has been in the myth-making business. The church has

replaced Jesus’ stories with propositional truths, and questions with declarations. The primary task

of creating parables has fallen to artists—poets, novelists, painters, musicians, and filmmakers.

Perhaps it is time for the church to return to the art of parable as a fundamental discourse.



Lukes Artistic Parables

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