Diabolic, Symbolic and Parabolic (revisited)

Back in October 30th, 2009 I shared a bit about Diabolic and Symbolic.

I am not sure where I read this but the author shared a bit about the word "parable". Here is a link to a basic etymology of the word parable.

As you can see from this etymology, parable literally means "a throwing beside," (from para- "alongside" + bole)

So we have "symbol" meaning 'that which is thrown together' and "diabolical' meaning 'that which is thrown across/through' and "parable" meaning 'that which is thrown alongside'.

What I find interesting here is that Jesus taught primarily through parables. It is my understanding that theology that Jesus was also one who lived a deeply symbolic life (throwing things together such as bread/body and wine/blood). As one who lived symbolically he taught in a way that was parabolic, that is he would throw things along side one another (such as our enemy is also our neighbor whom we are called to love not hate).

It is remarkable to me, and I am not really sure why to be honest, that there seems to be a connection here between the symbolic, diabolic and parabolic.

Perhaps the way to live a symbolic life, a life that brings things together, is first being willing to throw things along side one another and live parabolically.

But then again, I suppose one could throw things along side one another and still end up living a diabolic life, or a life that throws things apart. Perhaps parables are neither 'good' or 'bad' but a way in which leads us to a certain life. I don't know, as you can see I am not really formed on these thoughts just yet.

So I ask you, what do you think about these connections? Do you see any connection between symbolic, diabolic and parabolic? Does this connect with Jesus as you see it? What about our individual lives? What about life within a community?

Call of wisdom and Roosevelt

In Proverbs 9:1-6, Sophia calls to the passer-byers "You that are simple, turn in here!" At this point she invites these simple people into her house so that she might impart the wisdom of God to them.

When this text was read on Sunday for some reason I could not get that quote from Eleanor Roosevelt "Great minds discuss ideas, average minds discuss events, small minds discuss people."

All I could picture was Sophia calling out to all of us in America who talk more about American Idol than American policy, "You that are simple, turn in here! Turn in here and I can help you move your simple mind, clamoring about people and events, to a great mind."

Perhaps this is why Jesus spent so much time in parable teaching. It allows us simple minded people to hear about people and events, but at the same time challenges us to talk about the ideas behind these people and events?

Perhaps Jesus spoke in parables, not to be cryptic, but to call us to expand our mind... to become Great.

Carpentry makes for lousy parables

Talking with the ministers the other day about theology and whatnot and in the course of the conversation we began to talk about the Church's mission to help people gain meaning for their lives. In that pursuit, the Church must be able to help people discover language which helps articulate a meaning for them to embody. We commented how we each felt about how the Church is doing (not too well at the moment) and then discussed the influence of scientific atheism in the culture.

In the course of the conversation something struck me about Jesus and his ability to speak to the people he was with. He never once used a parable dealing with carpentry.

Parables of coins, strangers, sheep, sons, grain, goats... sure. Parables of hammers, tables, crafting, designing... no.

The only one I could connect to carpentry was the saying where we should not talk about the splinter in our neighbors eye with a plank of wood in our own. But that is a weak connection at best.

By all accounts Jesus was a carpenter. In fact the "Passion of the Christ" has Jesus making the first table people sit down in chairs at to eat a meal. But he hung out with fishermen, farmers, and the socially estranged of society. Thus his parables and language reflect this.

Perhaps the Church could take a lesson from this and stop trying to control a conversation and force it to always be about God. Not everyone is comfortable or even knows theology or God-talk. But everyone has an area or a world which they know and can relate with and the Church could possibly connect with more people if we were only willing to stop talking about God with our own insider language and talk about God with the language of the people we are in relationship with.

Either that or Carpentry makes for lousy parables.

More on Luke 16:1-10

Sarah Dylan Breuer's lectionary blog, where she most eloquently states the the case:

So here's the big question that I haven't seen commentators in print ask:

Q: What, precisely, is it that the steward does, albeit without authorization and with deception?

A: The steward forgives debts.

The steward forgives. He forgives things that he had no right to forgive. He forgives for all the wrong reasons, for personal gain and to compensate for past misconduct. But that's the decisive action that he undertakes to redeem himself from a position from which it seem he couldn't be reconciled, to the landowner any more than to the farmers.

So what's the moral of this story, one of the stories unique to Luke?

It's a moral of great emphasis for Luke: FORGIVE. Forgive it all. Forgive it now. Forgive it for any reason you want, or for no reason at all.

Remember, this (Luke) is the guy whose version of the "Lord's Prayer" includes the helpful category confusion, "forgive us our sins as we forgive (the monetary debts of -- it's clear in the Greek) our debtors" (Luke 11:4). I could point to at least a dozen moments off the cuff at which Luke raises this point: the arrival of the kingdom of God is no occasion for score-keeping of any kind, whether monetary or moral....

...Why forgive someone who's sinned against us, or against our sense of what is obviously right? We don't have to do it out of love for the other person, if we're not there yet. We could forgive the other person because of that whole business of what we pray in Jesus' name every Sunday morning, and because we know we'd like forgiveness ourselves. We could forgive because we've experienced what we're like as unforgiving people, and so we know that refusing to forgive because we don't want the other person to benefit is, as the saying goes, like eating rat poison hoping it will hurt the rat. We could forgive because we are, or we want to be, deeply in touch with a sense of Jesus' power to forgive and free sinners like us. Or we could forgive because we think it will improve our odds of winning the lottery.

It boils down to the same thing: deluded or sane, selfish and/or unselfish, there is no bad reason to forgive. Extending the kind of grace God shows us in every possible arena -- financial and moral -- can only put us more deeply in touch with God's grace.