Christian Art | Meaning Of Parables
Mark 4 | Why does Jesus speak in parables?
‘And he said, Go, and tell this people, Hear ye indeed, but understand not; and see ye indeed, but perceive not.’ Isaiah 6: 9
The parables constitute the heart of Jesus’ teaching. In our time, the stories remain to us strikingly vivid and fresh, touching us with an immediate sense of Jesus’ humanity. Indeed, such is their personal character that we have in the parables a sense of being with Jesus.
At the same time, we find ourselves bound to ask: What do the parables mean? We feel called upon to try to explain the parables, and we may wonder why Jesus taught in this way, telling stories with deeper, hidden meanings, which required explanation, and which the crowds might often not understand.
The struggle to understand the meaning of the parables has been present through the history of Christianity since Jesus. Explaining the parables is no straightforward task. Allegorical meanings are often assigned, and this is the way in which the parables are explained in the Gospels, such that, for example, the owner of the vineyard becomes God and the wicked tenants become those Jewish religious authorities who distort the Law to their own ends and reject the prophets, wilfully obscuring true faith and keeping the people from a free and proper relationship with God. Such interpretations are true, but still there is more; the code is not so simple as to say that x in the story means y in reality, and so on.
Meaning Of Parables
To get to the more profound meaning of the parables, we need to know that they are not merely social commentary or veiled attacks on the Jewish religious authorities, the elders, the scribes, and the Pharisees. The parables are not merely teaching us how to be good people or exposing the hypocrisy of those who do not practice the good they preach.
This is not to say that we do not understand the parables on this level. The good Samaritan is an inspiring figure – obviously we want to be like him. The father of the prodigal son is all that a father could be, his heart bursting with love when his son returns to him. We see the justice in the parable of Lazarus and the rich man – of course we feel the emptiness of riches and a compelling need to give what we can to the poor. These are good and worthy responses to the parables.
Jesus, though, is doing more that conveying sound moral precepts and a simplified theology through colourful, pithy stories. Jesus wasn’t crucified for accusing the Pharisees of being hypocrites, or for encouraging people to recognize what is truly of value in their lives, and to live for that. The parables are far more transformative than this. We are in the presence not of Jesus the liberal rabbi, but of Jesus who brings spiritual revolution.
It has been said that all the parables are ultimately eschatological; all point toward the imminent coming of the Kingdom of God. This is crude, and rather too forced in places, but we can see how the coming of the Kingdom clearly features. We will be judged. We do not know when the hour may be. We are warned to watch, to make good use of our gifts, to store treasure in heaven, to be ever alert to the master’s coming. We are attuned through the parables to this order of reality, our understanding of how to live being thereby reconfigured.
This must, then, lead us to consider the question of the coming of the Kingdom of God, when Christ will come in glory and the world will be judged. The parables teach us to watch, and yet the world didn’t end; there was no apocalypse, no cosmic meltdown, no dissolution of the old world and institution for the elect of the new. The parables, therefore, could not have been intended to point to a temporally imminent eschatology.
The parable of the mustard seed teaches Jesus’ disciples of how the Church will grow from small beginnings to encompass the world, offering the possibility of Christian faith and redemption to all. The seed to grow must fall into the ground and die for there to be life. Likewise, the small lump of leaven must be hidden in the dough for all the dough to rise. The veiled meaning of these parables is a further mystery, through which we read the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ.
It is when we understand that, at the heart of the parables, we confront the reality of Jesus Christ that we begin to engage more fully with the deep meaning, and that we begin to understand why Jesus taught in parables, veiling his teachings such as to render them deliberately obscure. As he explains to the disciples: ‘Unto you it is given to know the mystery of the kingdom of God: but unto them that are without, all these things are done in parables: That seeing they may see, and not perceive; and hearing they may hear, and not understand; lest at any time they should be converted, and their sins should be forgiven them.’ (Mark 4: 11-12)
Parables And The Mystery Of Christ
The material for the parables is drawn from everyday life. They engage Jesus’ listeners because there is so much that they can easily relate to. Jesus gets his audience into the story, and then there are the twists, the reversals, the shock of the unexpected – our sense of how things are is briskly overhauled. The final mystery remains, like the leaven or the mustard seed, deliberately buried, such that it may germinate and grow, to encompass the whole understanding, the figure of Christ crucified, the Kingdom come. We become Christ’s disciples, walking with him through the mystery, wholly engaged – with the whole understanding – in ways which would not be available should we not have had to think our way inside the parables.
The very fact that the meaning of the parables is hidden thereby engages the listener as a participant in the drama of Christ’s revelation of himself as the Son of God, our redeemer, and it draws us with Christ toward the cross. It is the mystery which propels Christ there. The Jewish authorities know well enough what Jesus is claiming, with his forgiveness of sin and his authoritative reinterpretation of the Sabbath, centring the Sabbath upon himself. For the people as a whole there is obscurity, such muddied understanding as leads to what at first seems a failure of mission, the ignominious death on the cross, which is in fact Christ’s triumph, enabling the greater conversion, for Christ to draw all of humanity to himself.
To this day Jesus is with us. He comes to us. Just as the parables drew on the everyday, familiar world of Jesus’ time, and within the stories the deep mystery of God, Father and Son, was hidden, so now we are drawn by the parables to recognize God in our modern world. The Kingdom of God is indeed imminent: we have only to open our hearts, our minds, our souls, and to call. The truth, then, is no longer hidden. Our life flows from Christ’s loving sacrifice. We live with the crucified Christ at the heart of the parables.
For the first Christian communities, almost all of them Jewish, the Benedictus would have been a song of joy, thanking God for His fulfilment of the promise of ages: God has visited his people and redeemed them. The faith of those early Christians is strong as they look back along the road they have travelled since Abraham, and forward to a time of peace, light, salvation [ … ]
Christian Art | George Herbert | The Temple | The Church | The Sinner George Herbert | The Temple | The Church | The Sinner Lord, how I am all ague, when I seek What I have treasur’d in my memorie! Since, if my soul make even with the week, Each seventh note by right is due to thee. I finde there quarries of pil’d vanities, But shreds of holinesse, that dare not venture To shew their face, since crosse to thy decrees. There the circumference earth is, heav’n the centre. In so much dregs the quintessence is small: The spirit and good extract of my heart Comes to about the many hundredth part. Yet Lord restore thine image, heare my call: And though my hard heart scarce to thee can grone, Remember that thou once didst write in stone. George Herbert | The Temple | The Church | The Sinner The poet reflects on his spiritual state, describing a struggle with weakness, sin, and the desire for divine alignment. The poem opens with the poet addressing God, expressing discomfort, likened to an ‘ague’ (fever or chill), when he searches his memory for spiritual treasures. This ‘ague’ suggests both a physical and spiritual unease, revealing the tension the poet feels in self-examination. The second line conveys a sense of regret as the poet searches for ‘treasur’d’ holiness in his memory. He recognizes that, although he might strive to keep his soul ‘even with the week’, dedicating every seventh day to God, he falls short. This phrase reflects the expectation to honour the Sabbath, but the poet’s efforts are met with disappointment in their perceived spiritual emptiness. The poet goes on to examine his inner self, describing ‘quarries of pil’d vanities’ that dominate his mind. Here, ‘quarries’ implies an overwhelming quantity of earthly or superficial concerns, while ‘vanities’ suggests that these concerns are meaningless in the context of divine expectation. In contrast, he finds only ‘shreds of holinesse’, fragmented attempts at righteousness, which he hesitates to bring forward as these elements are ‘crosse to thy decrees’, or in opposition to God’s laws. This imagery underscores the poet’s internal conflict and recognition of shortcomings. Further, the poet contrasts earth and heaven, saying that ‘the circumference earth is, heav’n the centre.’ This phrase symbolizes the poet’s focus on worldly concerns (the circumference) that orbit around a neglected spiritual core (the heavenly center). The poet reflects that his life is filled with ‘dregs’, the lesser, unrefined aspects of his being, while ‘quintessence’, or the purest part of himself, is scarce. This ‘quintessence’ is described as the ‘spirit and good extract’ of the poet’s heart, amounting to a ‘many hundredth part’ — a small fraction of life’s essence. The poet realizes that, despite attempts to cultivate holiness, his internal state largely lacks spiritual substance. The final lines shift to a plea for restoration. The poet calls on God to ‘restore thine image’, asking for renewal and transformation. This restoration request implies a yearning to reflect God’s nature more fully, as humanity is believed to be made in God’s image. The poet acknowledges that his heart ‘scarce… can grone’ to God, reflecting the difficulty he feels in truly connecting with or petitioning the divine. The poem ends with reference to the biblical account of the Ten Commandments, when God ‘didst write in stone’. This allusion serves as both a reminder of God’s past willingness to communicate directly and a plea for a similar intervention to etch divine law into the poet’s heart. The poem examines themes of introspection, human fallibility, and a longing for divine transformation. The poet’s self-examination reveals struggle to balance earthly concerns with spiritual commitments, culminating in a plea for God’s direct action to restore spiritual integrity.
Psalm 144 expresses themes of warfare, divine benevolence, human frailty, and societal well-being under the guidance of God. Traditionally held to be authored by David, a king and warrior deeply conscious of his reliance on divine support, the psalm unfolds as both a personal entreaty for victory and protection and a communal hymn envisioning a society flourishing under God’s favour [ … ]