Kate, Chalice staff, Canada
Jesus is the parable-teller extraordinaire. (I wish there were a word for this Parabalist? Parabonteur? Alas.)
He’s virtuosic at the art of crafting his earth-shattering Messianic into a story that his particular audience that day can understand. If they’re a bunch of farmers, he speaks of seeds and soil. If labourers, then day jobs; if affluent, of misspent wealth.
We know that Jesus taught much more than could ever possibly be written down, and the Evangelists needed to select only the strongest (or perhaps most often used.) But his parabalizing didn’t end on the day of the Ascension. He continues to tell each of us parables every day.
There’s a popular idea in the Church right now to have a ‘sacramental worldview’- God’s invisible grace made manifest in our lives, as it is in the seven sacraments. What I am beginning to add to my own prayer life is a ‘parabolical’ (yes, that is a word this time) mindset.
Reviewing my day, I can see that Jesus was telling me a customized Parable of the Unhelpful Customer Service Representative, or the Parable of the Snow Shoveler, or the Parable of the Burnt Banana Bread. Every morning, Jesus greets his open-hearted disciples (us, I pray) with a hearty “Well, where shall we begin? The Kingdom of God is like….” and, if we’re listening, we are in for a heck of a lesson.
“Every happening, great and small, is a parable whereby God speaks to us, and the art of life is to get the message.”
Malcolm Muggeridge
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