Fax by Max

With Many Parables Jesus Spoke the Word

Introduction

It is estimated that parables represent over one third of Jesus’ teachings found in the synoptic Gospels; they have become in the eyes of many the hallmark of his teaching style. In the fourth chapter of his gospel, after only a handful of parables have been recorded, Mark says that Jesus used many other parables to speak the word to the people. Mark 4.34 : 34 He did not say anything to them without using a parable. Clearly then, if we want to hear the actual ticking of Jesus’ mind, if we want a entryway into the meaning of the Gospel, we can hardly do better than to study his parables, with our minds open not only to learning but to joy.

Any study of the parables faces one troublesome obstacle from the very outset. That obstacle, strangely enough, is familiarity. Most Christians, on reading the Gospel’s statement that “Jesus spoke in parables” assume they know exactly what is meant. “Oh yes,” they say, “and a wonderful teaching device it was, too. All those unforgettable stories we’re so fond of, like the Good Samaritan and the Prodigal Son.” But familiarity can be deceiving. It can give us the illusion that we have understood the meaning of something just because we have heard it over and over. Most of this study, therefore, will be devoted to the removal of the obstacle of a too-facile familiarity.

The biggest source of error bred by our familiarity with the parables is the tendency to read and interpret them as if Jesus were speaking directly to us, Christians of the twenty-first century. In fact, in the Gospels, Jesus is not directly addressing modern Christians, nor any Christians at all. His audience is composed entirely of first-century Jews. As a result, the meaning that we tend to attribute spontaneously to a parable, looking at it from our own perspective, may be different from the meaning that it had when Jesus first spoke it. We often miss the point because we don’t put the parables in their original context: the ministry of Jesus as a prophet if the kingdom among the Jews of the first century.

The important thing is not the what we want to read into a parable, but what Jesus wanted to put into it. Our work will therefore be more exegetical than homiletical, more textual than practical. We are not going to treat the parables as sermon illustrations or as an reservoir of proof texts for current church doctrine but rather as elements of the central message that Jesus proclaimed to his Jewish contemporaries. This means we will have to do something very difficult: step out of our own churchly perspective and put ourselves in the context of Jesus’ first audience.

What Is a Gospel?

The first question to look at is the nature of the writings in which the parables appear. What is a “gospel”? The original Greek word eu-angellos means “good news” or “joyful message”. Two unique facts about Christianity emerge from this word.

First, Christianity is news: concrete facts, specific historical events that really happened and were seen in the space-time world of ours. All other religions (except biblical Judaism) are essentially systems of abstract truths: philosophies, moralities, religious laws, mythologies, spiritual techniques and disciplines, mystical intuitions, rituals, psychological or social ideologies. In other words, something abstract and timeless. Buddha could have lived and written in 18th-century France instead of 6th-century B.C India without any appreciable change in his message. Not so Jesus of Nazareth.

Second, it is good news. J.R.R. Tolkien says, “There is no tale ever told that men more wish were true.” Rightly understood, the Gospel is “tidings of great joy”. But in the modern world it is often not rightly understood, and is seen as bad news: as repressive, negative, dehumanizing, imperialistic and threatening. That fact says nothing about Christianity, but a lot about the modern mind.

The Gospels pursue essentially one single objective: to demonstrate that Jesus of Nazareth is the Messiah foretold in the Old Testament, the one the Jews were waiting for. John 20.30-31: 30 Jesus did many other miraculous signs in the presence of his disciples, which are not recorded in this book. 31 But these are written that you may believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God, and that by believing you may have life in his name. Here is the good news that the four evangelists want to proclaim and establish as true: the story of Jesus—his birth, his teachings, his miracles, his ministry and especially the events of the end of his life (his death-resurrection-ascension, which John calls the “Hour” of Jesus)—accomplishes the eternal purpose of God foretold in the Old Testament. This eternal purpose comprises two essential elements: the reign of the Davidic Messiah over Israel and the whole world; the redemption of the chosen people and of all the nations.

In general, the scope of the four Gospels is messianic and Jewish instead of churchly and Christian. Their center of interest is not the Church or even Christian discipleship but the passion of Jesus. The Christ did not come to bring a new Law to the world or a new religious teaching; he came to establish his reign and redeem mankind. And he would do it by the completely surprising and unexpected means of his death-resurrection-ascension. If the Gospels recount the public teaching ministry of Jesus among the Jews, it is because his actions and his teachings serve to prepare Israel, the chosen people, for this disconcerting fulfillment of the messianic prophecies.

The Nature and Purpose of Parables

The second question to look at by way of introduction is the nature of parables and the parabolic method. What is a parable anyway? The English dictionary defines a parable as: “a short fictitious story using events or facts of everyday life to illustrate a moral attitude or a religious principle.” That definition reminds me of the one I learned as a kid in Sunday school: a parable is an earthly story with a heavenly meaning. We tend to see parables as a kind of fable from which we can draw a practical lesson or moral.

This conception of parables proves to be entirely insufficient and even misleading if we adopt is as our starting point for understanding the parables of Jesus. In Greek, the word parable derives from a preposition and a verb. The verb ballo means “to throw”, and the preposition para means “alongside”. A parable is a throwing alongside, a comparison. The very essence of Jesus’ parables lies in the juxtaposition of two things or two situations.

The first term of the comparison is the story that Jesus tells his listeners. Actually, a parable is not always a complete story, such as the tale of the prodigal son or the good Samaritan. Sometimes it is simply an example or object, such as the fig tree at the approach of spring (Matthew 24.32-34), or a house divided against itself (Mark 3.22-26), or the wind that blows wherever it pleases (John 3.8). But usually, it is a brief story or a descriptive scene, a picture in words.

Whatever the specific form Jesus gives to a parable, his method is always active. Twenty-two of his parables begin with a question: “What do you think?”, “How can…?”, “What shall we say the kingdom of God is like…?” “Who among you…?”, “Why don’t you judge for yourselves what is right?” The question can also come near the end of the story. The whole parable appears as a question which the listener is invited to think about and answer. Even in the parables which do not explicitly ask a question, Jesus draws his listeners into the interplay of the story so they cannot remain passive spectators. His whole technique is to get them to react personally. They have a role to play, an approval or an assent to give, a position to take, a judgment to render, a moral verdict to form.

Every parable has what scholars have regularly called a point of comparison (tertium comparationis): not the moral of the story, but the precise point toward which the whole story converges and about which the listener is called on to take a position or to make a judgment. The first step in interpreting a parable is to look for the point. That is not as easy as it may first appear. In general, however, the point appears at the end of the parable, which helps us to distinguish it from the secondary details.

A parabolic story does not stand on its own, it is only the first term of a comparison. It is a fictitious story meant to shed light on, make clear and help understand a real situation. The comparison works by taking the judgment we are called to make about the point of the story and applying it to the real situation Jesus intends to clarify. The point serves as the bridge, the link between the two terms of the comparison.

Sometimes, a parable offers multiple secondary points of comparison or links, each detail having its own particular meaning. In this case, the parable looks somewhat like an allegory. Such is the case, for example, of the parable of the Sower and of the Tares.

Now we come to the key question: Where do we look for the real situation that Jesus wants to shed light on in a parable? Most of the time, this is where we fall wide of the mark. Because we bring to our reading a preconceived idea that to us is perfectly obvious: a parable must have a direct practical application for us, Christians of the 21st century or of any other century. So we look for the second term of the comparison in the life of the church or in church history, or in Christian discipleship or the great timeless principles of Christian ethics or theology.

In other words, we disregard the real context of the parables: the ministry of Jesus among the Jews of the generation that would witness the fulfillment of the messianic promises. Jesus uses parables so his original Jewish listeners can understand what is happening before their very eyes.

Does that mean we can never use the parables of Jesus to draw theological, moral or practical lessons for ourselves? Of course not. But we have to take into account that in general the parables are not aimed directly at us.

The General Scope of Jesus’ Teaching

When all is said and done, it is the preaching of Jesus that constitutes the context which will allow us to understand a given parable. So, before moving on to the parables themselves, it will be useful to briefly list the three parameters that define and delimit the scope of his message.

1. The public teaching ministry that Jesus exercises during his life on earth is addressed above all and almost exclusively to the people of Israel. Matthew 15.24 : 24 “I was sent only to the lost sheep of Israel.” We can therefore expect that the parables have to do with the specific situation of their original audience: the Jews of the time of Jesus.

2. The one central specific subject of Jesus’ preaching in the Gospels, from the first day of his ministry to his death on the cross, is the imminent coming of the messianic kingdom. Mark 1.14-15: 14 After John was put in prison, Jesus went into Galilee, proclaiming the good news of God. 15 “The time has come,” he said. “The kingdom of God is near. Repent and believe the good news!”

In his public teaching, Jesus never explicitly declares to a Jewish audience that he is the Messiah. On the contrary, he adamantly forbids the use of that title by demons, disciples and multitudes. Why? Because his messiahship is to be revealed only at the end of his life, by his death, resurrection and ascension. In the meantime, Jesus limits himself to proclaiming the nearness of the time when God will finally give a descendant of David royal authority over Israel and the world. In other words, before becoming the king of the messianic kingdom, Jesus will be its prophet, its messenger, its herald with the mission of proclaiming to the Jewish people that the kingdom is at hand.

This proclamation includes a call to repentance, whose requirements are defined in the ethical and “religious” teachings of Jesus, such as the Sermon on the Mount. The Jews have strayed from the Father and need to turn back to him. Unrepentance of their sin and their deformed religiosity will prevent them from accepting the kingdom when it arrives. We can therefore expect that the teaching of the parables is related to a specific moment of redemptive history: the moment when the reign of the Messiah is about to arrive in Israël, the moment where Israël must prepare itself for the coming kingdom by repentance.

3. In the public teaching of Jesus the good news of the coming kingdom is counterbalanced by some bad news: the prophecies of divine judgment that the Messiah-King will carry out against the unbelieving Jewish theocracy. A terrible punishment threatens the generation of Jews who will reject their Messiah and persecute his church. This judgment consists in being excluded from the kingdom and will be consummated historically by the destruction of Jerusalem by the Roman armies in 70 A.D. Matthew 24.36: 36 “I tell you the truth, all this will come upon this generation.”

Here then is the chronological framework in which we must, in general, seek the real life situation that constitutes the second term of the comparison in the parables of Jesus.

That is the theory. In future posts, we will be applying this approach to some of Jesus’ parables to see if we can bring them more sharply into focus. After all, the proof of the pudding is in the eating.

The Good Samaritan

Luke 10.25-37: 25 On one occasion an expert in the law stood up to test Jesus. “Teacher,” he asked, ”what must I do to inherit eternal life?”

26 “What is written in the Law?” he replied. “How do you read it?”

27 He answered: “‘Love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, with all your strength and with all your mind’; and, ‘Love your neighbor as yourself’”

28 “You have answered correctly,” Jesus replied.“Do this and you will live.”

29 But he wanted to justify himself, so he asked Jesus, “And who is my neighbor?”

30 In reply Jesus said: “A man was going down from Jerusalem to Jericho, when he fell into the hands of robbers. They stripped him of his clothes, beat him and went away, leaving him half dead. 31 A priest happened to be going down the same road, and when he saw the man, he passed by on the other side. 32 So too, a Levite, when he came to the place and saw him, passed by on the other side. 33 But a Samaritan, as he traveled, came where the man was; and when he saw him, he took pity on him. 34 He went to him and bandaged his wounds, pouring on oil and wine. Then he put the man on his own donkey, took him to an inn and took care of him. 35 The next day he took out two silver coins and gave them to the innkeeper. ‘Look after him,’ he said, ‘and when I return, I will reimburse you for any extra expense you may have.’

36 “Which of these three do you think was a neighbor to the man who fell into the hands of robbers?” 37 The expert in the law replied, “The one who had mercy on him.”

Jesus told him, “Go and do likewise.”

The expert in the Law of Moses gives the right answer in pointing out the two commandments to love God and to love your neighbor. The Law had already given the indispensable revelation in this regard. These two precepts, taken from Deuteronomy 6.5 and Leviticus 19.18, summarize the will of God for man. It is on the condition that he practices this will that the Jew can inherit eternal life.

Jesus’ approval of the man is sincere, for the lawyer’s understanding of the will of God goes well beyond the nit-picking and outlandish legalism of his colleagues. But, while he recognizes the theological wisdom of the man, Jesus adds a short sentence that no doubt speaks to his specific need: “Do this and you will live.”

About what does the expert in the Law want to justify himself? I’m not sure. The emphasis that Jesus puts on the necessity of doing (“Do this and you will live” in Luke 10.28 and “Go and do likewise.” in Luke 10.37) seems to contain an implicit reproach. The scribe has in some way failed in his duty toward his neighbor, that is the Jew who would have the right to lay claim to his love and mercy. (The perspective is limited here to the people of Israel.) Smarting under the implied rebuke, the scribe asks, “In regard to which fellow Jew have I been derelict in my duty?”

Jesus answers the question by telling the parable of the Good Samaritan. The first question to settle in our investigation of this story is to decide if it is a true parable whose meaning is to be found in a comparison of two situations, or if it is simply an exemplary story where the commendable behavior of the main character deserves to be imitated. It is true that the story works very well as a specific example and a concrete illustration of loving your neighbor. But the fact remains that the whole construction of the piece, with its characters referring us to real persons, with its unexpected—even scandalous—ending, and with the question of Jesus asking the listener to give his judgment, all of this strongly indicates that we are dealing here with a true parable and that we are therefore to look for the real situation that constitutes the second term of the comparison.

Let’s proceed by determining the symbolic identity of the three main characters in the order of their appearance in the story: the man who is wounded and half dead, the priest and the Levite (which we will treat as one single character), and the Samaritan.

All throughout his ministry, Jesus pictures the chosen people by using images that underline their extreme moral distress: the lost sheep of the house of Israel (Matthew 10.6); a man tormented by an evil spirit (Luke 12.24-26); blind people who are heading straight for a ditch (Matthew 15.14); sick people who need a doctor (Luke 5.31); a barren fig tree that is about to be cut down (Luke 13.6-9); sinners who will perish if they do not repent (Luke 13.1-5); weary and burdened (Matthew 11.28). The classic text and perhaps the one most relevant to our parable is Matthew 9.36: 36 When he saw the crowds, he had compassion on them, because they were harassed and helpless [literally, mangled and cast down], like sheep without a shepherd.

For Jesus the people of Israel are an object of pity and compassion: wounded by sin, beaten by the forces of evil, half dead spiritually, in need of urgent medical care.

The priest and the Levite represent, obviously, the class of religious leaders in Israel: the holy elite which includes not only those who serve in the temple but also the scribes, Pharisees, Sadducees and elders. Their attitude toward the spiritually needy in Israel is exceedingly clear: they, the official shepherds of the people, instead of binding up the wounds and strengthening the weak, display only contempt and indifference for this “cursed mob” (John 7.48-49). Throughout the whole Gospel, they look with unfeeling and hardened eyes at the misery, the open wounds, in a word, the deplorable spiritual state of the people.

Their lack of compassion is evident in the miracle accounts. Rather than showing pity to the sick people that Jesus heals and rejoicing at their healing, the scribes and Pharisees only look for a chance to accuse Jesus: he violates the sabbath, he blasphemes, he calls on the power of Beelzebub. They explicitly criticize his ministry among the tax collectors and sinners.

Luke 15.2: 2 But the Pharisees and the teachers of the law muttered, “This man welcomes sinners and eats with them.” Luke 5.30-32: 30 But the Pharisees and the teachers of the law who belonged to their sect complained to his disciples, “Why do you eat and drink with tax collectors and ‘sinners’?” 31 Jesus answered them, “It is not the healthy who need a doctor, but the sick. 32 I have not come to call the righteous, but sinners to repentance.”

Ezekiel well prophesied of them: Ezekiel 34.2-5: 2 “This is what the Sovereign Lord says: Woe to the shepherds of Israel who only take care of themselves! Should not shepherds take care of the flock? 3 You eat the curds, clothe yourselves with the wool and slaughter the choice animals, but you do not take care of the flock. 4 You have not strengthened the weak or healed the sick or bound up the injured. You have not brought back the strays or searched for the lost. You have ruled them harshly and brutally. 5 So they were scattered because there was no shepherd, and when they were scattered they became food for all the wild animals.”

Casting a Samaritan in the starring role is somewhat of a scandal. (Note that the scribe cannot even bring himself to pronounce the word “Samaritan” in verse 37.) The Jews’ hatred of the Samaritans, who were heretics and schismatics in their view, was even more merciless than their hatred of Gentiles. “Samaritan” was the ultimate insult in Jewish society. It is really remarkable that the character who gives such an example of compassion and love is not a good, devout Jew but a Samaritan, the most hated and despised person imaginable. In fact, that is the essential element of the parable.

In the polemical atmosphere that dominates Jesus’ dealings with the Jewish leaders, it is easy to understand that Jesus casts himself in the role of the Samaritan. Who in Israel has compassion on sinners and is deeply moved by their plight? It is Jesus. He is the one who shows universal, compassionate, active, generous, persevering, caring love. He is the one who shows solidarity with the outcasts of official Judaism: the tax collectors, the prostitutes, the sinners. He is the doctor who has come to heal the sick and the blind and the poor and the crippled and the lame.

But he is a despised and hated doctor, even as the Samaritan is despised and hated. John 8.47-49: 47 “He who belongs to God hears what God says. The reason you do not hear is that you do not belong to God.” 48 The Jews answered him, “Aren’t we right in saying that you are a Samaritan and demon-possessed?” 49 “I am not possessed by a demon,” said Jesus, “but I honor my Father and you dishonor me.” The only one to have compassion on the Jews mangled and cast down by sin is this “Samaritan” Jesus, despised and rejected of men.

The call to put this teaching into action (“Go and do likewise.”) is thus addressed to the scribe as an official religious shepherd of Israel and keeper of the key of knowledge (Luke 11.52). Comparing the spiritual bankruptcy of the religious leaders with the generosity of the hated “Samaritan”, the scribe can understand which Jews are his neighbors and just what kind of compassion he should show: seek out the scattered lost sheep of Israel and gather them around the Good Shepherd. Luke 11.23: 23 “He who is not with me is against me, and he who does not gather with me, scatters.”

The Mustard Seed and the Yeast

Two verses placed in the very first chapter of Mark summarize for us the totality of our Lord's preaching during his earthly ministry. Mark 1.14-15: 14 After John was put in prison, Jesus went into Galilee, proclaiming the good news of God. 15 “The time has come,” he said. “The kingdom of God is near. Repent and believe the good news!” The time is fulfilled! The Messiah's reign is about to be established! That is the news that Jesus released like a bombshell in Galilee.

As a result, great crowds flocked into Galilee from all over Israël and began to follow the Master. They heard his teaching and were amazed at his words. John 7.46: 46 “No-one ever spoke the way this man does.” They were witness to his miracles, the healings and the casting out of demons, the multiplying of bread, all the signs and wonders. They could see it all beginning to happen, they were caught up in the sweep of the coming reign. And they begin to ask, Matthew 12.23: 23 “Could this be the Son of David?” After all these centuries, could God finally be intervening to bring the reign of his Christ? And it was all so exciting.

But then something shifted. As time passed and as Jesus simply continued his ministry as an itinerant preacher, refusing to be made king, his listeners began to feel a mounting disappointment. They began to respond to the message of the kingdom's nearness with increasingly bitter criticisms, doubt and rejection. Actually, all their objections could be boiled down to one. Jesus' ministry doesn't really give us the impression that we are on the eve of the fantastic event that he is proclaiming.

The Jews had very definite ideas about the Messiah and his reign. They were convinced that the Christ would set up his kingdom in some blazing manifestation of glory, and unprecedented display of divine power. He would come surrounded in majesty and royal splendor to restore Israel's political might, raise his armies and take off to conquer the world by military force and miraculous power. But that's not what was happening. What they were seeing in the ministry of Jesus was so different from what they had expected and hoped for.

Jesus responds to this difficulty in certain of his parables about the secrets of the Messiah’s reign. And that brings us to the parables of the mustard seed and of the yeast.

Luke 13.18-20: 18 Then Jesus asked, “What is the kingdom of God like? What shall I compare it to? 19 It is like a mustard seed, which a man took and planted in his garden. It grew, became a tree, and the birds of the air perched in its branches.”

20 Again he asked, “What shall I compare the kingdom of God to? 21 It is like yeast that a woman took and mixed into a large amount of flour until it worked all through the dough.”

The smallness of the mustard seed had become proverbial among the Jews. They talked about a tiny drop of blood as being no bigger than a mustard seed. They would say about a minute breach of the Mosaic Law that it was a defilement the size of a mustard seed. Even our Lord himself used the same proverbial saying, Matthew 17.20: 20 “If you have faith as small as a mustard seed…” It was common to compare small or insignificant things to a mustard seed. That is why Jesus chooses this particular grain over any other: because of its proverbial smallness. Mark 4.32: 32 “Yet when planted, it grows and becomes the largest of all garden plants, with such big branches that the birds of the air can perch in its shade.”

What is the point of this story? Pretty simple, isn't it? The point of comparison is the contrast between the smallness of the mustard seed and the greatness of the plant that comes out of it. Jesus is telling us that the tiny mustard seed is without proportion to the final result it produces: this enormous shrub, larger than all the garden plants, comparable to a tree.

Since the point of the parable is a contrast, the teaching to draw from it must involve another contrast. It might help us to formulate this correspondence by means of an equation: a/b = c/d (a is to b as c is to d). We already know what is represented by the terms c (the smallness of the seed) and d (the greatness of the plant). What we need to do is determine what a and b represent in the application. We will start with the term b, since it is usually at the end of a parable that Jesus gives the key to the meaning.

The image of a great tree (Matthew 13.32) giving shelter to the birds of the air is a classic figure of speech in the Old Testament to describe a universal political power, a great empire embracing many peoples. For example, Assyria (Ezekiel 31.3-9) or Babylon (Daniel 4.7-9, 19), but especially the mighty reign of the Messiah, son of David. Ezekiel 17.22-23: 22 “‘This is what the Sovereign Lord says: I myself will take a shoot from the very top of a cedar and plant it; I will break off a tender sprig from its topmost shoots and plant it on a high and lofty mountain. 23 On the mountain heights of Israel I will plant it; it will produce branches and bear fruit and become a splendid cedar. Birds of every kind will nest in it; they will find shelter in the shade of its branches.’”

This prophecy is messianic. The cedar represents the royal house of David, the davidic dynasty. God says he will take from this tree a shoot, a traditional image of the Messiah. Isaiah 11.1: 1 A shoot will come up from the stump of Jesse. The cedar sprig is tender to indicate the apparent vulnerability and weakness of the messianic prince. God says he will take this small, fragile shoot, plant it in Israel and will make it become a great tree and that the birds of the air will nest in its branches. What does this all mean? It means that the Messiah, a tiny shoot whose very survival seems precarious, will nevertheless have a mighty reign, a reign whose power and glory would surpass all the kingdoms of the earth.

In the context of Jesus' preaching, the full-grown mustard tree could hardly represent anything else but the reign of God: the messianic reign that the Jews were waiting for and that Jesus had come to set up on the earth and that he announced as being at hand. That reign would be great and, just as the symbolic tree of the prophetic visions, would dominate the whole world. Psalm 2.8: 8 “Ask of me, and I will make the nations your inheritance, the ends of the earth your possession.” We have, then, the second term of our equation, b: it represents the reign of the Messiah in its complete fulfillment, in all of its scope, in all of its power.

Now let's turn to the other term, a. What does the tiny mustard seed stand for? It stands for the ministry of Jesus among the Jews, the ministry which would soon give birth to the Messiah's reign in all of its glory. With Jesus, the reign of God had come near, it was at hand. And yet, his ministry seemed so small and insignificant compared to the spectacular display of power and glory that the Jews were expecting. They were looking for the Messiah to show up in Israel like a conquering hero, in a golden chariot pulled by four white horses. They were expecting the trumpets to sound, the call to arms to go forth and the Jewish nation to arise, overthrow Rome and take over the world. They were looking for fire from heaven.

But what did they see instead? A poor, itinerant preacher, accompanied by a band of twelve uncouth, uneducated hicks from Galilee, a so-called Messiah who couldn't seem to make up his mind if he wanted to be king of Israel or not. Even his miracles did not suffice to dissipate the impression of insignificance that the ministry of Jesus made on them.

The Messiah's reign would be sown in weakness, in humility, in suffering, whereas the Jews were counting on something else. And the ministry of Jesus became for them a source of disappointment, of doubt and finally of unbelief. It was their great stumbling block. They could not accept — would not accept — that the glorious reign of God could issue from such a modest beginning.

To which Jesus replies: Look at this magnificent mustard bush. It is much larger than all of the garden plants and could even be called a tree. And yet, it comes out of this tiny, little seed. Likewise, the ministry of Jesus, so humble, so insignificant, so disappointing, would bring forth the kingdom in all of its glory. No matter if it didn't fit what most people were expecting! What really mattered is that the Jews recognize that God was at work in the person of Jesus and that he had set in motion the process that would soon fulfill the messianic hope.

This parable was not really about the distant future. Jesus was not informing the Jews that the reign of the Messiah would spread slowly but surely, little by little, as the preaching of the Gospel made the church grow in number. Jesus didn't teach that his reign would grow gradually, like a plant. He preached that it was coming and it was about to arrive. It would burst forth into the world in a completely unexpected way, almost by miracle, just as the great tree already full-grown springs from the tiny seed. There would be no need waiting years and years for the reign of Jesus Christ to become great. It would be powerful, glorious, universal from the very day it was founded.

The parable of the yeast forms, along with the mustard seed, what scholars call a “parabolic couple”: they have the same point and illustrate the same historical situation by two different images. In the second parable, the disproportion is between the very small quantity of yeast as opposed to the enormous quantity of flour: 25 kilograms or 55 pounds, enough to feed over 160 people.

The Friend at Midnight

Luke 11.5-13: 5 Then he said to them, “Suppose one of you has a friend and he goes to him at midnight and says, ‘Friend, lend me three loaves of bread, 6 because a friend of mine on a journey has come to me, and I have nothing to set before him.’

7 “Then the one inside answers, ‘Don’t bother me. The door is already locked, and my children are with me in bed. I can’t get up and give you anything.’ 8 I tell you, though he will not get up and give him the bread because he is his friend, yet because of the man’s persistence he will get up and give him as much as he need.

9 “So I say to you: Ask and it will be given to you; seek and you will find; knock and the door will be opened to you. 10 For everyone who asks receives; he who seeks finds; and to him who knocks, the door will be opened.

11 “Which of you fathers, if your son asks for a fish, will give him a snake instead? 12 Or if he asks for an egg, will give him a scorpion? 13 If you then, though you are evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will your Father in heaven give the Holy Spirit to those who ask him!”

The Lord’s Prayer is followed in Luke by two parables that we should interpret in the same messianic perspective: “Your kingdom come.”

Usually, these two parables are seen as a teaching about the certainty with which God will answer persistent prayer, an exhortation to put all our needs before God. The lesson that is sometimes drawn from them could almost be expressed like this: If we keep hounding God, he will finally give in and grant us what we are asking for.

As a matter of fact, the emphasis put on the verbs “ask” and “give” in this text do not necessarily mean that Jesus is talking about prayer, at least not about prayer in general. More is expected here than just an answer that is certain; what is expected is a certain answer, a specific answer to the request: the gift of the Spirit (Luke 11.13).

The parallel passage in Matthew words the conclusion in somewhat different terms: Matthew 7.11: 11 “If you, then, though you are evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will your Father in heaven give good gifts to hose who ask him!” The “good gifts” that the heavenly Father will give to Jesus’ listeners are not so much the “ordinary” blessings of our material existence (health, food, houses, clothes) as the messianic blessings that the reign of God will bring to the chosen people: forgiveness, peace, life, redemption.

Here is the certainty that Jesus wants to give to his listeners who belong to the last Old Testament generation: not that God will answer without fail all of the prayers of all men (on the condition that they persist long enough), but that God will bestow generously and freely the gifts of the messianic age to every Jew who turns to him.

In Luke 11.13, the pouring out of the Holy Spirit represents and sums up all of the messianic blessings. In fact, the giving of the Spirit is the grace par excellence of the new age (John 7.37-39; Acts 2.38). The image of the bread given in abundance (“give him as much as he needs”) reminds us of the bread created overabundantly for the feeding of the 5000 (Luke 9.17) and evokes full participation in the rich blessings of the messianic feast.

In the two following chapters of Luke, Jesus will use three pairs of verbs (ask/receive, seek/find, knock/open), not to encourage his readers to pray but to exhort them to do all they can to enter into the coming kingdom. “Seek” first the kingdom of God rather than getting caught up in the worries of life (Luke 12.31). The kingdom will be “given” as a promise to a little flock, a small minority of the people of Israel (Luke 12.32). The Jews must make every effort to “enter” through the narrow door which gives entrance to the great feast of the kingdom, for only a small number of Israelites will make it through the door in time (Luke 12.22-30). The others will “knock”, but it will be too late. They will find themselves excluded from the feast and deprived of the promises that God had made to them through their ancestors.

The minds of the disciples should remain centered on the reign, which God has promised them and which is near but which they have not yet received. Indeed, there is one great obstacle they have to overcome to make it in: the scandal of the cross. Their prayer consists basically in asking to enter the kingdom.

What then is the practical lesson that the disciples should draw from the parable of the persistent midnight friend? Now that the reign of the Messiah is at hand, they should not be afraid to insist with “persistence” (literally, “troublesome importunity”; the idea is making a nuisance of oneself) in order to force their way in through the door. Luke 16.16: 16 “The Law and the Prophets were proclaimed until John. Since that time, the good news of the kingdom of God is being preached, and everyone is forcing his way into it.”

The Jews must respond to the call of Jesus without fear, without letting themselves be held back by the hostility and opposition of their religious leaders. The friend who dispenses the messianic blessings is God the Father and not the scribes and Pharisees. The Jews should not be afraid to take the kingdom by storm. They need to know how to grab hold of the opportunity that God is offering them.

The Persistent Widow

Luke 17.20-37: 20 Once, having been asked by the Pharisees when the kingdom of God would come, Jesus replied, “The kingdom of God does not come visibly, 21 nor will people say, ‘Here it is,’ or ‘There it is,’ because the kingdom of God is within you.”

22 Then he said to his disciples, “The time is coming when you will long to see one of the days of the Son of Man, but you will not see it. 23 Men will tell you, ‘There he is!’ or ‘Here he is!’ Do not go running off after them. 24 For the Son of Man in his day will be like the lightning, which flashes and lights up the sky from one end to the other. 25 But first he must suffer many things and be rejected by this generation.

26 “Just as it was in the days of Noah, so also will it be in the days of the Son of Man. 27 People were eating, drinking, marrying and being given in marriage up to the day Noah entered the ark. Then the flood came and destroyed them all.

28 “It was the same in the days of Lot. People were eating, drinking, buying, selling, planting and building. 29 But the day Lot left Sodom, fire and sulfur rained down from heaven and destroyed them all.

30 “It will be just like this on the day the Son of Man is revealed. 31 On that day no one who is on the roof of his house, with his goods inside, should go down to get them. Likewise, no one in the field should go back for anything. 32 Remember Lot’s wife! 33 Whoever tries to keep his life will lose it, and whoever loses his life will preserve it. 34 I tell you, on that night two people will be in one bed; one will be taken and the other left. 35 Two women will be grinding grain together; one will be taken and the other left.”

37 “Where, Lord?” they asked.

He replied, “Where there is a dead body, there the vultures will gather.”

The Coming of the Kingdom

Jesus is speaking in the first verbal exchange to Pharisees, who are waiting for the coming of the Messiah’s reign promised in the Old Testament but who refuse to recognize that it is coming near in the ministry of Jesus (and John the Baptist). Jesus begins by telling them that they will wait in vain for a kingdom whose appearing can be infallibly recognized by purely empirical observation. That does not mean that the reign of the Messiah will be totally invisible; on the contrary, it will manifest its presence and its power by visible, dazzling signs. But merely seeing with physical eyes these observable signs will not necessarily lead the observer to conclude: “The kingdom is here!”

In other words, a measure of divine revelation will be necessary to discern the coming of the kingdom, and this revelation must be received by faith. (The works of God in history are always an event that can be seen, plus a word of explanation that can be heard.) And that is just the problem. The Pharisees have closed their ears to this revelation. God had sent John the Baptist and Jesus to proclaim to Israel the good news that the reign of the Messiah was at hand. Jesus was performing visible signs that “signified” the same message.

How did the Pharisees react to the message? John 3.11: 11 “You people do not accept our testimony.” As long as they remain deaf to the voice of God speaking to them through his inspired messengers, the unbelieving Pharisees will never see the kingdom, no matter how hard they look with their physical eyes. They do not how to interpret the signs of “this present time” (Luke 12.54-56) because they do not listen to God. It is only with the eyes of faith that the presence of the kingdom can be seen in an objective historical event. (For those who believe in the word of God, the fall of the Roman Empire is a result of the kingly authority that Jesus exercises over the world; for unbelievers, it is the result of political, economic and sociological factors.)

That brings us to the statement of Jesus in Luke 17.21: 21 The kingdom of God is within you.” The great majority of French Bible scholars and versions prefer the alternative translation (in the notes of the NIV): “among you”, that is within or in the midst of the Jewish community. To me, that reading fits the context of Jesus’ teaching in the Gospels much better. To the question “When will the kingdom of God come?” Jesus replies: “First of all, you will not be able to see the kingdom without faith. But already, for those who have eyes to see, the kingdom has come into the midst of Israel.” By that, Jesus implies that the Pharisees can this very minute observe and ascertain its presence. All they have to do is believe his preaching and discern the meaning of the signs they are seeing.

In what sense Jesus, who manifestly considers the coming of Messiah’s reign to be a still future event, can affirm that it is already present? Well, the kingdom is present in the sense that its imminent arrival is already being heralded in Jesus’ preaching and works, especially the healings, miracles and exorcisms he performs. Luke 11.20: 20 “But if I drive out demons by the finger of God, then the kingdom of God has come to you.” Jesus does not mean that his reign has been definitively established by these limited acts in favor of selected individuals. But they are the promise, the token, the guarantee, the sign, the prelude of its imminent arrival.

Thus Jesus invites the blind Pharisees to discern right here and now the presence (in advance) of the kingdom in his own ministry among them, to adhere to him in an act of faith, and to prepare themselves spiritually to accept what is coming. The sun has not yet risen, but its light is already visible on the horizon.

The Day of the Son of Man

The expression “day(s) of the Son of Man” (Luke 17.22, 24, 27, 30) no doubt parallels the “day of the Lord” that is used so often by the prophets to designate the different acts of God in the history of the nations (Isaiah 13.6. 9; Ezekiel 30.3; Joel 1.15; 2.1; Obadiah 15; Zephaniah 1.14ff; Revelation 6.17; 16.4). In his “day”, the Lord manifests his power in history to punish his enemies and to give victory to his people.

In the Old Testament, these manifestations of royal and judicial power over the world are reserved for God; the New Testament attributes such interventions to the Messiah. Beginning at his ascension, when he is enthroned at the right hand of God (Mark 14.62), the resurrected Christ will begin to exercise the royal authority that the Father will give him over the world. The intervention dealt with in our present text corresponds to the historical judgment of the unbelieving Jewish theocracy. The main act of that judgement will be the destruction of Jerusalem and the Temple in 70 A.D. Jesus is not dealing here with his final coming to judge the world at the end of time.

The longing that the disciples will have to see this day of reckoning come (more quickly) can be explained by the great persecutions that they will suffer at the hands of their unbelieving countrymen (Luke 21.12, 16-17). They will go around bent over, downcast, crying out to God day and night, until their Master comes to deliver them and grant them justice against their persecutors (Luke 18.1-8; 21.28). In the meantime, they will have to be patient and persevere in their faithfulness (Luke 21.18-19; James 5.7-8).

Warning about That Day

Jesus warns his disciples to not let themselves be taken in by false rumors about the appearing of the Messiah, as if his coming is to be some secret event. There will be false Messiahs claiming to be the long waited liberator, and this propaganda will come from their followers among the Jewish extremists (Matthew 24.23, 26-27; Mark 13.21; Luke 21.8-9). The warning, then, concerns a specific historical situation: the religious and nationalist ferment that will agitate the Holy Land during the years preceding the siege of Jerusalem (Flavius Josephus, Wars of the Jews, 6, 5.14). The danger of being led away concerns directly only the Jewish Christians in Palestine before the Jewish-Roman War of 66-70.

In any case, the intervention of the Christ will be so evident that there will be no need to scan the horizon and search out the hidden corners of the land. His coming to judge Israel will be, for those who have eyes to see, a spectacularly clear event. That is the meaning of the image of the lightening which lights up the sky (Luke 17.24). When Jesus comes against the holy city, no one will be able to miss it.

The judgement of Jerusalem will have as a necessary prelude the passion and rejection of the Messiah by “this generation” of Jews. The suffering of the Messiah is not just a chronological point of reference, but the very reason that the people will be judged: they did not want that kind of Messiah to rule over them. Luke 13.34: 34 “O Jerusalem, Jerusalem, you who kill the prophets and stone those sent to you, how often I have longed to gather your children together, as a hen gathers her chicks under her wings, but you were not willing!” Matthew 22.7: 7 “The king was enraged. he sent his army and destroyed those murderers and burned their city.” (Luke 19.41-44; 21.22-23; 23.28-31; Matthew 21.41).

That Day Compared to Past Judgements

Jesus next compares the grave events that threaten the Jewish theocracy to two great judgments of the past: the flood and the destruction of Sodom. In all three cases, God strikes the “world” (2 Peter 2.5-10) of the guilty generation. The parallels, it must be admitted, suggest more a local historical punishment than the universal judgment at the end of the world. In fact, it is the end of a world rather than the end of the world.

What is the point of the comparison? Jesus emphasizes first of all the certainty of the judgment. The phrase “and destroyed them all”, which closes each of the two examples, reminds us of the threat which also keeps coming back like a refrain: “You will all perish in the same way” (Luke 13.3, 5).

Next, Jesus underlines the inexplicable heedlessness of the guilty ones, who were taken completely by surprise when the two divine judgements fell upon their world. They had no idea of what would happen (Matthew 24.39). In the same way, the contemporaries of Jesus refuse to take into account the judgement that is suspended over their heads like the sword of Damocles, even though there is no lack of signs to warn them of the coming wrath (Luke 12.54-56).

Taken as a whole, the paragraph is an exhortation to be watchful (Matthew 24.36-44). Vigilance is necessary not only because the disciples do not know the exact date (the day and the hour) of the coming judgment, but also because of the heedless unbelief that will reign among the Jews of that time (2 Peter 3.1-13). Jesus invites his disciples to be watchful and ready, to not let themselves be contaminated and lulled into a false sense of security by the carefree attitude of their contemporaries. Just like Noah and Lot, they will escape disaster only by being ready, when the time comes, to follow the instructions that the Lord will give them to save their lives.

In this context, the “revelation” of the Son of Man (Luke 17.30) is not to be understood as a visible, bodily appearing. As is often the case in Scripture, the word refers to historical events that will clearly manifest his royal power.

The glory of Jesus as Messiah-King and Son remained veiled during his earthly ministry by the humiliating and suffering life that he willingly assumed. The revelation of this glory is accomplished first of all in his death, resurrection and ascension (which John calls his glorification). But his glory is also revealed in the events which affirm his power as messianic king, which reveal him as the sovereign Lord of the universe and Master of destinies. The destruction of Jerusalem is (along with the fall of Rome) one of the most important of these special historical events reported in Scripture. The verse makes perfectly good sense outside of any idea of the end of the world.

Orders to Flee

The instructions given by Jesus to his disciples (Luke 17.31-33) again concern the judgement of Jerusalem and would make no sense at all in the context of the end of the world. For Jesus tells them to flee the land of Judea without the slightest hesitation or delay or turning back.

The orders of Luke 17.31 express hyperbolically the necessity of fleeing immediately, as is clearly shown by other texts where these same instructions are applied to the siege of the holy city. Matthew 24.15-21: 15 “So when you see standing in the holy place ‘the abomination that causes desolation,’ spoken of through the prophet Daniel—let the reader understand—16 then let those who are in Judea flee to the mountains. 17 Let no one on the roof of his house go down to take anything out of the house. 18 Let no one in the field go back to get his cloak. 19 How dreadful it will be in those days for pregnant women and nursing mothers! 20 Pray that your flight will not take place in winter or on the Sabbath. 21 For then there will be great distress, unequaled from the beginning of the world until now—and never to be equaled again.”

Luke the non-Jew translates this prophetic imagery. Luke 21.20-22: 20 “When you see Jerusalem surrounded by armies, you will know that its desolation is near. 21 Then let those who are in Judea flee to the mountains, let those in the city get out, and let those in the country not enter the city. 22 For this is the time of punishment in fulfillment of all that has been written.” Here then are the orders: As soon as the signal is given, that is as soon as the disciples see Jerusalem invested by a Roman army, they must leave the city as soon as possible and take refuge outside of Judea.

The fate of Lot’s wife (Genesis 19.24-26) is to serve as an example not to follow. It is true that she leaves Sodom to escape the divine wrath that will destroy the wicked city, but she remains too attached to the life she has left behind. Lagging far behind her husband, she turns around and perishes in the catastrophe that she could have avoided had she only follow the orders of the Lord. When God’s judgment begins to fall on Jerusalem, the disciples must also leave everything behind with no turning back: their homeland, their family, their friends, the houses, their possessions, their culture, everything that had been their life in Judaism. Anyone who cannot bring himself to say good-bye to all of that will find himself caught up in the horrors of the Jewish-Roman War.

In harmony with the context, the saying of Luke 17.33 encourages the disciple, in order to save his life, to flee Judea rapidly, to be ready to leave behind him not just his belongings but his whole former life. It must be understood that even Jews converted to Christianity still had strong feelings of attachment to their country, their holy city, their beloved temple, the customs of their people. But an excessive attachment to these things will lead the disciple to his ruin.

How are we to understand the double image of Luke 17.34-35 in relation to the day of the Son of Man? The most common opinion is that this is the end of the world (more specifically, the “rapture”) and that the one who is “taken” represents the people destined to go to heaven. The one who is “left” represents those who will be abandoned to the sad fate of the world. This explanation is not without serious difficulties. In fact, the whole context of the Gospels indicates that the subject here is the judgement of the Jewish world of the first century.

This messianic judgment will effectuate a selection, a sorting out among the Jews of that generation: some will be taken, the others will be left. Everything leads us to believe that the Jews who are “taken” are the ones who will lose their lives in the ruin of Jerusalem. In the Old Testament prophecies of judgment, to be “taken” (or “cut off,” “carried away,” “swept away,” “caught up” “dragged off” “uprooted”, etc.) most often means to be carried away by the overwhelming scourge, the plague that punishes (Isaiah 9.14; 28.19; 40.24; 52.5; Jeremiah 6.2, 11; 9.20; 12.3, 14; etc.). The example of the flood points us in that direction. In the parallel text of Matthew 24.9, Jesus says that the flood “came and took them all away.”

In contrast to being “taken” is being “left”, which can only mean, if we refer to biblical usage, being spared by the judgment and becoming a part of the faithful “remnant”. We read of the flood: Genesis 7.23: 23 Every living thing on the face of the earth was wiped out; men and animals and the creatures that move along the ground and the birds of the air were wiped from the earth. Only Noah was left, and those with him in the ark. Very often in the prophets, the word “remnant” becomes a technical term referring to the small group of privileged Jews who escape the destroying avenger and inherit the messianic promises (Romans 9.27; 11.5). Thus, the Jews who adhere to the Messiah will be “left”, that is spared by the Jewish national disaster. With their place confirmed in the kingdom, they will form the “new Israel”, separated definitively from the Mosaic theocracy destroyed in 70.

The Place of Judgement

In Luke 17, the disciples do not yet know where this judgment is to take place because Jesus unveils this secret of the kingdom only progressively. His proverbial answer about the dead body and the vultures expresses a simple idea. Where will the judgment take place? Where there is good reason for it. God’s wrath will spill out where it is deserved, that is on Jerusalem, the murderer of the prophets and of the Messiah, the persecutor of the saints.

The Parable

Luke 18.1-8: 1 Then Jesus told his disciples a parable to show them that they should always pray and not give up. 2 He said: “In a certain town there was a judge who neither feared God nor cared about men. 3 And there was a widow in that town who kept coming to him with the plea, ‘Grant me justice against my adversary.’

4 “For some time he refused. But finally he said to himself, ‘Even though I don’t fear God or care about men, 5 yet because this widow keeps bothering me, I will see that she gets justice, so that she won’t eventually wear me out with her coming!’”

6 And the Lord said, “Listen to what the unjust judge says. 7 And will not God bring about justice for his chosen ones, who cry out to him day and night? Will he keep putting them off? 8 I tell you, he will see that they get justice, and quickly. However, when the Son of Man comes, will he find faith on the earth?”

This parable serves as the conclusion to the teaching Jesus has just given to his disciples about the judgment that he will carry out in 70 against the corrupt and rebellious Jewish theocracy. It concerns more specifically the period of persecutions which will strike the disciples of Christ in Palestine before the ruin of Jerusalem. The Jewish Christians will be abused and oppressed by their Jewish countrymen hardened in their unbelief.

For the disciples, this will be a time of great stress and constraint as they wait painfully for the day when the Lord will come deliver them and grant them justice against their persecutors (Luke 21.12, 16-17). Luke 17.22: 22 “The time is coming when you will long to see one of the days of the Son of Man, but you will not see it.” They will call to Jesus and ask him to intervene on their behalf, but his intervention will be a long time coming.

As to the teaching of the parable, we can notice first of all that it is built upon a contrast and an a fortiori (“how much more”). If, for a petty reason, a corrupt judge ends up giving justice to a woman he doesn’t even care about, how much more will the just God vindicate his bel