PARABLES OF ACTION: NOTES FROM CROSSAN'S IN PARABLES (Chapter Four)

Parables of Action

• The tendency in the tradition of parable interpretation is to look down upon the allegorizing of parables (i.e. Augustine's treatment of the Good Samaritan), but there is a general acceptance of moralizing the parables (i.e J. Jeremias).

Parables and Ethics

• There was a profound clash between Jesus and the Pharisees, but later Christian hostility has distorted the actual nature of this confrontation. The Pharisees are erroneously described as hypocrites (you must do what we won't) or uncaring legalists. In fact, the Pharisees were great moral teachers and guides, "But there precisely lay the problem which Jesus and Paul saw so clearly."

"When Christianity is no longer aware of what Jesus and Paul were fighting against in Pharisaic Judaism, it can hardly be conscious of a similar presence within itself. The debate did not concern good law as over against bad law or even internal and sincere law as over against external and hypocritical law. The challenge of Jesus and of Paul was this: obedience does not lead to God, but God leads one to obedience. The question is not God or law, covenant or commandment, faith or works, but, granting both, in which direction does the arrow fly from one to the other? It must be emphasized that this is not a debate between Judaism and Christianity but a conflict within them both, and a conflict ever ancient and ever new. So, according to Jesus and Paul, it was the gift of God's presence that made a good life possible, not a good life that made the reward of God's presence inevitable."

"The righteousness of God does not presuppose our obedience; it creates it." - Earnst Kasemann.

• The parables of Jesus seek to draw us into the Kingdom of God and to act by the gift received therein.
• Ethics seeks to form a logic mode of acting out the best possible way of Being. But parables subvert ethics. Parables leave us wondering what to do. They are not a clear program or list of instructions. We enter the Holy of Holies to find it empty.

The parables overthrow ethics, just as Matt. 5:39 overthrows the typical response to violence: "if any one strikes you on the right cheek turn to him the other also." "It intends us to experience how the logic of ethics is undermined by the mystery of God and that, if one can but accept it, is the most crucial moral experience of all.... Can we walk and act in utter serenity and in utter insecurity, in total concern and in total incertitude?"

The Action Parables: The Parable of the Treasure (Serves as a paradigmatic parable for Crossan; Matt. 13:44)

1. The Advent - The Finding of the Treasure
2. The Reversal - He Goes (altering his original plan)
3. The Action - The purchase of the field

• Gos of Thom 98:31-99:3: 1) No mention of the buyer selling everything he had to purchase the field. The treasure was found after he purchased the field and was found after plowing the field (It takes hard work for one to find their true Gnostic self); 2) It tells us what the buyer did with the treasure after he found it, "to lend money to whomever he wished."

"Jesus' parables challenge one to life and action within the Kingdom but they leave that life and that action as absolute in its call as it is unspecified in its detail."

Situations Depicted in Parables of Action

1. The Decision is Made - Friend at Midnight (Luke 11:5-8); The Unjust Judge (Luke 18:2-5)
2. The Decision is Not Made - Rich Fool (Luke 12:16-20; Gos. Thom. 92:3-10); The Man Who Lack a Wedding Garment (Matt. 22:11-14). The Bridesmaids depicts both #1 and #2 (Matt. 25:1-13).

The Servant Parables (Crossan discusses nine servant parables and groups them. This grouping is important for his conclusion, so I provide one example of each group).

Group A: The Parable of the Talents

      Matt. 25:14-30

• Matt. 25:16-18 does not appear in Luke, suggesting this portion came to Matthew through his source and supports originality. This passage functions as a way to draw listeners immediately into the world of the parable.
• Matt. 25:30 is not original because of its "allegorical character, explicit eschatological application, and Matthean vocabulary." The original ending is most likely in Matt. 25:28 because it functions to recall Matt. 25:20.

      Luke 19:12-27

• Note the common phrases between Matt. 18:24-29 and Luke 19:20-26.
• Luke 19:27 can be omitted since it is a part of the Throne Claimant and originally has nothing to do with the Parable of the Talents.
• Luke 19:24 matches Matt. 25:28 supporting this as the original ending of the parable.

"The main story is quiet clear as is its use of the standard folkloric threesome. Two servants are rewarded for their work and a third is punished for his prudent if useless inactivity."

Group B: The Vineyard Workers

      Matt. 20:1-13

• There is a consensus that 20:16 is the original ending. "So the last will be first, and the first last," is not original being a repeated phrase from 19:30, and 19:30 coming from Mark 10:31. Most scholars accept 1:1-15 as the basic original story. Crossan argues that the ending of this parable is the rhetorical question of vs. 13.

"The owner does not pay the first the least and the last the most. In that story the hearer would have to wonder at the clear 'injustice' of such an action. Jesus must create a story which is quite possible and which does not raise irrelevant moral considerations. It is reversal of expectation which is central: 'they thought' in 20:10."

"What comes across most forcibly within our present purpose is that this parable shatters utterly the normalcy of Group A and brings to a climax the drive of Group B and the Servant Parables."

Structure and Oral Tradition

People who live in a writing culture, the phrase 'ipsissma verba' means exactly that, 'the very words.' In contrast, in a culture that operates on a more oral tradition, 'ipsissma verba' addresses more of the structure of a story, and less the exact repetition of words. Thus, Jesus probably shared his teachings on multiple occasions, staying true to a general structure and not exact verbage. It is more accurate to speak of tradition than original parable.

Crossan agrees to a point, but states, "In so far as we can legitimately generalize from the case of the servant parables, then, it would seem that the parabolic creativity of Jesus consisted in variations of structure within the same theme and in variations of content within the same structure but not in variations of detail within the same content."

Interpretation of the Structure

While parables alone function as a way to present the Kingdom, Crossan argues that the very structure of the Servant Parables does the same. "Here it is not a short proverb or even a long parable which is in question. It is an entire parabolic theme which is developed in one set of parables (Group A) and then reversed and overthrown in another (Group B)." The block of parables of Group A set up the latter reversal performed by Group B.

"Like a wise and prudent servant calculating what he must do in the critical reckoning to which his master summons him, one must be ready and willing to respond in life and action to the eschatological advent of God. But, unfortunately, the eschatological advent of God will always be precisely that for which wise and prudent readiness is impossible because it shatters also our wisdom and our prudence."

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