Exploring The Parables of Jesus
Tell all the Truth but tell it slant
Success in Circuit lies
Too bright for our infirm Delight
The Truth's superb surprise
As Lightening to the Children eased
With explanation kind
The Truth must dazzle gradually
Or every man be blind.
— Emily Dickinson
The parables are the subversive stories Jesus told. He was a master at subversion, and parables were his favorite speech form. Parables were casual stories about soil and seeds, bandits and victims, farmers and merchants. They rarely mention God, so most people didn’t think there was cause for alarm, nothing threatening the status quo. They relaxed their defenses. They walked away perplexed, the stories lodged in their imagination. And then, like a time bomb, they would explode in their unprotected hearts. He was talking about God; they had been invaded! Jesus the subversive strikes again!
This summer we will spend time with a handful of these subversive stories. How does God need to sneak into our hearts and explode open new vistas of reflection, self-understanding, and engagement in what is becoming a post-pandemic world? How might Jesus subvert us and our world still by Telling it Slant?