My very first job was working in the Tiverton Ontario Public Library. I was 13 years old. Forty years later (don’t do the math!) and I’m still working in a library. My parents instilled in me a great respect for reading, so books and stories are some of my favourite things. As a result I’ve devoted much of my life to preserving stories and knowledge. That’s my career. It’s what I do.
As a child, my favourite book was Grover and the Everything in the Whole Wide World Museum, published in 1974. This book may be somewhat responsible for starting me on my long journey of loving history and museums… and good stories.
I am so thankful that this Bible we’ve been given is in the form of stories, because the super-power of a story is making the reader feel for, and relate to, characters within the story. We can see ourselves in the hero, or maybe, sometimes, we can even see ourselves in the villain. Stories help us evaluate our own lives. In the Bible we can see a bit of ourselves embedded in the narrative. And let’s not forget, the story of the Bible isn’t over.
The image at the end of the book of the Revelation has yet to be fulfilled. That means we’re living in Biblical times. You and I… we are part of the on-going story! This story is our story and we’re still in the middle of it!
Through this grand tale, we are connected to God and the beautiful world He created, from the beginning. And even though it’s a tale of ups and downs, heartache and joy, war and victory, the end of the story is a beautiful ending…
Have you ever read a novel and thought, UGH… I can’t believe it ended that way. I can’t believe I invested so much time to such a disappointing end. Not so with the Bible, the ending is glorious. Spoiler alert! It’s a full circle return to Eden where we are reunited with God, living in the renewed earth, surrounded by incredible beauty and joy. It’s a really good end…and it’s an ending that ushers in a new beginning!
The Bible is a collection of poems (there’s a lot of poetry in the Bible), histories, and stories. Embedded within the Biblical narrative are parables. Parables are stories within the story. Fictional stories embedded in true stories.
According to the Cambridge Dictionary, the definition of a Parable is: a short, simple story that teaches or explains an idea, especially a moral or religious idea.
In the account of Jesus’ life we see that Jesus loved to tell short stories. And He used those stories to highlight certain truths. For Jesus, many of these moral truths reflect what life is meant to look like (or not look like) in God’s Kingdom.
Matthew 13:45
…the kingdom of heaven is like a merchant seeking fine pearls, and upon finding one pearl of great value, he went and sold everything that he had and bought it.
Meaning: the Kingdom of God is worth more than you own. It’s the only treasure you need… so seek it, find it, embrace it, no matter the cost!
The parables of Jesus are sometimes tricky… although the stories (like the one we just read) are simple, sometimes the meaning of the stories are not always direct or simple. Sometimes they are confusing and strange.
Luke 13:20-21
Again He asked, “To what can I compare the kingdom of God? It is like leaven that a woman took and mixed into three measures of flour, until all of it was leavened.”
Huh? Some of these parables are like riddles. You have to stop and think. The kingdom of heaven is like leaven. What happens to the dough when leaven (or yeast) is mixed in? It permeates the dough and causes it to rise. Like leaven, the Kingdom of heaven will permeate the earth and rise up, renewed! So let’s be like the woman who brings the leaven to permeate the dough! Let’s sprinkle a bit of heaven around wherever we go!
When it comes to parables, it’s also important to look at the context. When is Jesus saying these things? To whom is Jesus saying these things? Jesus used parables to make people stop and think. This is purposeful! You know the popular saying: Seek and you will find! Jesus rewarded seekers by using parables. Those who weren’t seeking spiritual guidance would likely be quick to dismiss the parables of Jesus as weird or confusing… putting no time and effort into understanding these things. Parables were a gift to those who really wanted to get to the truth, the ones willing to put in the work to get closer to God. Seeking God takes effort.
Sometimes, the Pharisees (who would consider themselves ‘Seekers’) did get the meaning of Jesus’ parables, but it made them mad, because they recognized who they were in the story… and it was never good.
So, we’re going to take a look at two Biblical parables; one in the Old Testament and one in the New Testament. And we will see how these two stories actually combine to outline a bigger truth.
We tend to associate parables with Jesus, but Jesus learned the power of parables from reading His own Bible… the Old Testament. The prophets frequently told parables to make their point! Parables aren’t just a Jesus thing… they had a long history in Jewish story-telling tradition.
Stop for a second. Can you think of an Old Testament parable? Here are just a few:
The Trees Looking for a King (Judges 9:7–15): Jotham’s parable to the citizens of Shechem
The Poor Man’s Lamb (2 Samuel 12:1–4): Nathan’s parable to King David
The Two Fighting Brothers (2 Samuel 14:1–11): The Wise Woman of Tekoa’s parable to King David
The Escaped Prisoner (1 Kings 20:35–40): An unnamed prophet’s parable to King Ahab
The Thistle and the Cedar (2 Kings 14:9): King Jehoash of Israel’s parable to King Amaziah of Judah
The Shattered Clay Flask (Jeremiah 19:1–11): Prophet Jeremiah’s parable to the elders and priests in the Valley of Ben Hinnom
The Two Eagles and the Vine (Ezekiel 17:3–10): Ezekiel’s parable to the house of Israel (Ezekiel 17:3–10)
The Lioness and Her Cubs (Ezekiel 19:2–9): Ezekiel’s parable to the princes of Israel
The Boiling Pot (Ezekiel 24:3–5): Ezekiel’s parable to the rebellious house in Jerusalem
All this to say, parables are found all throughout the Bible, Old and New Testament. One that I didn’t mention above is found in Isaiah chapter 5… it is the parable of The Disappointing Harvest:
Isaiah 5:1-2
I will sing for my beloved a song of his vineyard:
My beloved had a vineyard on a very fertile hill. He dug it up and cleared the stones and planted the finest vines. He built a watchtower in the middle and dug out a winepress as well. He waited for the vineyard to yield good grapes, but the fruit it produced was sour!
I suspect your translation says “sour” or “bitter” (most do) but the word here is b’ushim and it actually means “stinky things”...It comes from the word b’osh which is a “stench” or of “a foul odour”. These grapes were stinky.
Isaiah 5:2b-7
He waited for the vineyard to yield good grapes, but the fruit it produced was stinky!
“And now, O dwellers of Jerusalem and men of Judah, I exhort you to judge between Me and My vineyard. What more could have been done for My vineyard than I have done for it? Why, when I expected sweet grapes, did it bring forth stinky fruit?
Now I will tell you what I am about to do to My vineyard: I will take away its hedge, and it will be consumed; I will tear down its wall, and it will be trampled. I will make it a wasteland, neither pruned nor cultivated, and thorns and briers will grow up. I will command the clouds that rain shall not fall on it.”
For the vineyard of YHWH of Hosts is the house of Israel, and the men of Judah are the plant of His delight. He looked for justice, but saw bloodshed; [he looked] for righteousness, but heard a cry of distress.
Notice, at the end, we’re given the key to the parable. Isaiah tells us directly that the vineyard is Israel, and the plants are the people of Judah whom God loves. But due to bloodshed, injustice and unrighteousness, those people became stinky. It’s a relatively simple parable. God planted this world, gave it everything it needed to produce good fruit, but the produce (humans) turned out to be stinky.
In Mattew 21 Jesus actually takes this parable of Isaiah and tells it at a very specific time in his ministry. And I tell you that because context is important.
Jesus just had the triumphal entry into Jerusalem… what we celebrate on Palm Sunday. Jesus enters Jerusalem, riding on a donkey, people are waving palm branches and shouting, “Hosanna to the Son of David! Blessed is He who comes in the name of the Lord! Hosanna in the highest!”
This is only days before He’s about to be crucified. According to Matthew Jesus follows that event by entering the Temple precinct and causes a ruckus by turning over the tables of the moneylenders.
He then leaves Jerusalem to stay in Bethany but the next day he returns, curses the fig tree, and then goes to the Temple Courtyard to preach. There the Jewish leaders ask Him, “By what authority are You doing these things?”
Jesus, cleverly, says “I’ll answer your question if you answer mine”… unfortunately we don’t have time to dive into all of this, so I encourage you, this week, to read through Matthew 21 because it’s a fascinating back-and-forth dialogue between Jesus and the Jewish authorities. Suffice it to say, they don’t answer Jesus’ question, so he tells them that he won’t answer theirs. Instead He recites two parables. The second of the two parables begins exactly the way Isaiah began his parable that we just read. Jesus says this:
Matthew 21:33-45
Listen to another parable: There was a landowner who planted a vineyard. He put a wall around it, dug a winepress in it, and built a tower.
[This is almost exactly how Isaiah 5 begins… but then Jesus adds a new chapter to the story:]
Then he [the landowner] rented it out to some tenants and went away on a journey. When the harvest time drew near, he sent his servants to the tenants to collect his share of the fruit. But the tenants seized his servants. They beat one, killed another, and stoned a third. Again, he sent other servants, more than the first group. But the tenants did the same to them.
Finally, he sent his son to them. ‘They will respect my son,’ he said. But when the tenants saw the son, they said to one another, ‘This is the heir. Come, let us kill him and take his inheritance.’ So they seized him and threw him out of the vineyard and killed him.
Therefore, when the owner of the vineyard returns, what will he do to those tenants?”
“He will bring those wretches to a wretched end,” they replied, “and will rent out the vineyard to other tenants who will give him his share of the fruit at harvest time.”
Jesus said to them, “Have you never read in the Scriptures: ‘The stone the builders rejected has become the cornerstone. This is from the Lord, and it is marvelous in our eyes’? Therefore I tell you that the kingdom of God will be taken away from you and given to a people who will produce its fruit. He who falls on this stone will be broken to pieces, but he on whom it falls will be crushed.”
When the chief priests and Pharisees heard His parables, they knew that Jesus was speaking about them. Although they wanted to arrest Him, they were afraid of the crowds, because the people regarded Him as a prophet.
Why do the people regard Him as a prophet? Because He acted just like one because, as we just saw, prophets loved telling parables!
Jesus spoke His parable directly to the Pharisees and He begins the parable exactly how Isaiah did: there was a fertile hill, and the Vine-keeper tilled the land, removed the rocks, planted the seeds, built a fence around it, and built a watchtower on it, and prepared a winepress to be ready for the harvest.
Isaiah goes on to tell us that the harvest was disappointing and the grapes that grew were stinky. We get it. God is the Great Vine-keeper and humans are the disappointing (and stinky) grapes.
But Jesus takes Isaiah’s simple parable and adds a new element to the story. In Jesus’ version, the Vine-grower goes on vacation and leaves his good vineyard to the caretakers. But when the harvest comes, he sends his servants to collect the grapes. Upon seeing the Servants of the Landowner, the caretakers beat and kill them, not once but twice. So the Landowner sends his son, thinking “they will respect My Son”. But they do not. They take him outside the vineyard, and murder him. Why? Because they want to take his inheritance for themselves. They want to become little gods of their own making… seizing autonomy and power for themselves.
Jesus is retelling Isaiah’s parable and he’s upping the ante… now the harvest is in our hands. There are humans who are God’s good servants, and there are humans who are stinky bad caretakers of God’s vineyard, who try to kill God’s servants and claim everything good for themselves.
Jesus then tells His own story in this parable. It’s harvest time! God is coming back to collect the Good Fruit. His servants, like John the Baptist, have come but were attacked and killed, so now He’s Sending His Son.
Jesus is the Son of the Vine-keeper who will be killed outside of Jerusalem’s walls in just a few days. The Pharisees aren’t stupid. We read that, “they knew that Jesus was speaking about them.”
They’re also smart enough to know that Jesus started the story with the beginning of Isaiah’s parable… and that parable states that those grapes (aka humans) are stinky. Jesus, without saying it directly, is telling the Pharisees that they Stink! It’s an insult hidden within the story… but they could see it clear as day.
Jesus also ended his parable with the dig at the Pharisees, saying, “don’t you know your Bible?” As the Bible experts, this phrase was a massive insult to the Jewish religious leaders… and it’s one that Jesus throws at them all the time. Read your Bible. It comes up a lot.
Matthew 21:42
Jesus said to them, “Have you never read in the Scriptures:
‘The stone the builders rejected has become the cornerstone. This is from the Lord, and it is marvelous in our eyes’?
This is about the cornerstone that Isaiah talked about (Isaiah 28:16)…
Isaiah 28:16-18a
Therefore this is what the Lord YHWH says:
“Behold, I am laying a stone in Zion, a tested stone, a precious cornerstone for the foundation, firmly placed. The one who believes in it will not be disturbed.
I will make justice the measuring line and righteousness the level; then hail will sweep away the refuge of lies, and the waters will overflow the secret place. Your covenant with death will be canceled, and your pact with Sheol will not stand…”
This is Isaiah’s Good News story. A rock is coming that will tether humans to God’s life giving power. It will overcome death. Jesus is reminding the religious elite of Isaiah’s wonderful promise of the coming Cornerstone. And then He tells them that they are rejecting the Cornerstone that Isaiah announced would be coming.
Jesus is saying to the Pharisees: If the story isn’t clear enough already, you, Pharisees, are the ones who are rejecting the Cornerstone! You’re rejecting Me! In place of righteousness and justice, you are elevating lies and secrets and it will lead to your death. You stink at being human because you are not being the earth’s caretakers and as far as being a people of God, you’re a stinky harvest.
By listening to Jesus’ parable they are hearing both Isaiah’s story and Jesus’ extended version and both of those parables work together to highlight the hypocrisy of the elite Jewish leaders.
They see what Jesus is doing. They see themselves in the story and at this point they have every opportunity to repent, but they don’t. Their pride is damaged and instead of repentance they want vengeance. Think about it. Jesus is just telling a simple story but it makes them want to kill Him. Storytelling is powerful!
Now we can sit here and judge the Pharisees, Sadducees, lawyers and scribes, but how different are we from them? Are we stinky grapes and terrible tenants of the earth? OR are we making God’s Kingdom a better, more fruitful, place? Are we expressing God’s love to all of God’s people? When He comes for the harvest are we giving Him our all? Or are we fighting back, trying to take control of what is ours? Are we the tenants who want to keep the harvest for ourselves? All the gifts we’ve been given in life, are we hoarding them for our own good? How are we using our gifts and time to make this world a better place for all the creatures in it?
Parables are universal stories. They’re as relevant today as they were in first century Jerusalem… and that makes them very effective tools of communication. But we have to take time to think about them.
They take an effort… and just reading them without stopping to think about them misses the point. We are to seek God, take in the knowledge supplied by His Word, and seek God’s truth within the story. Parables should make us stop and think. If they don’t, we’re reading them wrong.
So this week I encourage you to read through the Gospels and find one of Jesus’ parables and just sit with it for a bit. When is Jesus telling the story? Who is He telling it too? What’s the message… and how does it apply to your life today? Many of Jesus’ parables are like a cautionary tale… Let’s not be on the wrong side of the story!
Like many a good story, I’m going to leave you on a cliff-hanger! Come back next week and we’re going to look at a parable that you may (or may not) have been misreading for years.
Next week: Parable Sermon, Pt.2
