Dr. J. Lawrence Cuthill

July 18, 2010

Winter Park Presbyterian Church

“…and great crowds gathered around him… so he got in a boat that became his speaker’s platform…and he told them many things in parables.”

      Parables, as defined by Webster, are simple stories illustrating a moral or religious lesson.  I’d take the definition a huge leap further – they engage us by giving insight into the nature of the Kingdom of God and our lives.        They were often Jesus’ method of choice when it came to teaching.  Everyone loves a good story.  You know it’s a good story when you forget time -- the next thing you know it’s 2:00 a.m. or the plane lands at your destination.  When there’s an “uh-oh” and/or an “ah-ha.” It’s a good story when it makes you laugh… or cry.  It’s a good story when you remember it; when it changes you.  Transforms is a more descriptive word.

      A good story can be long, like War and Peace, but in the context of a conversation or a sermon, short is usually better.  There is an old adage often applied to the length of a sermon that  compares it to the length of a women’s dress:  Long enough to cover the subject, but short enough to keep us interested.

      Calvin Coolidge, the 30^th President of the United States, had a reputation for brevity.  “Silent Cal”, he was called.  Once, as he left church, a reporter asked him what the sermon was about.  “Sin”, replied the President.  “And what did the preacher have to say about sin?” the reporter continued.   “He was against it,” said the President.

      Contrast Silent Cal with William Henry Harrison, who delivered the longest inaugural address in U.S. history.  The speech, which was delivered in a cold, frigid rain, lasted 2 hours.  Harrison refused to wear an overcoat or top hat.  He caught a cold that turned into pneumonia, from which he died a month later – the shortest term of 44 U.S. Presidents.  Moral … K.I.S.S.

      Lest I fall into the latter example, let me hasten to say stories are powerful tools or vehicles to drive home a point.  They contain and preserve culture, values and world views.  Many tribes in West Africa are still served by a Griot (‘Gree-Oh’), an individual relied upon to hold the people’s history in his/her memory, and then impart this history orally in the form of epic stories.  In Scripture, the parables become ports of entry -- in this case, into the mysteries of God and God’s ways.  But note, in the case of Jesus’ disciples, although the stories were engaging and memorable, they often didn’t get the point. 

      As is still the case, these stories are often large in our memories and later burst upon our consciousness under the right circumstances.

      There is an old Hasidic tale where a pupil comes to the Rabbi and asks, “Why does Torah tell us to place these words upon our heart?” Why not in our hearts?” 

      The Rabbi answers, “It is because the state of our hearts is to be closed.  So we place them on our hearts.  And there they stay until, one day, the heart breaks and the words fall in.

      The parables of Jesus clearly were not intended to simply entertain, although they did.  They were not offered simply to be objectively discussed and dissected in a classroom, though they are.  Like many good stories, they require our imaginative participation. They stimulate connections and relations by drawing on the local soil.  They help us notice something that’s been there all along, but unseen – overlooked.   Before we know it, our defenses -- our resistance, is overcome and we are taken to a new awareness, a new place… a transforming understanding of a mystery hidden in plain view.

AMEN