Quotes about Parable

The kingdom of heaven is like unto a net, that was cast into the sea, and gathered of every kind.

Jesus was not a theologian. He was God who told stories.

Jesus was not a theologian. He was a God who told stories.

The language of logical argument, of proofs,is the language of the limited self we know and can manipulate. But the language of parable and poetry, of storytelling,moves from the imprisoned language of the provable into the free language of what I must, for lack of another word, continue to call faith.

Listen to his dangerous and inclusionary thinking: "My Father's sun shines on the good and the bad, his rain falls on the just and the unjust" (Matthew 5:45). Or "Don't pull out the weeds or you might pull out the wheat along with it. Let the weeds and the wheat both grow together until the harvest" (Matthew 13:29—30). If I had presented such fuzzy thinking in my moral theology class, I would have gotten an F!

Loving God, allow me to be a sheep at least once in a while, and never let me forget that most of my life I have been a goat."       Tuesday

Jesus' story of the two sons, one who said all the right words, but never acted on these words, and the other who said the wrong words, but in fact "went to work in the vineyard." Jesus said that the person who finally acts and engages "does the Father's will," even if he is a tax collector or she a prostitute and does not have the right "belief system" (Matthew 21:28—32).

Likewise, an intellectual belief that Jesus rose from the dead is a good start, but until you are struck by the realization that the crucified and risen Jesus is a parable about the journey of all humans, and even the universe, it is a rather harmless—if not harmful—belief that will leave you and the world largely unchanged.

The kingdom of God is like a mustard seed. It happens quietly. It happens inevitably. Don't underestimate God's power.

Every happening, great and small, is a parable whereby God speaks to us, and the art of life is to get the message.

what interests us more is that a parable is the chosen mode of communication. Indeed, it must be.33 One cannot address royal power directly, especially royal power so deeply guilty and shamed. It is permissible to talk about speaking truth to power; but if truth is to have a chance with power, it must be done with some subtlety.34

Asked to describe the Holy One, Jesus told the story of the father whose bond with his son, no matter the son's unworthiness, was unbreakable.