Chapter 12 - Parables

I had never heard of the Bay of Parables before I read Chapter 12 on the parables of Jesus.  In this chapter, Father Martin helps us connect the person and message of Jesus with the actual places where He taught.

In this chapter we discover that The Bay of Parables is a naturally occurring amphitheater near the sea—the place where people sat as Jesus taught them from a boat.  And why does Jesus share his parables from a boat?  Because the sound of his voice, traveling over the water, is naturally amplified. 

“As I stood under the broiling sun,” Father Martin writes, “I was gobsmacked to see rocks, thorns, and fertile ground.  No one planted the thorn bushes, carted in topsoil, or arranged the stones to make the locale look as it did in Jesus’ time, as if it were a theme park called Jesus Land.  They were just there. . . .It dawned on me that when Jesus used objects from nature to convey his message—seeds, rocks, birds, clouds, water—he may not have been talking in generalities, but about these things right here. . . .It grounded the Gospels and Jesus, in a way that I never could have imagined.  It made me think more about the way Jesus drew on nature in his parables (p. 199).

The strength of our Lord’s teaching lies in his ability to tie the mystery of the Kingdom of God to things and people right in our midst.  Jesus teaches not by stringing together well thought out theological profundities, but by capturing our imagination,  by “teasing” us with what was familiar.  He was a master story teller.  His parables, little stories, were often familiar to his first hearers, so that when he began his stories, I would imagine that there were smiles on the faces of his eager hearers—smiles of recognition.

When I think about the preachers who capture my imagination, they are the people who are able to deliver profound spiritual truths and mysteries by telling a story.  The parables both draw us in and challenge us to consider our prejudices.  They hint at and scratch the surface of the the mystery.   Then, we spend the rest of our lives adding to our understanding of truths which cannot be fully understood.

To Ponder and Discuss:


1.  In your estimation, why did Jesus use parables?

2.  Which parable mentioned in this chapter--The Sower, The Lost Sheep, The Laborers in the Vineyard, The Talents or The Prodigal Son--"teases" your mind the most?  Which one disturbs you the most?




Steven Olson