Reading the Parables.
Interpretation Resources for the Use of Scripture in the Church
Westminster/John Knox
Order: Amazon
Nowhere in the Gospels are we closer to Jesus than when we are listening to him tell stories. The word “Reading” indicates both a theological and literary interest not only in the stories but their poetic, imaginative, ironic Teller. I read them as small literary models for our time, made not of wood or algorithms but words. Deceptively simple words. Since his parables appear mostly in church these days, and hardly anywhere else, I’ve focused on how they are heard in the assembly of believers and what they have to say to us. This is not a commentary, but I like to think it is something richer and more three-dimensional than a commentary.
From the chapter “Reading with the Poor”
“Read the parable of the Workers in the Vineyard (Matt. 20:1-16) in the context of unemployment, pickup jobs, and the power imbalance between well-to-do bosses and desperate, expendable laborers, and suddenly a new or more pungent meaning of the parable rises to the surface . . . . There is no one way of reading with the poor, and there is no ‘school’ of parable interpretation to which everyone who is alert to social and political realities adheres. Reading with the poor begins with the commitment of the interpreter to be with the poor, to listen to them, to participate in their struggles . . . Such work does not begin with revolutionary theories but with pastoral identification.” (pp 132-33)
“This is the book I have been waiting for! Lischer generously takes account of the wide range of approaches to Jesus’s parables . . . . He shows how these gospel mini-stories crack open to reveal glimpses of surprising radiance that can quicken our own imaginations, provoke transformative action in our communities, and guide us in the parabolic art of preaching itself.”
— Heidi Neumark, pastor
Reading the Parables, one of Top Ten Books of 2015