Parables teach timeless and true lessons

Truth may be stranger than fiction, but novelists work hard to ensure that their books are true to life.

My wife, who writes murder mysteries set in present-day England, devotes a portion of our twice-yearly sojourns in the UK to exploring the sites where her adventures take place. Becky’s imagination is buttressed by detailed fact checking.

Imagine her chagrin when she learned that London’s vast outdoor Camden Market was destroyed by fire and is unlikely to be rebuilt. Her recent mystery, “The Oracle of Baal,” not yet in print, is almost wholly set in the famed market. So she will have to rewrite, introducing a new location for the book’s action.

When Jesus of Nazareth told stories, he was careful not to make them rely on real persons and places. His familiar parables are stories that rely on imagination, not on facts. They are pure fiction, but each teaches a moral lesson that is both timeless and true. God is in the details.

Everyone recalls the story of the Prodigal Son, the Good Samaritan, the Wedding Banquet and the Feast, the Rich Man and Lazarus and the Good Shepherd and the Lost Sheep.

Every Christian is familiar with the Barren Fig Tree, the Pearl of Great Price, the Workers in the Vineyard, the Rich Fool, and the Unjust Steward. Jesus’ tales are so vivid and powerful that we tend to forget that they are fictitious.

When Jesus’ disciples asked him why he taught the multitudes by means of such stories, he replied: “Because they go through life with their eyes open, but see nothing, and with their ears open, but understand nothing of what they hear.

“But how fortunate you are to have eyes to see and ears to hear. Believe me, a great many prophets and good men have longed to see what you are seeing. Yes, and they longed to hear what you are hearing, and they never heard it” (Matthew 13).

St. Paul complained that, “at present we are men looking at puzzling reflections in a mirror,” but looked forward to a time “when we shall see reality whole and face to face.” Paul became an apostle only after Jesus’ death and resurrection, never having encountered him in real life. But Paul knew God through Jesus’ stories and anticipated a time “when I shall know (the truth) as fully as God has known me” (1 Corinthians 13:12).

The art of storytelling is as ancient as the human species and as necessary as nourishment, sleep, and the air we breathe.

Jesus’ parables are best understood as tales of invitation, liberation and hope, proclaiming the freedom and forgiveness of the sons and daughters of God.

The Bible is God’s revelation of himself by means of stories. Those who insist that every word of Scripture be true to scientific and historical fact will be frustrated, because stories are not intended to be literal, but only real. By the same token, those who dismiss the Bible altogether as myth fail to recognize the underlying truths of the stories it contains.

Scripps Howard News Service