Communities of Parable or Practice?
by: Alan Ward
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If you read through the Gospels, you’ll find that Jesus often teaches through parables. Quite a few of these parables describe characteristics of the Kingdom of God—see Matthew 13 for some examples. Jesus actually uses a common literary device called simile—a comparison using like or as: “The Kingdom of God is like …” Most of the examples Jesus chose would have been familiar to his original audience—seeds, weeds, yeast, treasure in fields, merchant in search of pearls, a net, etc. He likely would’ve used a different set of images to get his point across if he were addressing a modern audience.
Why do you think Jesus so often spoke in parables when describing the Kingdom of God? If the main point Jesus is trying to make is the Kingdom of God is here now and available to everyone, then why use such vague comparisons instead of giving concrete details? If God is truly breaking through into human history and seeking to restore his relationship with humanity, why not be more direct? I know that I have wondered this at times.
But as I think about it, Jesus may have been using the only teaching technique he had available at the time. Jesus comes to proclaim a new radically inclusive community with God at the center—i.e., the Kingdom of God is now open to everyone on the planet, not just a select group. Jesus puts forth a vision for a new way of living and he and his followers seek to model it in their lives—call it kingdom-living. But when Jesus is alive, large-scale communities of people actually practicing kingdom-living exist only in theory—we might call them communities of parable. Jesus can speculate about what these communities might be like, but he doesn’t have concrete examples he can point to and say, “Go visit these people and they will show you how to live this way.” He can only use examples from the daily life of his audience to demonstrate what the Kingdom of God might be like.
Interestingly enough, a few decades later when Paul is teaching, he does not make use of parables nearly as much. By the time Paul is alive, actual communities of believers who are attempting to practice kingdom-living exist—we might call them communities of practice. Paul no longer needs to resort to theoretical comparisons; he can show actual examples of people living this way. In his letters, he frequently refers his readers to living parables*—people and communities that are actually putting into practice the vision for life that Jesus presented. Paul would probably say, “The best way you can learn what the Kingdom of God is like is for you to spend time living among a community of people that I know.” As you experience life together with these other people, you will begin to “see” for yourself what it is like to live in the Kingdom of God—sort of on-the-job training.
Similarly, our churches today should be communities of practice where we can get the on-the-job training we need for kingdom-living. Local churches should illustrate what the Kingdom of God is like for the community in which they are located; they should seek to spread the influence of the kingdom throughout the community. We should be able to point to individuals and communities who serve as living parables of kingdom-living. People should be able to come and spend time in our midst and learn what it is to be a follower of Christ. The struggles many of our churches face today would suggest to me that we aren’t exactly succeeding at our mission. Declining attendance and lack of participation by men, youth, and young adults in many churches would suggest that we are not presenting a convincing case for kingdom-living.
I think that many of our churches have gotten away from the idea that their members should actually be teaching and doing the things that Jesus did, and we suffer as a result. People don’t see in us what they need to see to be convinced of the value of kingdom-living. We who claim to be part of the Kingdom of God aren’t that much different from everyone else—in fact, I fear we often try hard to be just like everyone else. We’re afraid to stand out from the crowd and demonstrate a different way of living. As a result, I’m afraid that many of our churches have reverted back to being communities of parable. We have many meetings where we have endless discussions of what it could be like to live in the Kingdom of God, but we struggle to put these ideas into practice in our church community and beyond. Theoretical discussion about what life in the kingdom might be like was okay when Jesus was alive and presenting a new and radical idea that had never been seen before, but it isn’t acceptable for churches living 2000 years after Christ. We need to be practicing what we preach! People do not respond to abstract theory, they respond to what they see in our daily lives. They need to see the benefits of kingdom-living in practice or they won’t be motivated to change the way they live. Our job is to be communities of practice where people can see the Kingdom of God in action and are drawn in to become part of the Kingdom themselves, so that they might discover their full God-given potential.
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What’s your reaction to the discussion of why Jesus used parables and Paul didn’t above?
Based on the discussion above, would you say your church is a community of practice or parables?
What is your church doing to spread the influence of the Kingdom of God in your community? Are there more things you could be doing? Can you point to living parables of kingdom-living in your midst?
* Acknowledgment: Thanks to Brian McLaren for the term living parable and insights on why Jesus taught using parables and Paul didn’t—see The Secret Message of Jesus (W Publishing Group: Nashville, TN: 2006). See especially Ch 6, 11&12.
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