August 10, 2000

Parable Power
Mark 4:26-34
August 13, 2000
David Beckett, D.Min
St. John United Methodist Church

Have you ever tried to retell a funny story or joke that previously split your sides -- only to see it fall flat as a pancake the second time around? The same setup, the same characters, the same punch line that left yesterday's lunch crowd holding their sides and wiping their eyes, leave today's hearers yawning as they sip their coffee.

We've come up with some standard comebacks to cover ourselves and explain these freakish occurrences: "I guess you just had to be there." or "It loses something in translation." or "You just don't get it."

But the fact is, storytelling of any sort is an unrepeatable art form. The variety of people listening, the inflections in your voice, the mood of the day, the color of the sky -- they all combine to create a one-time-only atmosphere for the words you speak. A story may bring a tear or a smile at one telling, and yet, the very next audience experiences the same words in a completely different way.

Mark's gospel tells us that Jesus chose to speak in parables. Some people find that very annoying, even a bit dishonest. Why didn't Jesus come right out and say what he meant? Why did he leave behind all these cryptic sayings, instead of a clear code of laws? Why didn’t he leave us with a stack of essays with titles like "How to Be a Good Disciple," or "A Brief Definition of the Kingdom of God" or "Seven Key Features of the Coming Kingdom and What This Means to You." But no. Instead we have this cross-eyed, incomplete, and at times absurd collection of sayings known as Jesus' parables.

But consider this. A list of rules never changes. A bunch of regulations never adapts. Written essays are like insects encased in amber -- beautiful and precisely formed, but no longer vital and alive. It takes the fluid format of a story -- a tale that can never quite be told the same way twice -- to keep breathing new life into the Good News. If you still think Jesus would have gotten his points across better with hard and fast rules, try remembering the last time you sat down and really enjoyed reading Leviticus or the first few chapters of Numbers. Without the power of the parable to engage us and entice us into their world, even God's Word becomes hard to read.

By preaching to his followers in parables, Jesus let each listener make the Good News become his own story, her own experience. As we are swept up in the story, we ourselves become part of a new parable -- the parable of our lives. Taken all together, our individual experiences of the kingdom, our personal stories of God's work and witness in our lives, end up creating a new gospel.

We are greatly mistaken if we think our tradition stems from only four canonical gospels. As well as "The Gospel According to Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John" the church has almost 2,000 years' worth of other gospel books to celebrate. "The Gospel of Augustine," "The Gospel of Martin Luther," "The Gospel of Thomas Merton," "The Gospel of John Wesley." All these "gospels" have remained vital parts of our tradition because of their eternally rechargeable parable power.

And there are other gospels which may not be quite so well-known, but they work just as powerfully in our lives. How many of you have been dramatically affected by the personal parable stories of "The Gospel According to Grandma," or "The Gospel According to Aunt Mary," or "The Gospel According to That Kid at Camp Whose Name I Can't Even Remember." All of us are in the process of writing our own gospels -- our own accounts of experiencing the Good News of the coming kingdom in our midst. Writing a gospel through the very act of living is part of being a disciple of Christ. It is why Jesus gave the power of the parable to all those listening to his words. Storytelling is one of the most basic practices common to all human communities. Stories connect us to one another, to our ancestors, to our world and to our God. In this week's gospel text, Mark notes that when Jesus spoke to the crowds around him, he "spoke the word to them, as they were able to hear it; he did not speak to them except in parables" (v.33). Jesus knew that only parable power had the ability to make the Good News of the kingdom a powerful reality for every listening ear.

So if it is true that you are writing your own gospel, then what chapter did you add to your gospel this week? How did the parables acted out in your life witness to the Good News? Do any of these titles remind you of this week's additions to your work in progress?:

-- The Parable of the Crabby Boss and the Christian Coworker.

-- The Parable of the Kids Who Won't Clean Up Their Rooms and the Mother Who Is Threatening to Ground Them for Life.

-- The Parable of the Parents Who Don't Have a Clue.

-- The Parable of the Empty Cupboard and the Overflowing "Bills To Pay" Slot.

Don't worry if these, or the particular parable stories you experienced this week, didn't seem to have any grand significance, as you lived through them. The power of a parable is partly its ability to stand up to scrutiny and self-examination at a later time -- and there to reveal its true meaning, its gospel heart. Jesus spoke in parables to the crowds. Only later did he explain to his own disciples the kingdom kernel that lived within his stories.

Andrew Young, former ambassador to the United Nations, tells this story, this parable of power, about an experience he had in South Africa when he was visiting at the invitation of Nelson Mandela. For years Mandela was a leading opponent of apartheid, South Africa's official policy of racial segregation. In 1964, the white establishment locked him up for life. But as his legend grew, so did the worldwide campaign to set him free. He was released in 1990. When apartheid was abolished, and South Africa held its first democratic elections in the spring of 1994, Nelson Mandela was elected president.

Thirteen months later, Mandela invited Andy Young to be his guest when South Africa hosted the Rugby World Cup Tournament. Now rugby is a white man's game. The South African team, like most rugby teams, is entirely white. And South Africa is about 80 percent black. So, even though the world championship was being played right there in Johannesburg, there was a deliberate absence of support for the team.

As the tournament approached, a heated debate broke out about the South African team symbol -- a leaping gazelle called a "springbok." Most of the white Afrikaners said, "The springbok has been the symbol of every rugby team we've ever had." Most black South Africans said, "Exactly! It reminds us of South Africa's racist history, and we want it changed." It was an explosive situation.

Now, Nelson Mandela has impeccable political sensibilities. More importantly, he understands the saving power of grace. A few days before the opening game, Mandela visited the South African team. After the visit, he called a press conference. Mandela showed up wearing a rugby jersey and an athletic cap with the team mascot, a springbok, on it. The newspaper and TV reporters were there and recorded it all. Mandela said that until the elections, he and most other black people in South Africa had always supported whoever was playing against the Springboks. "But regardless of the past," he said, "these are our boys now. They may all be white, but they're our boys, and we must get behind them and support them in this tournament."

The next day, the Springboks' coach sent word for his players not to show up in their practice gear. He told them to wear their suits and ties. He took them out to Robben Island, to the prison where Nelson Mandela had spent nearly three decades of his life behind bars. The coach and every player on the team walked into Mandela's cell.

As they stood there, the coach said, "This is the cell where Nelson Mandela was imprisoned. He was kept here for 27 years by the racist policies of our government. We Afrikaners tolerated his imprisonment for all those years, and yet he has backed us publicly. We cannot let him down."

The tournament opened, and the Springboks played above their heads. To everyone's surprise, they won their first game. In fact, they made it into the final game against New Zealand, a perennial power in rugby. It was like Slippery Rock playing Notre Dame. And yet, at the end of regulation, the game was tied.

President Mandela was in the stands, wearing a Springbok jersey. During the timeout, he brought a South African children's choir out of the stands. They sang an old African miners' song which to them is sort of like Swing Low, Sweet Chariot was to the slaves in this country. Within minutes, 65,000 people in the stadium were standing and singing this black African miners' song. Andy said, "I don't know anything about rugby, and I don't understand the words of the song, but I was in tears."

When the Springboks took the field, they were unstoppable. They won the World Rugby Championship. And for the next 24 hours, whites danced with blacks in the streets of South Africa. One of the most divided nations on the planet was united by something some people consider insignificant -- a rugby match. But God used it to help heal a nation.

Great story, isn"t it? It is a great story because of one man’s decision to respond, not with bitterness and retaliation, but with grace and love. You and I have opportunities every day to make the same choice. We have the freedom to write our own gospel stories.

It is the job of all of us, as Jesus' disciples, to come together and plug into the parable power running through each other's lives. Because we know the gospels of Matthew, Mark, Luke and John -- the gospels of Augustine, Aquinas, -- the gospels of Luther, Calvin, and Wesley -- the gospels of grandpa, our Sunday school teacher, and our little sister -- we, as a Christbody community of faith, can work together to discern in what new direction each week's parable power has taken us.

Our final task, then? Let us return to the world Monday morning and tell it the parables of our lives. We are storytellers of the gospel of Jesus Christ. With our words and our actions we can help weave the gospel story of Christ into the lives of others around us. In this way we become living gospels of Jesus Christ.

The St. John Web Site needs your input! Click here to leave feedback

Site statistics.