How do we best learn to answer life’s deep and significant questions? Myths, legends, fables, folk tales, fairy tales and parables all serve to instruct, challenge and inspire. For example, myths are generally focused upon explaining foundational cosmic events. Legends are about individuals whose deeds are extraordinary. Fables are stories whose primary characters are typically animals that talk and act as humans might, and whose exploits teach a lesson. Folk tales and fairy tales are beloved by children for the magical characters such as elves, goblins and giants they employ.
Parables, especially biblical parables, share some characteristics with these ancient teaching methods. They, too, utilize stories to teach a moral or religious lesson. But parables are unique in that their characters are usually quite ordinary human beings doing rather ordinary things. And so parables are particularly well-suited to challenging us ordinary folk. Placed in the circumstances the parable describes, what would we do? And what would that reveal about us, morally and religiously?
A few years ago, Rev. Thomas Long told a story he called a parable. He said there was a neighborhood grocery store in an affluent part of town which was visited regularly by a homeless woman he called “Ruth.” Ruth arrived every day without fail to walk the grocery store aisles and tuck fruit into her pockets, or stuff bread and cheese under her torn and stained coat, or grab a can or two of meat to hide up her sleeves before walking out. Because Ruth was such a consistent visitor to the store, she did not fail to achieve the notice of the store manager and all the employees. Everyone knew her name. Everyone knew what she did and why.
One day the store manager made a phone call to a nearby pastor with an important message. The store was moving to a larger building a few blocks away, he told the pastor. He didn’t want to embarrass Ruth by telling her himself. He wondered if the pastor would be good enough to find Ruth and subtly mention to her where the new store would be located, so that she wouldn’t get lost. The manager concluded, “I want to be sure she can find us.”
Yes, this is a parable. It describes ordinary people in ordinary circumstances, and it invites us to put ourselves in their shoes and struggle with the issues they face. If we were the store manager in this parable, would we be glad to move the store and leave Ruth, the irritating pilferer, behind? Or would we, like this man, want to be sure she could find us, so that she might retain some pride and we might offer some much needed help?
Struggling with the scenarios parables offer us can help us to clarify our values and strengthen our moral resolve. And while biblical parables are marvelous vehicles for that sort of reflection, there are also living parables, like’s Ruth’s story, unfolding all around us every day. Are we watching and learning?
Perhaps the living parables are, in fact, God’s way of making sure we don’t get lost in the world, and we can always, upon reflection, find him.