2009-06

C
Jesus was a great communicator through words, people came
from many miles to hear him, and he often engaged with the
people of the day through parables, vivid short stories. The
parables are one of the most distinctive features of Christ’s
teaching, they are timeless, stories that can be, and are, retold
time and time again, acted out in churches and in classrooms.
It is perhaps in the parables more than any where else in the Gospels that we
realise the originality of Jesus. They are not of course unique. The Jewish Rabbis
used parables and so did St Paul. But no other parables are comparable to those of
Jesus in their terseness, their wit, their sharp observance of human behaviour, and in
their extraordinary power of conveying profound truth throughout a well-told story.
The background of the parables is in the daily life of Palestine. Jesus’ parables –
and there are about 60 of them, whole or in fragment - are crowded with people. The
characters include farmers, fishermen, housewives and merchants: kings, landowners
and judges; a woman searching for a lost silver piece; guests at a wedding and a
family whose house had been burgled.
What marks them is the breadth of their sympathy and their profound insight into
human nature. Here are real people, and the situations we meet them in are real
situations. These stories are explorations of the meaning of love as the working
principle of human action. Jesus expected ordinary men and woman to see the point
he was making – this was the only way in which human situations could be dealt with
and by using these stories he put it in such a way that people could see what he was
driving at and be in no doubt.
The parables, then, are vivid short stories rooted in everyday life. They are stories
with meaning and many of the central themes of the message of Jesus are embodied
in them. We should remember that they were spoken by a poet, that their background
and immediate reference is first century Palestine. Yet the brilliance of them, like all
great art, is that they have a
timeless quality and can be used to
illuminate modern day situations.
A- I
Our magazine has made an impact with the
judges at a national competition for church
magazines.
Impact was commended after winning the
magazine layout category in the
Association of Church Editors Awards
Scheme.
The awards were presented at Westminster
Central Hall in London.
Methods of communication have
obviously changed since the time of
Jesus and you will read about many
of these in this edition of Impact, but
the overriding message is that we
exist to communicate with each
other and God in order to grow,
learn and thrive as His people.
Rev Canon Peter Ingram
Vicar of Holy Trinity, Millhouses
and Area Dean for Ecclesall
St Chads Church, Linden Avenue, Woodseats
email: office@stchads.org
Church Offices: 15 Camping Lane, Sheffield S8 0GB Page 3 website: www.stchads.org
Tel: (0114) 274 5086