Tag: Parable

7.21 The Parable of the Next Day in the Vineyard

The twenty-first episode of the seventh season of the Retelling the Bible Podcast is posted today (October 11, 2023). It tells the story of a dissident in the crowd who objected to Jesus’ Parable of the Workers in the Vineyard.

You can listen to the episode right now and subscribe to the podcast by following one of these links or by searching for the podcast on your favourite platform:

Show Notes about the Episode

This episode is based on the parable in Matthew 20:1-16. Direct biblical quotations in the episode are taken from the New Revised Standard Version Updated Edition.

Coming Back to this Story Again

I have actually already done an episode based on this parable. It was three years ago and the episode was #4.15 The Parable of the Generous Business Owners. I certainly commend that episode to you, but you will find it is quite different.

It was focussed on another view of the parable, particularly informed by the pandemic crisis. I think that you will find that this new take on it will take your thoughts in somewhat different directions.

A Bit of a Different Episode

Rotten grapes photo element by: Instagram robert_owen_wahl

Usually, in this podcast, I retell stories in a way that I hope leads people into a deeper understanding of a biblical story and how I have come to see it. But I admit that I have taken a different approach to this one.

This time I actually chose to give voice to the critics of the point of view that Jesus seems to be espousing in his parable as a way to illustrate the power of Jesus’ story by contrast.

The exercise led me to many reflections about Jesus’ use of stories and that is why the comment part of this episode is longer than usual.

Basic Universal Income Pilot

I discuss the Ontario Basic Universal Income Pilot in the episode.

You can find an outline of the pilot in this pdf: Ontario’s Basic Income Pilot.

And here is an article on the Government’s decision to cancel the pilot: https://www.pbs.org/newshour/economy/making-sense/ontario-is-canceling-its-basic-income-experiment

UBC Homelessness Study

I also discuss a study on homelessness that was carried out at the University of British Colombia. This is an article written by the researchers who conducted this study: https://www.msn.com/en-ca/health/other/we-gave-7-500-to-people-experiencing-homelessness-here-s-what-happened-next/ar-AA1gQpwK.

Media in this Episode

The following music was used for this media project:

Music: AhDah by Kevin MacLeod
Free download: https://filmmusic.io/song/3345-ahdah
License (CC BY 4.0): https://filmmusic.io/standard-license
Artist website: https://incompetech.com

Music: Summer Morning [Full version] by MusicLFiles
Free download: https://filmmusic.io/song/11262-summer-morning-full-version
Licensed under CC BY 4.0: https://filmmusic.io/standard-license

Sound effects by Pixabay.

Support Retelling the Bible

If you would like to support the work that I do creating these stories, go to patreon.com/retellingthebible and choose a level of support!

7.20 The Bailout

The twentieth episode of the seventh season of the Retelling the Bible Podcast is posted today (September 27, 2023). It retells Jesus’ Parable of the Two Debtors in a more contemporary setting.

You can listen to the episode right now and subscribe to the podcast by following one of these links or by searching for the podcast on your favourite platform:

Show Notes about the Episode

This episode is based on Matthew 18:21-35. Direct biblical quotations in the episode are taken from the New Revised Standard Version Updated Edition.

A Story about Forgiveness

Jesus’ parable of the two debtors is both proceeded and followed by sayings of Jesus on the topic of forgiving sins. But the parable itself, which is found in verses 23 through 34, does not mention the word sin even once. It speaks only in terms of forgiving financial debts.

The setting makes it clear that the author of this gospel intends for us to understand that the parable itself is also about the forgiveness of sins. He has intentionally gone out of his way to find (or perhaps create) sayings of Jesus that push his readers toward such an interpretation.

But there is some reason to doubt that Jesus intended such a restricted interpretation of this parable.

Jesus and Financial Debt

In the various sayings and parables of Jesus found in the gospels, Jesus often speaks about debts and the people who owe them.

The Christian interpretation of almost every time Jesus uses the word is that it is always intended as a metaphor for sins.

For example, in the Lord’s Prayer, as it appears in Matthew 6, Jesus teaches his followers to pray and say, “And forgive us our debts, as we also have forgiven our debtors.” (Matthew 6:12) Yet the official ecumenical version of the prayer now urges people to pray and say, “Forgive us our sins as we forgive those who sin against us.”

But there is some reason to believe that at least some of Jesus’ references to financial debt were not meant to be taken so metaphorically.

There is evidence, within the gospels themselves, that Galilee in the time of Jesus was facing a significant personal debt crisis. We see this in Jesus’ parables themselves which make frequent reference to large numbers of slaves and day labourers.

Most slaves at that time would have become so as a result of debt and most day labourers were in that position because they had lost their ancestral lands, something that often happened as the result of unpaid debts and foreclosure.

Given that so many people in that society had struggled because of their debts, and that Jesus often spoke about debt, it seems unlikely to me that he always intended such references to be metaphorical.

The experience of the 2008-9 financial crisis and the decision to “bail out” the banks has forced me to read this parable in much more literal ways, how about you?

Some Numbers in the Episode

To get the amount of time a day labourer would have to work to earn 10,000 talents, I multiplied 6000 (the number of denarii in a talent) by 10,000 giving 60 million days of work. I then divided that by 313 (the number of work days in a year, not including Sabbaths). That gives us 191,693 years of labour to earn 10,000 talents.

The median Canadian wage is given by Statistics Canada as $68,400 (after tax). Multiplying that by 191,693 years gives us $12,111,801,200. (A bit more than I state in the episode, but wages are up in more recent reports). (https://www150.statcan.gc.ca/)

In 2008, the United States federal government created the Troubled Asset Relief Program (TARP), a $700 billion government bailout designed to keep troubled banks and other companies in operation.

43.6 million borrowers in the United States have federal student loan debt. The average federal student loan debt balance is $37,718, while the total average balance (including private loan debt) may be as high as $40,499. (https://educationdata.org/student-loan-debt-statistics)

Other Episodes that Touch on Debt

I have done some other episodes that touch on Jesus and the subject of Debt. I would commend to you

Media in this Episode

The following music was used for this media project:

Music: AhDah by Kevin MacLeod
Free download: https://filmmusic.io/song/3345-ahdah
License (CC BY 4.0): https://filmmusic.io/standard-license
Artist website: https://incompetech.com

Music: The End Of All Things by Tim Kulig
Free download: https://filmmusic.io/song/11093-the-end-of-all-things
Licensed under CC BY 4.0: https://filmmusic.io/standard-license

Sound effects by Pixabay.

Support Retelling the Bible

If you would like to support the work that I do creating these stories, go to patreon.com/retellingthebible and choose a level of support!

4.18 The Parable of the Ten Virgin Voters

The eighteenth episode of the fourth season of the Retelling the Bible Podcast is posted today (November 11, 2020). You can listen to the episode right now and subscribe to the podcast by following one of these links or by searching for the podcast on your favourite platform:

Show Notes

This episode is based on Matthew 25:1-13 in the New Testament of the Bible (click to read). Any direct biblical quotations in the episode are taken from the New Revised Standard Version of the Bible.

The Problem with Parables

The parables of Jesus, most of them, are fairly short and simple stories. They have few details that need to be explained. In many cases, this does not make them any easier to interpret, but it does at least make them easier to follow and understand.

The Parable of the Bridesmaids is a little different. While we do have some sense of the legal practice of first century Judean and Galilean marriages — at least so far as what is reflected in the Torah and the Talmud — the cultural celebrations and customs are a bit of a mystery to us. This parable refers to a part of the celebration where the bridegroom would bring his new bride to his house and there would be a celebration involving virgins and lit lamps. That is basically all we know about the practice. We are left to guess for ourselves what it meant to be part of such a celebration and how important it was to be prepared, with lamps lit, when the bridegroom returned. Given all that we don’t know about how it worked, it did seem that the best approach to understanding the parable was to find another situation where waiting was required that we could relate to.

My perspective on the American election

I should note to my listeners, especially to my American listeners, that I approach these recent political events as an outsider. I’m a Canadian. And yet, like many Canadians, I remain somewhat fascinated by American politics even though I don’t have a legitimate voice in them. I do have my own political leanings and know how I would have voted had I had the opportunity, but I didn’t really want to bring any of that into this episode. I just wanted to use it as an example of waiting that we could all relate to, even if only as outside observers.

Music in this Episode

“AhDah” by Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com)
Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 3.0 License
http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/

Carefree by Kevin MacLeod
Link: https://incompetech.filmmusic.io/song/3476-carefree
License: http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/

The Parable of the Ten Virgin Voters

Episode 3.10 The Rise of Euphrates.com

The tenth episode of the third season of the Retelling the Bible Podcast is posted today (August 14, 2019). You can listen to the episode and subscribe to the podcast by following one of these links or by searching for the podcast on your favourite platform:

SHOW NOTES

This episode is based on Luke 12:13-21 in the New Testament of the Bible. (Click the references to read the original texts). Any direct biblical quotations in the episode are taken from the New Revised Standard Version of the Bible.

Here are a few of my thoughts on the episode:

Rich Landowners in First Century Palestine

The biblical nation of Israel was founded with a basic economic assumption. Every family in Israel was to have its own plot of land and that plot of land, passed down from one generation to the next, was to be sufficient to provide for the basic needs of every person in the land. This was why God had given them the land and they were to take measures to ensure that it always remained that way. Under this system, there were not supposed to be rich and poor but everyone was supposed to have enough. It was a subsistence economy and certainly not the kind of capitalistic economy that we would recognize.

Euphrates
The company, Euphrates.com and anyone associated with it in this episode are completely fictional. Any future content posted at this domain, euphrates.com, has no association with this podcast.

Now, of course, this ideal often didn’t work out very well in real life. Over time, various things disrupted harvests. Crop failures, invasions, raids and other disasters meant that some people fell into poverty and into debt while others became rich often at their expense. But there are laws in the Bible that are intended to remediate such effects — laws that demanded the forgiveness of debts, the release of debt slaves and the return of lands to families that had lost them.

Of course, all of this did not always work out well in practice, but these laws reflect an expectation that there should not be great differences between the rich and the poor in Israel. Such things were considered an aberration of God’s plan for his people.

It is with all of this in mind that we need to hear Jesus’ parable of the rich landowner. When we hear a story of someone who has accumulated great wealth for themselves today, we don’t necessarily see that as evidence that something has gone seriously wrong in the land; they did. We are inclined to congratulate the wealthy, to envy them and want to be like them. They felt much more ambivalently about them. While they likely could not help but envy their security, they also couldn’t help but see their prosperity as a problem. In Jesus time, at least among most of the people who listened to his parables, the reaction would have been quite different.

Now, I am not necessarily a person who is opposed to our modern capitalist system. I know that there are many benefits to it, even if there are some downsides. But the very different economic assumptions we make in the world today make it very hard for us to hear Jesus’ story like first-century listeners would have heard it. I have chosen to tell the parable in the way that I did in order that we might be able to sympathize with some of the ambivalent thoughts of the people in the crowd towards a wealthy man who wanted to build bigger barns.

MUSIC IN THIS EPISODE

“AhDah” by Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com)
Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 3.0 License
http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/

“Ice Flow” by Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com)
Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 3.0 License
http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/

2.14 A Tale of Two Couches

The fourteenth episode of the second season of the Retelling the Bible Podcast is posted today (November 28, 2018). You can listen to the episode and subscribe to the podcast by following one of these links or by searching for the podcast on your favourite platform:

SHOW NOTES

This episode is based on Luke 16:19-31 in the New Testament of the Bible. (Click the references to read the original story). Any direct biblical quotations in the episode are taken from the New Revised Standard Version of the Bible.

Here are a few of my thoughts on the episode.

The Parable of Lazarus and the Rich Man

The parable of Jesus in which he talks about Lazarus and the rich man is rather unique in a number of ways. It is one of the only six parables that appear exclusively in the Gospel of Luke. This naturally makes us wonder how well this parable was known in the early church. Was it generally recognized as a parable of Jesus or was it only familiar to the church for which Luke was writing?

It is different in form from many other parables in that it tells a story with two characters who are identified by name. It is also the only parable of Jesus that offers any sort of description of the afterlife and yet, as noted in the episode, that description is somewhat problematic.

Rocka my Soul in the Bosom of Abraham

Traditionally the phrase “the bosom of Abraham” that appears in this parable has been interpreted as some sort of description of an afterlife state or even as a location within the afterlife. It is treated as a synonym for Heaven or for Paradise. The phrase itself does not originate from this parable and has been found in some early Jewish writings where it is universally associated with the afterlife and with the solace of the righteous who have died. But it seems pretty clear that the phrase, while used to speak of the afterlife, was always considered to be a metaphor that was based on the dining customs in wealthy homes.

Fresco-scene-with-triclinium-About-79-CE-Pompeii-House-of-the-chaste-lovers-In-G
This fresco, recovered in Pompei, depicts diners sharing a couch at dinner. One is lying in the bosom of another.

At a feast, all of the guests would lie on couches to eat and the most honoured guest would share a couch with the host when he would lie with his head in his host’s bosom, that is, resting on his chest. (I speak using only the masculine pronoun here because dinner feasts were generally an exclusively male domain.)

To speak of the martyrs or the righteous dead lying in Abraham’s bosom, therefore, was merely to picture them receiving special honour and comfort in the afterlife. It was not a place in the afterlife so much as it was a description of their special status.

By setting the opening scene of his parable at a dinner party with the rich man lying on his couch and Lazarus lying at the gate, Jesus seems to be putting the emphasis on the dinner metaphor behind the phrase, the bosom of Abraham. Once you understand that, it seems clear that he is setting up a deliberate contrast between the dinner party at the beginning of the parable and the alternate dinner party at the end. It also becomes clear that the main point of the parable is the complete reversal of position between the two main characters.

Jesus, of course, often told parables of reversal. “Many who are first will be last, and the last will be first” (Mark 10:31) was one of his favourite sayings, if we can judge from the frequency of its appearance in the Gospels. And if that is the point of the parable then it is clearly not told in order to describe what the afterlife is like but rather to make us think deeply about this world and especially about the barriers that we create between the rich and the poor.

MUSIC IN THIS EPISODE

“AhDah” Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com)
Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 3.0 License
http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/

“Plaint” Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com)
Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 3.0 License
http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/