Ten Lessons I Learned from the Parables

1. God is selective in who He spends His energy on.  “Many are called but few are chosen.”  The opportunity is available to everyone but some are more receptive than others to the wedding feast.  Those who are opposed, or too busy with other things, or don’t feel they have need, He lets go.

2. The marketplace (normal life, not the life of the cloister) is the field where most of life is to take place.  The separation of the wheat and the tares, the good fish from the bad, the fruitful servants from the timid and unproductive, the righteous from the wicked, the sheep from the goats is the exclusive prerogative of the Master to be accomplished upon His return at the end of the age.  The separation of those who are in the family from the outsiders is not our business.  We need not worry that it will take place in “the time of the harvest.”  We are restricted from making these judgments “lest while you are gathering up the tares you may root up the wheat with them.”  

3. We are all tested for fruitfulness and stewardship.  The time when we will be held accountable is a “surprise audit” (The Master’s return) and it is not announced in advance.  

4. God rewards the risk takers and those who trade with the talent to be entrusted to them with more responsibility.  The reward for a duty to perform is a duty to perform.  (“Because you have been faithful in a very little thing, be in authority over ten cities.”)  The man who attempts to “build greater barns” and who says “Take your ease.  You have goods laid up for many years to come” is condemned as a fool.  

5. Possessions are a trust to be invested for a return.  The timid and fearful who bury their talent are “cast into the outer darkness where there is weeping and gnashing of teeth.”  There is a downside as well as an upside.  The talents of the fearful (fear is the opposite of faith) are taken away and given to the most productive.  The fig tree is given many chances to produce but, in the end, when it proved barren it is cut down and burned.  

6. There doesn’t seem to be many “against causes” where the leader uses the technique of whipping the troops into a frenzy of hatred for a common enemy.  

7. God’s censure seems reserved for the timid and especially for the self-righteous among those presumably inside the family.  

8. Those who are consumed by wickedness, too busy with their own affairs, not interested and or outright oppose are let to go their own way.  God “gives them over to their own passions.”  (Romans 1:26)  

9. Fruitfulness is a major issue.  God demands performance and measures results.  There is not a word about how someone “feels” (a big issue in modern therapy).  It’s all about motives and actions and results.  The quality of the tree is judged by the fruit it bears.

10. A feeling of incompleteness is part of the human condition.  The rich young ruler is a good, kind citizen who has kept the commandments all of his life, yet he knows this isn’t enough.  He asks, “What am I still lacking?”  Jesus responds, “If  you wish to be complete, go and sell your possessions and give to the poor, and you shall have treasure in Heaven; and follow me.” (Matthew 18:21)  And you are pretty sure that this is for the sake of the young man, not for the sake of the poor.  Kant remarked, “Give a man everything he desires and yet at this very moment he will feel this ‘everything’ is not ‘everything.’”  Wealth and moral rectitude don’t fulfill.  “There is a God shaped void in every man,” said Paschal.