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The Tree, the Fruit and the Gardener

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Image by lumix2004 from Pixabay

The Tree, the Fruit and the Gardener is an adaptation of John 15: 1-6

Jesus said: ‘Essentially, I’m the tree and my Father’s the gardener. He’ll cut off every branch I’ve got that doesn’t have any fruit and every branch that does have fruit gets cleaned up so it grows even more fruit. You folks are already clean, because I’ve taught you. Stay with me and I’ll stay with you. Branches can’t grow fruit by themselves, they’ve got to stay part of the tree.

Well, I’m the tree, you’re the branches. If you stay with me and me with you, you’ll bear loads of fruit, but leave me and you won’t be able to do anything. People who don’t stick with me, they’re like a branch that falls on the ground and dies, branches that get picked up, popped into the incinerator and burned.’

Previous parable: The Parable of the Tenants

Next parable: The Smart and Stupid Builders

Commentary: The Parable of the Tenants

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The retold Parable of the Tenants

Retelling a Parable – Choices

The major change in retelling this parable is the change from ‘vineyard’ to ‘house’. The parable of the tenants that Jesus tells (Matt. 21. 33-46, Mark 12.1-12, Luke 20.9-19) is set in a vineyard, probably because Jesus is drawing on the Old Testament image of the land of Israel as God’s vineyard. Changing that to a ‘house’ loses that direct link to the Old Testament imagery.

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Welcome to my website!

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The site tagline is ‘Christianity retold. Why?

Well, I’ve always been fascinated by the many and various ways that people retell stories. As a Christian, I read the Gospels a lot and one of the noticeable things is that a particular story, a particular parable that Jesus tells will often be different in different Gospels, as if Jesus varied his parables to suit his audience. Which raises a question in my mind. If I retold the history of Jesus as if it was happening today, would a modern Jesus still be telling stories about shepherds, vineyards and wheat fields?

I don’t think so, unless he decided to visit a rural area. Jesus told parables that were set in the world of the people who were listening to them. Sheep, Shepherds, vineyards – they were all part of the everyday life of First Century Judea and Galilee. I don’t think that he’d use those images for, say, Twenty First Century East London, even if he was trying to make the same kind of point.

Set in the world of the people who are listening to him. What would the parables sound like, if they were retold set in the world of the people who are listening now?

So, I’m going to start this blog with some ‘retold’ parables. First, the parable itself, then a separate post discussing what choices I made and why. I hope it’s going to be entertaining, possibly useful – and might help us see Jesus’ parables in a new way.

The first retold parable is The Parable of the Tenants.