Christianity retold
The Persistent Widow is based on Luke 18:2-8.
A small town had an MP, an MP who couldn’t care less about God and didn’t respect his constituents. Also living there was a widowed mother, with two small children. She kept coming to the MP’s surgery, saying: ‘Look, I’m being victimised by the council. Help me get justice!’
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The Flower Seeds and the Pots is based on Luke 8:5-8.
This was the first parable I retold, rather than just updated. I was writing a book which had a modern Jesus preaching in a modern London. It became very obvious, very quickly, that Jesus wouldn’t tell a parable based on First Century Middle Eastern farming practices to a bunch of modern East Enders – not if they had no previous experience of hearing it. The meaning of the parable would stay the same; the props and setting would be reset.
[Read more…] about Commentary: The Flower Seeds and the Pots (Luke 8:5-8)The Flower Seeds and the Pots is based on Luke 8:5-8.
Once, a woman wanted a flower garden in her flat. So she bought some flower seeds, and planted them in pots the landlord had left. Some of the seeds fell out of her window onto the pavement below; of course, people walked all over them. Then pigeons came and scoffed the lot. Some of the pots she’d found were too shallow – the flower seedlings came up, but the thin soil, it didn’t hold enough water. When the sun shone, the plants dried up.
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Outside the Gate is based on Luke 16: 19-31
This parable is variously seen as a parable about rich and poor, about life after death, or about the Pharisees of Jesus’ time. The speculation that it’s about the Pharisees is mainly because this parable is told a few verses after Luke says that the Pharisees loved money.
There’s no real evidence that the Pharisees were particularly rich. The rich man in the parable has the kind of wealth that was more associated with the Sadducee group. What is possible is that Luke meant that the Pharisees bought into what we’d now call the ‘prosperity gospel’. That is, the idea that God blesses the very faithful with wealth and good health.
[Read more…] about Commentary – Outside the Gate (Luke 16:19-31)Outside the Gate is based on Luke 16: 19-31
There was a man from a wealthy family who had everything – good clothes, fine foods, his children at the best schools. They lived in a gated community and just outside that gate was a refugee, named Lazarus.
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The Two Daughters is based upon Matthew 21.28-32
This is a very easy parable to retell in modern terms, because it uses a situation that repeats in every generation. The writer Paula Gooder jokingly calls it: ‘the parable of the wet towels’. We could even have it as: ‘the parable of the dirty socks’.
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