P A Downs

Christianity retold

Matthew

The Wall

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An Imaginary Parable

A King lived in a castle, behind a high wall. Whenever he tried to come out and meet his people, his tenants added more stones to the wall. So the wall got higher and higher. One day…

What does that mean? – apart from ‘Jesus is a lot better at parables than I am.’

What is modern?

A commonly asked question is: ‘How relevant can a two thousand year old religion be to a modern urban society?’ Yet, Christianity spread in towns. Towns with running water, baths, a social security system … Christianity and towns — ‘modern urban societies’ — have been together since the time of the first apostles.

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Commentary: The Dogs and Cats (Matt. 25:31-46)

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The Dogs and the Cats is based on Matthew 25: 31-46.

The Sheep and the Goats

One sign a parable might need retelling is that its original allusions are now flying right over everyone’s head. It’s not that we don’t understand the basics of the parable. But why sheep? Why goats?

To people in the modern West, there’s nothing obviously good about sheep. There’s also nothing bad about goats. If anything, people use ‘sheep’ or ‘sheeple’ as an insult and admire the goat for its independent nature.

Symbolism

In the Bible, the House of Israel is often linked with ‘sheep’. But being scattered ‘like sheep without a shepherd‘ was not a compliment. Domesticated sheep without a shepherd are in trouble. In Matthew 9:36, Matthew describes Jesus as feeling sorry for the crowds because they are ‘like sheep without a shepherd’.

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The Dogs and the Cats (Matthew 25: 31-46)

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The Dogs and the Cats is based on Matthew 25: 31-46.

When the Son of Man comes in glory, angels will be with him. He’ll sit on his Judges’ Bench and he’ll separate people one from another, like an animal shelter would separate the dogs and the cats. Dogs on the right, cats on the left.

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Commentary: The Big Parade (Matthew 25:1-12)

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The Big Parade is based on Matthew 25:1-12

Alternative Possibilities

This was one of the first parables I ever saw ‘retold’ – a minor updating for children, replacing the oil lamps with more modern torches (‘flashlights’ in US English). The oil that was carried by five of the girls became spare batteries.

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The Big Parade (Matthew 25: 1-12)

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Image by Vlad Vasnetsov from Pixabay

The Big Parade is based on Matthew 25:1-12

God’s nation will be like ten girls from a girl’s marching band who were in the welcome parade for a royal visit. Now, five of them were thoughtless and five of them were sensible. The five thoughtless ones left their enormous flags in the band’s van, the five sensible ones took their flags with them.

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Parables that shouldn’t be retold?

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‘I Am’

Between them, the gospels often include several versions of the same parable. The Flower Seeds and the Pots is a retelling of Luke 8: 5-8, but I could have picked the version told in Matthew 13: 3-8 (and elsewhere, I’ve retold Mark 4: 3-9). They’re all obviously the same basic parable – but with different flourishes.

This happens often enough that it suggests that (as I’ve said in other posts) Jesus varied his parables to suit the needs of his audiences. Varying (or retelling) parables to suit the needs of our modern audience follows in that Jesus-tradition.

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