I had a homiletics teacher, Steve Brown, who taught us that if you have a thought in the study that you think is too bold or shocking to say in the pulpit, say it. I would not go that far. However, Jesus, in his parables, made some startling statements or at least introduced the element of surprise. Craig Blomberg acknowledged this dimension of parables: “More often than not, there was a surprising reversal between the character a first-century Jewish audience would have expected to be the hero or good example and the one who actually turned out to play that role.”[1]
For example, in the parable of the Prodigal Son, the first century was stunned when the younger son, in essence, wished his father were dead so he could go ahead and receive his inheritance. They would have been shocked again when the young rebel travelled into a far [Gentile] country and worked on a hog farm. Perhaps, Jesus was trying to shock his audience at how rebellious this young son was and how willing the father was to forgive such a stunningly rebellious sinner.
In the Good Samaritan, Jesus is answering a religious Pharisee who thinks he can earn salvation by keeping the law as stated in Luke 10:25: “What shall I do to inherit eternal life?” Jesus presented the fictional narrative of the Good Samaritan that would have shocked the Pharisees’ theology and culture. The Jews had no dealings with Samaritans (Jo 4:9). Yet, in this parable, Jesus made the religious Jews, the priest and Levite, the antagonists and the Samaritan the protagonist. “Many of Jesus’ parables are confounding, knocking hearers off balance so that they must see things in a new light.”[2]
The Cotton Patch Version of the New Testament is a paraphrase written by the Baptist pastor Clarence Jordan. It came out in the red-hot civil rights battles of the 1960s when African Americans were being lynched. Jordan was a leader in the civil rights movement in the South. He lived in Georgia. Here is how he paraphrases the Good Samaritan in his The Cotton Patch Version of the New Testament, to produce a similar shock to his racial congregations.
A man was going from Atlanta to Albany and some gangsters held him up. When they had robbed him of his wallet and brand-new suit, they beat him up and drove off in his car, leaving him unconscious on the shoulder of the highway. Now it just so happened that a white preacher was going down that same highway. When he saw the fellow, he stepped on the gas and went scooting by. Shortly afterwards a white Gospel song leader came down the road, and when he saw what had happened, he too stepped on the gas. Then a black man traveling that way came upon the fellow, and what he saw moved him to tears. He stopped and bound up his wounds as best he could, drew some water from his water-jug to wipe away the blood and then laid him on the back seat. He drove on into Albany and took him to the hospital and said to the nurse, “You all take good care of this white man I found on the highway. Here’s the only two dollars I got, but you all keep account of what he owes and if he can’t pay it, I’ll settle up with you when I make a pay-day.”[3]
Similarly, Jesus’ audience would have heard his story of the Jew traveling from Jerusalem to Jericho. The religionists did not love their neighbor because they did not love God. The outcast Samarian, whom the Jews hated, loved God and his neighbor. Jesus’ main point of the Parable is that no one earns “eternal life” as the religionist believed in Luke 10:25. The essence of salvation is loving God with all your heart and your neighbor as yourself because you have trusted Christ as your Savior.
Parables are Scripture, not just entertaining stories from current events. When we preach parables, we are preaching doctrine, the doctrine of salvation. Sure, the Epistles are the final word on doctrines. The parable of the good Samaritan illustrates the doctrines in the epistles, such as Romans 3:25: “Therefore we conclude that a man is justified by faith without the deeds of the law.” This parable also shines light on Romans 5:1, 5: “Therefore being justified by faith, we have peace with God .... the love of God is shed abroad in our hearts by the Holy Spirit who is given unto us.”
[1] Craig L. Blomberg, Preaching the Parables, (Grand Rapids: Baker Academic, 2004), 16.
[2] James Edwards, “The Gospel according to Mark” in PNTC in Logos on Mark Four.
[3] Clarence Jordan, The Cotton Patch Version of the New Testament (El Monte: New Win Pub), 1970.