Jesus and the Language of the Kingdom by Norman Perrin
Chapter 3: The Modern Interpretation of the Parables of Jesus
C. AMOS WILDER, EARLY CHRISTIAN RHETORIC: THE LANGUAGE OF THE GOSPEL
In Europe, Joachim Jeremias brought to a climax a period of work on the parables of Jesus that had begun with Julicher’s demonstration that they were indeed parables and not allegories, and Ernst Fuchs and the
"new hermeneutic" went on to explore the challenge of the parables as
"language-event." The unfinished business in all this comes under the rubric of literary criticism, for, as I argued above, the weakness in the treatment of the parables thus far had been pre-eminently a weakness at the level of literary criticism. After Fuchs and the "new hermeneutic,"
interest in the discussion shifts to America, where the weakness of the European approach was recognized, attempts were made to remedy it, and a whole new discussion got under way.
In the vanguard of the American work stands Amos Wilder,
distinguished poet, literary critic, and New Testament scholar. As a New Testament scholar he fully appreciated the discussion among New
Testament scholars; as a literary critic he was in a position to begin to remedy the deficiency in that discussion at the level of literary criticism;
while as a poet he was able to appreciate both the creative force of poetry as primordial language, and the dynamics of the relationship between the poet’s own vision and that which comes to expression in his words. A further thing about Wilder that matters very much is his
influence on younger American scholars. All the American scholars contributing to the current discussion of the interpretation of the parables have been deeply influenced by him.
The work of Wilder’s which concerns us here is his book, Early Christian Rhetoric: The Language of the Gospel.111 This book offers only a brief discussion of the parables,112 but it proved to be seminal because of the combination of insights and skills he brought to the interpretation of the parables. For the first time a scholar looked at the parables who, on the one hand, fully appreciated the results of the discussion among New Testament scholars, while, on the other hand, was able to bring insights from the worlds of literary creativity and of literary criticism.
Wilder enters the discussion at the level of literary criticism, concerned with the literary features of the parables, but moving backward from there to a historical concern as he attempts to understand the creative vision of their author, Jesus, and moving forward from there toward the interpreter as he attempts to understand the particular, distinctive impact of the literary form and language of the parables. He begins by
distinguishing various kinds of parables. "Some of the parables are straight narratives about a given individual case, ending with an application: The Good Samaritan, The Rich Fool. . . . Here we have
‘example stories,’ not symbolic narrative. The point in these cases is that
we should go and do likewise, or take warning by a given example." But then there are also parables like that of the Lost Sheep, where "the
upshot is not that we should or should not go and do likewise." Here we have rather "an extended image — the shepherd’s retrieval of the lost sheep and his joy — a narrative image which reveals " rather than exemplifies.113
This distinction between the parable as exemplary story and the parable as revelatory image is an important one, and Wilder, having made it, goes on to emphasize that "it is this revelatory character of Jesus’
parables which is to be stressed," quoting with approval Gunther Bornkamm’s dictum, "the parables are the preaching itself," and
claiming that Jesus used "extended images to unveil mysteries . . . above all to mediate reality and life."114 Moreover, he claims the support of modern literary criticism in this, making a most important distinction between a simile and a metaphor in the process. "This understanding of Jesus’ figures of speech is supported by our modern discussion of the metaphor in literary criticism.A simile sets one thing over against another; the less known is clarified by the better known. But in the metaphor we have an image with a certain shock to the imagination which directly conveys a vision of what is signified."115 What the previous discussion had differentiated as similitude and parable is here identified, not as simile, but as metaphor. The similitude is a metaphor, and the parable is an extended metaphor. The idea of a comparison which clarifies is abandoned in favor of the metaphor which reveals.
That metaphor can be simple or extended but it is always essentially a revelatory image. But Wilder recognizes that even with this emphasis as central, there still is reason to acknowledge that Jesus also taught
"teaching parables and polemic-parables like those of the Son or the Workers in the Vineyard in which the revelatory-image is used to justify and defend Jesus’ mission. . The larger observation is that Jesus uses figures of speech in an immense variety of ways."116 But the idea of the parable as revelatory image remains central.
Another literary aspect of the parables which concerns Wilder is their realism. They are "human and realistic"; one may even speak of their
"secularity." In these parables a shepherd is an actual shepherd and not
"a flash-back to God as the Shepherd of Israel."117 The realism and actuality of the parables are important because they command the attention of the listeners at the level of the actuality of their everyday existence. "[Jesus] is leading men to make a judgment and to come to a decision. The stories are so told as to compel men to see things as they
are, by analogy indeed. Sluggish or dormant awareness and conscience are thus aroused. The parables make men give attention, come alive and face things. And they do this by evoking men’s everyday
experience."118 Or, again, "the parables of Jesus, in addition to their revelatory character, are shaped more consistently towards a direct personal appeal or challenge, and their sobriety of style and sharpness of focus serve well the fatefulness of the issue in view."119
Against the background of these considerations Wilder turns to a
discussion of the "parables of the Kingdom"; The Sower, Seed Growing of Itself, Mustard Seed, from Mark 4; The Leaven, Hid Treasure, Pearl of Great Price, from Matthew 13.120 These are to be counted as
authentic parables of Jesus. "The characteristic design, the tight form of these utterances helped to guarantee them against change and
supplementation. A coherent image-story is resistant to change. . . . The parables of Jesus have an organic unity and coherence."121 But there is a further criterion for the authenticity of these parables, and it is a
characteristic which they share with other forms of Jesus’ speech. Jesus used various forms of speech; he "used trope and metaphor in the most varied way," but there is always the same element of "force" and
"significance" in his imagery. In this connection Wilder makes a statement that is important, both in connection with understanding the natural force of the parables, and also in providing the link between the parables and the use by Jesus of the symbol, Kingdom of God, in other forms of speech.
In the parables we have action-images. But these are only one kind of metaphor, extended metaphor. Jesus’ communication, just because it is fresh and dynamic, is necessarily plastic. Now we know that a true metaphor or symbol is more than a sign, it is a bearer of the reality to which it refers. The hearer not only learns about that reality, he
participates in it. He is invaded by it. Here lies the power and fatefulness of art. Jesus’ speech had the character not of instruction and ideas but of compelling imagination, of spell, of mythical shock and
transformation.122
"A true metaphor or symbol is more than a sign, it is a bearer of the reality to which it refers." These words are the essential clue to
understanding both the symbolic language of the Kingdom sayings and the metaphorical language of the parables on the lips of Jesus. But there is a further point about this language which is important to Wilder, and that is its relationship to the vision of the poet using it. Such language is
not used idly; the poet who turns to symbol and metaphor does so
because of some vision of reality which demands expression, and which can only find expression in such evocative or mind-teasing language. So it is with the parables of Jesus, as Wilder understands them. They are not "homiletic illustration drawn from nature." The Sower (Mark 4:3-8)
"is not just an example of what happens every day offered as an
encouragement, nor is The Seed Growing of Itself (Mark 4:26-28) to be taken in such "a banal sense." Their real authority and power emerge when we see them "in Jesus’ own situation," that is, in the situation of Jesus addressing his disciples, in the situation of Jesus seeking to impart to his disciples "his own vision by the power of metaphor."123
The secret of the power of the parables of the Kingdom then, as Jesus addressed them to his listeners in their original historical situation, lies not only in their reality-bearing power as metaphor, but also in the fact that the reality they bear is that of Jesus’ own faith. "It is Jesus’ own certain faith that paints in the feature of the great harvest.
The formal felicity and coherence of these parables reflect the intensity of his own vision."124 But this is not only the secret of the power of the parables in the original situation of Jesus using them as he addresses his hearers; it is also the secret of their power as we seek to interpret them in a later day and a different situation. "For us, too, to find the meaning of the parable we must identify ourselves with that inner secret of Jesus’
faith and faithfulness."125 In this context Wilder quotes Fuchs. "The distinctive feature in the teaching aspect of Jesus’ proclamation is the analogical power with which tacitly he sets forth himself, his own obedience, as a measure for the attention of his disciples."126
The fact that Wilder can quote Fuchs in this context shows that he is close to him in his fundamental concern for Jesus, and for the highly personal aspects of the message of Jesus. But this should not be allowed to obscure the point that in fact Wilder and Fuchs are far apart at the very point at which they seem to be close; their interest in the highly personal aspects of the parables of Jesus. Fuchs is interested in Jesus as the supreme revelation of God to man, and hence as the one who
actualized the possibility of faith in his own experience, and who
verbalized the possibility of faith for his hearers in his parables. Wilder, on the other hand, is interested in Jesus as a poet who imparted to his hearers his own vision of reality in the metaphysical language of his parables. But both are raising the question as to whether there is or is not an essential relationship between the author and the text of the parables
as the interpreter seeks to interpret that text in a subsequent and quite different situation. They would both maintain that there is such a relationship, though on different grounds.
It is, I hope, evident that I regard Amos Wilder as enormously important in the discussion of both Kingdom of God and the parables in the
message of Jesus. He is important because he taught us to see the
significance of the literary factors in the Kingdom proclamation and the parables, the one as symbol and the other as metaphor. I have attempted to develop the former insight myself; the latter was developed in the subsequent American discussion of the parables.