Howard Thurman and the Parables: What Do Parables Want? (PART III, Chapters 5 & 6)

 

Part III: Two Sons and Their Father: A Parable about Us 

Chapter 5: Listening for the Whisper of God: “Thou Hast to Churn the Milk” 

Introduction 

The General Context in Luke 

The Departure (Luke 15:11–13a) 

Reading the Parable 

Insights from Howard Thurman’s Interpretations

 

Dissolute Living (Luke 15:13b–16) 

Reading the Parable 

Insights from Howard Thurman’s Interpretations 

The Prodigal “Comes to Himself” among the Swine (Luke 15:17–19) 

Reading the Parable 

Insights from Howard Thurman’s Interpretations 

• Thurman’s View of the Three “Lost” Parables: The Beginning of Community 
• The Prodigal Discovering Who He really is 
• The Prodigal Discovering Who He really is . . . that God is within Him 
• The Prodigal Son and “the Sound of the Genuine” 
• The Relationship between the “Inner” and the “Outer”
• There must be Community 

Chapter 6: A Father’s Love; A Brother’s Anger Return and Reception (Luke 15:20–24) 

Reading the Parable 

Insights from Howard Thurman’s Interpretations 

• The Prodigal Son and the Jewish Love-Ethic in the Religion of Jesus 
• The Prodigal Son and the Restoration of Community through Love 

The Older Brother, the Father, and the Prodigal (Luke 15:25–32) 

Reading the Parable 

Insights from Howard Thurman’s Interpretations 

• What is God Like? The Restoration of Community with God 
• What is God Like? The Restoration of Human Community 

Conclusion: (Love your enemy)

Howard Thurman and the Parables: What Do Parables Want? (PART IV, Chapters 7, 8, & 9)

Part IV: The Compassionate Samaritan: An Apostle of Sensitiveness

Chapter 7: Trauma on the Road to Jericho 

Reading the Parable: General Context in Luke 

The Good Samaritan Parable: The Trauma and Lack of Response (10:30–32) 

Reading the Parable 

Insights from Howard Thurman’s Interpretations 

• Identifying with the Wounded Man 
• The Love Commands 
• Modernizing, Humanizing, and Applying the Parable 

Chapter 8: Compassion, Mercy, and Hospitality: The Samaritan attending to the wounded man (Luke 10:33–34a) 

Reading the Parable 

Insights from Howard Thurman’s Interpretations 

• The Love-Ethic of Jesus 
• Compassion: Its Source and Implications for Human Society
• Compassion: Relating One-on-One as Children of God 

Chapter 9: Compassion, Mercy, and Extended Hospitality: The Samaritan bringing the Wounded Man to the Inn (Luke 10:34b–37) 

Reading the Parable 

Insights from Howard Thurman’s Interpretations 

• Hospitality 
• The Ultimate Source of Empathy is God 
• Creating Community One-on-One 
• Becoming “Apostles of Sensitiveness” (or “Eccentric Apostles”)
• Establishing Community through Practice 
• Affirmation Mysticism and Social Change 
• Love, Empathy, and Community 

Conclusion: The Good Samaritan as Parable 

With Whom do We Identify?

Howard Thurman and the Parables: What Do Parables Want?

Here is the current outline of my next book: What Do Parables Want?: Howard Thurman, the Parables, and the Quest for Common Ground. 

The book argues argue that the parables of the Prodigal Son and Good Samaritan are foundational to Thurman’s life and thought, fundamental to his understanding of the religion of Jesus, and, in our continuing search for common ground, exemplify a path toward community with God and our fellow human beings. 

 

It hopefully integrates several different aspects into a coherent whole, based on Thurman’s example:

• NT scholarship on the historical Jesus, the parables, and Thurman's Jesus and the Disinherited.
• Visual art both to illustrate “how parables work” in Chapters 3–4 (which also help explain Jesus and the Disinherited) and, primarily in the forthcoming Study Guides, following Thurman’s example, using the fine arts to raise spiritual awareness and create community.
• Analyses of the parables of the Prodigal Son and Good Samaritan parables and how Thurman’s perspectives on them fit into his life and thought.

 

The ultimate goal is by exploring what these parables want and using the insights of Howard Thurman, to continue the quest for common ground, for community, for, to paraphrase his words, “a friendly world of friendly human beings.”

The consists of 10 chapters (of about 6000 words each) in 5 parts, and I'll start from the back so they appear in order on the blog:

Part V 

Chapter 10: “We’re Connected” 

Introduction 

Main: Creating Community 

Why Should We be Good?: Because It is Good 

Why Should We be Good?: Because We are All One 

Why Should We be Good?: Because It Ultimately is for our own Good

Thurman’s Vision: A Prodigal Son Experience must lead to becoming a Compassionate Samaritan 

“Frighteningly Idealistic” and Unrealistic? 

Afterword: “We all do Better when We All do Better” 

A Religious or Secular Universal Ethic? 

There is no Sane Person in Hell 

A Web of Mutuality 

A Solidarity Dividend 

A Virtuous Spiral: The Relevance of the Prodigal Son and Good Samaritan Parables as a Compassion-in-Action, Justice, and Extending Community 

The Call to Respond Because or in Spite of It All