Howard Thurman and the Quest for Community: From Prodigals to Compassionate Samaritans (Summary, of part 2, chapters 3 & 4)

 

Howard Thurman and the Quest for Community: 

From Prodigals to Compassionate Samaritans

Previous posts noted how Howard Thurman's insights could benefit current discussions about what to do in the face of the injustices that so many people face today. The depth of community, the rejection of hatred and violence, and the dedication to making "Good Trouble, Necessary Trouble," in what Thurman called a (peaceful) "shock to the system, are among the things we should embrace.

So here's the next section of the brief summary of the parts/chapters in my recent book, Howard Thurman and the Quest for Community: From Prodigals to Compassionate Samaritans:

I have already talked about how Part I of the book (chapters 1 and 2) begins with chapter 1’s examination of Thurman’s life and career and an exploration of Thurman’s classic book, Jesus and the Disinherited, which bridges the gap between Jesus’s proclamation to those with their “backs against the wall” in the first century CE to Thurman’s era spanning most of the twentieth century and now to the twenty-first century. Chapter 2 discusses Thurman’s mysticism, its relationship with social change, and his practice of using the fine arts to raise one’s spiritual consciousness, encourage a “sympathetic understanding” of other human beings, and deepen the sense of community. 

Today I'll begin by summarizing Part II (chapters 3 and 4), which builds on the foundation of Thurman’s use of the fine arts by focusing on the parable of the Rich Fool and a painting by Rembrandt to illustrate the ways in which we should envision how parables “work” (chapter 3) and what parables “want” (chapter 4). 

Parables and visual art, for example, can illuminate some things brilliantly, but because of their inherent nature can leave other aspects in the shadows, and by doing so engage the hearts, minds, and imaginations of their hearers/viewers/readers in ways that result in a multiplicity of diverse interpretations, responses, and dialogues. 

The parable of the Rich Fool also makes clear that Thurman was correct in the way he framed Jesus’s message: Jesus spoke his parables in his own historical context as a poor, disinherited, oppressed, first-century Jew, including a powerful critique of the wealthy and powerful, and the Rich Fool parable prepares the way for Jesus’s answer to the disinherited and to the privileged: the Jewish love-ethic of loving God and one’s neighbor—including the restoration of broken community—that are illustrated so powerfully by the parables of the Prodigal Son and the Good Samaritan.

Next up: parts of the study guide for chapter 3, including audio clips of Thurman, etc.