Howard Thurman and the Quest for Community: From Prodigals to Compassionate Samaritans (Some Quotes and "digging deeper" ideas: Chapter 4 study guide, part 2)

  

Howard Thurman and the Quest for Community: 

From Prodigals to Compassionate Samaritans

How Howard Thurman's insights benefit current discussions about what to do in the face of the injustices that so many people face today: highlighting parts of my recent book, Howard Thurman and the Quest for Community: From Prodigals to Compassionate Samaritans.

Today's post focuses on chapter 4, "What do Parables Want?" which argues that Jesus, and Thurman following behind him, aimed his parables in a historical context in which he and his audience were among those who had their "backs against the wall," and the parables, among other things, were aimed at spurring hearers to action.

Here are some key quotes from the chapter. As a whole they illustrate that Howard Thurman understood the first-century socio-economic context of Jesus's teachings better that most New Testament scholars did in 1949:

“People living on a bare subsistence level thus viewed patronage—where the elites distribute goods to the nonelites—as a moral obligation; people who had resources were expected to help in difficult circumstances.” 

“Jesus was an impoverished first-century Jewish artisan who was a member of a politically, militarily, and economically oppressed minority and who spoke prophetic words of judgment against the oppressors of his people. His parables and other teachings focus extensively on issues of money and power, including condemnations of the wealthy elite because of their oppression of the poor. Such socioeconomic contexts thus are essential for understanding numerous aspects of the parables of Jesus.” 

“Jesus’s message affirmed the inherent worth of the disinherited as children of God, the necessity of the love- ethic to pervade all relationships, and the power of love to create community in the midst of and even over against the forces of evil.” 

“How should wealthy elites live…? Jesus demands that they operate with vertical generalized reciprocity—a redistribution from the advantaged to the disadvantaged that expects nothing in return. Since God showers humankind with vertical generalized reciprocity, humankind should follow God’s lead in their relationships with each other (e.g., 11:11– 14).…The elites’ concern for money is linked to their lack of concern for human beings, and this connection between riches and unrighteousness can only be broken through vertical generalized reciprocity (14:12– 14; cf. 16:9, 19– 31).”

The "Digging Deeper" observations drive home the main points above:

• The Gospel of Luke was written by someone in a higher socioeconomic position than Jesus. Although Jesus’s perspective as being “disinherited” is clear in his parables, the author of Luke in many respects interprets the parables for those who like him, economically at least, could be included among the “inherited.” The focus thus shifts slightly from Jesus’s greater emphasis on the condemnation of the elite—which Luke still includes—to Luke’s greater emphasis on Jesus’s teachings serving as a warning to such elites (which Jesus also still includes). 

• Parables include Jesus’s prophetic critique “from below” of the wealthy elite. The rich fool parable (Luke 12:16–20), for example, illustrates Jesus’s admonition about rapacity (Luke 12:15; cf. 12:21). Jesus then elaborates the point when he enjoins his disciples not to worry about material possessions but to strive for the kingdom of God instead (12:22–31). The section concludes with an exhortation to sell their possessions “and give alms” (12:32–34; cf. 14:12–14; 18:18– 23). For Luke, then, the rich farmer exemplifies what to avoid: someone who does not strive for the kingdom, who does not care for those around him (especially those with their backs against the wall), whose treasure is material goods not the “unfailing treasure in heaven” (12:33), and whose life consists “in the abundance of possessions” (12:15).

• Recent scholarship has increased our understanding of the “weapons of the weak” and “hidden transcripts”—sometimes used by Jesus to give ambiguous (and subversive) answers in threatening situations (see page 50 in the text)—so Thurman’s arguments in Jesus and the Disinherited could be reevaluated considering these insights. 

Howard Thurman and the Quest for Community: From Prodigals to Compassionate Samaritans (Chapter 4 study guide, part 1; includes a sermon by Thurman)

  

Howard Thurman and the Quest for Community: 

From Prodigals to Compassionate Samaritans

How Howard Thurman's insights benefit current discussions about what to do in the face of the injustices that so many people face today: highlighting parts of my recent book, Howard Thurman and the Quest for Community: From Prodigals to Compassionate Samaritans.

Today's post focuses on chapter 4, "What do Parables Want?" in which I continue  to illustrate how parables and visual art can function in similar ways, in this case using the parable of the Persistent Widow and John Everett Millais's engraving, The Unjust Judge and the Importunate Widow. I argue that the dialogues with interpreters that parables and works of visual art create encourage (and sometimes demand) ethical responses and concrete actions. Jesus, and Thurman following behind him, aimed his parables in a historical context in which he and his audience were among those who had their "backs against the wall," and the parables, among other things, were aimed at spurring hearers to action.

In preparation for the chapter, I ask readers/students to listen to an audio of one of Howard Thurman's sermons, “Resistance to the Social Order” (April 20, 1962). In that sermon, Thurman asks, “For what do you stand, really? And are you willing to back the thing for which you stand with your mind, with your heart, with your resources, with your life?” The answer he gives is “If you are, you join the great army of those who stand as the pathfinders and in the ranks of those who are the redeemers of the world.” 

John Everett Millais's, 

The Unjust Judge and the Importunate Widow 

Then I ask readers to consider a short piece that I published in The National Catholic Reporter, “Making ‘Good Trouble’: What We See in Jesus’ Parable of the Persistent Widow,” where the conclusion states: 

The parable of the persistent widow unrelentingly pursuing justice from an unjust judge is best seen as an example of not how our prayers for justice should be continuous— although they should be— but instead as a paradigm for how we should unrelentingly pursue justice for those denied justice in our society, with a reminder that justice should not only be fair and equitable; it should be compassionate and restorative. 

Recovering the radical message of Jesus’s parable means that we should both recognize the widow as causing “good trouble” and realize that she should not be acting alone.

The brief essay uses Jesus's parable, Millais's engraving, and insights from John Lewis to build the case for how I will combine detailed interpretations of the parable of the Prodigal Son and the parable of the Compassionate Samaritan and then illustrate Thurman's interpretations and applications of them that are found in the succeeding chapters of the book.

The next post will include some quotes from chapter 4 as well as information that allows readers to "dig deeper."

Howard Thurman and the Quest for Community: From Prodigals to Compassionate Samaritans (Chapter 3 study guide quotes and "digging deeper")

  

Howard Thurman and the Quest for Community: 

From Prodigals to Compassionate Samaritans

Today's post focuses on chapter 3, "How do Parables Work?" in which I use Rembrandt's The Money Changer (Der Geldwechsler) or The Rich Fool to illustrate how parables and visual art can function in similar ways. This is part two of the posts on chapter 3, and it includes quotes from Thurman and the chapter and some "digging deeper" thoughts that didn;t make it in the final edits of the book itself because of word count.

Quotes about the nature of parables:

“One meaning of mashal can be ‘riddle’— which means that the response of the hearer/reader is essential to the process of creating understanding about the possibly inferred meanings and implications of the mashal.” 

“Despite the presence of a moral before or after a fable/mashal/parable, the parable itself does not seek to impose a singular response but instead creates a dialogue and invites or challenges its hearers/readers to participate. Parables, in fact, can be created with and have inherent in their transmission the possibility of having multiple morals, meanings, and applications.” 

Quote about the nature of parables and visual art: 

“Parables and visual images can omit premises of one kind or another, thus leading to ambiguity and multiple meanings. In many instances, such gaps are intentional.…That aspect of parables can give them tremendous power to affect their hearers and readers in many ways—challenging them to change their attitudes, beliefs, and behaviors. The process provokes divergent responses as interpreters endeavor to understand them, since not every audience member envisions the missing premise in the same way.” 

Quote about the nature of parables, Thurman, and the interpretive task: What do parables mean? How do parables work? What do parables want?: 

“Thus, a key role for interpreters seeking to make the parables relevant for today is to attempt whenever possible to fill in missing premises or gaps with historical, social, and cultural information, such as Howard Thurman’s Jesus and the Disinherited did. One’s interpretive task does not end there, however. Because Jesus’s parables want something from their hearers or readers, interpreters should then attempt, as Thurman’s book also did, to contextualize the parables of Jesus authentically, making them relevant for contemporary society without anachronizing or domesticating Jesus’s message.”

In the "digging deeper" section I include further information about parable interpretation in its first-century context and the Rembrandt painting, The Money Changer:

In fable collections, morals could be included in a promythium before the fable (cf. Luke 12:15) or in an epimythium after the fable (cf. Luke 12:21). The emphasis is on inculcating ethics. Quintilian argues, for example, that a critical aspect of education was “the formation of a child’s moral character,” which he believed was more important than “any excellence as a speaker.” Fables played a role (e.g., in primary education) to help students learn “what is right and what is wrong” (Strong 2021, 137–38).

Rembrandt’s painting resembles an earlier Gerard van Honthorst painting, An Old Woman Inspecting a Coin (~1623/4), which personifies greed. Rembrandt substitutes an old man for Honthorst’s elderly woman, but the similarities are striking—an elderly person in a dark room, wearing a pince-nez, holding a coin with the right hand, and examining it in the light of a single candle. 

Rembrandt uses chiaroscuro—contrasting light and shade—as a dramatic means of portraying a scene and suggesting inner character but with a sense of mystery. Rays of light are reflected in sundry ways and places, just as parables are reflected in different ways in different contexts and heard in numerous ways by various hearers. Rembrandt illuminates some objects clearly, while other aspects remain obscure, placed in the shadows, creating uncertainties and provoking debates. In a similar way, Jesus’s parables illuminate some things as clear as day. Other aspects become clearer as we learn more about the first- century contexts in which Jesus created and his followers preserved, transmitted, and transformed his words. However, still other elements—because of the nature of the parabolic word—remain in shadows, provoking our responses as we endeavor to understand Jesus’s parables more clearly in his context and ours and seek to change our attitudes, beliefs, and behaviors accordingly.