Howard Thurman and the Quest for Community: ("digging deeper" insights; Chapter 7 study guide, part 3)

   Howard Thurman and the Quest for Community: 

From Prodigals to Compassionate Samaritans

This post is the third on chapter 7 (which covers the first section of the Good Samaritan parable): a couple "digging deeper" insights from the study guide. These are things that I cut from the book itself in final edits but were important enough to be included in the book's study guide.

DIGGING DEEPER 

In defense of his honor and authority, Jesus uses the Socratic method, a rhetorical strategy named after Socrates because of the way he forced his interlocutors to answer their own questions, sometimes leading to a result the interlocutor did not like but had to affirm explicitly. The same fourfold pattern occurs twice in the two sections (or “rounds”) of this encounter. The lawyer asks a question (10:25, 29); Jesus responds with a counterquestion (10:26, 36); the lawyer answers (10:27, 37); Jesus responds with an answer demanding action: “do this and you will live” (10:28) and “go and do likewise” (10:37). 

And, against those who argue that the priest and Levite were "following the law":

Jews were required to assist a neglected corpse, or, “for most Jews,” to save a life (Snodgrass 2018, 355, 738 n.129): “Laws were suspended when life was endangered.” Similar sentiments about the necessity of burying a neglected corpse are found in Josephus (Against Apion 2.211; Antiquities 5.317; Jewish War 3.377; 4.317) and Philo (Hypothetica 7.7). Compare how Tobit, who “walked in the ways of truth and righteousness” all his life (Tobit 1:3) retrieved, cared for, and buried the corpse of a murdered man during Pentecost (Tobit 2:1– 8). The priest and Levite fail to live up to Tobit’s example. “Half dead” also could involve the principle that saving a life supersedes almost any other requirement (e.g., m. Yoma 8:6: “Whenever there is doubt whether life is in danger this overrides the Sabbath”).

For more, please see chapter 7 of the book. 

Howard Thurman and the Quest for Community: (key quotes; Chapter 7 study guide, part 2)

  Howard Thurman and the Quest for Community: 

From Prodigals to Compassionate Samaritans

This post is the second on chapter 7, which covers the first section of the Good Samaritan parable. It includes some key quotes from the chapter, and later this week I will add some "digging deeper" insights from the study guide in the next post. 

QUOTES FOR REFLECTION AND DISCUSSION 

The first quote is key because of many misunderstandings about why the priest and Levite did not stop to help: 

Our best evidence suggests that the consensus among first-century Jews, including priests and Levites, was that saving a life is much more important than any potential issues of purity. 

This quote is from perhaps my favorite Thurman meditation, "We are all Indebted":

We are all indebted to people whose names we do not know, whose faces sometimes we are not able to see.…I am not myself alone, but I am a part of all the life that breathes through me and through which I breathe. We are all of us indebted to a vast host by which we are surrounded. 

Here is a quote about Thurman's foundation for loving ourselves and others--we are all children of God:

To love one’s neighbor as oneself by necessity means that you should love yourself, and an essential foundation of truly loving oneself is the recognition that you are a child of God and that God loves you. Loving oneself leads to what appears to be selfless love, but it is instead loving one’s neighbor as if the neighbor were you.

One of Thurman's ideas was that some people should be "apostles of sensitiveness," or, as Barbara Brown Taylor renamed them, "eccentric apostles." A critical part of being an apostle of sensitiveness/eccentric apostle is, in Thurman's words:

"meeting people where they are, and treating them from there as if they were where they ought to be. By doing so, one places a crown over their heads that for the rest of their lives they are trying to grow tall enough to wear.” 

And, finally, one of my conclusions in this chapter is that:

Loving one’s neighbors does not just include loving one’s perceived enemies; it also includes loving everyone around us, people that we see and may not see because of our lack of attentiveness and mindfulness and an inability to escape a tun nel vision about ourselves, our own situations, lives, problems, or everyday affairs. Portraying the priest and Levite as villains, for example, distances us from them and thus can reduce the story’s realism and weaken its impact on modern readers. More importantly, however, modern interpretations that are too negative often descend as drastically as the road from Jerusalem to Jericho into misrepresentations of Judaism and even anti-Semitism.

Next up: Some "digging deeper" insights from the chapter 7 study guide. 

James Janknegt, The Parable of the Rich Fool

James Janknegt, The Parable of the Rich Fool

My last post included a "slow-looking" exercise on this painting:

James B. Janknegt, Portrait of YOU as the Good Samaritan

If you are interested in seeing more of his work, I discussed Janknegt's painting on the Rich Fool parable at King's College, London's Visual Commentary on Scripture website. You can find it here.

I conclude the 300-word piece with this (note: the "this humble house" refers to the house on the right): 

What remains worthy of preservation is the community found in this humble house, which is also a reminder that ‘life does not consist in an abundance of possessions’ (12:15).

Here's a peek at the work of art (click on it to see it in isolation):

Howard Thurman and the Quest for Community: Good Samaritan parable, Janknegt painting, Thurman meditation "We are all Indebted"; Chapter 7 study guide, part 1

 Howard Thurman and the Quest for Community:

 From Prodigals to Compassionate Samaritans

This post is about chapter 7, which begins the discussion of Thurman and the parable of the Good Samaritan. This post includes one of my favorite mediations from Thurman and a "slow looking" approach to the Good Samaritan painting by James Janknegt.

                    Thurman Meditation

In “We Are All Indebted” (March 26, 1965), Thurman reflects on the “stranger” to whom he dedicates his autobiography, the paradigmatic Good Samaritan who, in Thurman’s view, totally changed his life. We are all indebted to a host of Good Samaritans—known and unknown—and we are all connected one to another and responsible one for another.

Take a few minutes and listen to this meditation. Hearing Thurman is a much deeper experience than just reading his words.

Visual Art Reflection

James B. Janknegt, Portrait of YOU as the Good Samaritan

Unlike previous posts, where I offered some analysis and directed you to some of my other publications on the art work, this time I'd like for you to examine the visual art on your own in a "slow looking" way. 

Thurman believed that artistic expression—visual art, music, dance, theater, film—can stimulate heightened spiritual consciousness and bring diverse people together on common ground. Artistic expression can also enrich and deepen our understanding of the subjects it engages, including biblical texts. In this case, I want you to explore your own imaginations.

A more focused “slow looking” approach would be to consider the title of the painting, then focus on the figures in the painting from left to right, and, after discussing those representations, come back to the meaning of the title. What do YOU think it means? 

It was Nancy Gowler who recommended that I share with others the slow looking” guide by Claire Brown, some details of which are noted below. 

Start with observations and descriptions by examining the work slowly and carefully. What catches your eye? What do you notice? Does anything surprise you? Take a few minutes and write down everything that you notice in the work. Share those elements with a discussion group (or partner). Reflect also on the setting—colors, shapes, lines, figures, movements, textures, the foreground and background—and think about how you would describe this work to someone who had never seen it.

What questions does the piece of visual art raise? What emotions and thoughts emerge as you gaze upon the image? If the image includes representations of people, try to place yourself in the situation of the different people portrayed and imagine their perspectives.

After this close examination and description, now consider how you think the image works. What are the various parts of the image and their purposes? Do they work together to aid interpretation? How does the visual art engage with, interpret, or add to the story it seeks to represent?

What, for you, does this image mean? What details, parts, or overall aspects of the image lead you to this conclusion?

Finally, for you, what does this piece of visual art want? What do you think is it trying to convince you to think, believe, or do?

After doing that, if it helps, you can check out how the artist describes it (also found here).

Howard Thurman and the Quest for Community: (Includes some key quotes and a "digging deeper" insight from Barbara Reid; Chapter 6 study guide, part 2)

 Howard Thurman and the Quest for Community: From Prodigals to Compassionate Samaritans

This post is the second on chapter 6 about the Prodigal Son parable. It includes some key quotes from the chapter and "digging deeper" insights from Barbara Reid about misinformed patriarchal readings of the parable. 

QUOTES FOR REFLECTION AND DISCUSSION 

“As we have seen, Jesus in Luke argues that vertical generalized reciprocity—the advantaged giving to the disadvantaged without expecting anything in return—is the means by which wealthy people can enter heaven (e.g., Luke 14:12–14; cf. 16:14, 19–31). This parable, then, may offer a similar message: assistance to those in need should be given even to those who may be—or appear to be—undeserving.” 

“Understood by God, accepted at the core of our being, we thus have a radical confirmation of community.…Therefore, the foundation of community is built on the loving actions of God. But a human response to the whisper of God in our hearts is also required. Even though the parable itself is ambiguous about whether the younger son truly repents and whether the older son ultimately reconciles with his father and brother, the desired outcomes are clear for both, and the restoration of community is dependent on those responses of repentance.” 

“One cannot truly love ‘the hungry’ or ‘the homeless’ without loving and caring for in some concrete ways individuals who are hungry or homeless. Part of caring for other human beings involves serious attempts to understand their context and situation. Understanding other people’s contexts involves more than just acknowledging their predicament at a particular point in time; this effort also seeks to become aware of their potential. To truly love people involves, as Thurman liked to put it, meeting people where they are and dealing with them as if they were where they should be.” 

Howard Thurman: “For better or for worse, God and I, God and you, are bound together, and I cannot be what it is that I must be if between you and me, between you and God, there is no community.…God cannot be happy in his heaven if any man is in hell. Therefore, I must work out my salvation by seeking in every way to further communion between myself and all living things and myself and God.” 

“Answering the question of ‘What is God like?’ inherently leads to Jesus’s call to act like God our loving parent does (e.g., ‘to be merciful, just as [God] your father is merciful’; Luke 6:36). In that way, human beings can act to restore and preserve community, a fundamental issue of ‘salvation’ for Thurman.” 

“Becoming a repentant child is but one step on the path to becoming the welcoming father.”

DIGGING DEEPER

This parable was told and heard in a patriarchal society, so the absence of the mother and no mention of daughters are not surprising. It is not just the compressed nature of parables that could influence why they do not appear. Some interpreters attempt to include the mother by arguing that the parable incorporates maternal metaphors—the mother is the “unspoken binary of the father”—by linking the son’s starvation to the need for (motherly) nourishment or the father’s affectionate (motherly) kisses of the returning son (Scott 1989, 115, 117, 122). As Barbara Reid states, however, such “feminizing” of the father does not insert women into the story. Instead, by normalizing the image of father for God and rarely using female images such as mother, interpreters “divinize” patriarchy, allowing it to reign not just on earth but also in heaven: “When our foundational stories about God exclude female images, then believers are left with the message that being male is more God- like.” The best course is for interpreters to include women—like the woman finding the lost coin—in their images for God and language about God (Reid 2001, 66).

Howard Thurman, "The Work of Christmas" for 2025-2026

 

  

Another year; another opportunity to rededicate ourselves to this message from Dr. Thurman:

"The Work of Christmas," by Howard Thurman 

Howard Thurman’s poem, “The Work of Christmas” is my favorite Christmas poem, and I post it every year. It provides a vision of a society informed by Jesus’s parable of the Sheep and Goats in the Gospel of Matthew and the biblical principle of hospitality: 

When the song of the angels is stilled, 

When the star in the sky is gone, 

When the kings and the princes are home, 

When the shepherds are back with their flock, 

The work of Christmas begins: 

To find the lost, 

To heal the broken, 

To feed the hungry, 

To release the prisoner, 

To rebuild the nations, 

To bring peace among brothers, 

To make music in the heart. 

Thurman reminds us of how Jesus wants us to respond to our fellow human beings in ways that God demands and in ways that echo, as Jesus of Nazareth declared in the Sermon on the Mount and elsewhere, how God loves and treats us. 

May we truly make "music in the heart" for others and therefore ourselves in 2025.

Howard Thurman and the Quest for Community: From Prodigals to Compassionate Samaritans (Includes a sermon by Thurman and a visual art reflection; Chapter 6 study guide, part 1)

Howard Thurman and the Quest for Community: From Prodigals to Compassionate Samaritans

This post is the first on chapter 6, the second chapter about the Prodigal Son parable. It includes a sermon from Howard Thurman and a discussion of this painting by Frank Wesley.

Frank Wesley, Forgiving Father.

Frank Wesley was born in Azamgarh, India, on December 12, 1923. Wesley became the best-known Christian Indian artist of his day (e.g., his 1947 Blue Madonna was selected for the UNICEF Christmas card, several other works won awards and honors, and his design was selected for the urn that held Mahatma Gandhi’s ashes before they were immersed at the confluence of the Ganges and Jumna rivers). Wesley painted Forgiving Father while at Kyoto Art University in Japan (1954–1958), but the painting retains the cultural symbolism of Indian and Hindu social practice. The Brahmin father, dressed in white, welcomes his son home, his left hand holding his son’s back, his loving right hand caressing his son’s head, and his head bowed into his son’s neck (Wesley was influenced by Rembrandt; cf. the etching by Rembrandt and his famous painting in the Hermitage Museum). The emaciated son is too weak to stand on his own and depends on the father to hold him up, his right hand responding to his father’s love by clasping his father’s arm. Note the color contrasts—the people, clothes, and background—especially how the color of the clothes of the son and his loving father begin to merge as our eyes move downward (see Wray 1993). 

The simplicity but profoundness of this painting makes it fertile ground for “slow looking” explorations of how this painting works, what it means, and what it wants. For Wesley, the father symbolizes God and the son humanity: God is present unconditionally seeking to reconcile with sinful humanity. The son, like humankind, is unable to stand on his own without the loving support of his father (Wray 1993, 44). Other interpreters argue that the son looks and dresses like a Dalit, the lowest and most oppressed social level in India, in contrast to his father’s appearance as a Brahmin, the highest caste. Some interpreters also argue that the father resembles Mahatma Gandhi.

HOWARD THURMAN AUDIO

In his sermon, “Salvation: What Is God Like?” (September 16, 1951), Thurman observes that the lost sheep and lost coin parables have profound implications about the nature of God, human beings, and the relationship between human beings and God. The lost sheep parable, for example, portrays God as a shepherd who loves and seeks out the lost sheep, those who are out of touch “with the group that sustained” them. In reality, Thurman says, “everyone in some sense is lost,” and so God takes the initiative, actively searches for the lost, and seeks to restore them to the community in which they belong. 

The next post (on chapter 6, part 2) will focus on some key quotes from the chapter and some other resources.

Howard Thurman and the Quest for Community: From Prodigals to Compassionate Samaritans (Includes a sermon and meditation by Thurman; Chapter 5 study guide, part 3)

     

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.

The last post featured a key quotes sermon by Thurman, including is famous quote about th Prodigal Son parable and :coming to face with God."

Today's post, the third on chapter 5 and the Prodigal Son parable, focuses on some "digging deeper" insights, including a sermon by Thurman, a meditation by Thurman, and other resources:

The Prodigal Son parable’s relative complexity leads to greater depth of reader engagement: it has several scene changes, a more extensive plot, a number of conflicts, three major characters, and more developed (mostly indirect) characterization—including dialogue, one of the few interior monologues among the parables, and a speech. (See David B. Gowler, “The Characterization of the Two Brothers in the Parable of the Prodigal Son (Luke 15: 11–32 ): Their Function and Afterlives.”) 

The quote from Petronius alluded to in this chapter (Satyricon 80.9) is, “Friendship endures only to the last coin.” 

The prodigal son was hungry enough to “gladly eat” (15:16) the food he was assigned to give the pigs, wording similar to the rich man and Lazarus parable where the destitute Lazarus—at the gate of a rich man who, to his later detriment, ignores Lazarus—“longed to satisfy his hunger with what fell from the rich man’s table” (Luke 16:21). 

In “Sing Your Own Song” (March 6, 1964) Thurman uses examples from Catherine Coblentz’s Blue Cat of Castle Town to encourage his listeners to “sing their own song,” to find their own authentic voice, and “then God, who is the creator of life and all the living substances, will be able to sing his song through you.” 

The sermon “The Sound of the Genuine” (May 1, 1977) further explains what the Sound of the Genuine means, and it includes a description of the “Good Samaritan” who helped Thurman at the Daytona train station.

The next post (on chapter 6, part 1) will focus on the secpond half of the Prodigal Son parable, including a sermon by Thurman and visual exegesis of Frank Wesley's Forgiving Father.

Howard Thurman and the Quest for Community: Coming "face to face with God" (Includes quotes of Thurman; Chapter 5 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.

The last post featured a sermon by Thurman and a visual exegesis of Albrecht Dürer's The Prodigal Son amid the Swine. Today's post also focuses on chapter 5, the first chapter on the parable of the Prodigal Son: "Listening for the Whisper of God: 'You have to churn the Milk.'" 

Here are some key quotes from the chapter:

“We have forgotten that the only true basis for a sense of security…is the awareness that you are precious in the sight of God, that you are of worth, and that your worth is not derived from anything that you do, anything that you have, anything that you know; it is a part of the givenness of God in His children.…Now this is the contribution that the religion of Jesus makes.”

 “Thurman captures the essential element of the parable: the father (God) loves the son (the sinner) even before he repents.…The good news is that God and God’s love are relentlessly seeking us, and in response to God, ‘something deep within you will begin to move,’ and you will begin to open doors deep within you until at last you will find ‘that which you have had all along.’” 

This quote is especially important for understanding Thurman's thought and insights (emphasis mine):

“‘When [the prodigal] came to himself,’ he came to his father.…When I…come to the very center, the very core of myself, then I come face to face with God. That God is, God is within me. That he is the very point of my being and existence.…That there is that of man which is God. Not a reflection of God. Not some staggering accent of God, but that which is God.” 

When you listen to the audio of Thurman, you can tell how much he emphasizes the "is God" in the last part of that quote. 

“One of the ways that Thurman explained the presence of God within ‘the inward parts of the human spirit and the human heart’ was to borrow an image from Hinduism: ‘the butter is in the milk,’ and ‘thou hast to churn the milk…if thou desirest to taste the butter.’ God is found within human beings who have to cultivate awareness of God within them, and one necessary path was to ‘limit one’s intake,’ to slow down and focus on important things amid the multitude of distractions in our hectic and harried lives, since there can be a ‘striking relationship between the inner and the outer’ aspects of our lives. Instead, we must churn the milk of our inner selves so we may taste the butter.” 

“When we listen for and respond to the sound of the genuine in another human being, we are ascribing to them the same sense of infinite worth that we (should) believe that we have. This sound of the genuine is another aspect of our common consciousness, and here the power of imagination takes root and gives us the ability to put ourselves truly in the place of another human being.” 

The next post (on chapter 5, part 3) will focus on some "digging deeper" insights, including a sermon by Thurman, a meditation by Thurman, and other resources.

Howard Thurman and the Quest for Community: From Prodigals to Compassionate Samaritans (includes a sermon by Thurman and a Dürer visual exegesis; Chapter 5 study guide, part 1)

   

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 5, which is the first chapter on the parable of the Prodigal Son: "Listening for the Whisper of God: 'You have to churn the Milk.'" 

As preparation for the chapter, I first recommend readers listen to an audio of one of Thurman's prodigal son sermons: "The Prodigal Son," (September 23, 1951). In that sermon, Thurman notes that God is like the loving father, and anyone could be one of the two brothers, estranged from their father. But God always welcomes us back, and when the prodigal “comes to himself,” he comes to his very center and comes face-to-face with God within him.

In further preparation for the chapter, I then recommend a visual exegesis of Albrecht Dürer's The Prodigal Son amid the Swine:

The longer version is found in David B. Gowler, “What Can Renaissance Art and Howard Thurman Tell Us about the Prodigal Son?” but here is a quick summary of the visual exegesis: 

In this striking engraving, the urgency of the pigs’ scramble for food matches the urgency of the prodigal’s physical and spiritual hunger, and the prodigal’s pose portrays the moment when he “came to himself.” Similarly, Thurman believes that the famine in the land reflects the prodigal’s physical hunger and internal spiritual famine, and the parable illustrates how human beings can move from such isolation to an assurance of community: When people “come to themselves,” it is in response to “a seeking and beseeching God,” and Thurman muses about how the degradation of the prodigal’s spirit led to “a stirring down at the bottom of his being” that said, “You are lost. You are out of contact with your family. You are out of community. Why don’t you go home?” Thurman thus argues for a deeper spiritual meaning of when the son “came to himself” and envisions it as an exemplar for one’s spiritual journey: human beings can discover God within themselves, realize who they really are, and return “home.”

The next post (on chapter 5, part 2) will focus on some key quotes from the chapter and some "digging deeper" insights.

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.

Trump, Trump Voters, and the Parable of the Snake

 

Vincent van Gogh's The Good Samaritan 

It is hard not to respond to every outrage that we are experiencing now in the United States because of Donald Trump and his Republican co-conspirators, but the damage being done to the United States (e.g., masked, heavily-armed agents kidnapping human beings off the street, the Republican budget bill that will decimate the lives of millions of people and benefit the ultra rich, and so much more) and the world (e.g., the bombing of Iran) is impossible to describe, a damage that will last at least decades.

For those who were deluded into voting for Trump this second time after seeing all he had done during his last term (including fomenting an armed insurrection), I think of one of Trump's favorite stories, the parable of The Snake.

The fable of The Snake is about a "tender-hearted woman" who finds a wounded snake on the road. She takes it home and nurses it back to health, but when the snake recovers, it bites her. As the woman is dying from the bite, she asks the snake why it had bit her after all she had done for it. The snake replies, "You knew full well I was a snake before you helped me." 

Trump has used that fable numerous times, and after all he has done--and all we have seen from him--Trump personifies the snake of that parable (e.g., think of Rick Wilson's "Everything Trump Touches Dies").

In contrast, in the Gospel of Luke, Jesus told the parable of the Compassionate (good) Samaritan after a lawyer “tested” Jesus by asking what the lawyer had to do to inherit eternal life. The lawyer already knew the answer when Jesus asked him what the law had to say: “You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your strength, and with all your mind; and your neighbor as yourself.” After the lawyer gave that answer, Jesus responded by saying: “You have given the right answer; do this, and you will live” (10:25–28). 

The lawyer then asked Jesus: “And who is my neighbor?” (10:29), and Jesus replied with a parable that describes the extraordinary actions of a man, a despised-by-many Samaritan, who assisted another human being in need, a man half dead by the side of the road who had already been ignored by two religious people who had “passed by on the other side.” The Samaritan, in contrast, had compassion for the man, demonstrated that compassion in concrete ways, and “took care of him” (10:34). 

As always, Jesus expects a response from his audience concerning his parables, a response that involves both understanding and action, because Luke tells us this is what happened after Jesus finished the parable: 

[Jesus asked,] “Which of these three, do you think, was a neighbor to the man who fell into the hands of the robbers?” [The expert in the law] said, “The one who showed him mercy.” Jesus said to him, “Go and do likewise.” (10:36–37) 

The current president of the United States has replaced the parable of the Good Samaritan with the fable of The Snake. If Trump truly believed, as he said last night, "we love you God," he would not act in the ways he does or speak the hateful words he does.

And many of those in the United States who call themselves Christians have joined a man who acts just like the snake in that parable, and they reject the parable that Jesus told as an example of how human beings should treat each other, with compassion and mercy. 

Howard Thurman and the Quest for Community: From Prodigals to Compassionate Samaritans (Chapter 3 study guide, part 1)

 

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 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

Details about how this happens can be found in my National Catholic Review article,  “Rembrandt ’s Technique Sheds Light on How Parables Work”, that summarizes the arguments in chapter 3 and connects them to how Rembrandt’s painting “works.” For an academic article making a similar case, see also David B. Gowler, “The Enthymematic Nature of Parables: A Dialogic Reading of the Parable of the Rich Fool (Luke 12: 16–20),” for more information about Rembrandt’s painting and the parable’s first-century context.

I also include an audio to Thurman's sermon “Possessions” on the rich fool parable (October 28, 1951). This sermon outlines the negative effects wealth, property, and greed have on human beings and their relationships.

This quote from chapter 3 states this about one aspect of how to approach Jesus's parables

Jesus was a pious first-century Jew who led a renewal movement within Judaism and debated with other first-century Jews how best to follow God, determine God’s will, and observe God’s Law.…Parables were part of his teaching repertoire, and to understand better their use and function as well as the creative understanding involved in their construction, we must look at first-century cultural contexts in which these parables were spoken and heard.”

The next post will include more quotes from chapter 3 and some "digging deeper" insights about Thurman and the parables.