A Disorienting Story

The parables of Jesus are not nice and conventional stories with a moral lesson. Neither are they stories designed to simply get us to pray a “sinner’s prayer.” Anyone who thinks this is what Jesus’ parables are about has clearly not read them! There is nothing nice or easy, clear or conventional about Jesus’ parables. If anything, Jesus’ parables are crazy, confusing, and most of all disorienting. But why? Jesus’ parables are designed to disorient us from our conventional assumptions so we can be coaxed into the alternative and un-imagined universe that is the kingdom of heaven. The kingdom of heaven is nothing less than an alternative way (God’s way!) to arrange the world.