Stories for the Waiting Room

As one of only three quadruply attested parables in the Gospel Tradition, the Mustard Seed describes the transformational growth of what Jesus calls the smallest of all the seeds. Season one’s final episode begins with a lighthearted quiz before moving on to examine the various differences between the story’s four extant versions. In the process of doing so Mark and Lee discover it is possible to understand the Mustard Seed both as a similitude and a parable proper with distinct meanings. Though reading the story as a parable proper presents readers with difficult existential challenges, Dr. Proctor prefers this approach on the grounds it enhances the story’s aesthetic and yields a more timely meaning for our contemporary situation.

Did Jesus condone slavery? In the sixth episode of "Stories for the Waiting Room," Mark and Lee discuss one of the more difficult lessons Jesus teaches his disciples. While on his way to Jerusalem to die, Jesus tells them a story about a Dutiful Servant whose day begins and ends with labor performed at a nameless owner's behest in Luke 17:7-10. At the parable's conclusion Jesus offers the following bit of instruction: "So also you, whenever you have done all the things you’ve been instructed to do, you should say 'We are useless slaves. We’ve only done what we should’ve done.'" To help form a suitable response , Dr. Proctor examines three contexts for Luke's challenging similitude: 1) slavery in the Greco-Roman world, 2) the Stoic philosophy of Epictetus, and 3) Jesus' previous instruction in Luke 12:35-38.

In the second episode of "Stories for the Waiting Room," Dr. Proctor uses the text of Ecclesiastes 9:14-15 to illustrate some of the basic narrative qualities of Jesus' parables. In addition to being terse accounts of status quo people in stereotypical life situations, the parables frequently insert unexpected "twists" that encourage readers to engage in the interpretive process. Paying attention to the contexts of the parables can frequently assist readers in their efforts to unravel Jesus' meaning. Episode two closes with C. H. Dodd's famous definition of "parable" in his book, The Parables of the Kingdom.

In the second and final episode on Jesus' parable of "The Sower," Dr. Proctor discusses the genre of allegory and its relevance for studying Jesus' parables. Having acknowledged the presence of allegorical treatments of the "Sower" in each of the Synoptic Gospels, he and Lee move on to proffer an alternative way to understand the parable. Using clues from the development of the tradition after Mark and the commentary present in ancient agricultural texts about crop production rates, Mark and Lee settle on an interpretation of the famous story that is relevant and timely for anyone dealing with the wearying effects of the Coronavirus pandemic.

Who? What? When? Where? Why? In season two's first episode, Lee and Dr. Mark address a very important question: Why did Jesus speak in parables? In order to provide an answer, they examine a critical passage scholars commonly refer to as a the "Parables Theory:" Mark 4:10-13. While nearly all versions of the Bible translate the first word in the Greek text of v. 12 with the English gloss "so that" or "in order that," Dr. Mark explains why doing so is problematic. He then offers an alternative approach to the verse that allows for understanding Jesus' parables as readily accessible heuristic devices that facilitate public learning by making his deeply existential topics comprehensible for everyone.