Please Explain

In Matthew 13 and 14 we find a number of parables in which Jesus compared the Kingdom of Heaven to everyday objects or situations. Routinely, his disciples didn't understand and asked him to explain. We read the explanations of these parables and have to wonder, "Was it Jesus or was it Matthew who interpreted these wide open parables in such specific and narrow ways?"

I just finished reading William Young's touching and faithful novel The Shack. In it God does a lot of explaining to a man who is bound up by grief, guilt, anger and fear. Most of the explanations are likely to be comforting to many because of their wide open and flowing theology. Others of the explanations are likely to be troubling to some because of their wide open and flowing lack of ecclesiology. Specifically, in The Shack, Jesus says with utter simplicity and clarity that he was never a Christian, and God says equally clearly that it was never about ritual.

Some Biblical scholars are doubtful that the explanations really came from Jesus's lips. They are more likely to be the interpretations of the parables by the Christian communities that built up in the first century after his resurrection. They were attempts by faithful Christians to find meaning in Jesus's words in the face of their current circumstances. The Shack, I think, falls into this very Christian tradition.

It would be nice to have explanations, don't you think? Or would it? To whom should we turn for them?

Mike+