Knowing When To Shut Up

I continue to be impressed and inspired by how practical a teacher Jesus was.  One of the most unfair and untrue criticisms of Christianity is that we are an impractical bunch.  I sure you have heard the ancient gibe often thrown at us--that we are so “heavenly minded” that we are no “earthly good.”  Karl Marx once famously said that religion is the opiate of the masses—meaning that people of faith are accomplices to oppression in that we help narcotize people from social pain by offering religious hope. But that assertion is a stereotype at best, and a blatant lie at worse.  For more than 2000 years, Christianity has been at the forefront of almost every significant movement for human betterment.  Moreover, if you check the scriptural representations of his life, it is difficult to resist the conclusion that Jesus was a paragon of practicality.

Mark 12:37 asserts that the “common people” heard Jesus “gladly.”  The Bible was originally written in Koine Greek, the language of the common people.  One of the earliest translations of the Bible was in Latin, and it was called the "Vulgate,” from a word meaning vulgar or crowd. Rudyard Kipling the English poet once said you must learn to walk with “kings and Queens but not lost the common touch”. Well, Jesus had the common touch. He had the unique to ability to reach all classes of people. Regardless of your class, culture or clime, Jesus could reach inside your heart. And I believe that one of the reasons that Jesus could do so is because he told stories about things that common people could relate to. The stories that he told are called parables.

These parables, or “stories with intent” as Klyne Snodgrass dubs them, constitute over one-third of Jesus’s teachings in the Gospels (Mark, Matthew, Luke and John). There are 33-65 parables (depending on who counts them and how they are classified). Perhaps the most popular of Jesus’ parables is the so-called parable of the “prodigal Son.” In it, Jesus weaves a tale about a son who demands his inheritance before his father’s death. Surprising, the Father grants this impudent and impish request. Unsurprisingly, the immature son leaves home, squanders his inheritance, and ends up in a pig pen. After he grows tired of wallowing in the mud and in self-pity, the son hatches a plan to return home regain his Father’s favor. Luke 15:18-20 allows us eavesdrop on the son’s plan:

I’m going back to my father. I’ll say to him, Father, I’ve sinned against God, I’ve sinned before you; I don’t deserve to be called your son. Take me on as a hired hand.’ He got right up and went home to his father.

However, the son’s plan didn’t go as planned. According to Luke 15:22-30, this is what happened:

When he was still a long way off, his father saw him. His heart pounding, he ran out, embraced him, and kissed him. The son started his speech: ‘Father, I’ve sinned against God, I’ve sinned before you; I don’t deserve to be called your son ever again.’But the father wasn’t listening. He was calling to the servants, ‘Quick. Bring a clean set of clothes and dress him. Put the family ring on his finger and sandals on his feet. Then get a prize-winning heifer and roast it. We’re going to feast! We’re going to have a wonderful time! My son is here—given up for dead and now alive! Given up for lost and now found!’ And they began to have a wonderful time.

I can imagine that the Prodigal son meticulously wrote, memorized and rehearsed the speech that he was going to give to his Father. I am sure that he had polished every sentence, pruned evaluated every mawkish tone, and imagined how each syllable would melt the hostility of his Father’s heart. The only problem was that he never got to finish his speech. As the scripture informs us “The Father wasn’t even listening.” So the son did what any wise person would have done. He stopped talking!

I think that if some of us were the son in the story, we would have interrupted the Father to finish our speech. Some of us would have been so fixated on our failure, so preoccupied with our pain and so invested in our iniquity that we would hav tried to convince the Father that we didn’t need all that he was offering. Far too many of us spend entirely too much time explaining, defending and apologizing our past that we fail to grasp the fact that the people who really matter and can really help us really don’t care about what we’ve done or where we’ve been.

The scripture advises us in Ecclesiastes 3:7, that there is a time to keep silent.” When someone wants to help you, it’s best to just shut up.