The parable of the officials and the scribe

 The parable of the officials and the scribe 

Early in the summer, I wrote that I found myself reading Scripture more and more as parable. I was coming to a story, and I would preface it with the words Jesus uses to introduce many of his parables: “The kingdom of God is like . . . .” It didn't always work, but, I found, adjustments can be made. For instance,

This past week I was visiting an older friend in the hospital. This is not my favorite activity, because you never know what you are going to see in a hospital – or hear – and whatever it is it’s more likely to be unsavory than not.

     My friend was in some pain, but it was beginning to wear off as something that he had been given not long before I arrived was wearing on. Behind the colorful curtain that separated the beds, his roommate was being entertained by a deep-hollow-voiced sanctimonialis, who was reading him the last chapters of Ezra. Emphatically! Pointedly! Perhaps the poor man had married outside the faith; that was why he was sick; and if he wished to be well, he needed to put his heathen wife and their godless children away.

It almost beggars the imagination: How could Ezra 9 and 10 be read as a parable? The only way I can think of is to turn Jesus’ introduction into a question, “Is the kingdom of God like this? A group of officials came to the scribe Ezra . . . .”

And here it is: the Book of the Scribe Ezra, chapters 9 & 10, from the TRV (Ted Riich Version):

09.18.16

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