If you think that you have seen and heard everything there is to see and hear in Jesus’ parables of judgment, then you haven’t looked or listened with Capon. “Not only is God going to take a dim view of all their high scores in the behaving and believing competition he is, in fact, going to bestow the gold medal on an out-and-out crook who just waltzes into the temple, stares at his shoelaces, and does nothing more than admit as much.” ( ) “Haven’t we conducted far too many missions on the assumption that we were ‘bringing Jesus’ to the heathen, when in fact all we had to bring was the Good News of what the Word-who was already there-had done for them?” ( ) “With Jesus, however, the device of parabolic utterance is used not to explain things to people’s satisfaction but to call attention to the unsatisfactoriness of all their previous explanations and understandings.” ( ) What if I were to stand every one of those ideas on its head? What if I were to come up with some parables that said the kingdom was catholic, mysterious, already present in their midst, and aggressively demanding their response? Let me see.…’” ( ) They think the kingdom will be a parochial, visible proposition-a militarily established theocratic state that will simply be handed to them at some future date. Maybe I should start thinking up examples of how profoundly the true messianic kingdom differs from their expectations. “‘Well,’ he seems to say, ‘since they’ve pretty well misunderstood me so far, maybe I should capitalize on that. “The idea of the catholicity of the kingdom-the insistence that it is at work everywhere, always, and for all, rather than in some places, at some times, and for some people-is an integral part of Jesus’ teaching from start to finish.” ( ) Logos Research Subscription for Schools.
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