DP#9: The Cost of Paying

As a debtor, every penny that comes into your pocket, every penny that you loan out, because far more valuable, and that is the primary reason why the unforgiving servant becomes so aggressive when his master was so quick to offer forgiveness. The master is capable of doing without, while the servant is dependent on the money for the sake of his own survival, for his ability to avoid torture at the hands of the master. That sense of urgency is what drives him to employ aggression, instead of offering forgiveness.

DP #8: The Significance of the Insignificant

In the parable of the wicked tenants, Jesus compares the beginning of conflict to a rejected stone, something small and insignificant, undesirable and seemingly useless. At the end of the parable, he says that it is God who makes the stone significant and it is God who makes that stone great, important and relevant, a cornerstone, a beginning of something much larger. The rejected stone is the initial conflict, the single show of disobedience that becomes significant as it snowballs, and it is in this that Jesus says, like the mustard seed, social change will manifest. The change is not immediate, but Jesus makes clear that it is through God that even something we reject easily ourselves becomes significant.

DP #7: (Mis)Reading the Parable of the Wicked Tenants

In order to really understand the parable of the wicked tenants (as with all parables) it is important to read the context and understand that Jesus is talking about the significance of his authority, but even more than that, he is addressing his role as a political activist empowered by the need for change (as he refuses to acknowledge that it is the will of the celestial in Mark 11:33. While both the priests and the modern readers may easily misinterpret the parable as an assertion that the evil tenants, those who kill and harm and exploit an opportunity given to them, it seems clear from the context of Jesus' life as an anti-Roman social activist that he is talking specifically about the Romans. It is the Romans, after all, who came into the land of Israel (or Abraham, or whatever patriarch we choose to name it after) and stole the gifts, killing anyone willing to take out a fair sum for the landlord, who is clearly God. Jesus is foreshadowing his role as the son who falls at the hands of the merciless, spiteworthy tenants (the Romans).

DP #6: The Mustard Seed as an Expression of Potency

Jesus' metaphor for the kingdom of God as a mustard seed has little to do with a caring plant that offers refuge and fruit, and everything to do with a plant that becomes a prominant attribute in the landscape quickly, and quicky overtakes every aspect of one's life, becoming a major characteristic in any individual willing to take part.

DP #5: The Good Samaritan and US Donations to Africa

Jesus' Parable of the Good Samaritan is not so much a commentary on the nature of humanity, as it pertains to our ability to empathize within the human condition, but rather on the nature of our ability to dehumanize our fellow man in order to justify a behavior that is in our best interest. In Jesus' parable, the Levite and the Priest justify their behavior by seeing the man as less than a neighbor, as less than human, because it is not in their best interest (which is to say, they do not feel that it is beneficial to spend time) to help the man, while the Samaritan sees value in superceding his own need, and while his altruism may not be immediately beneficial, Jesus suggests that it is when it comes time for one to be accepted into everlasting life. By that same token, the US does not give aid to third world countries because it sees that donation as not terribly beneficial, and in order to justify the selfish behavior, we refuse to give a fair share of our income to the programs organized by the United Nations. The behavior, Jesus suggests, is selfish, but it is our own innate morality that requires us to justify our selfishness, while our altruism is the behavior that Jesus finds most beneficial.

DP #4: Foreshadowing In the Canticles of Mary and Zechariah

The canticles of Mary and Zechariah are easily read as statements of frustration with an oppressive society, but it is not simply the advocacy of his family and close friends that foreshadows and, eventually, leads him to be an advocate for political change, it is his own experience. While Jesus' family was oppressed in Palestine and the authors of the Gospel later saw fit to add the canticles to show the political instability, the experience in Jesus' early life as a refugee in Egypt not only foreshadows, but creates, a personal frustration with the state of affairs in his homeland. The fact that he was cast out lead Jesus to attack the nature of the Palestinian politics, Roman Imperialism and Jewish hypocrisy that had lead his family to live in exile, even if it was of their own free will. Jesus' political advocacy comes from a personal grievance, and while some of that may have been instilled through the political stances of his mother, Jesus' ability to attack the structure of the Jewish Temple society with the vigour that he did clearly shows the intensity of his own experience and his personal analysis of the issues, not simply of a hatred for the Roman society.

DP #3: Foreshadowing in Jesus' Geneology

OF the four women mentioned in Jesus' geneology, all four are outcasts in the Jewish society of the day or, at the very least, should have been for the crimes commited, and this is a clear foreshadowing of the compassion Jesus will have for those outcast by the Jewish law of his era and even those shunned for reasons that have nothing to do with Mosaic laws. The noting of Tamar and Bathsheeba (and, arguably, Ruth as well) is an allussion to the compassion Jesus will have for the adulterer in the future. The noting of Ruth and Rahab (both gentiles) foreshadows Jesus' welcoming of other gentiles, even those hostily regarded by Jewish society. Jesus is not just a product of his lineage, but he accepts the significance of the individuals that are a part of it, even those of which another person might be less proud, and it is his ability to accept all parts of his heritage both in hindsight and in the events presented to him, that makes him remarkable.

DP #2: Why Humans Tell Stories

Stories are a method of teaching the abstract in a concrete form, giving people the opportunity to see an idea, like a particular morality or behavioral value, in the real world. It helps people to understand how they should apply their morality, as well as how to express it coherently. Stories serve the purpose of entertaining while showing, instead of simply instructing, which is what makes them effective, as well as practical.

DP #1: Why We Tell Stories

The art of storytelling was created to create a bridge between the logical and the applicable, to pass on morality and to establish history.

Storytelling began as a way of relaying personal histories and experiences, a way of telling children about things that elders in the tribe had learned about life and behaviors that would, later, keep them alive. It has been about teaching through entertainment, about establishing behaviors, whether moral or simply necessary for survival.

Early stories probably consisted of basic logical things that now we don't even consider, like what berries not to eat and not to grab a snakes tale, but as such behaviors have become less and less necessary through to development of civilization the behaviors stories have taken on portraying have become less and less about actual survival skills and more about surviving socially and living morally.

Morality has become a fixture in modern culture through religion, which has developed entire mythologies (whether true or not, they are certainly mythologies) encouraging children and adults to adhere to a morality established by societal and religious leaders. These stories are as extensive as the Parables of Jesus (which were Jesus' ways of teaching his moral system) and the Gospels themselves (which were the ways the followers of Jesus who came later would pass on his social and moral teachings).

All of the stories in the Bible have that purpose, as do the mythologies that later developed and followed the ministry of Jesus, from the Mormon church (which established an additional scriptural document with dozens of parables to administer its additional ideals) to the Catholic writer Dante (who created a single parable to elaborate on his personal understanding of Catholic dogma).

Man tells stories to teach while engaging, a method that we employ to teach adults at least as often as children, and a method that we use to control behavior as much as we do to encourage personal reflection.

As far as stories my family tells about me, my father loves to talk about my work with non-profit organizations in Guatemala and Nicaragua. 95% of the time, he does this for the personal benefit of attention, to show how generous those around him are, but there are times when he does it to discuss the morality of assisting those less fortunate than we are, and to give an example of the power of that value, as well as the impact that it's had on my life.

Sometimes people use stories to entertain, sometimes they use stories to warn, but there are also times when people use stories to discuss the positive things that a person can do and the values that a person can have. Values like charity and humility get a lot of airtime this way.