Two Pious Men, a Trusting Innkeeper, and a Neglected Son: Three Lucan Parables

In 1990 the book appeared that I co-authored with Leonard Swidler, Gerald Sloyan, and Lester Dean: Bursting the Bonds? A Jewish-Christian Dialogue on Jesus and Paul.¹ It was the product of a decade of Jewish-Christian dialogue within the context of Temple University’s graduate program in religion, which took me along with a number of faculty members and other graduate students on a remarkable journey. Through our interactions with each other and with colleagues in Germany, we explored the various points of contact between our two faiths over time and space. We engaged with each other not only as scholars but also as people of faith trying to use our academic knowledge and spiritual insights to build a deeper sense of community and purpose.

Leonard Swidler’s commitment to dialogue as an approach to life forced me to engage with the texts of my Jewish tradition and his Christian tradition as living voices rather than artifacts and souvenirs. He invited me to enter into a dialogue with the past, so to speak, and to join in an ongoing conversation. He asked me to take care to allow a shared tradition and my individual perspective to engage each other with acceptance of our differences and respect for our sincerity. The tangible result of this process was the dialogue I had with Swidler concerning Jesus that appeared in Bursting the Bonds?

In honor of this I would like to return to a few Christian texts—three parables from the Gospel of Luke—and try to apply the principles I learned over a quarter of a century ago. I approach these texts today, as a contemporary Jew, trained as a Reconstructionist Rabbi, with a doctorate in religion, who has spent the bulk of his career as a chaplain. Above all, I also come to this material as a student of Swidler to whom I offer this as a gift of thanksgiving.

A Jewish claim to the New Testament in the context of dialogue is not as outrageous as it might seem. The New Testament, though holy to Christians, is also significant for Jews. From a historical viewpoint (and identification with Jewish history is a central touchstone for modern Jewish life), the writings of the Apostles, which cherished the memories of Jesus and his followers, provide a powerful, albeit not necessarily complimentary, witness to Jewish life in the first-century Greco-Roman world. The New Testament connects Jews to their own Jewish past, not as sacred writings but as historical evidence.

However, the discussion needs to be more than a debate among historians. In terms of interreligious relationships, Jews have an existential interest in the way the church reads its scripture, particularly those texts that focus on Jews and Jewish beliefs. In them in particular, as part of the emergent church’s striving for selfdefinition, the differences between Jesus and his Jewish contemporaries are highlighted. The New Testament, reflecting its authors’ need to ground their innovative new way, casts light and sows confusion at the same time. Thus, Jesus of Nazareth appears both as a teacher embedded in the Jewish tradition and as a critical voice outside the community.

Furthermore, Jews understand that the New Testament is part of the canon of Western culture. Its themes, its stories, and their influence on the philosophical, spiritual, economic, and political aspects of the world in which Jews dwell make the New Testament part of the Jews’ cultural baggage. As members of a cultural and religious minority, self-aware Jews sense that they are stakeholders in the majority-Christian-based culture. New Testament stories, images, and vocabulary are an undeniable part of the Jewish experience in the West. While the rabbinic tradition appears as the exotic “other” to Christians, New Testament traditions affect the way in which Jews interact with the world and with each other.

With this in mind, I want to look at three well-known parables from the Gospel...