Flannery O’Connor once wrote, 

“A story is a way of saying something that cannot be said in any other way.”

We are hard-wired for stories.

That is why Jesus liked to tell stories. He especially enjoyed telling stories that point us to the Kingdom of God.

Jesus used a variety of metaphors and images, including such ordinary things as seeds and soil, fish and yeast. His parables around these common objects were like little vignettes that, taken together, gave shape to the contours of a coming kingdom (His Kingdom!) that starkly contrasted with the empires of this world.

Jesus told stories designed to tease out curiosity. His parables painted the startling and revolutionary vision of God’s upside-down Kingdom in colors that left listeners wondering, sometimes scratching their heads in confusion, sometimes grumbling in anger, but never indifferent.

This fall at Colbert we’ll look for the contours of the Kingdom through the lens of Jesus’ parables. Through our immersion in these parables, a new ethic begins to emerge. The seeds Jesus planted as He told stories of the Kingdom begin to bloom in our imaginations. His parables cast a vision for a new reality, one that is so countercultural that the empires of this world—with fear and trembling—often react with hostility.

For those who have ears to hear and hearts to listen, Jesus’ parables are an invitation to a life with God that is so good and so beautiful that we can begin to experience heaven on earth.

Thy Kingdom come.