Proper 28 B - Heb. 4:12 - Everyday Life, Leland Ryken

" Virtually the first thing we notice about the parables is their everyday realism and concrete vivdness... The parables take us right into the familiar world of planting and harvesting, traveling through the countryside, baking bread, tending sheep, or responding to an invitation. The parables thus obey the literary principle of verisimilitude ("life-likeness"), and a perusal of commentaries always uncovers new evidence of how thoroughly rooted in real life the parables are...

This minute realism is an important part of the meaning of Jesus' parables. On the surface, these stories are totally "secular." There are few overtly religious activities in the parables. If we apprached them without their surrounding context and pretended that they were anonymous, we could not guess that they were intended for a religious purpose. An important by-product of this realism is that it undermines the "two-world" thinking in which the spiritual and earthly spheres are rigidly divided. We are given to understand that it is in everyday experience that spiritual decisions are made and that God's grace does its work. "