Today's parable is a fun one... The Debate tells the story of a young man, unsuccessfully trying to convince a rabbi to take him on as a student. One of my favorite pieces about the Jewish tradition is the requirement for debate and disagreement even to the point that God cannot stop the discussion. There is another story of two rabbis who argued the point of one scripture for years. Finally God became tired of their arguing and stepped in, "Let me tell you what this means..." The rabbis replied, "Who are you to tell us what this scripture means?"
I think there is a similar thread in my tradition - Baptist - although most people wouldn't know it. The idea of soul freedom requires that we wrestle with meaning and struggle with scripture even to the point of arguing with God... It means that we must always hold our answers lightly and be willing to see things from a different perspective. When I was in seminary, one of my professors said to us, "I don't care where you come out on these questions... but you'd better be able to tell me how and why you got there."
So here we are... at the end of Lent. We got here wrestling with some wonderful little parables. I hope you enjoyed this little journey with me. Perhaps next year I'll find a similar discipline to work through those 40 days.
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