The Parables of Jesus

Jul 11

You’ve heard these stories. You haven’t heard them yet.

There’s a story most of us are living by, whether we’d ever say it out loud: You get what you deserve. Good work gets rewarded. People who blow it face the consequences. There’s a fairness to things.

It sounds reasonable. It sounds like the foundation of a functioning society — because it is. It’s also exhausting. It’s why you can’t rest. It’s why someone else’s win feels like your loss. It’s why, deep down, you’re never quite sure you’ve done enough.

And it’s the story Jesus quietly detonates in every parable he ever told.

The parables are not moral fables. They’re not Sunday school lessons with a bow on top. They are the most demanding stories ever told — short, familiar, and rigged to explode. Jesus tells you a story you think you know, lets you settle in, and then changes the ending. A father shreds his dignity sprinting down a road toward the son who humiliated him. A theological outsider — the wrong man — turns out to be the hero. Workers who showed up an hour before quitting time get paid the same as the ones who sweated all day. A banquet fills up with everyone who was never on the guest list.

Every time: the expected order reverses. The comfortable category collapses. And something in us either breaks open — or gets a little harder.

Over four weeks, we’re going to sit with four of these stories — the Prodigal Son, the Good Samaritan, the Workers in the Vineyard, and the Great Banquet — and let them do what they were built to do. Not confirm what we already believe. Interrupt it.

Whether you’ve heard these stories a hundred times or never once, this series is for you. Especially if you’re skeptical. Especially if church hasn’t felt like your place. The parables were told for the people on the edge of the crowd — the ones listening with their arms crossed.

The kingdom of God runs on a logic you didn’t bring. And the door you’ve walked past a hundred times has been open the entire time. All are welcome. Questions are expected.

Sermon Resources

Week 1: You've Heard This Story. You Haven't Heard It Yet. | Luke 15

You've heard this story so many times you can't hear it anymore. In Luke 15, Jesus tells a story about two sons — one who runs into self-destruction and one who stays home and turns to stone. Most of us know it as "the Prodigal Son." Most of us have heard it wrong.

In this first week of The Parables of Jesus, Pastor Greg unpacks why Jesus told parables designed to break open your view of the world — and why this one has been working on him for ten years.

You'll wrestle with the stories you tell yourself, why you do that, and why both 'finding yourself' and 'being a good person' leave you lost. Whether you've walked away from God, never met him, or have been quietly resentful in the back of the sanctuary — this story ends without an ending on purpose. The question is...what will you do with it?

Week 2: The First Misnamed Parable

What do you do with the people who make you feel unsafe?

In Luke 10, a religious expert asks Jesus a simple question — 'Who is my neighbor?' — hoping to draw the line somewhere comfortable. Jesus answers with a story so scandalous that we've spent two thousand years softening it: it's the 'first misnamed parable' (Copan). But, to the original audience, "good" and "Samaritan" didn't belong in the same sentence. The hero of the story is the person you were raised to hate.

In this message, we walk the dangerous road between Jerusalem and Jericho, discovering why your brain is wired to see 'not like me' as a threat, and to sit with the question Jesus refuses to let us dodge: not who counts as my neighbor? But what kind of person am I becoming? Along the way — a conversation with a stranger, on a plane, that turned this whole parable inside out.

You've heard this story. You haven't heard it yet.

Week 3: The Parable that Ticks People Off

In California, there's a vineyard that pays every worker the same — first hour and last. Jesus told a story like that. It still makes people furious.

In Matthew 20, a landowner hires workers at dawn. Then at noon. On and on, until 5 o'clock, an hour before quitting time. And he pays every one of them the same. The crew that worked twelve hours in the sun is livid. And here's the uncomfortable part: they're not entirely wrong. Something in this story violates every instinct we have about fairness and effort and getting what we 'deserve'.

That's not the flaw of the parable. That's the point of it. If you've been working since dawn and quietly keeping score —this one's for you. If you've been standing around all day wondering why nobody has ever come for you —this one is especially for you.

Week 4: The Party You Were Too Busy For

Someone throws the party of a lifetime. Everyone is invited, then only a few show up — and their excuses are completely reasonable. In Luke 14, Jesus is at a dinner table where everyone's working the room, angling for a better seat. So he tells them about a banquet where the guest list gets thrown out, and the host sends his servant to the streets — then out past the city — until the house is full.

The people in the story say, 'Please excuse me, I can't come. They're just busy. A field. A purchase. A wedding. Good things, all of them. This week: what it costs to be reasonably, responsibly occupied — and what it means that the host keeps going further out to find the one who'd never believe there was a seat for them.

If you've been working the room your whole life — this one's for you. If you've been sure you were never on the list — this one's especially for you.

Sermon Resources

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Sermon Resources 〰️

The Parables of Jesus - Series Guide

Our aim for this guide is simple: for ‘the word of Christ to dwell in you richly’ (Colossians 3:16).

Each week includes a space to take notes on the sermon, daily prompts and questions to further engage with the parable, and a daily invitation to participate in the ancient practice of Examen.

We hope that as you inhabit the stories of Jesus, that — His view of reality and life with God — might start to become instinctual in you. That this ‘inside-out transformation’ (Romans 12) can start to be visible and actionable.

Download Guide