Opening the Parables
M.D. Hayden
A Review
By Frank A. Mills
OPENING THE PARABLES, M.D. Hayden (2024). ISBN: 979-8-3852-0030-6 (Paperback). 126 pages including Appendix, Bibliography, subject and scriptures indices.
My interest lies in reimaging Christianity in a way that embraces the truth that Jesus taught—God equals Love, and that Love is present in the here and now. I am therefore always on the lookout for an idea – for a different way of looking at the teaching of Jesus – that espouses this truth.
For me, an essential premise is that a reimagined Christianity is rooted in the words of Jesus, and that the words of Jesus must interpret the scripture, rather than scripture (which has been greatly colored by theology) interpreting the words of Jesus.
In Opening the Parables, M.D. Hayden seeks to find meaning in the parable, apart from the theological accruements piled upon the parables by traditional Christian dogma. A Quaker, Hayden turns to the interpretive methodology of George Fox and the early Quakers. Simply put, the words of Jesus are sufficient in themselves to give meaning without the baggage of traditional Christian thinking. In regard to the parables, some of that baggage is the insistence that the parables must be interpreted allegorically.
That has never made much sense to me. Allegories must be understood by the majority or the allegory falls flat. The Gospels, time and time again, have those healing the parable walking away shaking their heads. Simply saying they have “ears to hear” doesn’t work. Why present an allegorical parable if no one was going to understand? Remember, the role of the parable was to lay open a truth. Rather than adhering to the allegorical method, Hayden, following the early Quakers, sees the parables as a metaphor with the same singular message in each parable: The Kingdom of God is infinite love in the here and now.
Hayden’s premise dovetails nicely with mine.
Hayden describes Opening the Parables as three-books-in-one. And it is, but I think even a better description is the “three books” are a trilogy, each “book” builds upon the previous. While each “book” especially the middle book, “The Parables in Real Life,” could be read on their own. To do so would be to miss so much.
In Book I, “Influences on this Book,” Hayden explores (chapter 1) George Fox’s premise that the words of Jesus are sufficient for interpretation, following which she turns to other attempts to isolate the words of Jesus, such as Jefferson and the Jesus Seminar.
Building upon the lead of Fox and other Quakers in asserting that there is but one singular message in the teachings of Jesus, “The God of the Good News” (chapter 2) briefly explores implications of claiming that God not only loves, but is love. Hayden returns to this singular message time and time again in “The Parables in Real Life” (Book II).
One cannot explore the parables without first exploring why Jesus used parables [“Why Parables (3),” “Ears to Hear (4)”]. Here, it is obvious that for Hayden a parable is not allegory, but metaphor, a story that symbolizes something abstract. The abstract being the Kingdom of God as infinite love in the present. Think about how many times Jesus said, “The Kingdom of God is like ….”
In Chapter 5, “Traditional Interpretations vs. Quaker Application,” takes on traditional interpretation of the parables compared to the Quaker idea applying the parable to real-life, and keeping the application based on the words, not one’s theology. What becomes apparent as one opens the parables (Book II) in this way is that each parable takes on an aspect of “governance” that sets up the way of the human realm against the way of the spiritual realm (the Kingdom of God), but does so in real-life terms.
Now, with that said, I am going to skip over Book II, while encouraging you to buy the book and see how Hayden opens the parables to real-life. She won’t disappoint you. More than likely, she will raise a point that you hadn’t thought of. I do hope that those reading that come from a more traditional way of looking at the parables will take the time to read Opening the Parables. As the interpretations are real-life, you will undoubtedly find yourself both strengthen and challenged.
What I appreciate about Opening the Parables is that after doing just this, in Book III, “The Church, The Quakers, and the Parables,” the author takes to heart the Quaker “application aspect. “George Fox and Experimental Christianity” (Chapter 16) is about just that—making our Christianity experimental rather than dogmatic. It is about freeing ourselves what we have been told and allowing the words of Jesus to speak to us. To have those ears that perceive, rather than merely hear. Perceiving leads to walking away from evil, toward the Kingdom of God. But it more than just that, perceiving is also about applying Love in real-life to the entirety of life. As I read, I couldn’t help but be reminded of the Celtic Christian idea that we understand God form our God-experiences, rather than some understanding of God telling us how to understand our God-experiences.
Once we can do this, we take Jesus out of the “locked church, setting him free where he belongs—in the disorganized world, what Hayden calls the “Disorganized Church. The Church is the world, not buildings and dogma “Jesus Un-Churched” (Chapter 17).
I previously noted that each parable takes on an aspect of “governance” that sets up the way of the human realm against the way of the spiritual realm. In “Opening Parables: Discussion, Advices & Queries,” (Chapter 18) this is laid out for us, theme by theme, in an easily grasped way. It is a good beginning point for discussion. But what the questions we may get? “Advices and Queries,” using scripture, covers just that.
The Appendix, “Traditional Interpretation Vs. Quaker Application,” Hayden returns to, and expands upon Chapter 5. For this reader the appendix provided some in-depth thinking about how we might use Quaker thinking to re-imagine Christianity as a faith that meets the needs of our meta-modern culture via the concept of the here and now Kingdom of God.
Opening the Parables utilizes footnotes throughout and includes an extensive bibliography.
M.D. Hayden has an M.Div. from Earlham School of Religion. She is a “retired” Quaker pastor, who lives in Cincinnati.
Donne's piece on the Christian Universalist hymn, "Love is the Way" and the author can be found here.
©Frank A. Mills, February 19, 2025
