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The Parables of Grace
In his highly-readable manner, Capon discusses Jesus' parables told between the feeding of the five thousand and the triumphal entry into Jerusalem. His ability to bridge the gap between then and now makes clear both the original meaning and the modern-day relevance of these parables.
190 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 1988
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About the author
Robert Farrar Capon
42 books149 followersRobert Farrar Capon was a lifelong New Yorker and served for almost 30 years as a parish priest in the Episcopal Church. His first book, Bed and Board, was published in 1965 and by 1977 left full-time ministry to devote more time to writing books, though he continued to serve the church in various capacities such as assisting priest and Canon Theologian. He has written twenty books on theology, cooking and family life.
His lifelong interest in food intersected with his writing and led to his becoming food columnist for Newsday and The New York Times and also teaching cooking classes.
His lifelong interest in food intersected with his writing and led to his becoming food columnist for Newsday and The New York Times and also teaching cooking classes.
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Displaying 1 - 14 of 14 reviews
September 1, 2014
Capon died on Sept. 5, 2013, and I read this book in memory and appreciation of him. I was not disappointed.
As the title indicates, this work deals only with those parables of Jesus which especially emphasize grace, and Capon has a remarkable understanding of the breadth and depth of God's grace. Some readers may even be offended by the radical nature of Capon's understanding of grace.
In addition to the fairly detailed New Testament study, including explanation of Greek words, there are also repeated remarks relevant to contemporary times.
Here are just a few of the passages in the book that I copied into my journal:
“We twentieth-century Christians—-with our basically nineteenth-century view of childhood as a wonderful and desirable state—-miss the point of the passage [about Jesus saying his followers would have to become like children]. In Jesus’ time, and for most of the centuries since, childhood was almost always seen as a less than human condition that was to be beaten out of children as soon as possible. Therefore when Jesus sets us a little child as an example, he is setting up not a winsome specimen of all that is simple and charming but rather one of life’s losers” (p. 17).
In “The First Parable of Grace: The Coin in the Fish’s Mouth,” his third chapter, Capon says that it is very sad “when the church acts as if it is in the religion business rather than in the Gospel-proclaiming business. What a disservice, not only to itself but to a world perpetually sinking in the quagmire of religiosity, when it harps on creed, cult, and conduct as the touchstones of salvation. What a perversion of the truth that sets us free (John 8:32) when it takes the news that while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us (Rom. 5:8), and turns it into a proclamation of God as just one more insufferable bookkeeper” (p. 29).
Capon’s next chapter is “Losing as the Mechanism of Grace: The Lost Sheep.” He writes, “Neither the lost sheep nor the lost coin does a blessed thing except hang around in its lostness. On the strength of this parable, therefore, it is precisely our sins, and not our goodnesses, that most commend us to the grace of God” (p. 38).
And just one more:
Capon’s fifth chapter is “Death, Resurrection, and Forgiveness: The Unforgiving Servant.” He again contends that “the gift of forgiveness proceeds solely out of God’s love and is therefore antecedent to any qualifying action on the part of the receiver” (p. 40). -- At the end of the chapter, Capon says that both heaven and hell are occupied by “only forgiven sinners.” Jesus forgives all. Thus, “The sole difference, therefore, between hell and heaven is that in heaven the forgiveness is accepted and passed along, while in hell it is rejected and blocked” (p. 50).
As the title indicates, this work deals only with those parables of Jesus which especially emphasize grace, and Capon has a remarkable understanding of the breadth and depth of God's grace. Some readers may even be offended by the radical nature of Capon's understanding of grace.
In addition to the fairly detailed New Testament study, including explanation of Greek words, there are also repeated remarks relevant to contemporary times.
Here are just a few of the passages in the book that I copied into my journal:
“We twentieth-century Christians—-with our basically nineteenth-century view of childhood as a wonderful and desirable state—-miss the point of the passage [about Jesus saying his followers would have to become like children]. In Jesus’ time, and for most of the centuries since, childhood was almost always seen as a less than human condition that was to be beaten out of children as soon as possible. Therefore when Jesus sets us a little child as an example, he is setting up not a winsome specimen of all that is simple and charming but rather one of life’s losers” (p. 17).
In “The First Parable of Grace: The Coin in the Fish’s Mouth,” his third chapter, Capon says that it is very sad “when the church acts as if it is in the religion business rather than in the Gospel-proclaiming business. What a disservice, not only to itself but to a world perpetually sinking in the quagmire of religiosity, when it harps on creed, cult, and conduct as the touchstones of salvation. What a perversion of the truth that sets us free (John 8:32) when it takes the news that while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us (Rom. 5:8), and turns it into a proclamation of God as just one more insufferable bookkeeper” (p. 29).
Capon’s next chapter is “Losing as the Mechanism of Grace: The Lost Sheep.” He writes, “Neither the lost sheep nor the lost coin does a blessed thing except hang around in its lostness. On the strength of this parable, therefore, it is precisely our sins, and not our goodnesses, that most commend us to the grace of God” (p. 38).
And just one more:
Capon’s fifth chapter is “Death, Resurrection, and Forgiveness: The Unforgiving Servant.” He again contends that “the gift of forgiveness proceeds solely out of God’s love and is therefore antecedent to any qualifying action on the part of the receiver” (p. 40). -- At the end of the chapter, Capon says that both heaven and hell are occupied by “only forgiven sinners.” Jesus forgives all. Thus, “The sole difference, therefore, between hell and heaven is that in heaven the forgiveness is accepted and passed along, while in hell it is rejected and blocked” (p. 50).
May 27, 2023
Ah. Free choice. That perennial dilemma. Whether humans have “freedom of choice” is a subject on which scholars have been debating for centuries; I don’t suppose a housewife could further it much.
However, here are my thoughts for what they’re worth:
I did not choose to be born. I did not choose my birthday. I did not choose my parents. I did not choose my gender…my hair color…eye color…place in my family…country of origin…language and culture of origin…the gender of my children…my husband’s occupation…my own talents…my personality…my height…today’s weather…my bishop…my aunts, uncles, aunts, and cousins…that I haven’t gotten cancer yet…that I wasn’t born blind, deaf, handicapped…
But oh! Glory hallelujah! I have free choice!
Therefore: I chose to be saved!
Good for me! Go, June! You did it, in all your amazing freedom, you chose your salvation, you are a Real Saviour.
*I don’t think so.*
Christ said, You have not chosen me, but I have chosen you.
So I’ve been wrestling with a lot of that, over the past several months/years. And then this passage made me cry just Saturday night when I was reading aloud from this book to my husband on our way to a supper invitation, from the chapters about the lost coin and lost sheep:
“It is usual, when expounding the word metanoeein (repent), to go about the job etymologically. Since the word is a compound of meta (after), and noeein (think), its root meaning is to change one’s mind, or, better said, to change one’s heart about one’s sins. That approach, however, does not serve well here. Neither the lost coin nor the lost sheep was capable of any repentance at all. The entire cause of the recovery operation is the shepherd’s, or the woman’s, determination to find the lost. Neither the lost sheep nor the lost coin does a blessed thing except hang around int its lostness. On the strength of the parable, therefore, it is precisely our sins, and not our goodness [e.g. June's righteous ‘choice to stay God’s’], that most commend us to the grace of God.”
I can’t even type that paragraph without crying again. He chose me, He chose me. I didn’t know I was lost, and He found me. It’s the miracle of my life, and it makes me sad to hear people use the “free choice” argument as proof against certain other proposals. Or, as I have heard sometimes, “God doesn’t take us by the arm and drag us to Himself”
–!!
Oh, but He did! That’s what He did for me, and for the lost coin, and the lost sheep, and Saul of Tarsus on the road to Damascus, yet breathing out fire and slaughter. He said to me, to Saul, to Jonah, to all the other ones—the whole world of us who was gone a-whoring, sold under sin—He said, “No, huh-uh. You’re Mine.”
So flat in the middle of reading that paragraph aloud, I stopped a while till I could read again, and then I read the next paragraph:
"Hence if in our interpretation [of the parable of the lost coin or lost sheep] we harp on the necessity of a change of heart—if we badger ourselves with the dismal notion that sinners must first forsake their sins before God will forgive them, that the lost must somehow find itself before the finder will get up off his backside and look for it*—we carry ourselves straight away from the obvious sense of both stories. And…that violates not only the parables but also Romans 5:8—'while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us.’”
*And along about here, I was laughing aloud. Which is what this author manages for me frequently—tears followed up by laughter. The chapter finishes: “[God] finds us, in short, in the desert of death, not in the garden of improvement; and in the power of Jesus’ resurrection, he puts us on his shoulders rejoicing and brings us home.”
However, here are my thoughts for what they’re worth:
I did not choose to be born. I did not choose my birthday. I did not choose my parents. I did not choose my gender…my hair color…eye color…place in my family…country of origin…language and culture of origin…the gender of my children…my husband’s occupation…my own talents…my personality…my height…today’s weather…my bishop…my aunts, uncles, aunts, and cousins…that I haven’t gotten cancer yet…that I wasn’t born blind, deaf, handicapped…
But oh! Glory hallelujah! I have free choice!
Therefore: I chose to be saved!
Good for me! Go, June! You did it, in all your amazing freedom, you chose your salvation, you are a Real Saviour.
*I don’t think so.*
Christ said, You have not chosen me, but I have chosen you.
So I’ve been wrestling with a lot of that, over the past several months/years. And then this passage made me cry just Saturday night when I was reading aloud from this book to my husband on our way to a supper invitation, from the chapters about the lost coin and lost sheep:
“It is usual, when expounding the word metanoeein (repent), to go about the job etymologically. Since the word is a compound of meta (after), and noeein (think), its root meaning is to change one’s mind, or, better said, to change one’s heart about one’s sins. That approach, however, does not serve well here. Neither the lost coin nor the lost sheep was capable of any repentance at all. The entire cause of the recovery operation is the shepherd’s, or the woman’s, determination to find the lost. Neither the lost sheep nor the lost coin does a blessed thing except hang around int its lostness. On the strength of the parable, therefore, it is precisely our sins, and not our goodness [e.g. June's righteous ‘choice to stay God’s’], that most commend us to the grace of God.”
I can’t even type that paragraph without crying again. He chose me, He chose me. I didn’t know I was lost, and He found me. It’s the miracle of my life, and it makes me sad to hear people use the “free choice” argument as proof against certain other proposals. Or, as I have heard sometimes, “God doesn’t take us by the arm and drag us to Himself”
–!!
Oh, but He did! That’s what He did for me, and for the lost coin, and the lost sheep, and Saul of Tarsus on the road to Damascus, yet breathing out fire and slaughter. He said to me, to Saul, to Jonah, to all the other ones—the whole world of us who was gone a-whoring, sold under sin—He said, “No, huh-uh. You’re Mine.”
So flat in the middle of reading that paragraph aloud, I stopped a while till I could read again, and then I read the next paragraph:
"Hence if in our interpretation [of the parable of the lost coin or lost sheep] we harp on the necessity of a change of heart—if we badger ourselves with the dismal notion that sinners must first forsake their sins before God will forgive them, that the lost must somehow find itself before the finder will get up off his backside and look for it*—we carry ourselves straight away from the obvious sense of both stories. And…that violates not only the parables but also Romans 5:8—'while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us.’”
*And along about here, I was laughing aloud. Which is what this author manages for me frequently—tears followed up by laughter. The chapter finishes: “[God] finds us, in short, in the desert of death, not in the garden of improvement; and in the power of Jesus’ resurrection, he puts us on his shoulders rejoicing and brings us home.”
December 19, 2019
What a delight to read this second of Capon's trilogy. Highly accessible, often humorous, and theologically on the mark. He simply makes these parables of Jesus come alive and relevant to all of us.
April 25, 2022
There is a thin line between being a pleasantly eccentric contrarian and being so wacky as to be unhelpful. Capon leaves that line far behind. His interpretations of the parables were consistently terrible.
He insists that Jesus’ main theme is death/resurrection, which to Capon means never doing anything. Humans are trying to hard to “live” their way to God, whatever that means. Every parable is reinterpreted with this grid, which means that parables with clear morals (“don’t invite certain people,” “ought always to pray and not lose heart,” “go and do likewise”) are actually somehow about how we should stop doing what Jesus tells us to do.
He insists that Jesus’ main theme is death/resurrection, which to Capon means never doing anything. Humans are trying to hard to “live” their way to God, whatever that means. Every parable is reinterpreted with this grid, which means that parables with clear morals (“don’t invite certain people,” “ought always to pray and not lose heart,” “go and do likewise”) are actually somehow about how we should stop doing what Jesus tells us to do.
June 17, 2022
Capon's basic point of view — it's all gift, all grace — is so spot on that I don't mind repetition. At some point, however, repetition veers toward tedium. I don't think he gets tedious, but you can see it on the horizon.
Still, I love what appears to be his interpretive touchstone: the Scriptures are kerygma, the proclamation of salvation, first and last. Sure, there's some great history to be uncovered, but that sort of study is all secondary or ancillary. The preaching of Jesus should win the day, and that's what you get in Capon's hands.
Still, I love what appears to be his interpretive touchstone: the Scriptures are kerygma, the proclamation of salvation, first and last. Sure, there's some great history to be uncovered, but that sort of study is all secondary or ancillary. The preaching of Jesus should win the day, and that's what you get in Capon's hands.
February 1, 2024
I'm not certain I understood every allusion or cultural reference in the book, but I did understand his point about God's grace. David Crowder sang it: "I think that when we get to heaven, we're gonna laugh when we can see, how hard we tried to make it and how easy it should be."
It's an older book and I think sometimes Capon verges on universalism, but that doesn't offend me. Capon really gave me a depth of understanding, a dose of the bigness of God, that I needed.
It's an older book and I think sometimes Capon verges on universalism, but that doesn't offend me. Capon really gave me a depth of understanding, a dose of the bigness of God, that I needed.
January 7, 2020
Message loud and clear
Great book and insight into everyday parable. Farr has good conviction and understands the culture in the times of Jesus and us able to write in a way that helps us grasp it in our modern times. Enjoyed the consistency of the one clear message ‘death’. Helped swing God in a new way, good read indeed
Great book and insight into everyday parable. Farr has good conviction and understands the culture in the times of Jesus and us able to write in a way that helps us grasp it in our modern times. Enjoyed the consistency of the one clear message ‘death’. Helped swing God in a new way, good read indeed
July 31, 2023
What a treasure!
Capon’s off-beat insights help me read Jesus’ parables with a renewed mind; his focus on a thematic through-line opens the eyes of my mind to a bigger picture. The gospel shimmers and shines and lingers at the narrow gate. And then, at such a a small price - just everything I have - I take His hand and enter in.
And what delight!
Capon’s off-beat insights help me read Jesus’ parables with a renewed mind; his focus on a thematic through-line opens the eyes of my mind to a bigger picture. The gospel shimmers and shines and lingers at the narrow gate. And then, at such a a small price - just everything I have - I take His hand and enter in.
And what delight!
October 24, 2021
Hilarious. Outrageous. Borderline sacrilegious. Offensive to every religious sensibility you might have. Capon is one of a kind.
December 11, 2024
If you grew up or have been influenced by "evangelical pietism" in its many American branches that viewed the parables as Veggie Tales, "have we got a show for you," start here.
May 9, 2015
Although this was the second of Robert Farrar Capon's outstanding trilogy on the parables of Jesus, I read it last. It was excellent and the three books from the Episcopal Priest are the best I've ever read on the parables - indeed, some of the best books I've ever read. His writing style is so enjoyable, relaxed and earnest at the same time.
However, I couldn't quite bring myself to give this book the full five stars like I did the other two. In all three, Capon admittedly stretches some interpretations of the parables and it was only in this book that I felt he was unquestionably off-target on a couple. His exegesis never led to anything heterodox, but by trying to fit a third of Jesus' parables into his reading of grace - a focus on the lost, the least, the little and the dead - I think he missed an intended message or two hidden in these stories.
But like the other two books, Parables of the Kingdom and The Parables of Judgment, the writing is excellent, the insights are profound and experience is delightful.
However, I couldn't quite bring myself to give this book the full five stars like I did the other two. In all three, Capon admittedly stretches some interpretations of the parables and it was only in this book that I felt he was unquestionably off-target on a couple. His exegesis never led to anything heterodox, but by trying to fit a third of Jesus' parables into his reading of grace - a focus on the lost, the least, the little and the dead - I think he missed an intended message or two hidden in these stories.
But like the other two books, Parables of the Kingdom and The Parables of Judgment, the writing is excellent, the insights are profound and experience is delightful.
April 8, 2018
I'm rereading this series of 3 books on the parables. It's not casual reading, you really have to follow his concepts closely to not get lost, but even the second time, it opens up new insights into the parables and Jesus' message. This particular volume is very comforting in repetitively reassuring us of the grace of God.
September 8, 2016
Capon is someone who likes to use biblical interpretation to challenge, surprise, and encourage readers to take seriously the profligate love of our untamed God--and he does that here as well with provocative looks at some of Jesus's parables.
March 10, 2012
More Left-Handed Path. Gorgeous
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