I will speak to you
in parables. (Matthew 13:34–35)
We returned from Mount Herman rather late yesterday. Grammy did all the driving. She is exhausted. It was all quite wonderful meeting and loving and renewing old friendships. This morning I spent some time with that parable you want to read, the Parable of the Ring found in the middle of Gotthold Lessing’s 1779 play, Nathan the Wise. Close to 1776 when our founders made a bold decision concerning our own state religion.
I keep trying to get to the parable but get waylaid by all that is before and after and within. What are we to make of all the banter, duplicity and machinations that take place before we get to the parable? When Saladin, the Muslim Sultan. invites Nathan, a Jew of wealth who folks deem as wise, to his Palace he asks Nathan, “Which faith appears to you the better?” Is that really why Nathan was invited to the Sultan’s Palace?
Nonetheless, Nathan, like the wise often do, answers with a parable; or, as Nathan calls it, “a tale.” To which the Sultan replies, “I always was a friend of tales well told.” Like on most every page of Lessings play, the banter goes on: “Well told?” Nathan responds, “That’s not precisely my affair.” “Again, so proudly modest,” the Sultan responds, and then adds, “come begin.”
Nathan begins. The Sultan finds himself enjoying the tale so much that he laments when it comes to an end: “Thy tale, is it soon ended?” To which Nathan, the storyteller confirms: “It is ended, Sultan.”
Yet, in no time, we discover it hasn’t actually ended for there is a story about the story. Okay, let’s get to Nathan’s parable. Or, let’s not. I best save the tale itself for tomorrow or the next day.
Love, Papa
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