Jesus spoke in parables not only to disclose truth but also to disclose the heart of the listener, to see how much that listener wanted to pursue the truth.
—Ravi Zacharias, “Reaching the Happy Thinking Pagan”
I was wandering around the Rijksmuseum in Amsterdam, on the hunt for the Dutch masters for whom this museum is justly famous. As I entered one of the galleries, I was drawn to a large painting in an intricately carved, gilded frame. The artist was unknown to me. Disappointedly looking to my left at what seemed to be some smaller, nondescript paintings, I realized as I read the card beside each work that I had stumbled into a wealth of Rembrandts. Their simple, unobtrusive frames let Rembrandt’s renowned mastery of light penetrating darkness shine to maximum effect.
Frames determine not only what catches our attention, but also how we see it. Tom Sawyer recruits friends who gladly volunteer to paint a fence (work he was supposed to do) because he frames the job so attractively. He begins by pretending he likes the work. “Like it?” he tells his first victim. “Well, I don’t see why I oughtn’t to like it. Does a boy get a chance to whitewash a fence every day?”1 Tom continues his guise by daintily brushing the fence and stepping back like an artist appreciating his masterpiece. His friend gets more and more absorbed, until he blurts out, “Say, Tom, let me whitewash a little.”2 Not only is the fence whitewashed; Tom whitewashes the hard work of painting into something his buddies find irresistible.3
A new frame changes perception. In ordinary conversation, we ask others to “look at it this way.” Media spin doctors have always reframed political events in ways most flattering to their clients. “How should we frame it?” is now the question people in all walks of life ask about all manner of things.
Identified Patients
A bride came to see her pastor several weeks before her wedding, concerned because she was having dreams about men other than her fiancé. Presenting herself as tired, nervous, and depressed, she worried that something was deeply wrong with her. Rather than focus on her depression, however, the minister asked about her relationships. Her fiancé’s former wife, whom she had never met, was hostile. Her fiancé seemed incapable of standing up to his former wife, especially on issues regarding their daughter. The minister counseled the bride to think of the depression not as her problem but as a function of her fiancé’s relationship with his former wife. To extricate herself from this emotional triangle, she was coached to write his former wife a gracious note asking for advice on caring for her soon-to-be stepdaughter. At the rehearsal dinner two weeks later, the bride looked radiant. Depression had evaporated. Much to everyone’s delight and surprise, the former wife caused no fuss about allowing her daughter to attend the wedding.4
In family systems thinking, the person exhibiting a symptom, such as the bride’s depression, is called the “identified patient.” Paradoxically, the identified patient is usually not the one with the problem, or at least not all the problem. A client is encouraged to perceive a problematic situation through a new frame, to conceive it in a new way.5 In this example, when the bride exited the emotional triangle between herself, her fiancé, and his former wife, her symptoms “miraculously” disappeared. Her new husband was soon counseling with the same pastor, however; once his bride was no longer the outlet for his tension with his former wife, he felt the full force of this conflict and needed help himself!
An incorrigible child or alcoholic father labeled as the identified patient by the rest of the family might be the only glue holding the family together. Paradoxically, the person creating the most trouble may be more invested in the family than the other supposedly well-functioning members. When other family members see the identified patient through this new frame, hopefully they spend less energy fixing (or enabling) the troublemaker and more energy taking responsibility for their own behavior. Even more paradoxically, as they ignore the one with the problem who needs their help and focus on themselves, the identified patient’s behavior often improves dramatically. The family system grows healthier when everyone in the family sees his or her interactions with everyone else through a new frame.
Reframing and Jesus
First-century Jews believed wealth was a sure sign of God’s favor. Yet Jesus paradoxically reframes the wealth of the rich young ruler as a hindrance he must discard to gain the kingdom of God (Matt. 19:16–30). In the Sermon on the Mount, the Beatitudes paradoxically reframe commonly assumed blessings and curses; it is a blessing to mourn, to be meek, to be reviled, but a curse (especially in Luke’s version) to be rich, well fed, or popular (Matt. 5:3–10; Luke 6:20–26). Jesus again and again reframes Jewish law by moving his focus beyond overt acts to inner intentions and attitudes: “Anyone who looks at a woman lustfully has already committed adultery with her in his heart” (Matt. 5:28). Jesus’ call to discipleship startles us by reframing traditional notions of commitment: “If anyone comes to me and does not hate father and mother, wife and children, brothers and sisters—yes, even their own life—such a person cannot be my disciple” (Luke 14:26).
On the Damascus Road, Jesus reframes reality for Saul. “ ‘Saul, Saul, why do you persecute me?’ ‘Who are you, Lord?’ Saul asked. ‘I am Jesus, whom you are persecuting,’ he replied” (Acts 9:4–5). Reality is reframed: the God Saul intended to honor by persecuting Christians is the one Saul is actually persecuting. In psychological jargon, Saul changes class membership: “What makes reframing such an effective tool of change is that once we do perceive the alternative class membership, we cannot so easily go back to the trap and anguish of a former view of reality.”6 Saul had been secure in a Jewish worldview, a class membership he must now reject because membership in a whole new reality centered in Jesus is opening up before him. His letter to the Galatians especially makes this clear (Gal. 2:16–3:14; see also Rom. 3:19–8:39). In a similar way, Jesus reframes reality for error-prone Simon by giving him a new conception of himself as the Rock (Peter).
Reframing has maximum impact when we hold up a new frame and invite an observer to look through it. Imagine these comments from an art museum tour guide: “Look at this exquisite frame made of gilded wood in seventeenth-century French baroque style. Notice the intricately carved, leaf-shaped highlights in the corners which finely balance the strong scrollwork along the horizontal axis.” She has said a lot about the frame but ignored its purpose, which is to focus attention on the painting it surrounds. When a frame does its work well, it is invisible.
Jesus’ paradoxical sayings reframe following God by not drawing attention to themselves. When Jesus says, “Whoever wants to save their life will lose it, but whoever loses their life for me will find it” (Matt. 16:25), our attention is quickly drawn away from the paradoxical saying per se, because it reframes all we have ever thought about hedging our bets, playing it safe, not taking risks. Looking through this new window—where “losing” paradoxically becomes “saving”—generates new thoughts in us. What “save my life” behaviors might be hindering my response to Jesus? What do I need to lose to become Jesus’ disciple? Rather than offering answers, this new frame prods us to search for answers.
Reframing happens best when we move from being passive observers to active participants. Our typical assumption about change, bequeathed to us by Greek philosophy, follows a theory/behavior or insight/action model: better theory leads to better behavior; better insight leads to better action.7 Thus our sermons end with applications; we must tell people how to put the sermon’s insights into practice. This is classic deductive style: stating general principles, then giving a specific application. But, as many have pointed out,8 Jesus’ preaching is often far more inductive, rarely presenting a point-by-point outline but rather wooing listeners into an experience.
This Is My Story!
Paradox is therapeutic because it pushes us into action. We saw how paradoxical intention works by increasing a negative behavior (“Try harder!”) until it can no longer be sustained. Reframing functions in a similar manner. When others in the system begin acting differently, the identified patient gets better. In both paradoxical intention and reframing, theory or insight is bypassed. In both cases, there is never a completely rational explanation for the positive results. Both cases promote second-order change—the intervention of an outside stimulus breaks open a previously closed system.
Stories can offer this stimulus. When we listen to a story, we are in fact doing something, just as therapeutic paradox requires. We try on the roles the story creates for us. The more engaging the story, the more we stop analyzing and simply enter into it, seeing life through the new frame the story creates. Much commentary on Jesus’ parables insists that we must be drawn into the story and be caught in the surprise of recognition; only then does the story have its intended impact. Eugene Peterson says it well: “A parable is not an explanation. A parable is not an illustration. We cannot look at a parable as a spectator and expect to get it. A parable does not make a thing easier; it makes it harder by requiring participation, by entering the story.”9 Especially when stories are left open-ended, as many of Jesus’ are, we must discover our own ending, because suddenly it is our story. This delivers the jolt that reframes our thinking.
I suspect none of the Pharisees listening to Jesus saw themselves as the identified patient, the prodigal son (Luke 15:11–16). Since it was not their story, they could listen as spectators, disdaining the prodigal’s rebellion and happy he suffered the consequences. In fact, the prodigal sounded a lot like the moral and spiritual riffraff whom Jesus unexpectedly welcomed into his fellowship. But Jesus catches the Pharisees off guard by introducing the elder brother, who represents them and is the real focus of the story. Will the Pharisees now look through the story and see themselves—elder brothers always present with the father yet never really comprehending the father’s compassion or mercy (Luke 15:25–32)? Jesus leaves the story open-ended. Will the elder brother come to his senses (as his younger brother did) and join his father and prodigal brother at the welcome-home party? As the context makes clear (Luke 15:1–2), Jesus tells this story at the very moment he is throwing a welcome-home party for tax collectors and sinners (younger brothers). Will the Pharisees join the party and Jesus’ fellowship or remain outside sulking?
Like the Pharisees, we struggle to allow Jesus’ stories to reframe our world. When we observe the self-congratulating Pharisee and breast-beating tax collector praying side by side in the temple (Luke 18:9–14), few of us see ourselves in the preening Pharisee. Neither do we assume we are the oblivious rich man building bigger barns (Luke 12:13–21), cheer for the despicable steward who has an enormous debt forgiven only to throw his fellow servant into prison for a pittance (Matt. 18:21–35), or identify with the obnoxious wedding guest pushing her way forward to the best seat at the marriage feast (Luke 14:7–14). We know an identified patient when we see one! Most of the time, we listen as spectators—we think these are not really our stories. But every once in a while God’s Spirit intervenes and the stories deliver their intended jolt to our system: “I’m the ungrateful steward! This is my story!”
Jesus offers us “a gentle, listening language of suggestion, language that invites participation, language that doesn’t say too much but leaves room for mystery.”10 Jesus offers us new frames—often quite paradoxical—through which we can see ourselves.
Reflection Questions
1. Can you believe that the person visibly acting out in a family might be doing so as part of a larger system in which every family member is a participant? Or have you ever been seen by others, or thought of yourself, as the identified patient (perhaps not in a family, but at work or in a relationship)?
2. How do you react to these biblical examples of Jesus’ reframing? Can you think of other examples in the Gospels?
3. Many of Jesus’ paradoxical stories and parables have lost their edge to reframe life for us, either because they are too familiar or because we don’t understand what a radical reversal they were proposing in their original context. What might we do about this?
4. Do you remember a time when you were jolted by one of Jesus’ stories, thinking, “That’s me in the story!”