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There are buzzwords that corporate America hates (and really, anyone who must endure meetings). I have been guilty of creating “buzzword bingo cards” to meetings that I know will be long and will use industry power-language frequently. There is anarticle in the Wall Street Journal that lists some of the most annoying buzzwords that crop up without any thought of over-use. You can access the article by clicking --> here <--

I have sat through many meetings with these words and have been guilty of overuse myself. What struck me about the list of power words are how many of them are parables. They paint a picture of a thing to explain a concept.

For instance, the word “bandwidth,” is used to tell someone that a person or organization may not be able to do something because they are too busy. It would seem trite to look at someone and say, “I’m too busy!” So, instead we draw on their idea of internet bandwidth. The picture is clear – you cannot do something outside the capacity of the bandwidth. Accordingly, you tell someone that their idea doesn’t fit within available resources by saying, “We/I don’t have the bandwidth.”  A parable with clear meaning.

When you are going to take too much time explaining something, you excuse your verbosity by stating – up front – that you are going to take a “deep dive.” It conjures up a picture of a scuba diver going very deep to find something that a shallow or medium dive will not uncover. With that parabolic picture, the meeting participants settle in and consider whether they should pull out their cell phones and check e-mails because the speaker is taking a deep dive. A parable with a clear meaning.

When someone comes up with an idea that is clearly within the supportable bandwidth of the organization or person, yet it comes at a cost that outweighs the benefit, the person who is chairing the meeting can nudge it aside by saying, “the juice isn’t worth the squeeze.” It makes me think of squeezing lemon juice out of a lemon. It is a hard task. Is the lemonade (or lemon juice, if you are cooking/baking) worth all of that effort?  So, instead of saying an idea isn’t very good because of an overwhelming “logistical tail,” you draw on this image of squeezing a citrus fruit. A parable with a clear meaning.

All of these follow a pattern that Jesus used to explain the Kingdom of God. A lost coin, seeds planted in different soils, a lamp under a basket, a kindly Samaritan, and the owner of a vineyard all convey Kingdom principles that are better conceptualized by reference to the image that Jesus used. This Sunday, we will discuss a living parable – one which involves real actions Jesus took in order to symbolically convey an idea. You can read about it in Mark 11:12-25.

Thank God, understanding the parables of Jesus is worth the squeeze, fits within our mental bandwidth, and gives us a clear picture without the need for a theologically nuanced deep dive.