In 2014, my sister asked me to guide a seminar, using Apple FaceTime, to discuss with her friends and acquaintances, gathered at her home for the purpose over several weeks, a collection of sermons by The Rev. Dr. George Arthur Buttrick on The Parables Of Jesus.
Dr. Buttrick, as our mother styled him -- academic rank in her mind trumping ecclesial rank, the opposite of how these things actually go, which in Buttrick's regard is The Rev. Dr. rather than Dr. The Rev. or Dr. alone -- was our father's Professor of Homiletics at The Union Theological Seminary, NYC, in the early 1940s, and then family friend until Buttrick emerged in God, January 23, 1980 from March 23, 1892.
The Rev. Dr. Buttrick, in the end -- as did my sister's and my father, and also I -- experienced ostracism by ecclesial authorities. None of us has been defrocked, and in my case at least -- the last one standing, so to speak -- not so far.
The seminar with her friends and acquaintances that my sister well-organized went well and gave me pleasure doing, both reasons it went well.
Chapters of The Parables Of Jesus follow below.
