reader to take sides for or against the characters in a story. By confronting the audience with an obvious contrast, a parable by Jesus “tends to polarize the hearers.… The lines along which polarization takes place must be signaled by an unambiguous code in the narrative; like highway markers along the interstate, they must be legible at a glance. So we have pairs like Levite, priest/ Samaritan, laborers hired fìrst/last, invited/uninvited, etc.”[4] The parables make conspicuous use of