Blessed Lord, who caused all holy Scriptures to be written for our learning: Grant us so to hear them, read, mark, learn, and inwardly digest them, that we may embrace and ever hold fast the blessed hope of everlasting life, which you have given us in our Savior Jesus Christ; who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, for ever and ever. Amen.
This is one of my favorite collects. It is classically Anglican, written for the original 1549 Book of Common Prayer. “All” holy Scriptures is an echo of that book’s preface, which lamented how the medieval accretion of liturgical rules and saints’ days had chopped up the readings so much “that commonly when any book of the Bible was begun, before three or four chapters were read out, all the rest were unread…There was more business to find out what should be read, than to read it when it was found out.” By contrast, that first prayer book provided an orderly reading of nearly the entire Bible each year at Morning and Evening Prayer.
It is quite a challenge to understand all Scripture as written for our instruction. Some passages are just plain boring (especially in Leviticus). Others are guaranteed to create an upset stomach as they are “inwardly digested.” Take Sunday’s reading from Zephaniah, for instance. It proclaims the day of the Lord, “a day of wrath, a day of distress and anguish, a day of ruin and devastation, a day of darkness and gloom.” This does not sound like good news – at least not to those who are well off. But what about those who suffer under tyrannical government, or the many who can’t afford food while the few are fabulously wealthy? For them, this is a promise that God will right the wrongs. It is a warning to those who rely on silver and gold more than God, those who buy yet another Lexus when their neighbors are in want, those who pass by the Occupy protesters in the street, en route to their multimillion dollar jobs.
Paul takes up the warning against complacency in his first letter to the Thessalonians. Christ will return unexpectedly like a thief in the night, he says. Christ will come as inescapably as a child is born to a woman in labor. Yet Paul provides hope where Zephaniah does not. “God has not destined us for wrath,” he writes, “but for obtaining salvation through our Lord Jesus Christ.” It is not God’s will that anyone should perish; it is we who we bring disaster on ourselves by our own actions, by the choices we freely make.
Jesus says as much in his parable of the talents. Like the master in the story who goes on a journey, God has given us talents, gifts, for us to use in his service. When we use them as God intends, they multiply. Not only are we able to return to God more than we have been given, God gives us even more. But if we hoard what we have been given, keeping it only for ourselves and not others, we both forfeit the blessing and lose what we already have. The most remarkable part of this passage is that God come to us just as we expect him to be. If we believe that God is generous, we see God’s generosity. If we believe that God is harsh and judgmental, we experience God’s judgment. Would that more Christians would read, mark, learn, and inwardly digest that passage!
And so Scripture provides just what the collect says: learning, instruction, guidance for the journey, a journey made in the blessed hope of everlasting life. Whether it is the wrath of Zephaniah, the warning of Paul, or the use of our talents in Jesus’ parable, we can find wisdom in the lessons that are read day by day, week after week, if only we search for it.
[Pentecost 22: Zephaniah1:7, 12-18; Psalm 90; 1 Thessalonians 5:1-11; Matthew 5:14-30. The information about the collect is from Marion Hatchett’s Commentary on the American Prayer Book. The wonderful preface to the 1549 prayer book can be found in the current 1979 book on p. 866.]
Tuesday, November 8, 2011
Wednesday, November 2, 2011
For All the Saints
Recently the local paper had a couple of articles on life after death. Sort of. One, headlined “What happens when you die,” featured the work of a funeral home and cemetery. The other article was about Iowa ghosts, a not unexpected topic around Halloween. The only mention of belief in either article was a discussion of what different faiths do with their dead. I should not have expected anything about the afterlife in a newspaper, given that cultural relativism tells us that all religions are valid, if not fundamentally the same.
Last week R and I watched "The Bishop’s Wife," perhaps in anticipation of the upcoming diocesan convention. Loretta Young is smashing in the title role, and David Niven is the perplexed bishop trying to raise money for a cathedral. His prayers are answered when an angel played by Cary Grant arrives to give him guidance. Of many memorable moments, there’s one where Grant sits down at a harp and starts playing. Of course! He’s an angel, and all angels play the harp, right? This is 1947 culture: Christianity is assumed, but bowdlerized, inoffensive. Angels are good-looking, perform minor miracles, play harps, and have to leave when they start getting too attached to humans. God and Jesus hover in the background but are never mentioned (unless you count the Christmas setting, but that’s mostly for making us feel good and providing a memorable skating scene.)
The reality of Christian faith in the Bible is quite different. For one thing, death is looked squarely in the face. That is possible because Jesus passed through death to rise again on the third day. We still celebrate the day of resurrection every Sunday, the day when death lost its final power over us. I say “final” power, because we do still die, of course. Yet as the prayer book burial service says, “All of us go down to the dust; yet even at the grave we make our song: Alleluia, alleluia, alleluia.” There lies the great hope, the great belief of Christian faith. Like Christ, we will die. And like Christ, we shall one day rise again.
That’s why we have All Saints’ Sunday. We remember all who have gone before us in Christian hope, waiting for the resurrection of the dead. At our church there will be pictures and other remembrances of the saints in our own lives. Those saints are truly blessed. They hunger no more and thirst no more. God has wiped away every tear from their eyes.
But what about us who are left here without them? For us there are tears and mourning. There is hunger and thirst for the righteousness of God. We will bring pictures because we truly miss those faces and those voices. Yet we still have this incredible promise from God, a promise about which the Apostle John wrote: “Beloved, we are God’s children now. What we will be has not yet been revealed. What we do know is this: when he is revealed, we will be like him, for we will see him as he is.”
And that’s it: we are promised the vision of Jesus. When we see him, we will be transformed. We will be like him: no longer dead, but alive; no longer in this body that hungers and aches, but in a resurrected body more solid and fresh and imperishable that anything we have experienced on earth. That’s a promise that Christ himself gave us. As for whether or not such a body comes with a built-in ability to play the harp – I guess we’ll have to wait and see.
[All Saints’ Sunday: Revelation 7:9-17; Psalm 34; 1 John 3:1-3; Matthew 5:1-12. I discovered via Google that Gail Laughton actually played the harp in "The Bishop’s Wife"; it is his arms and hands we see in the close-ups. He also dubbed the harp segments in Harpo Marx’s movie appearances, in spite of the fact that Harpo was an accomplished, if unique, harpist.]
Last week R and I watched "The Bishop’s Wife," perhaps in anticipation of the upcoming diocesan convention. Loretta Young is smashing in the title role, and David Niven is the perplexed bishop trying to raise money for a cathedral. His prayers are answered when an angel played by Cary Grant arrives to give him guidance. Of many memorable moments, there’s one where Grant sits down at a harp and starts playing. Of course! He’s an angel, and all angels play the harp, right? This is 1947 culture: Christianity is assumed, but bowdlerized, inoffensive. Angels are good-looking, perform minor miracles, play harps, and have to leave when they start getting too attached to humans. God and Jesus hover in the background but are never mentioned (unless you count the Christmas setting, but that’s mostly for making us feel good and providing a memorable skating scene.)
The reality of Christian faith in the Bible is quite different. For one thing, death is looked squarely in the face. That is possible because Jesus passed through death to rise again on the third day. We still celebrate the day of resurrection every Sunday, the day when death lost its final power over us. I say “final” power, because we do still die, of course. Yet as the prayer book burial service says, “All of us go down to the dust; yet even at the grave we make our song: Alleluia, alleluia, alleluia.” There lies the great hope, the great belief of Christian faith. Like Christ, we will die. And like Christ, we shall one day rise again.
That’s why we have All Saints’ Sunday. We remember all who have gone before us in Christian hope, waiting for the resurrection of the dead. At our church there will be pictures and other remembrances of the saints in our own lives. Those saints are truly blessed. They hunger no more and thirst no more. God has wiped away every tear from their eyes.
But what about us who are left here without them? For us there are tears and mourning. There is hunger and thirst for the righteousness of God. We will bring pictures because we truly miss those faces and those voices. Yet we still have this incredible promise from God, a promise about which the Apostle John wrote: “Beloved, we are God’s children now. What we will be has not yet been revealed. What we do know is this: when he is revealed, we will be like him, for we will see him as he is.”
And that’s it: we are promised the vision of Jesus. When we see him, we will be transformed. We will be like him: no longer dead, but alive; no longer in this body that hungers and aches, but in a resurrected body more solid and fresh and imperishable that anything we have experienced on earth. That’s a promise that Christ himself gave us. As for whether or not such a body comes with a built-in ability to play the harp – I guess we’ll have to wait and see.
[All Saints’ Sunday: Revelation 7:9-17; Psalm 34; 1 John 3:1-3; Matthew 5:1-12. I discovered via Google that Gail Laughton actually played the harp in "The Bishop’s Wife"; it is his arms and hands we see in the close-ups. He also dubbed the harp segments in Harpo Marx’s movie appearances, in spite of the fact that Harpo was an accomplished, if unique, harpist.]
Wednesday, October 26, 2011
Servant Leadership
Over thirty years ago Robert K. Greenleaf wrote a book called Servant Leadership: A Journey into the Nature of Power & Greatness. It was so popular that it has remained in print ever since, most recently appearing in a 25th anniversary edition. The dust jacket claims that with its publication, “a new paradigm of management entered the boardrooms and corporate offices of America.” Perhaps so. Yet the idea of servant leadership was at least two thousand years old when Greenleaf started writing. It was Jesus who said, “The greatest among you will be your servant.”
Jesus knew the history of leadership in Israel, from the patriarchs through Moses, through David and the sorry succession of kings who followed him. By the time of Micah, more than two centuries after David, leadership was reaching its nadir. Micah castigates prophets “who cry ‘Peace’ when they have something to eat, but declare war against those who put nothing into their mouths.” Perversion of justice, bribery, requiring payment to dispense God’s free grace – that was “leadership” in Micah’s time. The future is described in terrifying words: “Therefore because of you Zion shall be a plowed field” and “Jerusalem shall become a heap of ruins.” Micah called everyone to true justice, to return to God’s Law.
Jesus is equally condemnatory of religious leaders. He acknowledges that they know the Law; they just don’t follow it. They create more and more rules, but do nothing to adjust the burden to make it bearable once they have thrown it on someone else’s back. And they make sure that everyone knows just how holy they are. Today they would sport hundred-dollar haircuts and thump big gold-edged Bibles and park their new BMW in a reserved space right next to the church door. Everyone would know them from TV broadcasts and call them “Pastor,” or “Doctor” if they had an online degree. And they’d love it.
By contrast, Jesus calls for someone who leads not as a person apart and above, but as one who is in common relationship with all. “Call no one Rabbi,” Jesus says, “because you have one teacher [God], and you are all brothers and sisters. And call no one father of yours upon the earth, for you have one heavenly Father” – one Father to whom each owes life in the Christian community. And call no one your private tutor, for you have only one tutor: Christ.
Within that community of Christ, Jesus maps out a path to greatness: “The greatest among you will be your servant.” The Greek word is diakonos: agent, intermediary, assistant; not doulos, slave. Leaders assist the community in doing God’s work, carrying out God’s mission. Indeed, it is the deacons among us who are icons of servanthood, showing us how to serve Christ by serving others.
I have to admit that I’ve had trouble getting through Greenleaf’s book. I’m not sure why. It seems a bit preachy to me, and I’ve never responded well to preachy books [!]. But the real reason, I think, is that servant leadership has much greater power when it comes from the mouth of one who served people so faithfully that he was willing to die for them. “For the Son of Man came not to be served but to serve, and to give his life a ransom for many,” Jesus says. If all of us, especially church leaders, were to live that way, it would transform more than corporate America. It would transform the world.
[Pentecost 20: Micah 3:5-12; Matthew 23:1-12. The last saying of Jesus is from Mark 10:45. Once again I am indebted to John Nolland’s The Gospel of Matthew, and the classic Greek-English Lexicon familiarly known as BDAG.]
Jesus knew the history of leadership in Israel, from the patriarchs through Moses, through David and the sorry succession of kings who followed him. By the time of Micah, more than two centuries after David, leadership was reaching its nadir. Micah castigates prophets “who cry ‘Peace’ when they have something to eat, but declare war against those who put nothing into their mouths.” Perversion of justice, bribery, requiring payment to dispense God’s free grace – that was “leadership” in Micah’s time. The future is described in terrifying words: “Therefore because of you Zion shall be a plowed field” and “Jerusalem shall become a heap of ruins.” Micah called everyone to true justice, to return to God’s Law.
Jesus is equally condemnatory of religious leaders. He acknowledges that they know the Law; they just don’t follow it. They create more and more rules, but do nothing to adjust the burden to make it bearable once they have thrown it on someone else’s back. And they make sure that everyone knows just how holy they are. Today they would sport hundred-dollar haircuts and thump big gold-edged Bibles and park their new BMW in a reserved space right next to the church door. Everyone would know them from TV broadcasts and call them “Pastor,” or “Doctor” if they had an online degree. And they’d love it.
By contrast, Jesus calls for someone who leads not as a person apart and above, but as one who is in common relationship with all. “Call no one Rabbi,” Jesus says, “because you have one teacher [God], and you are all brothers and sisters. And call no one father of yours upon the earth, for you have one heavenly Father” – one Father to whom each owes life in the Christian community. And call no one your private tutor, for you have only one tutor: Christ.
Within that community of Christ, Jesus maps out a path to greatness: “The greatest among you will be your servant.” The Greek word is diakonos: agent, intermediary, assistant; not doulos, slave. Leaders assist the community in doing God’s work, carrying out God’s mission. Indeed, it is the deacons among us who are icons of servanthood, showing us how to serve Christ by serving others.
I have to admit that I’ve had trouble getting through Greenleaf’s book. I’m not sure why. It seems a bit preachy to me, and I’ve never responded well to preachy books [!]. But the real reason, I think, is that servant leadership has much greater power when it comes from the mouth of one who served people so faithfully that he was willing to die for them. “For the Son of Man came not to be served but to serve, and to give his life a ransom for many,” Jesus says. If all of us, especially church leaders, were to live that way, it would transform more than corporate America. It would transform the world.
[Pentecost 20: Micah 3:5-12; Matthew 23:1-12. The last saying of Jesus is from Mark 10:45. Once again I am indebted to John Nolland’s The Gospel of Matthew, and the classic Greek-English Lexicon familiarly known as BDAG.]
Wednesday, October 12, 2011
It's All Greek to Me
The priest I worked with in my field education placement had been in the business a long time. He was raised a Roman Catholic and entered a pre-seminary high school at the age of fourteen. From then on his life was regulated by the Church. When I asked Bill how he came to the Episcopal Church, he raised his left hand and showed me his wedding ring. Clear enough!
I valued Bill’s experience. Once when we were talking about sermon preparation, I told him how I like to translate the Gospel, at least, from the original Greek. Smiling, he assured me that once he left seminary he had found no use for Greek or Hebrew. I noted his opinion but it didn’t change my habits. Whenever I did find occasion to mention Greek in a sermon after that, I’d look over at Bill and he would have this little smile on his face.
This week Bill would really be smiling. It was the Greek Gospel text rather than any translation that started me thinking. There are several nuances that are lost in English, in part because of idioms that require rephrasing to make them intelligible.
Jesus, having told a series of parables that really honked off the religious establishment, finds that those leaders are retaliating. They send a group to trap him in words – representatives of the religious right and those who favor the status quo (sound familiar?). The Pharisees want every Jewish law followed to the letter, and the Herodians want Caesar in control so that they can keep their cushy jobs.
They come to Jesus with simpering smiles and false praise. They try to set him up with flattery, not realizing that they are actually speaking the truth. “Teacher,” they say, “we know that you are truthful and teach the way of God in truth, and show deference to no one; for you do not regard people with partiality.” At least that’s what it says in English. The Greek is literally, “for you do not look into the face of people.”
Having softened him up, they spring the trick question. “Tell us, then, how it seems to you. Is it permitted to pay tax to Caesar, or not?” The questioners think this puts Jesus in a box. If he says yes, all of the zealous Jewish Rome-haters will desert him. If he says no, they can run him in on a charge of sedition.
But Jesus, being Jesus, sees right through them. “Why do you test me, you hypocrites?” he says. “Show me the coin of the tax.” So they produce a silver denarius. “Whose is this image and inscription?” he asks. Well, Caesar’s, duh! So he says to them, “Then give back the things of Caesar to Caesar and the things of God to God.” Astonished at his answer, they slink away, trying to figure out how he slipped out of their noose.
The whole story is very visual, but the only word in English that hints at it is “image.” Even that one word should resonate, however, reminding us that we are made in the image of God. If the denarius goes to Caesar because his image is on it, God’s claim on us is even greater, because all that we are and have comes from God.
“Image” is eikon in Greek. Icons themselves are windows to God – or rather, windows from God to us, through which God sees us, and we see God. If we are made in the image of God, then we, too, become icons through which other people can see the love of God in Jesus Christ.
But what about this business that Jesus doesn’t look into the face of people? It’s not that Jesus is shifty-eyed. Rather, he isn’t checking people’s reactions to see whether or not they approve what he says. He’s not a political poll-watcher. Nor does he tailor his speech based on the kind of reaction he’s getting. I don’t know about you, but I find myself doing that a lot. If I see someone’s blood pressure starting to rise because of my words, I’ll modify what I say to prevent an explosion. Jesus, like the prophets, lets the Word of God fly, unconcerned who takes offense.
Jesus calls his questioners “hypocrites.” That itself is a Greek word, originally meaning actors on a stage. Given that acting involves deception, pretending to be someone else, it fits Jesus’ use very well. And if you consider that actors wore masks in classical Greek drama, we are back to the whole question of true image.
Our true likeness is found in God. Often we put on masks out of fear or deception, hiding that likeness. We study the faces of others to see how they react to us, to see if our deception is working, to peer through their masks. “Hypocrites!” Jesus would say. Put off your mask and reveal your true image, the image of God. Be transparent. Let the love of God shine through you, and look for the face of Christ in everyone you meet.
And Bill, my priest friend, still smiles, now not at the Greek, but at the thought of seeking Christ in everyone he meets. He knows his own faults and the temptation to put on masks. Yet he also knows that there is nothing greater than to seek the love of God revealed to us in Jesus Christ.
[Pentecost18: Matthew 22:15-22.]
I valued Bill’s experience. Once when we were talking about sermon preparation, I told him how I like to translate the Gospel, at least, from the original Greek. Smiling, he assured me that once he left seminary he had found no use for Greek or Hebrew. I noted his opinion but it didn’t change my habits. Whenever I did find occasion to mention Greek in a sermon after that, I’d look over at Bill and he would have this little smile on his face.
This week Bill would really be smiling. It was the Greek Gospel text rather than any translation that started me thinking. There are several nuances that are lost in English, in part because of idioms that require rephrasing to make them intelligible.
Jesus, having told a series of parables that really honked off the religious establishment, finds that those leaders are retaliating. They send a group to trap him in words – representatives of the religious right and those who favor the status quo (sound familiar?). The Pharisees want every Jewish law followed to the letter, and the Herodians want Caesar in control so that they can keep their cushy jobs.
They come to Jesus with simpering smiles and false praise. They try to set him up with flattery, not realizing that they are actually speaking the truth. “Teacher,” they say, “we know that you are truthful and teach the way of God in truth, and show deference to no one; for you do not regard people with partiality.” At least that’s what it says in English. The Greek is literally, “for you do not look into the face of people.”
Having softened him up, they spring the trick question. “Tell us, then, how it seems to you. Is it permitted to pay tax to Caesar, or not?” The questioners think this puts Jesus in a box. If he says yes, all of the zealous Jewish Rome-haters will desert him. If he says no, they can run him in on a charge of sedition.
But Jesus, being Jesus, sees right through them. “Why do you test me, you hypocrites?” he says. “Show me the coin of the tax.” So they produce a silver denarius. “Whose is this image and inscription?” he asks. Well, Caesar’s, duh! So he says to them, “Then give back the things of Caesar to Caesar and the things of God to God.” Astonished at his answer, they slink away, trying to figure out how he slipped out of their noose.
The whole story is very visual, but the only word in English that hints at it is “image.” Even that one word should resonate, however, reminding us that we are made in the image of God. If the denarius goes to Caesar because his image is on it, God’s claim on us is even greater, because all that we are and have comes from God.
“Image” is eikon in Greek. Icons themselves are windows to God – or rather, windows from God to us, through which God sees us, and we see God. If we are made in the image of God, then we, too, become icons through which other people can see the love of God in Jesus Christ.
But what about this business that Jesus doesn’t look into the face of people? It’s not that Jesus is shifty-eyed. Rather, he isn’t checking people’s reactions to see whether or not they approve what he says. He’s not a political poll-watcher. Nor does he tailor his speech based on the kind of reaction he’s getting. I don’t know about you, but I find myself doing that a lot. If I see someone’s blood pressure starting to rise because of my words, I’ll modify what I say to prevent an explosion. Jesus, like the prophets, lets the Word of God fly, unconcerned who takes offense.
Jesus calls his questioners “hypocrites.” That itself is a Greek word, originally meaning actors on a stage. Given that acting involves deception, pretending to be someone else, it fits Jesus’ use very well. And if you consider that actors wore masks in classical Greek drama, we are back to the whole question of true image.
Our true likeness is found in God. Often we put on masks out of fear or deception, hiding that likeness. We study the faces of others to see how they react to us, to see if our deception is working, to peer through their masks. “Hypocrites!” Jesus would say. Put off your mask and reveal your true image, the image of God. Be transparent. Let the love of God shine through you, and look for the face of Christ in everyone you meet.
And Bill, my priest friend, still smiles, now not at the Greek, but at the thought of seeking Christ in everyone he meets. He knows his own faults and the temptation to put on masks. Yet he also knows that there is nothing greater than to seek the love of God revealed to us in Jesus Christ.
[Pentecost18: Matthew 22:15-22.]
Wednesday, October 5, 2011
Wedding Dress
I grew up in a large family, so we didn’t go out to eat very often. It was just too expensive. On those few occasions when we did, we often went to the Viking Restaurant. The Viking had an authentic Scandinavian smorgasbord, the precursor of today’s huge buffets that encourage people to eat in one sitting enough food for a week. We liked it because we could get as much of whatever we wanted. My mother liked it because she didn’t have to cook. I still remember the little cards on every table: “Eat with taste; please don’t waste.”
The Viking had a dress requirement. Every male from adolescence onwards had to wear a sport jacket or suit coat, or he wouldn’t be allowed in the dining room. The management even had a few spare jackets available in case someone forgot. After wearing one of those garish ill-fitting loaners a time or two, I always remembered to bring my own.
Dress requirements seem quaint, a thing of the past, certainly in our corner of the world. It’s like three-piece suits in our church, a clear indication of a visitor. Even festal occasions nowadays don’t always mean festal dress. R and I recently attended a wedding reception at the local country club, and saw a farmer in his overalls with a pair of pliers still in the tool loop. I’ve lived in Iowa long enough that it didn’t faze me a bit.
Thus a Bible story about someone getting booted out of a wedding feast because of improper clothes seems yet another example of how out-of-date Scripture is. What makes this story worse is that the ejected guest appears to have been welcomed at first. So why care what he looks like?
But I get ahead of myself. This wedding feast is a parable of Jesus, another one that begins with “the kingdom of heaven is like…” Once again there’s a king, whom we’ve already seen is the stand-in for God. As Jesus describes the banquet, it sounds more and more like the feast, the messianic banquet God offers to everyone. One hears echoes of Isaiah: “a feast of rich food, a feast of well-aged wines, of rich food filled with marrow, of well-aged wines strained clear.” The steaks are on the grill and the beer is in the cooler. All the king needs are guests.
The trouble is that those who got the invitation don’t want to come when everything’s ready. One decides that the combine needs some tinkering and another remembers paperwork at the office that needs shuffling. With the steaks heading toward very well done, the king tells his servants to go out into the streets and haul in everyone they find. (I love the Authorized Version’s translation of the parallel passage in Luke: “Go out into the highways and hedges, and compel them to come in.” It’s so British.)
When the king comes in and starts working the room, he spies someone who isn’t wearing the right wedding garment. Either the man didn’t stop at home to change first, or he didn’t like the loaners the king had hanging on a rack. Or maybe he was just walking by as everyone went in and decided to crash the party. The king, calling him “friend,” gives him a chance to explain himself. But the man is speechless, and his silence condemns him. So the king has him thrown out on his ear.
In this parable, Jesus tells us something important about the messianic banquet. First of all, God’s feast is going to be a big one. Everyone is invited. But not everyone is going to be there. Some of the invitees will be too busy to show up. They’ll walk the other way when the time comes. And a few will try to get into the banquet on their own terms, not God’s. When they’re found out, they’ll be shown the exit.
We don’t like the idea that some people will be excluded from the banquet. We want to think that everyone is there. That’s called universal salvation: everyone gets to be with God, everyone goes to heaven. It is true that God intends salvation, reconciliation with God and one another, for everyone. Yet it’s also true that we are given the freedom to walk away from God. We can make light of God’s invitation. We can try to get in on our terms, not God’s. Jesus made it quite clear that such behavior has consequences. It puts us in darkness, not light. It separates us from the joy of the wedding feast.
As far as I can tell, the Viking Restaurant is no longer in business. I’m not surprised. The formality of the owners and their stinginess with the food (remember those table cards?) could not compete with the informality and largesse of the modern family buffet. I no longer have to worry about wearing an ill-fitting loaner jacket. And when the day comes for that big feast, the messianic banquet, I hope and pray that I will have the sense to accept the invitation and arrive clothed in Christ. In the meantime, I better do something with the pile of paperwork on my desk.
[Pentecost 17: Isaiah 25:1-9; Matthew 22:1-14.]
The Viking had a dress requirement. Every male from adolescence onwards had to wear a sport jacket or suit coat, or he wouldn’t be allowed in the dining room. The management even had a few spare jackets available in case someone forgot. After wearing one of those garish ill-fitting loaners a time or two, I always remembered to bring my own.
Dress requirements seem quaint, a thing of the past, certainly in our corner of the world. It’s like three-piece suits in our church, a clear indication of a visitor. Even festal occasions nowadays don’t always mean festal dress. R and I recently attended a wedding reception at the local country club, and saw a farmer in his overalls with a pair of pliers still in the tool loop. I’ve lived in Iowa long enough that it didn’t faze me a bit.
Thus a Bible story about someone getting booted out of a wedding feast because of improper clothes seems yet another example of how out-of-date Scripture is. What makes this story worse is that the ejected guest appears to have been welcomed at first. So why care what he looks like?
But I get ahead of myself. This wedding feast is a parable of Jesus, another one that begins with “the kingdom of heaven is like…” Once again there’s a king, whom we’ve already seen is the stand-in for God. As Jesus describes the banquet, it sounds more and more like the feast, the messianic banquet God offers to everyone. One hears echoes of Isaiah: “a feast of rich food, a feast of well-aged wines, of rich food filled with marrow, of well-aged wines strained clear.” The steaks are on the grill and the beer is in the cooler. All the king needs are guests.
The trouble is that those who got the invitation don’t want to come when everything’s ready. One decides that the combine needs some tinkering and another remembers paperwork at the office that needs shuffling. With the steaks heading toward very well done, the king tells his servants to go out into the streets and haul in everyone they find. (I love the Authorized Version’s translation of the parallel passage in Luke: “Go out into the highways and hedges, and compel them to come in.” It’s so British.)
When the king comes in and starts working the room, he spies someone who isn’t wearing the right wedding garment. Either the man didn’t stop at home to change first, or he didn’t like the loaners the king had hanging on a rack. Or maybe he was just walking by as everyone went in and decided to crash the party. The king, calling him “friend,” gives him a chance to explain himself. But the man is speechless, and his silence condemns him. So the king has him thrown out on his ear.
In this parable, Jesus tells us something important about the messianic banquet. First of all, God’s feast is going to be a big one. Everyone is invited. But not everyone is going to be there. Some of the invitees will be too busy to show up. They’ll walk the other way when the time comes. And a few will try to get into the banquet on their own terms, not God’s. When they’re found out, they’ll be shown the exit.
We don’t like the idea that some people will be excluded from the banquet. We want to think that everyone is there. That’s called universal salvation: everyone gets to be with God, everyone goes to heaven. It is true that God intends salvation, reconciliation with God and one another, for everyone. Yet it’s also true that we are given the freedom to walk away from God. We can make light of God’s invitation. We can try to get in on our terms, not God’s. Jesus made it quite clear that such behavior has consequences. It puts us in darkness, not light. It separates us from the joy of the wedding feast.
As far as I can tell, the Viking Restaurant is no longer in business. I’m not surprised. The formality of the owners and their stinginess with the food (remember those table cards?) could not compete with the informality and largesse of the modern family buffet. I no longer have to worry about wearing an ill-fitting loaner jacket. And when the day comes for that big feast, the messianic banquet, I hope and pray that I will have the sense to accept the invitation and arrive clothed in Christ. In the meantime, I better do something with the pile of paperwork on my desk.
[Pentecost 17: Isaiah 25:1-9; Matthew 22:1-14.]
Thursday, September 29, 2011
A Fruitful Vineyard
A few weeks ago I was asked to give a lecture in an Introduction to Liberal Arts course at Monmouth College. The class was reading Michael Pollan’s The Botany of Desire, and the professor wanted the perspective of a botanist/theologian. I began with what are sometimes called ways of knowing, ways in which we make sense of the world around us (such as history, music, and science). Some ways of knowing, like theology, also provide meaning to our lives. We use them to explain the why of what happens, not just the how and what. Pollan happens to be a materialist, one who believes that nothing exists except matter. That in itself is a faith statement, although my guess is that Pollan would not see it as such.
The Bible, of course, is full of theology. It is concerned with who God is, who we are, and what our relationship should be to God and one another. It uses the how and what to illustrate the why, its chief focus. Sometimes we get mixed up and think that the biblical how and what are just as important as the why. Then the Bible becomes the basis for all ways of knowing, so that even science must yield to what the Bible says. That is not a fruitful approach, although I would not go so far as a former colleague who described it as “intellectual suicide.”
Remembering that the “why” is important, and that Scripture is about who we are in relation to God and one another, becomes essential when approaching the more difficult biblical stories. This Sunday we have two such passages. Both present God as judge and destroyer. Both repel us, for we would much rather hear about God’s love and mercy.
The first passage, from Isaiah, presents itself as a love-song for God’s beloved. It describes Israel, and more particularly Judah and Jerusalem, as a vineyard lovingly planted and tended, given everything it needs to provide a bountiful harvest of grapes. Instead, it yields wild grapes, the small, sour kind that no one wants. So the vineyard is destroyed and becomes a wasteland.
Jesus undoubtedly has this passage in mind when he tells his own parable of a vineyard to the chief priests and elders of the people. Ostensibly the story is about a landowner, but as Jesus describes the creation of the vineyard, it’s clear that he is really talking about Isaiah’s vineyard, and the landowner is God. In Jesus’ story, however, it’s not the grapes that are the problem. It’s the tenants who care for the vineyard. They are the ones who kill the landowner’s slaves, and eventually his son, when they attempt to get the fruits of the harvest. So when the landowner himself finally arrives, he is expected to destroy the wicked tenants and lease the vineyard to others.
Isaiah wrote about the vineyard as a warning to the people of Judah. They should not think that they can do whatever they want because they are God’s chosen people. God has expectations of them – and of us – expectations of justice and righteousness, not only as individuals but as a society. Instead, what God found was bloodshed and the cry of the oppressed. Later, when both Israel and Judah were conquered and the people carried away, their destruction was interpreted as God’s judgment on an apostate people. That theology provided the why of exile.
Jesus had a different object in mind. He expected the vineyard, God’s people, to bear fruit. It was the tenants of the vineyard, the religious leaders, who had gone astray from God And just in case they missed the point, Jesus made it explicit: “Therefore I tell you, the kingdom of God will be taken away from you and given to a people that produces the fruits of the kingdom.” The chief priests and the Pharisees heard him loud and clear, and plotted how to get rid of him.
In each case, the Bible tells how to act toward God and one another. We are to acknowledge that all we have comes from God, that we are living in a world that God created. Our response should be not only to praise and give thanks to God, but also to bear the fruits of the gifts we have been given. In his letter to the Galatians, the Apostle Paul lists some of those fruits: love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, generosity, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control. Yet it is essential that we do not forget that both Jesus and Isaiah are also concerned with the wider community, both the community of faith and the nation. Justice and righteousness must be found there as well as in our individual actions.
That is why theology, for me, is the most important way of knowing. It tells us how to act, not only as individuals but as a society. It tells us that our choices have consequences, that it is a matter if life or death which way we go. Jesus assures us that the kingdom of God, God’s vineyard, will bear fruit no matter what. The question is, are we willing to share that fruit, or will we try to keep it for ourselves and cast out those whom God sends to us?
[Pentecost 16: Isaiah 5:1-7; Matthew 21:33-46. The Galatians passage is 5:22-23, and not part of this Sunday’s lectionary.]
The Bible, of course, is full of theology. It is concerned with who God is, who we are, and what our relationship should be to God and one another. It uses the how and what to illustrate the why, its chief focus. Sometimes we get mixed up and think that the biblical how and what are just as important as the why. Then the Bible becomes the basis for all ways of knowing, so that even science must yield to what the Bible says. That is not a fruitful approach, although I would not go so far as a former colleague who described it as “intellectual suicide.”
Remembering that the “why” is important, and that Scripture is about who we are in relation to God and one another, becomes essential when approaching the more difficult biblical stories. This Sunday we have two such passages. Both present God as judge and destroyer. Both repel us, for we would much rather hear about God’s love and mercy.
The first passage, from Isaiah, presents itself as a love-song for God’s beloved. It describes Israel, and more particularly Judah and Jerusalem, as a vineyard lovingly planted and tended, given everything it needs to provide a bountiful harvest of grapes. Instead, it yields wild grapes, the small, sour kind that no one wants. So the vineyard is destroyed and becomes a wasteland.
Jesus undoubtedly has this passage in mind when he tells his own parable of a vineyard to the chief priests and elders of the people. Ostensibly the story is about a landowner, but as Jesus describes the creation of the vineyard, it’s clear that he is really talking about Isaiah’s vineyard, and the landowner is God. In Jesus’ story, however, it’s not the grapes that are the problem. It’s the tenants who care for the vineyard. They are the ones who kill the landowner’s slaves, and eventually his son, when they attempt to get the fruits of the harvest. So when the landowner himself finally arrives, he is expected to destroy the wicked tenants and lease the vineyard to others.
Isaiah wrote about the vineyard as a warning to the people of Judah. They should not think that they can do whatever they want because they are God’s chosen people. God has expectations of them – and of us – expectations of justice and righteousness, not only as individuals but as a society. Instead, what God found was bloodshed and the cry of the oppressed. Later, when both Israel and Judah were conquered and the people carried away, their destruction was interpreted as God’s judgment on an apostate people. That theology provided the why of exile.
Jesus had a different object in mind. He expected the vineyard, God’s people, to bear fruit. It was the tenants of the vineyard, the religious leaders, who had gone astray from God And just in case they missed the point, Jesus made it explicit: “Therefore I tell you, the kingdom of God will be taken away from you and given to a people that produces the fruits of the kingdom.” The chief priests and the Pharisees heard him loud and clear, and plotted how to get rid of him.
In each case, the Bible tells how to act toward God and one another. We are to acknowledge that all we have comes from God, that we are living in a world that God created. Our response should be not only to praise and give thanks to God, but also to bear the fruits of the gifts we have been given. In his letter to the Galatians, the Apostle Paul lists some of those fruits: love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, generosity, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control. Yet it is essential that we do not forget that both Jesus and Isaiah are also concerned with the wider community, both the community of faith and the nation. Justice and righteousness must be found there as well as in our individual actions.
That is why theology, for me, is the most important way of knowing. It tells us how to act, not only as individuals but as a society. It tells us that our choices have consequences, that it is a matter if life or death which way we go. Jesus assures us that the kingdom of God, God’s vineyard, will bear fruit no matter what. The question is, are we willing to share that fruit, or will we try to keep it for ourselves and cast out those whom God sends to us?
[Pentecost 16: Isaiah 5:1-7; Matthew 21:33-46. The Galatians passage is 5:22-23, and not part of this Sunday’s lectionary.]
Thursday, September 1, 2011
Reconciliation
Peter, Paul and Mary had a memorable song called “Right Field.” It was about the common childhood experience of being chosen for a pick-up ball game. The team captains choose the best and most athletic kids first, so one finds out pretty quickly how one is regarded. Unlike the person in the song, I was never the last to be chosen, but I was pretty close to it. It’s not that I was uncoordinated or unathletic. I just didn’t care that much. I’d rather stand in the middle of the field and talk with a friend than pay attention to the game. That’s not what a team captain likes.
Being part of a group, even at the lowest level, is always important. It is how we are made as humans, to be in relationship with one another. We like to think that we are independent sorts, but in reality we need one another. This past week we saw an example of that in Vermont, a state full of independent people. When Hurricane Irene wiped out roads and isolated villages in the Green Mountains, the people in those towns got together and started fixing roads and cleaning up long before anyone “official” arrived. Eventually all will return to their scattered homes deep in the woods. But for a short time, at least, they worked together as a community. They know that’s part of their identity.
The Gospel reading for Sunday shows us just how important it is to be part of a community, particularly the community we call the Church. I’ve heard some say that this reading is all about forgiveness. I think it is more accurate to say that reconciliation is at its heart.
Suppose someone sins against you, Jesus says. The first thing you should do is go to that person yourself and point out the problem. He or she might listen to you, and if so, you have regained a friend. But if no listening occurs, next take along another person or two. After all, you may have misheard. Or it may be that part of the fault lies with you, and a neutral observer can see that. If it turns out that the offender refuses to listen to anyone, tell the church. If he or she refuses to listen to the church, “let such a one be to you as a Gentile and a tax collector.”
All of this sounds very awkward to our postmodern ears. After all, aren’t we supposed to respect everyone, even if we think they’re wrong? (Tell that to Congress!) Aren’t there many ways of being right? And how can we afford to turn people out when we want more to attend church?
Jesus wasn’t talking to postmoderns, of course, or even moderns. He was talking to people who were quite comfortable with the idea that there is one true church, and people are either in it or out of it. Even today some Christian groups operate that way. Some practice “shunning” – when someone is cast out of the group, no one will ever speak to or acknowledge them again. Shunning is based on that very verse: “let such a one be to you as a Gentile and a tax collector.”
I don’t think shunning is what Jesus had in mind. For one thing, the “you” is singular. It is not the plural “you” of the whole church; it is the “you” who originally went to talk one-on-one with the offender. And treating a person as a total outcast is to act as ancient Jews did toward Gentiles and tax collectors. It is not the way of Jesus, who ate with tax collectors. Matthew himself, we are told, was one of them. And by the end of Matthew’s Gospel, the apostles will be told to make disciples of all nations – all Gentiles. It’s hard to make a disciple of someone you’ve shunned.
Maybe that’s the point. An unrepentant sinner is an outsider, but not beyond reconciliation. He or she is not destined to remain outside permanently. The community must have boundaries, if it is to have any integrity, any clarity of belief. Yet those boundaries are not so solid that reentry is impossible.
The Truth and Reconciliation Commission led by Archbishop Desmond Tutu after the collapse of apartheid in South Africa is the best illustration I know of what Jesus was saying. During weeks of testimony, those in the former government who had committed atrocities confessed what they had done, in the presence of their former victims. It came with a tremendous emotional cost, as Archbishop Tutu vividly describes. But the reward was greater. For telling the truth, the torturers received reconciliation with the community that had thrown them out.
The Truth and Reconciliation Commission is far from the light-hearted “Right Field” song. Yet both spring from the same basic human need to belong. Without other human beings, we are lost. We may do things that cause us to lose community, but no one is ever beyond reconciliation. That is true for individuals as well as the church. Is there someone formerly in your church who needs to hear from you? Someone in your own life who needs your reconciliation?
[Pentecost 12: Matthew 18:15-20.]
Being part of a group, even at the lowest level, is always important. It is how we are made as humans, to be in relationship with one another. We like to think that we are independent sorts, but in reality we need one another. This past week we saw an example of that in Vermont, a state full of independent people. When Hurricane Irene wiped out roads and isolated villages in the Green Mountains, the people in those towns got together and started fixing roads and cleaning up long before anyone “official” arrived. Eventually all will return to their scattered homes deep in the woods. But for a short time, at least, they worked together as a community. They know that’s part of their identity.
The Gospel reading for Sunday shows us just how important it is to be part of a community, particularly the community we call the Church. I’ve heard some say that this reading is all about forgiveness. I think it is more accurate to say that reconciliation is at its heart.
Suppose someone sins against you, Jesus says. The first thing you should do is go to that person yourself and point out the problem. He or she might listen to you, and if so, you have regained a friend. But if no listening occurs, next take along another person or two. After all, you may have misheard. Or it may be that part of the fault lies with you, and a neutral observer can see that. If it turns out that the offender refuses to listen to anyone, tell the church. If he or she refuses to listen to the church, “let such a one be to you as a Gentile and a tax collector.”
All of this sounds very awkward to our postmodern ears. After all, aren’t we supposed to respect everyone, even if we think they’re wrong? (Tell that to Congress!) Aren’t there many ways of being right? And how can we afford to turn people out when we want more to attend church?
Jesus wasn’t talking to postmoderns, of course, or even moderns. He was talking to people who were quite comfortable with the idea that there is one true church, and people are either in it or out of it. Even today some Christian groups operate that way. Some practice “shunning” – when someone is cast out of the group, no one will ever speak to or acknowledge them again. Shunning is based on that very verse: “let such a one be to you as a Gentile and a tax collector.”
I don’t think shunning is what Jesus had in mind. For one thing, the “you” is singular. It is not the plural “you” of the whole church; it is the “you” who originally went to talk one-on-one with the offender. And treating a person as a total outcast is to act as ancient Jews did toward Gentiles and tax collectors. It is not the way of Jesus, who ate with tax collectors. Matthew himself, we are told, was one of them. And by the end of Matthew’s Gospel, the apostles will be told to make disciples of all nations – all Gentiles. It’s hard to make a disciple of someone you’ve shunned.
Maybe that’s the point. An unrepentant sinner is an outsider, but not beyond reconciliation. He or she is not destined to remain outside permanently. The community must have boundaries, if it is to have any integrity, any clarity of belief. Yet those boundaries are not so solid that reentry is impossible.
The Truth and Reconciliation Commission led by Archbishop Desmond Tutu after the collapse of apartheid in South Africa is the best illustration I know of what Jesus was saying. During weeks of testimony, those in the former government who had committed atrocities confessed what they had done, in the presence of their former victims. It came with a tremendous emotional cost, as Archbishop Tutu vividly describes. But the reward was greater. For telling the truth, the torturers received reconciliation with the community that had thrown them out.
The Truth and Reconciliation Commission is far from the light-hearted “Right Field” song. Yet both spring from the same basic human need to belong. Without other human beings, we are lost. We may do things that cause us to lose community, but no one is ever beyond reconciliation. That is true for individuals as well as the church. Is there someone formerly in your church who needs to hear from you? Someone in your own life who needs your reconciliation?
[Pentecost 12: Matthew 18:15-20.]
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
