University Baptist Church, Columbus, Ohio

I. Introduction

• There are very few things in our world of which we can be sure – according to Benjamin Franklin, the only certain things are death and taxes – I am not complaining – this is the way the world is – I remember the United States Bicentennial celebrations in 1976, and I remember thinking what a long time 200 years is – but in the whole span of human history, 200 years is not even a blink of an eye – the Roman Empire stood for nearly 1000 years – other empires and nations have existed for even longer periods than that
• The buildings we humans build, the monuments we erect, we think, “Ah, this will be here long after we are gone” – and often they do remain after their builders have faded out of memory – but eventually everything will fall – earth to earth, ashes to ashes, dust to dust
• But before it all began and after it all ends, God is – this is a consistent testimony of the Hebrew and Christian Bible – and God’s existence also means God’s consistent, enduring, unending love for us and for all of creation
• This word of assurance is at the heart of our text today from the Hebrew Bible

II. Assuring King and People

• Very rarely does anyone write history while it is happening – usually, we write about events long enough after the fact for us to begin to process the events in historical terms – so, too, with this biblical text – the historians of ancient Israel and Judah did not write their texts until the elites of the people were in exile in Babylon – and when we keep that in mind, we begin to see how important this text would have been to God’s people
• David is, of course, the model king, the epitome of a faithful king – faithful to God and faithful to the people – the time of David’s reign was so powerful in the memory of the Hebrew people that it became the representation of the reign of God’s anointed, of Messiah – in looking forward to the reign of Messiah, the people looked backward to the reign of David – it was a time of relative peace, a time when the enemies of Israel had gone down to defeat or were otherwise occupied with greater nations, a time when Israel was able to secure and even to expand the borders – while we would not call Israel under David an empire or even a particularly large nation, the nation did reach the height of its glory and power under David and his son Solomon
• The interesting thing is that David was so wonderful in the national memory, but he was not a very nice person and he was a lousy parent – you know the stories of David – I will not rehearse them now – they are all there in the same books where we read of how much God and David delight in each other – but here is one time when David wanted to do a thing and God said “No”
• David is looking around himself and he likes what he sees – his nation is more or less free from outside threat – he is a settled man in a nice, comfortable palace made of cedar – the ark is back in the safekeeping of Israel, but it sits in a tent – David thinks this is not a good thing – the primary symbol of the presence of God with Israel rests in a tent – the gods of all the other nations around Israel have fancy temples – they are impressive buildings, many of them, buildings worthy of a god – but a tent – that just makes Israel’s God look small – and it does not make Israel, or Israel’s king, look very impressive either – so David comes up with a solution to the problem – he, David, will build a house for God – then everything will be peachy – David tells the prophet, Nathan, about his plans, and the prophet tells the king to do it – he tells David that he should do just as he has planned, that God is with David – it seems that Nathan is only half right
• That night, as the historians tell the story, God speaks to Nathan and says to tell David to slow down – who does David think he is to build a house for God? – now, in I Kings 5, when Solomon is telling Hiram, the king of Tyre in Lebanon, about building a temple, Solomon says that David could not build it because he was too busy making war on his enemies – but here, the reason seems to be that God does not like closed spaces – that is awfully flippant, but what God tells the prophet is that God does not need a house – from the time in the wilderness on, God has moved about with the people – as God has moved among the people God has never said to any of them that God wants a house – so forget the house already
• The message seems to be that God is free to act, to move, to be – in a sense a house would be too confining, not for God, but for the people – if the people identify God too closely with a particular place, then they cannot see that God moves, that God has no limits
• In fact, this was one of the problems that the people in Babylon had – their idea of God was bound tightly with the temple, and it took them a while in Babylon to realize that they could worship God anywhere, that God was with them everywhere
• After God tells the prophet that David will not build a house for God, God goes on to say that God will build a house for David and that God will establish David’s house forever

III. A Time for Assurance

• As we have moved through Advent, we have shared messages from the school of the prophet Isaiah, messages of comfort and of justice and righteousness – as we live in this text today, I hear a message of assurance
• Of course, understanding why this is a text for Advent seems relatively straightforward – history tells us that David’s house eventually fell, that a time came when there was not even a nation of Israel or Judah any longer – Christians have then read the text and spiritualized it – many Christians have said that even though David’s physical and geographical dynasty ended, his spiritual house continues in the presence of the Christian traditions – that Jesus, as a descendent of David continues David’s house in a spiritual sense by sending the Holy Spirit to live in and through followers of Jesus – for myself, I do not think that is what the promise and covenant with David are about – you can decide what you think
• I think that the promise that God makes to David, the promise that sustained God’s people in Babylon, is the assurance that God moves with the people wherever they go
• To assure the exiles that God moved with them, the historians of ancient Judah looked to the past – they reckoned that if God had been with the king and the people then, God would be with the people in their distress in Babylon
• The message of assurance is the same for us – through the ministry of Jesus, God assures us that God is with us always and everywhere – and not only that, but God assures us that God is always leading us – God does not leave us to fumble our way through life alone – God persuades us, God encourages us, God guides us – in addition to Advent being a time of comfort and justice and righteousness, the message of assurance is another dimension of Advent – Advent is a time for assurance – Emmanuel, says our banner, God is with us

IV. Conclusion

• Advent is almost over – the celebration of the coming of Jesus into the world is nearly here – as we move through these last days of Advent, let us move with the assurance that we move with God and that God moves with us, every step of the way

11 December 2011

I. Introduction

• In the book of Ecclesiastes in the Hebrew Bible, there is a powerful message about time – if you grew up in the 1960s or ‘70s you probably heard the folk song by Pete Seeger, and made popular by The Byrds, called “Turn, Turn, Turn (To Everything There Is a Season)” – the lyrics of the song come directly from the biblical text, where the message is that there is a time for everything under the sun – a time to plant and a time to reap, a time to be born and a time to die, a time to weep and a time to laugh, a time to mourn and a time to dance, and so on
• Advent is certainly about time – last week we spoke about the time for comfort, in which God sees the duress of God’s people and the prophet says that God is bringing comfort to them
• This week, the word of God through the prophet is about some of the central ideas of the Vision of God in the world, and I hope that in this Advent season, we can hear the call to mission

II. The Anointing of the Lord

• Once again, as we did last week, let us put aside for a moment the connections this text has for the ministry of Jesus – if we can, let us look text as Jesus might have seen it
• This portion of the book of Isaiah, chapters 56-66, is what biblical scholars refer to as Third Isaiah, or Trito-Isaiah – it was written after the people had returned to Jerusalem – the words of Second Isaiah concerning were still ringing in their ears, as it were – their captors, the Babylonians had suffered defeat at the hands of the Persians under Cyrus, and Cyrus had returned all the captives to their places of origins – you see, what the Babylonians had done to the people of Judah, they had done also to the people of other nations – Cyrus decreed that all the captives should return to their nations and rebuild their temples and pray to their gods for them to bless Cyrus – he even provided seed money and traveling supplies for all the people who wanted to return – and not all the people of Judah returned to Jerusalem – some had grown up and lived their whole lives around Babylon – they had begun writing down the Hebrew Bible – they began developing the schools that would lead to the creation of the Talmud – they created the idea of the synagogue – they had learned in their nearly fifty years in Exile that God was with them wherever they went, so they decided that they did not need the temple in the same way that others believed they did – they could study Torah in Babylon as well as anywhere, so when Cyrus said they could go home, they said, “We are home” and they stayed
• Others, however, would never feel right singing the songs of Zion in a foreign land, so they wanted to go back to Jerusalem, even if they had been born in Babylon – so they returned – but the people who returned did so with a lot of new understandings of who they were as the people of God
• And do not forget the people who had been left behind after the Babylonians had taken away the leaders – they had lived among the ruins of their city for nearly fifty years – they had to live, so they farmed the land, even if they did not own it – they, too, had learned to live without the temple – and they learned to live without a king – when it all comes together, the return was not as wonderful a time as it might have been – there was conflict, there was corruption, there was disagreement about the temple, and there was even strife over what it meant to be God’s people
• In the midst of the difficulty, the word of God comes to a prophet in the school of Isaiah – and the prophet preaches justice, restoration, reconciliation, righteousness – the prophet preaches good news to the oppressed, comfort to the brokenhearted, liberty to the captives, release to the prisoners, and the year of the Lord’s favor – the last is a reference to the Jubilee Year in which all slaves are freed, land that has been sold is returned to the original owner, debts are forgiven, the land lies fallow – the prophet preaches comfort for mourners and tells them to rebuild their city – all of it points to a mission – the people of God are to do all these things, and in doing them they will become known among all the world, and the world will see that they are a people whom God has blessed
• And the people will praise God, too, because God has saved them – this is not salvation in the way so many people think of it today, is something eschatological, something that awaits the world’s end – for the prophet, salvation is for this world – salvation is living the life of justice and righteousness – salvation is less a reward than it is a calling to be God’s people, people of justice and righteousness

III. A Time of Justice and Righteousness

• Now we can see what Jesus saw in the text when he preached from it in Nazareth – we can see why it sets a paradigm for Jesus’ ministry – for Jesus, salvation is also about mission – it is also about justice and righteousness
• Too many Christians forget that – too many Christians see no need for justice in our world – they say we should just let the world go on its merry way – they say we cannot make a difference in the way the world works – they say, along with the nineteenth-century evangelist Dwight L. Moody that the world is going to get worse, and that God has given them a lifeboat, telling them to save all they can, because there is nothing that Christians can do to bring justice
• I say that Jesus came into the world, and continues to come into the world daily, for justice – Jesus came into the world to show the world a new, more excellent vision – the salvation he brings is for here and now and not for a later time – all the people to whom the prophet spoke were people whose needs were in this world – we need to remember that
• Our mission is to be a part of making justice manifest in the world – our mission is to stand up when a politician says that we should begin paying children to clean toilets and say in reply that perhaps he should go first – we need to speak up when our governing bodies decide that corporate profits are more important than the people who lose their jobs to make the profits larger – we need to express our outrage when banks beg for bailout money from the government, not so they can stop foreclosing on houses or so that people can continue to live in safety, but because their CEOs and boards of directors need six- and seven-figure bonuses – when we see injustice, when we see unrighteousness, the words of the prophet should be in our ears and in our mouths, saying that we have good news for the oppressed
• Advent is a time of waiting and preparation, but it is also a time of justice and righteousness – God is at work in the world through many people, not the least of whom are the ones who claim to follow Jesus Messiah, the ones who claim the name Christian – salvation is not only coming, it is here, now, and it is just and righteous – it is for the poor, the needy, the oppressed, the brokenhearted, the captive, the prisoner, the mourner, the ones who have faint hearts and spirits – these are the ones who the world will know as oaks of righteousness

IV. Conclusion

• In the biblical story of Esther, a series of events led to Esther becoming the queen of the Persians – at a time of crisis for her people, Esther received a message from Mordecai, who says to her that perhaps she has attained royal status “for such a time as this” – that phrase captures the importance of the message of  justice and righteousness during Advent
• In every age since the coming of Jesus into the world, his coming has been for such a time as this – the justice and righteousness that sound as a clarion call from the ancient prophet are at the heart of Jesus’ life and ministry
• This is a time of God’s comfort for all God’s people – and this is no less a time of justice and righteousness, because this is the Vision of God

4 December 2011

I. Introduction

• We all of us need comfort from time to time – last evening at our annual Christmas event, Devi Monjot needed comfort and ran to her mother in the choir – Kay picked up Devi and Devi was able to calm down – and we all know something of what Devi was feeling – we feel alone and need the voice of a loved one or a friend – we feel fear and we need the presence of someone we trust to calm our fear – we feel distrust and need another person to give us some assurance – we all need the comfort we receive from one another – it is a part of being human
• There are times, however, when another person can give us only some of what we need – there are times when we feel spiritually isolated, when we fear that God has left us, when we wonder if God is there at all, or if there is a God at all – what do we do then? – to whom can we turn for comfort when we are aware of an emptiness in our lives, when we experience what the French mathematician Blaise Pascal is supposed to have called a “God-shaped vacuum”? – where do go for comfort when the only one who can give comfort seems so far away?
• These are questions that I imagine were in the mind of the prophet at a time of particular difficulty and pain – the answer that the prophet gives in ancient times is still an answer for us today

II. A Need for Comfort

• Chapter 40 of Isaiah begins a new section, biblical scholars refer to this section as the work of Second Isaiah, or Deutero-Isaiah, and it makes repeated references to the Exile in Babylon – you remember your biblical history – in the sixth century BCE, the Babylonian emperor Nebuchadnezzar, deported the royal household, the religious leadership, and the social elite from Jerusalem to Babylon, and razed the temple to the ground – God’s people in Babylon felt cut off from God – all the symbols of their relationship with God, the temple, the artifacts, the land, everything was gone – the Babylonians had taken away all of it and left them with nothing – and the people felt the loss deeply, so deeply that they would write song about it, a song we call Psalm 137 [Read the Psalm here] – do you hear the pain in the song? – it is real – I do not know about you, but I feel it in my deepest self, the anguish, the loss, the pain – I want to cry out, to scream, to rage against the cause of such sorrow
• Scholars so often focus on the Exiles, sitting by the rivers of Babylon, and on their pain, but there was another group that was feeling loss – the Babylonians did not take away everyone – they left many behind in the area around Jerusalem – the poor, the farmers, the shepherds, the common people remained in the land – there was no one to protect them – they were alone on the frontier of the Babylonian empire – the temple was gone – most of the priests were gone – the things they needed to worship God, the direction, the instruction, the guidance – where were the ones remaining in the land to go for what they needed? – I wonder if this is not some of what the prophet means when he says that the people have received double for all their sins – and God tells the prophet to speak tenderly to Jerusalem, so we cannot forget all of God’s people, whether in Babylon or Jerusalem
• The situation was that all of them were living under the crushing weight of loss, of oppression, of fear – and into this God-shaped vacuum, the prophet speaks a word from God, and it begins and ends with comfort
• The people understood what had happened to them as God’s judgment – they had sinned, the kings had sinned, they had not heard the words of the prophets, and God brought down judgment on them – we can talk sometime about this, but let me say that I do not think the Exile was God’s judgment on a sinful people – it was a political reality of the day – but the ancients lived in a time when they believed that everything that happened came from God, including the difficult things – and seeing as they viewed the Exile as judgment, then that meant that there had to be a lesson for them to learn – the return to the land at the end of the Exile proved that they had learned the lesson – it also proved that God is gracious and forgiving – as they looked back on the Exile, they saw that God had been with them all the time, preparing a way in the wilderness for them to return home
• This word of comfort is almost exactly the opposite of Psalm 137 – instead of a lament, it is a song of comfort and praise – it is a hymn of joy in God, who is at work to restore the people to the land, to take them home, as a shepherd who gathers the lambs of the flock and leads the mother sheep, so God will gather his scattered flock and take them safely to the fold – there was a need for comfort, and through the prophet God speaks a word of comfort

III. A Word of Comfort

• I like to preach from the Hebrew Bible texts when we are in Advent because so often the texts look to the future, as this one did for the people of God in ancient times – but I also want to make it clear that I do not believe that this text refers to the coming of Jesus – the reason that this portion of Isaiah is an Advent reading is because the evangelist Mark uses the text to refer to John the Baptizer (Mark 1.3) – the Evangelist sees the Baptizer as the one who is preparing the way for the coming of Messiah – but that was not the intention of Second Isaiah – we can only see the connection by looking backward
• Still, what I see as the original message of the text, a word of comfort, is just as real and just as vital today as it was two and a half millennia ago
• Where do we find the comfort we need when it is comfort that only God can give? – one place is in the community of the churches – we will find among our sisters and brothers people whose experiences are similar to our own – and even if we have not had the same experiences, we are tender-hearted toward each other and want to walk with each other through the difficulties – we may not be all the comfort we need, but we are an important source of comfort
• Another place to look for comfort is in the Bible – you may think I am being overly pious, but I think it is true – the power of the Bible is not that it predicts the future, as some believe it does – the power of the Bible is that it is full of stories of the relationships between God and people – and I find comfort in the stories, not because they are factual but because they are true
• When we need comfort, God is at work to bring comfort into our lives – God is not about judgment – God does not sit in some divine courtroom looking for transgressions for which to punish us – God is about grace, about forgiveness, about restoration
• Through the prophet God says that the time of judgment is over – the sorrow is at an end – now is the time for comfort

IV. Conclusion

• And that is the message of Advent – why did Jesus come into the world? – according to the Evangelist it was because God so loved the world – God did not send the son into the world to condemn the world, but to restore the world to proper relationship with God
• That is the comfort of Advent – and while Second Isaiah was not thinking of Messiah when he preached this word of comfort, I believe Jesus was thinking of Second Isaiah when he spoke to Nicodemus in the garden at night
• Messiah has come, and Messiah comes to us every day with love, grace, forgiveness, and wholeness – Messiah comes and is a word of comfort now and always

 20 November 2011

• We are tempted to look at today’s gospel text as a parable, but, really, it is not – it is more like a statement in the tradition of the ancient prophets – it is a word from the Lord concerning, once again, the end time – and Jesus begins the statement with “When the Son of Man comes in his glory…” – and if you were here last week, you might recall that I said that the parable of the talents, which is not an allegory, sets the stage for this prophetic word
• In the parable of the talents, I said that the master and the two so-called good slaves describe how the world is – the world is a place where people value good business sense, in every negative connotation you can imagine for that term – the master is a harsh man who reaps where he has not sown and gathers where he has not scattered seed – he does not work for his wealth, he takes it from others – the two slaves he praises, the two who invest his money and double it, are people just like the master – they have acted much as he would have done – what he praises is that he sees himself in their profitable business dealings – they may be slaves, but they have good heads for making money
• I also said that if there is anyone in the story with whom Jesus’ disciples would have identified, that it is the third slave, the one the harsh master calls lazy, wicked, and worthless – the third slave is the one who defies the master even though he is afraid – he stands against the way of the world – he stands against reaping where one does not sow – he stands against the wealthy who oppress the poor – and for his pains, the harsh master takes away everything the slave has and throws him into the outer darkness – and I submit that the third slave is the one Jesus wants us to emulate – I believe Jesus want us to stand against unjust business practices and injustice – when we come to today’s text, we see some ways that we can do that
• Jesus’ prophetic statement here is not a prediction of the future – it is not a timetable or schedule of events – he is telling his disciples something about how to live their lives to please God – there will come a day, Jesus says, when everyone will stand before the Son of Man and Son of Man will judge their actions, placing “sheep” at the right hand and the “goats” at the left hand – the difference between the sheep and the goats, however, is not a matter of belief – Jesus does not say that the sheep have believed in God and in God’s work through Jesus while the goats have not believed – Jesus does not say that the sheep have held the correct dogmas and the goats have not – Jesus here says nothing at all about belief – he talks about action – he talks about people demonstrating who they are by what they do
• The sheep have seen Jesus hungry and fed him, seen him thirsty and given him drink, seen him as a stranger welcomed him, seen him naked and clothed him, seen him sick and taken care of him, and visited him in prison – this is a surprise to the sheep – they have no memory of seeing Jesus in any of these circumstances – and then comes the big reveal – any time the sheep have done these things, they have done them for Jesus – and the goats are the ones who did none of those things – the sheep receive the reward God has prepared for them since the foundation of the world – the goats receive nothing
• Do not get caught up in the idea of reward and punishment – what the text is about is about living in ways that are consonant with what we say – to me, this is what our University Baptist Church mission statement is about – it is about being and doing
• Our mission, in part, is to be the people God has made us and called us to be – our mission, in part, is to be authentic followers of Jesus Messiah – and we must never underestimate the value of being – being is central to living into the Vision of God – but being is only one part of the mission – we also strive to do – we strive to make authentic followers of Jesus Messiah – we strive to live lives of extravagant welcome and hospitality so that others will want to share in the journey, to share their stories with our stories
• Another way in which we strive to do is in our giving to others, in our service in the cause of Jesus Messiah in the world – we give of our time, our effort, our wealth, not out of guilt or out of coercion – we give because we have received – we give of ourselves because that is people of the Vision do
• In the Christian calendar, we call today the Reign of Christ – it is a time to remember the rule of Jesus in the lives of Christians and in the churches – it is a time to remember that God has created and continues to create all that is – all that we have and all that we are come from the hand of God
• In just a minute, you are going to have opportunity to discuss the concept of stewardship within the context of our mission – as we share stories with one another, may God be at the heart of our conversations – and may we always remember all that we are to be and to do as people of the Vision

13 November 2011

I. Introduction

• First things first – I know what you are thinking – you are thinking, well, here is another stewardship sermon about using our gifts for God, about not burying our “talents” – you have heard heaven only knows how many sermons on this text in your lives, and I have preached some, in which that was the message – I do not want you to be too surprised, but I want you to forget all those sermons – as I studied and prayed about this text this week, I came to the conclusion that that interpretation misses the boat altogether – I have been wrong to preach the text as I have done
• Part of the problem is, as I have said many times during this year when the parables have come into our readings, that this is not an allegory – some parables work as allegories, but this one does not – but we want it to work that way – we want it so dearly that we ignore the difficult parts of the story – we want it, so we twist the rest of the story into the one we want it to be
• You know the allegorical elements – the master is God, who invests some servants with varying amounts of talents, which is an amount of money, and which we usually understand as both financial wealth and as natural abilities – two of the servants invest the money, or use their talents, wisely and when the master returns they present him with more than they had at the start – the third servant, usually thought of as foolish or unwise, knows that the master is a hard man and buries his money/ability in the ground rather than risking losing it – the fact that the master admits he is a hard man ought to be reason enough for us to realize that he does not represent God, but that is one of the bits we skip over – so the master berates the foolish servant and takes away the money/ability that he had and gives it to another of the servants, and then the master throws the worthless servant into the outer darkness  where there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth
• You may remember another parable that I preached on that ended with the same saying, the parable of the wedding banquet (Matthew 22. 1-14) – that was another parable whose usual interpretation is as allegory and I tried to reinterpret it in a way that makes sense – I ended up by saying that the peasant who came to the wedding banquet without the proper attire and who got thrown out into the outer darkness actually represents Jesus’ usual audience – the one who is thrown out is in reality the one who is faithful to God, one of the ones with whom Jesus always allies himself in the gospels – in fact, if was want that parable to be allegory, then maybe the peasant represents Jesus, whose coming is so upsetting to the principalities and powers of the world
• In any case, I believe that the usual interpretation of today’s text misses the point once again, and we do well to put it out of our minds
• Another part of the problem is the numbering of the verses in the English versions of the Bible – you must remember that when the first writers wrote down the texts, they did not include chapters and verses – they just wrote the stories – the chapters and verses came much later, and, believe me, there is nothing inspired about them – too many times they break apart texts that should be together – this is one of those cases
• So, if you can, try to forget what you have heard this text say before today and try to hear it as if for the first time – after we are done, if you want to think of it in the way to which you are used, I will not stop you – but for the next few minutes, let us follow a different path

II. Reinterpreting the Parable

• Look at the story again – there is a man – he is wealthy and he is hard – he reaps where he does not sow, he gathers where he does not scatter seed – in short, he is little better than a thief – but he is a rich thief, for all that – he is going away on a journey and entrusts some of his property to his servants, according to the servants’ abilities to handle the property – to me, this says he looks at the servants in terms of their business acumen – to one the master gives five talents, a large sum of money – no one knows precisely how much a talent was worth in Jesus day – usually a talent is a unit of mass – an exact understanding of the value of a talent is not necessary to understand the story – five talents is a fabulous amount of money – to another servant the master gives two talents, again, a significant amount – to a third servant, he gives one talent, still no small thing – the two servants who are good people of business, they invest the money and double it, so that when the master returns he is pleased and rewards the two servants with increased responsibility in the master’s business
• The third servant remembers that the master is a hard man, a fact the master does not deny, and buries the large sum of money in his care, so that when the master returns, the servant has not lost any of it – it is all still there just as the master had left it – this third servant is not a good business person – he did not invest the money – he did not lend it out at interest – he did nothing with it at all, so the master takes the money away from him and throws him out of the household into the outer darkness
• This is not a pretty picture – this is not a story of grace and love – it is a story of the way the world is – the world is about profit, about getting ahead, about reaping where we do not sow and gathering where we do not scatter seed – Jesus is telling his disciples that this is the way of the world – but why does Jesus tell such a mean story at all?

III. The Faithful Servant

• As we search for a new understanding of the story, let us look first at the setting – it is another in a series of stories that Jesus uses to speak of the eschaton, of the end time – what does Jesus say about the end time here? – he says that for some, everything will be business as usual – there will be money to be made, and the people who can make money will make money – they do not have to be nice people – they have only to be willing to do what it takes to make money – as he is wont to do, the master in the story once again reaps where he has not sown – he did nothing to earn the money the servants made for him – in fact, we do not know that the servants did anything to earn it – it seems quite likely to me that in some way usury is involved in their making money – and God’s instruction specifically forbids usury among God’s people – it seems to me that it is likely that they were unfaithful to the covenant God made with God’s people
• In contrast to the two “good” servants stands the “wicked and lazy” servant, the “worthless” servant – this servant does nothing to advance the master’s wealth – this is the one the master singles out for particularly drastic punishment – but I think that this is the one Jesus wants to hold up to his followers as an example not of foolishness and worthlessness, but as an exemplar of faithfulness
• The two servants do exactly what their hard master expects of them – they act in completely conventional ways and reap completely conventional rewards – they make their own way in the world, even given the awful limitations of their status as servants – we might argue that the third servant essentially also does what the master expects – in the story, Jesus says that the servants received according to their abilities – the master did not expect much from the third servant, so why is he so angry that he acts unreasonably? – perhaps the master hoped that the servant would rise to the occasion, that he would grow beyond himself and join the master in reaping where he does not sow
• The servant, however, does not transcend himself, at least not as the master had hoped – he does not participate in business-as-usual – he stands alone against the prevailing tide of business – even with all his fear, he opposes the power over him, he opposes empire, and in his opposition he embodies faith in God – he goes out into the outer darkness of the world, but he goes with God
• This is what sometimes happens to followers of Jesus Messiah – they stand against the world, not with violence or anger, but with faith in the call and grace of God – the third servant is not worthless – the servant is a human being loved of God, and his stand is the stand of God’s faithful in the end time – some of the questions we have to face today is these: are we willing to stand with Jesus Messiah against the principalities and powers of the world? – are we willing to look for the movement of God on behalf of the poor and oppressed? – are we willing to be faithful servants of Jesus Messiah even if it means losing status and station in the eyes of the world?

IV. Conclusion

• There it is, the story of the faithful servant – I realize it may be a stretch for some of us, but I think looking at the text in a new way is worth the effort
• Go out into the world as faithful servants – go and be the people of God, the people of the Vision – stand with the good news – and know this: wherever we go and whatever we do, God stands with us in love, grace, mercy, and compassion
• Go, therefore, good and faithful servants, and enter into the joy of your true master

6 November 2011

I. Introduction

• In some Christian circles, this parable is extremely important – when I was researching and writing my dissertation, the parable came up repeatedly – you may know that my dissertation is a biography of William Miller, a nineteenth-century self-educated farmer and lay preacher in Upstate New York – after an extensive study of the Bible, Miller reached the conclusion that Jesus Christ would return about the year 1843 – this parable was a significant piece of Miller’s justification of his preaching and teaching the Second Coming – he said more than once that if Christ did not return when Miller believed he would, then the worst thing anyone could say of him was that he had been wrong – at the same time, Miller reasoned that the religious revivals that frequently occurred in the churches and towns where he taught were reason enough to endure any scorn of which he might be the object – if, on the other hand, Miller kept his beliefs to himself and many people came to a bad end at the Second Coming, then Miller believed he would be liable to God for having known the truth and not spoken it
• Time has taught us, of course, that William Miller, as sincere as he was, was wrong about the date – and after the dates had all passed, Miller vowed never to set another, but to live only as if each day were the day of the Second Coming – in many ways, Miller was a person of great integrity, but he was wrong – he probably would have been better off if he had taken verse less literally – as an aside, Miller saw that the verse declares that no one may know the day or the hour, and he concluded that since the verse does not mention the year, that he could decipher biblical clues to discover the year – oh, well
• Miller’s use of the parable was not atypical in his day, and still is not atypical today – Christians who give a good deal of attention to the issue of the Second Coming have frequently used the parable of the wise and unwise bridesmaids in their predictions – it has served as a sort of a cautionary tale, a warning to everyone to be prepared – by contrast, I would like us to look at the text and apply it more broadly in our lives today

II. The Parable of Preparedness

• There is something about end-time predictions that is attractive to many people – I am not quite sure what it is – it may be the sense that, in the end, all one’s enemies experience the agony of defeat – it may be joy that when all is said and done, God’s righteousness and justice prevail, even if God’s mercy is somehow not a factor in the equation – maybe it is a simple, sincere belief in some so-called literal interpretation of the Bible, even if the interpretation is largely speculative (I refer you here to the Hal Lindsay’s apocalyptic predictions in The Late, Great Planet Earth (1970)) – the problem with so many of these predictions is that they inevitably focus on calendars, timetables, and schedules, even if there is no actual setting of dates
• Some people want to know about the end-time because they want to prepare, but not in any positive sense – even William Miller worried about this – he was afraid that if anyone tried to predict to narrowly when the end would be, some would live their wild, unchristian lives right up until the final days when they would undergo a so-called conversion
• As I read this parable about the ten bridesmaids, I think less of some unknown and unknowable date when Jesus Messiah may or may not return than I think about living lives of preparedness – that is how I prefer to think of the story, as a parable of preparedness
• Jesus is speaking to his disciples, his closest followers in this text – this is a part of a long dialogue in which Jesus says a lot of things that are interpreted as apocalyptic or eschatological, focusing on the last days – but he says repeatedly in different ways, that the disciples cannot expect a strict schedule of events – the key is not what happens when, but being ready for whatever happens – throughout chapter 24, Jesus says that a lot of things will happen, but they are the types of things that happen in every age, every generation – in effect, every generation could be the one, could it not? – so “you must also be ready” (Mt. 24.44)
• In our story for today there are ten bridesmaids (the Greek word translates literally as “virgins”) preparing to meet the arriving bridegroom, but he is delayed – five of the women were wise and five were foolish – they all have their lamps trimmed and ready to provide light for the bridegroom – they all get tired and sleep – and when they hear the shout that the bridegroom is near, they all awaken – the only difference between the wise women and the foolish ones is that the wise women are prepared to wait – they have brought extra oil for their lamps – the foolish women realize that they do not have enough oil for the celebration and ask the wise women to share some of their excess, but the wise women refuse, saying that if they share then all ten of them will run out too early – so the foolish women are on their own to find the oil they need – by the time they find it, the bridegroom has arrived, the party has started, and the door is locked – no one else can enter the party – and, oddly enough, the end of the story is a warning to keep awake

III. Be Prepared

• The first couple of generations after Jesus’ death and resurrection, the idea of his Second Coming had a lot of traction, especially after Paul’s letters started to circulate among the churches – the Second Coming, however, is hardly a part of the gospels – there are some few eschatological passages (Matthew 24; the Little Apocalypse of Mark 13), but beyond those, there is really not much about Jesus’ return – I think that is in part because by the time the Evangelists composed the gospels, the idea of the Second Coming, while still important, was becoming less immediate – fifty or sixty years after the resurrection, I think the churches were beginning to adjust their thinking to cope with the delay – so I believe they were thinking, “if Jesus is not coming right away, what are we to do in the meantime?”
• For us, the question of the Second Coming is probably second nature – we no longer expect that Jesus’ return is imminent – some of us believe that the Second Coming really is a metaphor, thinking that whenever a person chooses to become a follower of Jesus, that is a Second Coming, or thinking that in Jesus God is constantly coming into our lives and into the world in new ways
• In whatever ways we choose to think of the Second Coming, the story of the wise and foolish bridesmaids is a way for us to remember to be prepared, to be always ready – I do not mean that we have to live in ways that are constant high alert – it is not like the published Homeland Security threat levels – I have heard so often that the level is “orange” that I think “orange” (high risk) has become the new “green” (low risk) – I do not even hear the warning any more – living with constant threat wears me out – and I suspect that I am not alone in this
• In the same way, we cannot live lives of constant vigilance for the Second Coming – so what I believe Jesus is saying to his disciples, and to us, is that we should live our lives according to the Vision of God – remember he begins the parable by saying “The kingdom of heaven (or the Vision of God) will be like this” — the question we need to ask ourselves, then, is what being prepared means for us – we do not need to carry oil for our lamps or even gas masks to defend against biological threats from terrorists
• Being prepared means living into the Vision – it means loving our neighbors and our enemies – it means doing everything as bearers of the Vision to the world – being prepared does not mean ceasing the normal activity of our lives so that we can gather on hilltops and scan the skies for evidence of the coming apocalypse – it does not mean that we stop living – quite the opposite – being prepared means we start living life to its fullest extent, that we live in the most authentic relationships we can, that we love others as God has loved us – it means that we never stop learning, studying, striving – that is what I believe it means to be prepared

IV. Conclusion

• I admire William Miller, and not only because he helped me earn a doctorate – I admire him because he was a genuine, sincere person who believed God called him to act in a way that set him at odds with the wider world, and William Miller still did it – of course he was wrong, but I admire the commitment, the courage to do what he believed was right – he is sorely misunderstood today, and I do not recommend that any of us put our heads in the mouths of the lions of society as he did, but he was prepared in the only way he knew how to be
• I pray that we are all prepared, for the Second Coming in whatever ways we conceive it, and for living as ministers and missionaries to all the world, from the corner of Lane and High to the farthest reaches of creation

30 October 2011

I. Introduction

• The title of the sermon is a twist on the parents’ old standby saying – when children point out to their parents an inconsistency between word and action, saying, “Dad, I thought we weren’t supposed to yell at the other drivers on the road – I thought we were supposed to be patient” – “Well, kids,” parents say, “don’t do as I do, do as I say”
• Parents all know, of course, that this does not work – they might even say it laughingly or with a smile because we all know that children see right through this sort of low-level hypocrisy – children know when their parents are out of line, at least as often and as easily as parents know their children are out of line – what children lack in experience, they make up for in observation – this should be in bold print in the parents’ handbook, if there actually were a handbook
• We are like these inconsistent parents – we all talk a good game, often a much better game than we play, or can play – we are good at telling others, and even ourselves, how we should all act, but as often as not we cannot follow through on all our talk
• One of the things that makes Jesus such a wonderful exemplar for us is his consistency, his ability to talk the talk and walk the walk, as the cliché puts it – in today’s gospel reading, Jesus warns his followers and the crowds around all of them against anyone who says one thing and does another – in effect, he is telling everyone something similar to what I began by saying parents sometimes say to their children – the difference is, when Jesus says it of the hypocrites who have been challenging him, it is not a humorous thing – he is quite serious

II. Introduction to the Woes

• I want to say at the outset here that there is a danger in the 23^rd chapter of Matthew – historically many Christians have read it and seen in it a justification for anti-Semitism, for thinking themselves superior to the Jews – but that is a serious and sorrowful misreading of the chapter and I would not have any of us leave today thinking that way – in the preceding chapters of the gospel, the Evangelist has been relating a series of scenes in Jerusalem in Jesus’ last days before his crucifixion – the players in these scenes mainly have been Jesus, Jesus’ followers, various temple leaders (chief priests, elders, scribes, lawyers, Pharisees, Sadducees), and the crowds gathering in and around the temple in the days leading up to the celebration of Passover – the scenes have focused on questions, answer, stories, challenges, politics, and the central issue of authority – Jesus is not denouncing his own people generally but some bad, maybe even dangerous, leaders in particular – and in fact, we can and should generalize his words about the scribes and Pharisees to any leaders, religious, political, philosophical, any leaders who act in similar ways
• So pay attention when Jesus tells his audience that they should do everything the scribes and Pharisees teach them – these teachers know the Instruction of God inside and out – they know the commandments – they know the requirements of living in covenant with God and with one another – they know whereof they speak, so listen to them – they sit on Moses’ seat – in matters of the law, they represent the tradition, so give them due deference – give them appropriate honor and respect because of their knowledge and experience – but do not do as they do – oh no, do not do that
• The problem with the scribes and Pharisees is not in their knowledge or in their teaching – their problem is in their doing, in their actions – they speak of praising and glorifying God, but they put themselves in the spotlight – they speak of the burdens of leadership, the weight of responsibility they bear, the onus of authority, but they are “unwilling to lift a finger” to make the burdens of the people easier to bear – quite the opposite, they add their own weight to the burdens of the people – they make a show of their piety by making their phylacteries big and showy and the fringes of their prayer shawls extra long – it is all a show for them – with these particular scribes and Pharisees, everything is all about them all the time – they want the seats of honor at the banquets – they want courtside seats at the ballgames – they want to sit behind home plate so that they are on television every time the audience sees the batter – they want the paparazzi following them – they want everyone to know who they are and to use the correct terms of respect when addressing them – and do you know what? – they get all of that and more most of the time – and, if we remember Jesus’ words in the Sermon on the Mount, they have received their reward already – they get the fame and the recognition and the attention and that is all they get
• The situation in which Jesus depicts the scribes and Pharisees is not due to their being Jewish leaders – they have simply made the same mistake that many human beings make – they think too highly of themselves – they think themselves better than the ones of whom they should really be the servants
• Instead of calling them rabbi, Jesus says, call them students – go further, call everyone students because all have one teacher – go even further, call no one father, or mother, because all have one eternally loving parent in heaven – and call no one instructor, for there is only one true instructor: Messiah
• Then come the paradoxes, of course – the greatest will be the servant – the ones who exalt themselves, as the unwise scribes and Pharisees have done, will be humbled, and the ones who humble themselves will be exalted – the logic of the Vision of God is never what the world understands as logic – the way of the Vision is one hundred eighty degrees from the way of the world – the scribes and Pharisees forgot that – Jesus’ words and deeds are reminders to them and to us about the true way of the Vision
• Whereas Jesus says to the crowds and to his followers do as the leaders say, but not as they do, the internal consistency of his life says to us do as he says and as he does – Jesus’ words and actions both point to the truth of the Vision he has come to initiate

III. Do as I Say and as I Do

• Anyone who is a leader in our world, in any sort of situation in which power and authority come into play, they would do well to remember these sayings of Jesus’ – they are a caution to those who would abuse their positions of authority for their own purposes – our newspapers and blogs are full of stories of politicians on the take, public officials who receive bribes and improper benefits – our entertainments frequently refer to the criminal who has a power judge or legislator in his, or her, pocket – we do not have to look far to find contemporary illustrations of the same type of disparities between word and deed as Jesus pointed out
• The more important application of these sayings, however, is in our own lives – our human pride, our self-satisfaction about our accomplishments, our belief in our superiority over others because of our education or our status or our wealth or our possessions, these are the same sort of thing against which Jesus warned the crowds around him in Jerusalem – we are all of us humans – we are all subject to the same struggles – and if we think we are not, we add self-delusion to the list – while to a certain extent I want to be critical of us all, myself included, and while there are abundant cautions in scripture against our thinking more highly of ourselves than is meet, I do not want us to feel too bad – this is a part of our human condition – it is a part of human nature to want attention, to want others to notice us and respect us – it is who we are to want others to listen to us, to heed us – at times any and all of us are susceptible to hypocrisy
• The corrective, then, to our human hypocrisy is the example of Jesus – he shows us how to live lives of consistent service, love, and discipleship – he shows us that we can follow both his words and his actions – he also shows us that when we live in authentic relationships with him and with one another, then we can move beyond our hypocrisies, small and large

IV. Conclusion

• Jesus says to us do as I say and as I do – and in hearing those words there is hope and there is life for us all

23 October 2011

I. Introduction

• You may know that the name by which modern Jews refer to the Bible, that is, the Hebrew Bible is Tanakh – this is the collection of texts that Christians have traditionally referred to a the Old Testament – Tanakh is an acronym that arises from three Hebrew words: Torah, Nevi’im, and Ketuvim – these words refer to the three divisions, the three sections of the Hebrew Bible: The Law, the Prophets, and the Writings – Torah, or the Law, is, of course, the first five books of the Hebrew Bible – the traditional author of these books is Moses – the books contain the earliest history of the people of Israel, from creation to standing on the doorstep of the Promised Land – the stories tell of the roots of the relationship between God and the people, of their slavery in Egypt, of the Exodus, and of the Law, or instruction, of God – the second section, Nevi’im, or the Prophets, focuses on the work and words of several of the preachers in the history of the people, on what God spoke to the people through the preachers – the third section, Ketuvim, or the Writings, includes a number of books of poetry, such as the Psalms, Lamentations, and the Song of Songs, along with other books that do not fit into the former categories, such as the books of Chronicles, Ezra, Nehemiah, Ruth, and Esther – in Jesus’ time, only the Law and the Prophets had become fixed in the canon of Hebrew sacred writings
• For Jesus in our gospel text today to refer to the Law and the Prophets tells us a number of things – and we need to listen to him

II. Further Dispute with the Pharisees

• Our text today resumes the dispute that the Evangelist has been describing in the sections leading up to this one – but our lectionary omits a piece, and I do not know why – in the omitted story, some Sadducees come to Jesus with an elaborate question concerning Levirate marriage, which required the brother of a deceased man to marry the deceased man’s widow – the question the Sadducees ask extends this requirement to an absurd length, passing through seven brothers who all marry the same woman – and then asking whose wife she would be in the resurrection – of course, the irony of the question is that the Sadducees as a group did not believe in the resurrection or in any afterlife at all – Jesus’ response is to tell them that they do not know the scriptures – if they did, they would know that they have made a number of incorrect assumptions, the chief of them being that God does not view life and death as human beings do – to some extent, we think of life as the state of being not dead – perhaps because our mortality is always with us, even being alive is in some ways a march toward the grave – that is certainly true of the Sadducees who are questioning Jesus – God, on the other hand, is radically alive – God does not die, will not die – God is not just immortal, God is the opposite of mortal – death does not shade or affect God in any way – thus, Jesus is not simply telling the Sadducees that they are wrong, he is also telling them that they have no idea who God is – and with this declaration, he silences the Sadducees
• When the Pharisees hear of it, they return to their dispute with Jesus – they decide to test him again – one of them, a lawyer, asks Jesus a question concerning great commandments – in one way, Jesus’ response is entirely orthodox – he could not have answered any better – apparently without hesitation, Jesus quotes Deuteronomy 6.5: Love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, and with all your mind – this is an extremely familiar text for the Pharisees – they would repeat these words often in worship and in prayer – they are a part of the saying called the Shema, which means “hear,” and begins “Hear, O Israel, the Lord your God is One” – with his answer Jesus demonstrates that he knows what is orthodox by the definition of the Pharisees – but Jesus does not leave it at that
• Instead, Jesus adds to the words about loving God another saying from Torah, this time from Leviticus 19.18: Love your neighbor as yourself – I cannot be absolutely sure of this, but I do not believe that any of the Pharisees had ever connected these two commandments before – I believe that the Pharisees knew them and more or less practiced them, but I do not believe they had ever connected them – and certainly with the implication that the second is “like,” or “similar to,” or “the same as,” the first – I believe they had not thought of loving God and loving others as two sides of a coin, as two expressions of the same thing, i.e., the Law of Love
• To top it off, Jesus tells them that everything else in the law and the prophets hangs on these two commandments – everything else is lower branches compared with these two – the Law of Love is above all else – this message is at the heart of the Law, the Prophets, and the mission and ministry of Jesus
• In the next piece of the story Jesus is the one with the questions – he asks the Pharisees whose son Messiah is – by this he may be inquiring of which tribe Messiah will come – the answer is, quite naturally, that Messiah is David’s son – the expectation in Jesus’ time is that Messiah will be a political and religious figure who will reestablish the golden age of David’s reign – but Jesus’ next question stuns the Pharisees – Jesus refers to Psalm 110.1, assuming that David is the author of the psalm and that when David refers to “my lord” he is referring to Messiah – but Jewish interpretations of the scripture do not understand Psalm 110 as a messianic psalm – Jesus reinterprets scripture in a new way, and the Pharisees have no answer – in Matthew’s gospel, this ends the dispute between Jesus and the religious authorities

III. The Law and the Prophets

• Among the things that Jesus is saying by his reference to the Law and the Prophets is that these two commandments, which are related but not completely identical, is that this is what God requires of the people of God – when Micah the Prophet says that the Lord requires people to do justice, love mercy, and walk humbly with God, that is included in the summary that Jesus offers
• Another thing Jesus is saying is an echo that I hear from his other use of the phrase in Matthew’s gospel – in the Sermon on the Mount, Jesus says: In everything do to others as you would have them do to you; for this is the Law and the Prophets – there are other places, perhaps, where Jesus refers to the Law and the Prophets together, but only in the Sermon and here does he refer to a summary of the Law and the Prophets – what I hear is that loving others means doing to others as we would have them do to us – we might say that it is difficult to know what the loving thing to do is in a situation, but if we follow Jesus’ teaching here, finding the loving thing to do may be as simple deciding what we would want someone to do with us if we were in a similar situation
• Loving others and dealing with them as we would have them deal with us is also simple when we follow the example of God’s love for us and for creation – who does God love? What does God love? – God loves everyone and everything
• By comparison loving God is simple – we give everything we feel, everything we are and have, and everything we think to God – our lives are not our own exclusively – we are God’s, we are people of God’s Vision – while we are free to live as we want and to do and to be whatever we choose to do and to be, for all who live in relationship with God through Jesus Messiah, that relationship informs all our choices – we can choose whatever we want, but the Law of Love guides us to choose to live in loving, compassionate, and peaceful ways, to choose to live according to the Law and the Prophets

IV. Conclusion

• Insofar as loving God and loving neighbor is a matter of discerning the loving thing, it may be easy to do – the problem for us is that the loving thing is not always the easy thing to do or the popular thing to do – sometimes the loving thing to do seems almost to be an accusation or judgment of others who would act differently, but it need not be that
• In any given situation there may be any number of loving things to do – surely the depth of the Law and the Prophets, surely the depth of the Law of Love give us latitude in our actions
• Whatever we choose to do, let us do it all in love – everything hangs on this, including the Law and the Prophets

16 October 2011

I. Introduction

• Thomas à Kempis was a fifteenth-century monk in Germany – he spent most of his adult life as a copyist in a monastery – we probably would not know him, except that he is the supposed author of a book that has become one of the most loved books of Christian devotion ever written – he was probably the one who wrote The Imitation of Christ – this devotional book, which focuses on the life within and withdrawal from the world, and on devotion to the Eucharist as the keys to spiritual life and devotion, is widely available even today
• For Thomas, separation from the world and complete devotion of oneself to Jesus Messiah was a vital thing – like so much devotional writing, there is a dichotomy, a divide between things spiritual and thing physical – this is not to say that the physical is inherently evil, but it is certainly inferior – the way of Christ, the way of devotion to prayer and meditation, the way of the Eucharist, this is the superior way, the way of life – the book is a wonderful meditation on this way
• Most of us, however, do not live in monasteries – we cannot focus every moment on living lives of devotion – we live in the world and we must make do – and yet perhaps there is a way to follow Christ, to be imitators of Christ even out here extra muros, outside the walls – I think that in this story of another confrontation that Jesus has tells us exactly how to live the imitation of Christ, even if he did not use that term

II. Another Confrontation

• In Matthew’s gospel, this story comes hard on the heels of the series of parables that Jesus told to deal with the issue of his authority – he is in the last days of his life before his crucifixion and this time the ones who confront him are some disciples of the Pharisees and some Herodians – the disciples of the Pharisees, presumably, are students – they are ones seeking some measure of authority for themselves – they are studying with teachers who received their authority from their teachers – and someday the students in their turn will become the authoritative teachers – the Herodians might be supporters of Herod Antipas, the Roman client king who ruled Galilee for the Empire, but the title “Herodians” is not really known beyond this text
• At any rate, the plan of the Pharisees is to entrap Jesus, and they do it quite cleverly – the Herodian mouthpieces for the Pharisees come to Jesus with compliments in their mouths and malice in their hearts – they give lip service to Jesus as a true teacher of the way of God, and they recognize that Jesus shows no partiality toward any person
• Let me give you a small aside here – the word that most of the English translations of the Bible translate here as “person” or “people” usually means “face” – literally, the saying is that Jesus does not look at the face of men – the essence of the saying is that appearances do not sway Jesus to be partial – but the word “face,” which we do not get in English translations, is important, as you will see in a moment
• Back to the story – the Herodians ask Jesus a question – is it lawful to pay taxes to the emperor or not? – of course, the implied question is, is it lawful for Jews to pay taxes – you can probably see why the question is so clever, and why the situation is so delicate for Jesus – if Jesus answers, “Yes, it is lawful,” then he risks upsetting the Jewish people on whom the tax is often onerous and oppressive – Jesus consistently sides with the poor in the world – for him to side against them in this case seems unlikely – on the other hand, if Jesus answers “no.” then he becomes liable to the charge of sedition – what is he to do?
• Apparently, at least as the Evangelist tells the story, Jesus recognizes that he under scrutiny, even if the Herodians themselves do not know it – nevertheless, he asks his interrogators to show him the coin that is used to pay the tax and asks whose image is on it – whose picture, whose face is on the coin – when the challengers say that it is the face of the emperor, Jesus answers with the famous stewardship verse – Give to the emperor the things that are the emperor’s and to God the things that are God’s – and he leaves it at that
• The answer amazes the Herodians and the disciples of the Pharisees – of all the answers they might have expected, apparently this is not one of them – they have no response and leave, stewing in their amazement

III. Imitation of Christ

• I do not know about you, but I wish Jesus had given a more complete answer to the puzzling question – I wish he had given his challengers a list – I wish he had said, “Here—these are the things that belong to the emperor…and here are the things that belong to God” – then we would know, would we not – then we would be able to check our lives against the list and know where we stand precisely in relation both to the emperor (or in our case, let us simply say “the state”) and to God – then there would be no question and no need to wrestle with the story – but, of course, Jesus does not do that – he just makes a statement and leaves it up to us to decide what is what and which is which
• That leaves up to us then the decisions about what is the emperor’s and what is God’s – but as we decide, I want to put this thought in your minds – Jesus did not think in terms of Greek logical ideas – at this point you are probably thinking that that has nothing to do with the rest of the sermon, but in my mind, it is the basis of the rest of the sermon – Greek philosophy had a huge influence on the world in which we live, especially in the cultural and political West – because of the Greek philosophers, we think in straight lines and in categories – we think we can divide the world into compartments – too often those compartments are either/or compartments – either this or that – either one thing or another – either right or wrong – either good or evil – either spiritual or physical – either the emperor or God – but that way of thinking would have been largely foreign to Jesus
• True there was a huge Greek influence in ancient Judaism after the Exile, but it was not part of the tradition of the prophets – ancient Judaism was what we would refer to generally as an Eastern religious tradition – it was not about categories and dividing – it was about the essential unity of life
• Christian interpreters of Jesus too often want to say that the emperor’s things are the things of this world – they are the material, the physical – they are things of the body – they are things such as money and houses and clothing and power and authority – and these interpreters want to say that God’s things are spiritual, and therefore superior to the emperor’s things – God’s things are things of the heart and spirit – they are things such as love, joy, peace, justice, mercy, hope, kindness, gentleness, generosity, faithfulness – the emperor’s things, because they are inferior, do not matter – but God’s things are the things that truly matter
• One thing that the Christian interpreters get right is that the things of the world bear the image of the world, and people, us, we bear the image of God – but even that is not a reason to compartmentalize our lives
• I think that what Jesus is telling his questioners is that they are asking the wrong question – they will have to pay taxes – Benjamin Franklin was right about that (“In this world nothing can be said to be certain, except death and taxes”) – but for the ones who imitate Jesus, even paying taxes is in the hands of God – the question that Jesus’ challengers should be asking is, What does God require of us? – Jesus’ answer challenges his challengers to see the world in a different way, to see it through the lens of God’s Vision
• God does not coerce anyone to do this – God does not force us to do anything – and Jesus’ words still challenge us to allow God to transform us so that we can see that we can do everything as if we are doing it for God – everything from paying taxes to giving to our church to living lives in pursuit of justice – everything we do we can do in imitation of Christ

IV. Conclusion

• Thomas à Kempis wrote in The Imitation of Christ, “All who wish to understand fully the words of Christ must try to pattern their whole life on that of Christ.” – he is our model, he is our exemplar
• Let us strive to make our lives imitations of Christ, and thereby transform the world

9 October 2011

I. Introduction

• Is it not funny? – two little words – that is all they are – just two simple words – and yet they convey a sense of threat – “or else” – we do not even have to add anything further to make the threat clear – so we can take a perfectly pleasant statement and turn it into an implied threat – if we say, “Come to dinner,” it is an invitation that could be an evening of fine food and conversation – a good time for all – but if we say, “Come to dinner…or else,” there is no sense of it being a nice invitation – “or else” means that something bad, even something awful, could happen
• When Jesus tells the story about the king giving a wedding banquet for his son, he is telling a story in which “or else” plays a significant part, even though Jesus never speaks the words – it is significant because, once again, Jesus is dealing with the issue of authority

II. The Wedding Banquet

• Once again, the context for this story is a dispute between Jesus and the temple officials who are questioning his authority to drive business out of the temple precincts and for healing everyone who comes to him in the temple – Jesus tells a series of stories, all of which put the temple officials and their understanding of the meaning of authority in a negative light – first he tells the parable of the two sons, and ends by saying the sinners whom the temple rulers despise will enter God’s Vision ahead of the rulers – then is the story of the wicked tenants, in which Jesus gives the rulers an opportunity to tell how the king will respond to the tenants who killed his son – the temple rulers say that the king will give the wretches a miserable death, which is the response of power – and Jesus responds by saying that God is giving the rulers an opportunity to choose another way, the way of the authority of the Vision rather than the authority of power – and then we have today’s story
• Of course the usual way to interpret this text is as an allegory – you may have read an interpretation or heard a sermon in which the king stands for God, the son is Jesus, the wedding banquet is the kingdom of God, the guests who refuse the invitation are the Jews, and the ones who the king’s slaves bring in from the streets are the Christians – so far, apart from the nasty supersessionist nature of the story, the correspondence with the early Christian experience may seem acceptable – but there are some things of which we need to take note in the text
• First, notice who never appears in the story – do you see it? – who is the one who is noticeable by absence? – the son – even though this is a story about a wedding banquet for the king’s son, the son never shows up – so that part of the allegory fails to hold – in fact, the whole pretense of the wedding banquet is incidental to the actions of the king and the interactions between the king and the guests
• Next, notice the actions of the invited guests when the king sends slaves to bring them to the banquet – at first, they would not come – when the king sends other slaves, they are to tell the invited guests that the party is all set, all they have to do is show up – here the New Revised Standard Version says that some of the invited guests made light of the invitation and went off to see to their farms and businesses, and the rest seized the slaves, mistreated them, and then killed them – but the word that is translated as “made light of” can also mean “were careless” or “were negligent” – perhaps, as Jesus is telling the story, he wants the temple officials that they should not be careless with their authority, that God wants them to bear the fruits of Vision – in any case, in the story, the king goes off the rails – he responds to the deaths of his slaves by murdering the murderers and burning their city to the ground – I guess that king never heard of a proportional response
• Finally, when the king has brought in the people off the streets, one underdressed soul finds himself the object of the king’s continuing wrath – because the man was not wearing an appropriate wedding robe, the king had his attendants bind the man hand and foot and throw him into the outer darkness where there is wailing and gnashing of teeth
• If you have been here the last few weeks, you already know what is coming next – all of these elements of the story tell me that we should not read it as an allegory – as a tortured allegory, interpreters can twist the story to say that the Christian movement has superseded the Jewish tradition – the story in no wise warrants this interpretation – we must reject the use of allegory for this parable, too
• Here is what I think Jesus is saying
• Jesus is telling a story about what the Vision is “made like,” which is to say that this is how the temple rulers understand the Vision – A king, a man, has invited guests to a banquet – the invitation implicitly represents the possibility of a mutual relationship between the king and the guests – but when the banquet is ready, the invitees either rudely or negligently reject the invitation – and there is even a group of them who do not want the mutual relationship – they want power, and they kill the servants – the enraged king, responds by emulating and even exceeding the murderers – he sends an army to kill them and to burn their city – the fire is indiscriminate, destroying and killing everything and everyone and it represents a world aflame with rage and power, a world of destruction – to restore a sort of order, the king starts over by bringing in people off the streets – he tells the slaves to invite the people, but the text says that the slaves “gathered” them, both “good and bad” – and the replacement guests receive no offer of relationship, implicit or otherwise – in some ways, they are no different from the slaves who have brought them into the banquet – they are there because the king wants them there
• Then the scene shifts to the banquet itself – and the king’s attention falls on one underdressed man – perhaps the king sees the man as a threat to the order the king wants to impose – perhaps the man has come intentionally underdressed to challenge the new order the king seeks – and the one who is speechless is not the man, but the king – in this case, I think Jesus is referring to himself – he is the one who has come to disrupt the order that the Empire and its collaborators have imposed – he is the one who has come to take on himself the anger of Empire, of our human need for control, of our human dependency on coercive authority – he is the one who has come to silence authority that says to us, “Come to the feast…or else”

III. Come to the Feast

• In contrast to the authority that the temple rulers desired and jealously guarded, God offer to us through Jesus authority that persuades, authority that serves, authority that desires mutuality and reciprocality in relationships – in Jesus, God overcomes the human impetus toward anger and destruction – in Jesus, God shows us an alternative to our usual ways of thinking
• To use the metaphor from which Jesus begins, in Jesus God is inviting us to the feast of the Vision – life with God is a celebration of love and grace, of compassion and joy – through Jesus we have the opportunity to be more and better than we are, and we can share in the bounty that God offers
• This is miles away from everything I have ever thought about the story before now – and I cannot claim to have come to this understanding all on my own – but this is an interpretation that fits, it makes sense – and it does justice to the essential depth and breadth of the message of Jesus’ life and ministry – God loves us and wants relationship with us

IV. Conclusion

• Jesus’ invitation is before – it is always before us – come to the feast – come be a part of what God is doing in the world – come and share all that God offers – there is no threat – there is no “…or else” – there is only the invitation to come to God through Jesus Messiah
• Then we can go and share it all with everyone in our lives