Foolish Love -- World Communion Sunday

Matthew 21:33-46

October 5, 2014

            We are no strangers to warning labels in our society.  It seems that just about everything we use or consume or touch or even smell has a warning attached to it.  Pharmaceutical advertising is a stand-up comic’s dream come true, because while an ad spends 50 seconds of a 60 second spot touting a new medication’s amazing, miraculous, curative benefits, it spends the last 10 seconds listing every conceivable side effect.  More often than not, the side effects sound worse than the illness that warrants the medication.  But if the warnings weren’t given, whether it’s on a new medication or something else, there would be an outcry.  We believe we should be warned about something potentially dangerous or threatening to our health or well-being. 

            That being said, I sometimes think the same should be true for scripture.  Before a page is turned in the Bible, there should be a warning that if we’re going to read it, we read at our own risk.  Maybe we need an even stronger admonition, like the robot on the old television show, Lost in Space.  “Danger, danger, Will Robinson.” 

            I don’t say this to be irreverent.  I say that because I truly believe that being faithful means that we have to read scripture on its terms, not ours.  Doing that might force us to not only see God differently, but to see ourselves differently, and vice-versa.  This passage from Matthew could do just that.  So we read and hear at our own risk.

            One thing that I read over and over again in my study of this passage is that this particular parable told by Jesus has been used to justify anti-Semitism.  Repeatedly.  If we read this story as pure allegory, it’s easy to see how that happens.  As we have heard over the last few weeks, Jesus is in the final days before his arrest and crucifixion.  He is still in the temple.  He is still in a confrontation with the Pharisees and scribes, the religious authorities.  They want to stop him, silence him, at any cost.  So as we read last week, they challenged his authority.  Jesus responded with a parable about a vineyard, a father and two sons.  Today we hear another parable.  This one also takes place in a vineyard.  The vineyard would have been a relatable, familiar example to the people listening to Jesus.  In this story a vineyard was planted by a landowner.  The landowner plants it, puts a fence around it, digs a wine press, and builds a watchtower.  This was what any responsible landowner would have done.  He leaves the vineyard in the hands of his tenants, and goes to another country.  When harvest time rolls around, he sends his slaves or servants to the tenants to collect his share of the harvest.  Again, this would have been standard practice.  But the tenants turn on the slaves.  They beat one, they kill another, and they stone a third.  Yet the landowner doesn’t retaliate.  Instead he sends more slaves to them, and those slaves are treated the same way. 

            I suspect that everyone who heard Jesus tell this was thinking that surely the landowner would now rain down punishment, rain down vengeance on the heads of the tenants.  It was bad enough that they beat and killed the first slaves sent to them, but to do that a second time?  No landowner would put up with that.  But here’s the twist.  Not only did the landowner not retaliate, he sent his son.  Surely, he thinks, his son will be respected.  Surely they won’t harm the landowner’s own flesh and blood.  But when the tenants see the son approaching, they plot.  “Let’s kill the son, and then we’ll receive the inheritance.”  So they seize the son, throw him out of the vineyard, and kill him too. 

            When Jesus finishes his story, he asks the Pharisees, “Now when the owner of the vineyard comes, what will he do to those tenants?”  The Pharisees respond, “He will put those wretches to death, and lease the vineyard to other tenants who will give him the produce at the harvest time.”

            Just as Jesus did in the parable of the father and the two sons, the question that Jesus asks of the Pharisees puts them in a position to condemn themselves.  Last week the one who does the will of the father is the one who said, “no,” to the father’s request, then changed his mind.  But the one who said, “yes,” then doesn’t is in the wrong.  This week, the ones who refuse to give the share of the harvest to the landowner, the ones who kill the slaves and son of the landowner, then have the audacity and sense of entitlement to believe that the inheritance will still come to them, are the ones who will be put to a miserable death.  They are the ones who will lose their place in the vineyard to others.  The point of the parable seems obvious.  Jesus says it.  The Pharisees are the wicked tenants. 

            If the Pharisees are the wicked tenants who kill not only the slaves, but the son, then it’s not difficult to make the leap that the Jews are the ones who are sent out of the vineyard, and the Christians are the new tenants who “produce at the harvest time.”  Reading it this way makes it an “us versus them” scenario.  But here is where the warning label is needed.  What makes us think that we – Christians, good church goers, etc. – are always the good guys?  Jesus pushed the Pharisees and the religious leaders and all those who thought they knew God’s will to realize that God was and is doing a new thing.  God would not be limited by their dogma.  Nor will God be limited by ours.  Jesus goes on to quote, “The stone that the builders rejected has become the cornerstone.” 

            The stone that the builders rejected has become the cornerstone. 

            Yes, reading this strictly as allegory, it is far too easy to point fingers and make judgments and believe that we got it right.  Warning.  We should never assume.  But you know what’s really troubling about this passage?  You know what really bothers me about the story that Jesus tells?  The landowner must have been a fool.  Why did he persist in sending people to these tenants?  Why did he not learn after the first time?  There is nothing that I read in the passage that suggests that somehow the landowner was oppressive or evil or deserved this kind of violent response from his tenants.  But they did respond to every person he sent to them with violence.  I don’t think anyone hearing this parable would have blamed the landowner if, after the first time his slaves were beaten and killed, he had retaliated in kind.  But he didn’t.  He just sent more people.  He sent his son.  What a fool. 

            But if this story, whether it’s meant to be heard and read allegorically or not, reflects on God in any way, shape or form, then doesn’t that mean that God is foolish?  Is God foolish?  Is God’s love, God’s persistent, unending, unconditional love, foolish? 

            Maybe it is.  But then again, it all seems foolish, doesn’t it?  It’s foolishness that God is born as a helpless, homeless baby.  It’s foolishness that God suffers and dies.  It’s foolishness that God takes on this weak and finite flesh of ours to show us what it really means to be human, to open our eyes to the kingdom right here in our midst.  God does everything a fool would do.  God doesn’t give up on us, even though we deserve it.  God doesn’t stop loving us, even though we would stop loving someone else who treated us the way these tenants treated the  landowner; the way we treat the Creator and the Creation.  God persists for our sake, foolishly.  It is a foolish love, and an undeserved and unreserved forgiveness, and an extravagant grace that God has for us.  It’s foolish.  Isn’t it?  Paul says that the cross is foolishness.  As the cornerstone of God’s new thing, Jesus says that “The one who falls on this stone will be broken to pieces; and it will crush anyone on whom it falls.” 

            I’ve always heard those words as terrible, violent punishment, a terrible, violent judgment.  But perhaps what it really is foolish.  Perhaps the only way that we can truly recognize and feel and respond to God’s foolish love is when we our hard hearts and our closed minds are finally broken open.  I know that in my own life, it has been those moments when I feel the most lost, those moments when I have felt the most alone, when I had nothing left but to cry out to God; those were the moments that I found God was right there beside me.  It was where God had been the whole time, loving me: extravagantly, unreservedly, foolishly. 

            Today, as we come to the table to take bread and wine, we do so knowing that Christians around the world are doing the same.  To many people it must seem like a foolish thing to do.  How can just eating a piece of bread and swallowing a bit of wine be sacred?  How does this one act proclaim hope when the world is so hurting, so broken?  Maybe in the eyes of the world it is foolish, but this bread and wine reminds us that we are more alike than we are different.  Whatever our language or look, we come to this table in hope that love still has the power to overcome evil, that light can still conquer the darkness, that peace is not just a fleeting dream.  We come to this table hopefully, trustingly, foolishly, knowing that the good news, the amazing, wonderful, overwhelming good news, is that God loves us foolishly first.  Praise be to God for that foolish love.  Let all of God’s children say, “Alleluia!”  Amen.

By Whose Authority

Matthew 21:23-32

September 28, 2014

            “Because I said so.” 

            These four words are four of the most basic, simple, seemingly benign words in the English language.  Yet when I was a child these common words, strung together, had the power to undo me.  I hated hearing them.  To my way of thinking, they were the epitome of all that was unfair and unjust in the world.    

            All I wanted to know was, “why.”  Why can’t I do this or why do I have to do that?  Yet as a kid, it seemed like the only response I ever received from my parents to my sincere inquiries about the limits enforced upon me was “Because I said so.”  So I swore on everything I held sacred that when I grew up and had children of my own, I would never, ever say those four words to my own kids.  I would always carefully and lovingly explain to my children why they couldn’t do something or why I expected something of them.  I would strive to ensure that my children understood my reasoning.  “Because I said so,” would be anathema in my home.  Never say, “Never.”    

            Becoming a parent makes you understand your own parents a lot better.  My parents were not tyrannical authoritarians.  They would often talk to me about what their expectations were of me, and why they made the decisions they did.  But there just weren’t enough hours in the day to answer my every questioning of their authority with, “Amy, we love you.  Your well-being and safety are more important than anything.”  “It is our job as parents to teach you responsibility, to make sure you can function in society on your own”  “We take seriously our task to rear you to be an engaged, thoughtful, compassionate, caring citizen – not just of these United States, but of the world that God has given us.”  “And we set these limits for you, Amy, because no matter what the standardized tests say about your intelligence, sometimes your decisions make us question whether you and your brain leave the house at the same time.” 

            “Because I said so.”  It is a statement of authority.  I am the parent and you’re not.  Even though as a child I didn’t like hearing it or understand it, as a parent I know that I have to be the parent. I’m the parent, you’re not.  This is my expectation.  This is my decision.  “Because I said so.”

            Authority lies at the heart of this passage in Matthew’s gospel.  That is the question asked of Jesus when he comes into the temple.  The chief priests and elders approach him while he’s teaching and ask, “By what authority are you doing these things, and who gave you this authority?” 

            As always, I think it is important for us to understand the context in which they asked this question.  This was not just a random day in the temple; significant events had occurred leading up to this moment and this question.  Chapter 21 begins with Jesus’ triumphal entry into Jerusalem, or what we know as Palm Sunday.  He rode into Jerusalem and was greeted as king.  This cast the entire city into confusion and tumult.  From there Jesus went to the temple and “cleansed it.  That’s rather an innocuous way to describe what Jesus actually did.  He overturned the tables of the money changers and the seats of the ones selling doves.  He drove them out, and charged them with turning his Father’s house into a den of thieves!  Once they were gone, he healed people.  The blind and the lame came to him to be cured.  Children sang hosannas to him and proclaimed that he was the Son of David.  This angered the ones in charge, the religious authorities.  Jesus left the temple, went to Bethany to spend the night, and the next morning, as he made his way back to the temple he stopped by a fig tree, hoping to find some fruit for breakfast.  However, the fig tree was barren; no fruit, just leaves.  So he cursed the fig tree and it withered at the sound of his voice.  The disciples were understandably amazed, and Jesus, in his explanation, ascribed it to faith.  If you have more faith than doubt, you can tell a mountain to throw itself into the sea, and it will happen. 

            Now we come to our passage.  Jesus has returned to the temple.  He is teaching.  Again, the chief priests and elders, the religious authorities, come to him and demand to know by what authority he does and says what he does and says.  Who gave him this authority?  But their question is a trap.  If Jesus says the wrong thing, they can accuse him of blasphemy; which was not a light offense.  Jesus knows they’re trying to trap him, so he turns it back on them. 

            “I will also ask you one question; if you tell me the answer, then I will also tell you by what authority I do these things.  Did the baptism of John come from heaven, or was it of human origin?” 

            The priest and scribes know that they have stepped into their own snare.  If they say that John’s baptism was of divine origin, then Jesus will want to know why they didn’t believe him.  Doesn’t that mean that they didn’t believe God?  If they say that is of human origin, then the crowds will turn on them, because the people believe that John was a prophet.  The only safe answer is the one they give.  “We don’t know.”  Jesus responds, “Well, if you don’t know, then I’m not going to tell you the origin of my authority.” 

            But he does tell them a parable about a father and two sons.  The father asks both sons to go and work in his vineyard.  The first son refuses, but changes his mind and does what his father asks.  The second son replies in the affirmative.  He will go and work in the vineyard, but doesn’t make good on his promise.  Jesus questions his questioners, “Which of the two did the will of the Father?”  They answer, “The first.”  Jesus then equates the son who does the will of the Father with tax collectors and prostitutes.  The sinners, the castoffs and cast outs of society, the ones who said, “No,” are the now the ones who go “into the kingdom of God ahead of you.”  John’s authority should have convinced you, but you didn’t believe him.  But the tax collectors and the prostitutes did.  They heard John.  They believed John.  They’re going into God’s kingdom ahead of you.

            I guess Jesus could have responded to their original question with, “Because I said so.”  He was and is the Son of David, the Son of God.  He had all authority.  Instead he tells them a parable about two sons, and he turns it back to John.  John came with authority, the authority of a prophet, but you wouldn’t listen to him.  Now you demand to know my authority?  Yet the people that you have deemed unfit to even be in your presence, much less God’s presence, heard John and believed him.  Perhaps the choice they made to live the way they lived was their way of saying, “No.”  But when they heard God’s call through John, they ultimately said, “Yes.”  But you who at first said, “Yes,” refuse to go where God now calls you. 

            As I said at the beginning, the issue of authority is at the heart of this passage.  The religious leadership questions Jesus’ authority.  Jesus in response refers to the authority of John.  But the true authority is God’s.  Think about the word authority and also think about a word that is related to it – author.  Scholar and preacher, David Lose, wrote that authority, unlike power, is always given.  We give people authority.  We elect our officials, and in their election they are given authority to govern on our behalf.  That is true in our denomination as well.  We elect our elders, teaching and ruling, investing them with authority to make decisions for the congregations they serve.  By calling me to be in this pulpit week after week, you invest me with a certain amount of authority.  I may not feel authoritative, but that doesn’t change the fact that I am believed to have it. 

            Jesus preached and taught with an authority that threatened the authority of the religious leadership.  They were the pastors of their day, and they wanted to know what authority Jesus really had.  It seems to me that Jesus points them, in his response and in his parable, not just to one with authority – John – but to the One who is the Author.  An author isn’t just someone who publishes a written work.  The other definition of author is someone who originates or creates.  God is the Author of all life.  God as Author gives authority.  Jesus, who is God with us, God’s authority embodied, is the author of the new life to be found in him.  John proclaimed that, but the ones who claimed authority couldn’t and wouldn’t accept it.  It was the ones without authority, the people whose very identities were defined by sin and by their “no,” who recognized the authority of John and Jesus, and changed their answer to “yes.” 

Sisters and brothers, the choice is ever before us.  God, the Author of life, calls us to do his work, to hear the authority in the words of his prophets, to accept and embrace the new life authorized by his Son.  How often have we said, “No?”  Yet the good news is that no matter how many times we’ve refused in the past, we are not defined by that.  We have not shut and locked the door to the kingdom through our own stubbornness.  Through God’s grace and mercy, through his abiding love, the door to God’s kingdom of abundance, love and peace is not closed.  We can open it with one word.  Yes.  What will our answer be?  I say make your answer, “yes," and follow through on that yes.  Why? 

Because I said so. 

Let all God’s children say, “Alleluia!”  Amen. 

           

The Abundant Life

This is my upcoming article for The Minister's Corner in the September 27, Shawnee News Star.

“And Jesus said to them, ‘Take care! Be on your guard against all kinds of greed; for one’s life does not consist in the abundance of possessions.’”

       Luke 12:15

“And God is able to provide you with every blessing in abundance, so that by always having enough of everything, you may share abundantly in every good work.”

            2 Corinthians 9:8

“’The thief comes only to steal and kill and destroy.  I came that they may have life, and have it abundantly.’”

John 10:10

            The Discipleship Study Bible, New Revised Standard Version, 1989

            In the spring of 2005, our family went to visit my sister and her family in Greece. My sister, Jill, is married to a Greek and has lived there for many years. My kids were little, and the time change and jet lag were hard on them (and me), but my Greek family and my sister’s friends welcomed and embraced us wholeheartedly.  They took their call of hospitality seriously. It seemed that my sister’s friends wanted to have us over for lunch, or dinner, or an afternoon snack, or morning coffee – you get the idea. They love my sister, so they also loved us. 

            On one of the last nights we were in Athens, we were all invited – my family, Jill’s family, and the whole group of Jill’s friends – to another friend’s home for dinner.  Sitting around this long table, we ate wonderful food.  We talked and laughed. We toasted one another’s health and well-being.  My children were adored and cuddled.  One of Jill’s friends, George Stephanopoulos (no, not that George Stephanopoulos), reached across the table with a pitcher of water to refill a glass and accidentally spilled it on me.  He apologized profusely, and added, “Welcome to Greece.”  That only added to the night’s hilarity.  After eating, we danced traditional Greek dances, and finally wrapped up the party, exhausted but happy. 

            Looking back at that evening, I realize it was one of those moments when I understood a little more what it means to live an abundant life.  As the sample of scripture verses demonstrate, abundance is used in a variety of contexts.  But the word’s meaning is the same, whether it refers to something negative or positive.  An abundance of anything is to have an ample supply.  Abundant possessions; you’ve got a lot of stuff.  Abundant blessings; you’ve got a lot of blessings.  Abundant life; you’ve got more life?  I readily admit that the idea of abundant life challenges me.  I want to define it, but I can’t seem to find the language to do so.  Certainly, it seems that abundant life from Jesus refers to eternal life.  But I don’t believe that Jesus was only pointing toward a life after life.  I also think he meant abundant life right here, right now, in this life. But what does abundant life look like?  We know from Luke’s gospel that it isn’t just about a bunch of stuff, a glut of material possessions.  They may be nice and useful, but having more of them doesn’t equal abundant life.  It seems obvious that an abundance of blessings equates to abundant life, but do those blessings relate solely to us?  Is an abundant life merely a happy, giddy existence?  Or is it something more?

            Maybe an abundant life is similar to the dinner I described.  You are at table, breaking bread, with family and friends.  There is laughter and joy.  But also seated at that table are the “others” of the world.  A person who has been hungry is finally getting enough to eat.  A person whose life has been nothing but hardship and strife is finally laughing.  A person who has experienced only loneliness is now surrounded by loved ones.  A person who has lived in fear and danger now feels safe and at peace.  Perhaps sitting at that table are former enemies, now friends.  Perhaps sharing in that fellowship are people who have been forgotten or ignored.  Maybe gathered at that feast are those whose voices have been silenced, but now are heard. 

            I think that an abundant life is not a just a life focused on the blessings that I alone have been given; instead it is a life where my blessings are shared with others, and theirs with me.  An abundant life is a life that isn’t about momentary happiness, but about a life grounded in joy, trust, compassion, and love.  Maybe, just maybe, an abundant life is one where all are neighbors, and all are welcome at the table.  An abundant life is one where we all share in the abundance of good food, good things, and good works, making us abundantly grateful and abundantly glad to be gathered.