Pentecost 18: "We are No Longer Children..."

Isaiah 45.1-7
Psalm 96
1 Thessalonians 1.1-10
Matthew 22.15-22

The enigmatic nature of the Jesus’ statement, “Give…to the emperor the things that are the emperor’s, and to God the things that are God’s” (Matthew 22.21) is matched only by its versatility. Historically, the verse has been used both to support allegiance to the government, as well as to claim a license for revolution. The Church herself has used it to argue her superiority over the state, and therefore the state’s subordination to ecclesiastical power, while governments have used it to remind the Church that there are limits to her power, in short to tell her to mind her own business. The very ambiguity of the verse has left its readers, as I am sure it did its original hearers, wondering still where the lines are to be drawn between our duties to God and our duties to the state. Yet, this kind of ambiguous response is characteristic of the person of Jesus. A vast majority of the kinds of scholars I refered to last week believe that these specific words of the Gospel Jesus, can be traced to the historical Jesus. Not only do these words appear exactly the same in all three of the Synoptic Gospels – Mark, Matthew and Luke – but they also appear in the non-canonical Gospel of Thomas, a collection of Jesus’ sayings which, like the canonical Gospels, was written somewhere between AD 70 and AD 100. One scholar writes with regards to this verse: “[Jesus] responds to the question without answering it; he turns the question back on his interrogators, just as he often does in telling a parable without a conclusion. His audience is supposed to supply the answer themselves.”

“His audience is supposed to supply the answer themselves.” You see, that is what was and is so frustrating about our encounter with Jesus, our encounter with the gopels. So much of his sayings and teaching simply leave his audience, and not only his immediate audience, “to supply the answer themselves.” How much easier it would have been, and clearer too, if Jesus had not spoken in open-ended parables or in enigmatic one-liners, but rather set up clear-cut and readily understandable rules and regulations. Yet he didn’t. Although Christians in the years after him have worked almost desperately to fill in the gaps with a host of rules and regulations, we must always come back to the reality that the Jesus presented to us in the gospel narratives is not a person of very many rules. And when pressed to make a ruling on this or that, he more often than not responded with a parable. Remember the story of the Good Samaritan? It was prompted by someone asking Jesus, “Who is my neighbour?” (Luke 10.29) At the end of the story Jesus presents the questioner with a question himself: “Which of these three, do you think, was a neighbour to the man who fell into the hands of the robbers?” (Luke 10.36) When asked by one of his disciples how many times to forgive, he returns with the cryptic answer: “Not seven times, but, I tell you, seventy times seven times.” (Matthew 18.22) Jesus’ consistent teaching method was to allow those around him to make their own decisions, come to their own conclusions. He never forced an interpretation on those who came to hear him speak, and only twice in the gospels is he recorded as actually explaining the meaning of a parable. What is most commonly recorded at the end of a parable or discourse are the words “Let anyone with ears to hear listen!”(Mark 4.24, et al) “Let anyone with ears to hear listen!”

In the second letter to the Corinthians, Paul writes that “in Christ God was reconciling the world to himself.” (2 Corinthians 5.19) But, it can be argued that in Christ – in Jesus –God was telling the world to grow up. You see, so long as we live by rules and regulations because they are rules and regulations, so long as we consistently look to others to supply for us the answers to life’s questions and the resolutions to our own dilemmas, so long as we follow uncreatively and unimaginatively the instructions of any teacher, we carry out our lives in a childish existence unworthy of a people created in the image of God. The problem is that we human beings are not comfortable with uncertainty, we are not comfortable with the grey areas of life. We want someone not only to guide us through them, but to define them for us. We want simple, clear-cut, black and white answers: “Is it lawful to pay taxes to the emperor, or not?” (Matthew 22.17) How many times exactly must I forgive the one who sins against me? (cf Matthew 22.16) Tell me now, who is my neighbour? (cf. Luke 10.29) It is for this reason that fundamentalist religion, whether Christian or otherwise, is so appealing to people. They do offer black and white answers. They do give to their followers clear-cut interpretations of reality, and seemingly dispense with the grey areas of human experience. The problem is that that way of doing things is not true to human experience. More often than not the issues in our lives and in our world dwell in the grey areas, and not in clearly defined black and white landscapes; and while a series of clearly-defined rules and regulations may make us feel safe, they will never encourage us to grow up.

No doubt, Jesus could have offered those who gathered around him precise and succinct answers to their questions. He could have offered black and white rulings on any number of issues. But he did not. Jesus asks of people more than mere acquiescence, more than an obedience to a system of rules, but rather he asks them to think for themselves according to particular principles – love, compassion, forgiveness, mercy, justice. Jesus knows that simply to supply answers does not encourage real growth, development or maturity among those who ask the questions. Any good teacher or parent knows that. From the gospel accounts it seems clear that Jesus did not want groupies or mere disciples who simply hung on his every word. He wanted mature individuals to share in his ministry. The gospels record that even during his lifetime he sent out many of his disciples to proclaim the Good News of God’s reign, and in his final dialogues in the Gospel of John he says, “I do not call you servants any longer, but I [call] you friends.” (John 15.15) Part of the process of enabling people into maturity and autonomy is allowing them to come to their own conclusions, indeed encouraging them to come to their own conclusions, and thereby to discover their own centre of authority. At the expense of dressing Jesus up in the garb of a respectable member of the Anglican Communion, we might say that, like a good Anglican, he trusts human reason and the ability of human reason to discern the right, the true, the good, the just, the beautiful.

Again, looking at Paul, we find he writes to the Ephesians, “The gifts [Jesus] gave were… for building up the body of Christ, until all of us come to…maturity, to the measure of the full stature of Christ. We must no longer be children…But speaking the truth in love, we must grow up in every way into him who is the head, into Christ.” (Ephesians 4.11-15) The world of black and white, clear-cut answers is the world of the child. This is not meant pejoratively, but it is the simple fact. Children rarely have the deliberative skill or the insight of enough experience to give them any real understanding into the complexities of human life; and they only grow and develop emotionally and morally as they gain more and more ability in discerning life for themselves. Yes, they need guidance, support, encouragement; but they do not need to be told what to think or believe, have all their questions answered and all their experiences mediated by another, if they are ultimately to become responsible, individuated adults.

The gospel accounts tell us that those who asked Jesus the question about the tax were trying to trip him up, but whether they were or not it is highly unlikely Jesus would have offered a different answer. He would not have offered a different answer, because he wanted people to come to their own decisions. He wanted people to grow into the full stature of adult responsibility. Simply handing down rules and regulations cannot do that, neither can supplying all the answers. A great part of according human dignity is allowing human beings to think for themselves. Jesus seems to do this consistently.

Pentecost 17: Encounter with Scripture

Isaiah 25:1-9
Psalm 23
Philippians 4:1-9
Matthew 22:1-14

Anyway you look at it Jesus’ parable of the wedding banquet as related in Matthew leaves us feeling a little unnerved. And while many of us who have been taught the parable in the past were made to focus on the indiscriminate invitation of the king, it is unnerving to recognise the violence at the parable’s center: the violent ingratitude of some of those invited, as well as the king’s equally violent reprisal; moreover, that when the wedding feast is finally in full swing – after the king’s slaves have brought in all kinds of people from the streets – still we are not allowed a satisfying conclusion, but rather confronted with a disturbing one. The king on seeing the guests is apparently dissatisfied with the one of them who is not properly attired, and has him not only thrown out of the party, but bound both hand and foot and thrown “into the utter darknesss”. (Matthew 22:13) It seems cruel and unfair, especially since this fellow was not even prepared for the feast. He was dragged in from the street, after all!

What are we to do with such a passage? Well, we could begin by learning the Gospel of Luke presents another form of the parable in which is contained neither the violence or vindictiveness of Matthew’s version. In it, guests are invited, they decline with excuses and so the host has his slaves go into the streets and invite all whom they meet, then the host simply says “For…none of those who were invited will taste my dinner.” (Luke 14:23) Scholars agree that the Luke’s version is the older, closer to what the historical Jesus might have said. So, one way to escape the apparent meanness of the Matthean version is simply to realise that its more violent and exclusionary elements were a later accretion, and since older is better – closer to the source – we can conveniently ignore the parts of the parable that confuse us or which we find a little uncomfortable, the part that does not square with our pre-conceived ideas. There is also the argument of historical and social context: the world of the ancient near east in which the Gospels were written is so dissimilar from that of our own that there are parts of Scriptures we cannot really apply to our own time and society. Again, we are given permission to ignore the uncomfortable passages.

Now certainly such scholarly findings will and should inform our encounter with the Scriptures, but they can never be used to dismiss parts of them altogether simply because we may find parts unpleasant. There is a distinction between the academic study of biblical texts and a living encounter with the Scriptures. For example, an academic study can discern passages in the gospels which with reasonable accuracy can be traced to the historical Jesus and those which with equal accuracy can be traced to a later voice, usually that of the compiler and/or writer. Thus, such academic study can arrive at some factual data as to the pedigree of certain passages. However, coming to an encounter with the Scriptures is a rather a different process, because as St Paul writes in his second letter to Timothy “all scripture is inspired by God and is useful for teaching, for reproof, for correction, and for training in righteousness”. (2 Timothy 3:16). Equally, as reads the collect for the Sunday closest to 16 November: “Blessed Lord, who caused all holy Scriptures to be written for our learning…” Encountering the Scriptures as the Church, we come to them in their totality, led by the Holy Spirit and with confidence that their creation, composition and compilation are not exactly accidental, and that through them God most definitely communicates something of the divine will and purposes to the Church. However, this does not mean that we simply accept the literal interpretation of the texts, but that we struggle to find appropriate meaning for those texts in our present lives and contexts. In doing this we return to the roots of our faith. Jewish biblical interpretation works from the premise that every word and every jot in the Hebrew has meaning, and that meaning is discerned within the context of the community’s reading, and arises out of discussion, sometimes heated discussion and even argument. At the same time, the partners never cease to speak with each other, rather they continue to struggle with each other and the text; and so any meaning that arises from the text arises from within that honest struggle. This is a good model for Christian engagement with the Scriptures, and indeed was the model for most of the Church’s history. Only until very recently have some Christians become obsessed with the fundamentalism of supposed literal interpretation. Perhaps the best image for encountering the Scriptures is drawn from the Scriptures themselves in the narrative of Jacob wrestling with the man who attacks him as he sleeps. The writer of Genesis tells us Jacob wrestled with him all the night long and towards the end, as the man asked for release, Jacob said to him, “I will not let you go, unless you bless me.” (Genesis 32:26b) Jacob leaves the encounter limping, but he leaves with a new name, he leaves with a blessing, he leaves with a new meaning.

Think for a moment what it would mean to say to a difficult piece of Scripture, indeed to any piece, “I will not let you go, unless you bless me”. It may mean we carry a text with us for long time, even years as we continually turn it over in our heart and mind, as it passes with us through the contexts and experiences of our lives, even as its meanings shift with those contexts and experiences. At the same time, it would assume that the Scriptures in their totality are Good News and that every passage, every word, contains the possibility of blessing so long as we are willing to remain with it, struggle with it. Committing one’s self to hanging on until a blessing is discerned will also mean that we carry on that struggle chiefly within the context of the Christian community, and that that struggle may be ongoing. Having said that, as Christians we know we struggle in the trust that our strugglings are also within the context of God’s gift of the Holy Spirit who Jesus promises will lead us into all truth (cf. John 6:13). And because we do not have to get it all right, we can struggle in humility recognising that we may be wrong in part or in whole, and certainly that possibility is part of the struggle. Understood in this way then, our encounter with Scripture becomes so much more than “reading the Bible” or even studying the Bible in any detatched way. It is nothing less than an encounter with the living record of God’s Word, an experiential encounter that is always ongoing, always contextual, always vibrant, often raw, and we are always in the posture of trust, trust that the encounter will yield a blessing.

So what about the difficult passage from Matthew? Well, personally, I will admit that I like Luke’s version more, and yet that is why I must particularly spend time with Matthew’s Luke’s says what I like to hear and offers for me little struggle. Matthew’s engages me into a struggle and leads me into asking some soul-searching questions about what I believe as to God’s nature, who God is and how God works. It makes me ask questions of myself, as to where I see myself in the story. For example, if I am the one sent out into the “utter darknes”, what might that exactly be for? What is missing in my Christian clothing, my Christian habit that prevents me from participating fully in God’s generous banquet, in God’s gracious invitations, indeed that gets me thrown out? As we considered last week, how does this passage accuse me? Equally, what litmus tests have I created to keep people in or out of the Church? Struggling with the passage in dialogue with other Christians, questions and challenges can be encountered at a group level, for example, “What litmus tests has the community created in order to determine who is within and who is without?” In such a way I enter into dialogue with the text and with others which is immediate and present, a dialogue which hopefully takes us beyond the comfortable and self-congratulatory, which iniates the entire community into a journey of exploration and self-assesment, sometimes very difficult indeed.

In the Letter to the Hebrews the writer tells his or her readers: “Indeed, the word of God is living and active, sharper than any two-edged sword, piercing until it divides soul from spirit, joints from marrow; it is able to judge the thoughts and intentions of the heart.” Embracing that truth is at heart of the encounter with the Scriptures.

Pentecost 16: Creator, Created and Gift

Isaiah 5:1-7
Psalm 80:7-14
Philippians 3:4b-14
Matthew 21:33-46

It seems second nature, undoubtedly because so many of us were taught it from any early age, to understand the Scriptural passages read and proclaimed this morning as supersessionary, that is, as representing that Christianity supersedes or replaces Judaism. And certainly, it has been a prevalent theological stance through much of Christian history to understand the Church as the new Israel, that is “a people who produces the fruits of the kingdom” (Matthew 21:43), and the covenant made with the Children of Israel on Mt Sinai as superseded, even invalidated by the “new” covenant inaugurated by the life, death and resurrection of Jesus. In short, we are the Chosen People, the “winners”, as it were. Very convenient, very comforting…very smug. I have to come accept it as a rule of thumb that whenever my encounter with any part of Scripture or of the Tradition leaves me feeling righteous or self-satisfied, I have probably missed its point. Genuine encounters with Scripture should un-nerve us more than a little. They should accuse, and to some degree even shame us, and it is only when we face the accusation square in the face and shoulder the shame, that the texts can yield for us anything truly meaningful or be life-giving in any real way.

If we believe Scripture to be a living thing, a living presence in the Church, then the prophet’s cry for justice and Jesus’ disgust at hypocrisy and pretended self-sufficiency are directed not exclusively to their original audience, but to us who are the Church. Only if and when we understand that, can the power of the Scriptures transform us. Any other stance allows us to stop our ears and deflect their challenge. And what is that challenge? It is the challenge to see ourselves not in those commended in the narratives, but in those reproved; to see ourselves as the careless whose indifference yields wild grapes, as those whose greed and violence gains for us a reprimand and loses for us our inheritance. Taking an honest look at the text and at ourselves, the Scriptures today accuse us. They accuse us of sloth, ingratitude and a distorted sense of entitlement which resolves itself in murderous violence. They also should and do shame us; shame us with God’s kindness and generosity, with God’s trusting forbearance. They beg the questions: “How well do I take care of what has been entrusted to me – note, ‘entrusted’, not ‘given’?” “How acute is my sense of entitlement?” “How much of what comes my way do I delude myself into believing really is mine?” These are hard questions which can strike at the core of one’s beliefs and values, yet in encountering them with integrity is held out the possibility of change, the possibility of growth, the possibility of transformation.

The premise in both the passages from Isaiah and from the Gospel of Matthew is that all things are really God’s , including ourselves and the good things that come our way. Isaiah depicts the vineyard as provided, tended and cared for by God and as representing the people of Judah who unthankfully rebelled, pretending themselves to be their own with a right to produce and to do whatever they liked. Jesus’ parable also depicts a landowner as the one who plants a vineyard and who provides all which is necessary for its successful operation: a fence, a winepress, a watchtower; and he entrusts it to tenants for his own and their mutual benefit. The tenants will get a share of what they produce, but he rightly expects his share. It is his vineyard, after all. The tenants, however, somehow get it into their heads that they are entitled to all it produces, they fancy themselves the landowner and stop at nothing to make sure that world-view is undisturbed, even to the point of murder. In both cases, the landowner – God – in the end asserts his control over what is his, and the images used by Isaiah and Jesus are pretty graphic. They leave little room for speculation on the landowner’s feelings. The passages highlight the reality to which we usually only give lip service: Everything is God’s, and ultimately all we have is provided or made possible by God.

Yes, to those who have ears to listen, as Jesus so often says in the Gospels, these two texts about landowners and vineyards confront us with some very difficult questions, and they seem disturbingly appropriate as we begin our stewardship campaign. It is certainly the rector’s duty to speak at least annually about stewardship. But more than the nuts and bolts of it, it is his or her duty to give a rationale for it, to enable the community to examine attitudes more than actions; to make, through the Scriptures, an invitation to transformation whose effects will go far beyond a pledge, while striking at the heart of our relationship with God and what God has entrusted to us. It is the rector’s duty, through the Scriptures and the Tradition, to invite people into the struggle with difficult questions. At the end of the day, stewardship is about whose world you really think this is, whose you think you are, what you perceive you are entitled to. The Scriptures tell us clearly that the world is God’s, it was created and is ultimately sustained by God. Like the tenants in Jesus’ parable, we have been entrusted with its care. It is safe to say we have been pretty poor stewards. The Scriptures tell us clearly that we are God’s. Not only were we created by God, but in his image; and through the prophet Isaiah we are reminded: “Thus says the Lord, he who created you,…he who formed you…:
Do not fear, for I have redeemed you; I have called you by name, you are mine.” (Isaiah 43:1) Yet, how often are our decisions and choices utterly self-determinative, with only a pretended interest in the bigger picture of God’s will and purposes? How often have we chosen to grow wild grapes? How often do we take care of ourselves physically, emotionally, spiritually as if we really are God’s? The Scriptures are clear as to what ultimately belongs to us in terms of physical possessions – absolutely nothing: “Naked I came from my mother’s womb, and naked shall I return there; the Lord gave, and the Lord has taken away; blessed be the name of the Lord.” (Job 1:21) All that we have or may have is gift. Yet, when all we have is ultimately from God and usually undeserved, how often do we make demands for our “rights”, stand on some kind of pretended entitlement, make the argument that we somehow “earned” our good fortune? To what extent do we continue amassing goods, in the sub-sonscious hope of erasing the reality of our ontological nakedness? When we engage with the difficult questions of of Scripture and the Tradition, we may find ourselves wanting.

I am not here to tell you how much you should pledge, or how to exercise your own ministry of stewardship. I am hoping that the honest and challenging encounter with the Scriptures and the Tradition will enable for us all a daily transformation shaped by the difficult questions and images offered by them; marked by three profoundly biblical truths: the world is God’s, you are God’s, all is gift. Stewardship is more than simply what one gives in church or how one supports the church. It is about an attitude which is informed chiefly by the reality of who God is as creator and source, and who we are as God’s creation. Stewardship, like so much of the Christian life is ultimately about a relationship, a right relationship, a transforming relationship with God, creation, each other and ourselves.