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.