The Company You Keep

This sermon was heard at the First Presbyterian Church in Marshall, Texas on Sunday September 25, 2011, the 26th Sunday in Ordinary Time.

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Exodus 17:1-7

Psalm 78:1-4, 12-16

Philippians 2:1-13

Matthew 21:23-32

May the words of my mouth and the meditations of our hearts be acceptable to you, O Lord, our Rock and our Redeemer.  Amen.

One of the most important things faith teaches us to do is speak truth to power. Power tends to take care of itself. Power tends to take care of itself at the expense of those who fall under the its scheming. Power tends to take care of itself at the expense of truth. Remember the old expression “Power corrupts and absolute power corrupts absolutely.” This is why truth must speak to power. In our gospel reading the Truth speaks to the power.

As we look at Matthew’s gospel, we need to remember that Jesus may be the Truth, but in the ways of the temple and the empire, he is nothing. We tend to approach Jesus from where we live, on this side of the cross and the resurrection. We remember that in Matthew’s gospel there is no secret that Jesus is Lord. John the Baptist made this clear not only the day before and the day of the Lord’s baptism; John made it clear to his mother in utero that Jesus is Lord.

There’s nothing bad about looking at faith from this side of the resurrection. It’s our life, our experience, and gloriously it’s the root of our faith. But considering this reading from our side of the resurrection, we miss things. We especially miss the Lord’s lack of formal earthly staus.

Historically, the events in our reading happen the day after the triumphant entry into Jerusalem, the day after Palm Sunday. So the past several days have been wild with preparations for the Passover; not just for Jesus and the disciples but for all of Israel. Jerusalem had a population of about 40,000 people at the time and with an additional 200,000 religious pilgrims and other visitors who were there for the celebration,[1] the city was being stretched to its limits. This stretching wasn’t unlike any other Passover, but this time there was something more.

On the day before our reading, Jesus rode into town on the back of a donkey. He rode into town as palm branches covered the road and cloaks covered the animal. The people were shouting and praising the Lord and the One who comes in the Lord’s Name. This was a cause of some concern. In an occupied territory, it’s never good news for the invading force when the people’s fervor reaches a fever pitch.

So while this is happening, Pilate comes to Jerusalem. Like every other political leader he never travels without his entourage and his party was large and well armed. The Passover was traditionally a time of political uprising in Palestine and this year there was talk of a new prophet in the hills north of Jerusalem. So like any good Roman prelate, Pilate came ready for trouble.

Pilate would be ready for the nearly quarter-million residents and visitors and the rabble they carried in their wake. There would be more than enough soldiers, there would be more than enough arms, and Pilate rode at the head on his war steed to show that he meant business.[2]

Caught in the middle of this were the temple elite, the chief priests and the elders. There were caught between the people, the faith, and the Roman overlords who allowed them to keep their positions of power and authority.


Rome had a couple of overriding rules for the lands they conquered. The first was “Caesar is God.” The next was “Keep paying the tribute.” Another was “Keep the peace.” As long as those were met, Rome was happy and the people were allowed to live. This was true even about faith and religion. The people of Israel could keep their faith as long as the rules were followed.

So Jesus comes into town and the people are with him. This isn’t good because the Roman authorities with their invading armies are never happy when huge crowds invoke the name of a god who is not Caesar. This put the chief priests and the elders in a pickle, because if riots broke out they would be held accountable as the leaders of the conquered peoples.

Then, as if that wasn’t bad enough, when Jesus came to the temple he ran out the money changers before he left the city for the night. This brought joy to the blind, lame, and children while it took bread from the mouths of the temple staff. Much like today, the offerings to the temple provided for temple leaders, workers, musicians, custodians and so on. So driving out the money changers is like closing the temple bank. If you ever want to upset a chief priest, tell them they aren’t going to get paid because some country Rabbi from the backwaters of Nazareth and Galilee upset the apple cart.

We can assume the temple leaders were well informed; but more than smart they were sly. It was the only way to balance their responsibilities in their setting as they saw it. Because of this cunning, John called them a brood of vipers on the banks of the Jordan. It would be wrong for us to think that they did not know what John’s prophecy meant and how it pertained to Jesus. They would have known what happened the day before as Jesus entered Jerusalem too. We can assume they had a finger on the pulse of the people as well as the Roman garrison. It would be the only way they could survive, especially in those tenuous times.

To give us an idea of the Lord’s mindset, let’s remember that Matthew reports he cursed and killed a fig tree on his way into town that morning. Jesus was ready for anything too.

So our reading begins when Jesus comes back into town and begins teaching at the temple before the leaders make it to the office. They begin their day asking “By what authority are you doing these things, and who gave you this authority?”

I think we have an idea about the mindset of the chief priests and the elders. If they weren’t upset, they were at least nervous. They might have asked this question out of their nerves, or perhaps out of awe, or they might have even asked out of hostility.

Anyway, they have the formal authority. The temple especially is under their authority. They have every right to ask this question. But the tide changed with Jesus’ answer.

So Jesus answers like a true rabbi, with a question. “Sure, I’ll answer your question if you answer mine first: ‘Did the baptism of John come from heaven or was it of human origin?’”

Now they’re in trouble and they know it. The huddle of Rabbis looks like a football defense deep in its own territory. They discuss their options. If they say “it comes from heaven” he will ask “then why don’t you believe?” If they say “its origin is human” the people will have their heads. The people love Jesus, they love John, they know the prophecy; so the prophets can’t take that chance.

On top of that, the people can take either of these answers to incite a riot against Pilate; and that’s not going to work for the people who are trying to keep a lid on civil unrest. So they do the one thing they hope will keep the peace. Nothing.

If they won’t answer his question Jesus won’t answer theirs.

As I said earlier, looking at this from our side of the resurrection misses some very important things. One is that we know the answer to this question. He could have answered their question saying the authority comes from my father. He could say the authority comes from God. He could say that he is God and has the authority. Jesus could give them a straight answer to their question but he doesn’t. Instead, he unites himself with John. If the temple elite considered Jesus to be a country Rabbi, then comparing himself to John made him the ultimate outsider.

Jesus identifies himself with the prophet of the wilderness. John ran around the countryside of the Near East wearing camel hair and a leather belt. As classy as that sounds, good fabric choices and all, what he was wearing was a camel skin poncho tied around his waist with what was left from long ago.

If Jesus was from the hinterlands then John was from Mars.

On the day before, on Palm Sunday, who was with Jesus? Was it the temple elite? No, they were too busy taking care of business to meet the Lord they had long expected. Was it the Romans? No, they were busy with their own parade. Was it the bankers, no they were busy making change—two doves for a penny, five for two.

Jesus came associating with John, the prophet of the wilderness. Jesus was with the blind, the lame and the children; those who have no one to stand for them in the society that was Israel. Jesus was with that fifth dove, the one that was of no account to the moneychangers or temple elite.

Jesus emptied himself of his heavenly power to maintain his heavenly place. He could have taken his power and shown the chief priests and elders all about his authority. He could have told them all “I AM” but he didn’t. He didn’t invoke his name or his power or his peace to the powerful. Jesus made his stand with the people nobody with any power or authority would stand with. The fully-human-fully-divine Jesus Christ did not announce his authority in a fully divine voice; he chose the fully human instead. He chose to be among the people who needed him the most.

Jesus didn’t aspire to the authority that places him at the center of earthly power. Instead, he chooses to identify himself with the weak and the marginal. He identifies himself with the poorest of the poor. He stands with those who cannot stand for themselves.

Paul tells us that we should follow Christ’s example in this self emptying sort of love.  He describes how we should follow Jesus saying:

Let the same mind be in you that was in Christ Jesus,

who, though he was in the form of God,

did not regard equality with God

as something to be exploited,

but emptied himself,

taking the form of a slave,

being born in human likeness.

And being found in human form,

            he humbled himself

and became obedient to the point of death--

even death on a cross.

He chooses not to stand with those who stand without external authority. He chooses not to stand with Rome and the Caesar who declares himself God. He does not stand with the temple leaders who play politics that would made modern leaders blush. He stands with those who are meek and humble. Paul tells us this is what we must aspire to.

Jesus then tells us it is better to do the right thing than to say the right thing, this is one of the ways to read the parable of the two sons. By their answer at the end of verse 31, the chief priests and elders know this is true. Yet as Jesus so unsympathetically tells them, it is those who repent and follow, even if they are the most reviled members of society, they will go into the kingdom before these men of high esteem. The poor know Jesus at his most human so they can see him at his most divine. They have repented.

They followed the Christ. The temple leadership did not.

Years ago, New York Life used the slogan, “The Company You Keep.” It was their way of saying that if you want to be successful in money management then you should follow their lead, their advice. (Given the state of the economy over the last twenty years, many investors did much, much worse than New York Life.) But as Jesus shows us, this is not the most important company we can keep. Jesus is telling us though that the company we keep is very important.

Some will be seduced by the finer things of this life; the good seats at banquets, the first cuts of breads and meats from the temple offerings, a place in the affairs of politics—the trappings of earthly power. John preached the way of righteousness and the sinners believed. Despite (or maybe because of) their knowledge, the leaders did not. The leaders knew all of the words and none of the actions.

Jesus spoke the Truth to the powerful, telling them to repent, to turn from the ways of the world. Jesus identified himself with John and the weak and the poor. He keeps their company because they have chosen not to be salves to this world but to be sons and daughters of the kingdom of God.

Jesus, the God who would also be a man showed us something better. He took the form of a slave, being born in human likeness. And being found in human form, he humbled himself and became obedient to the point of death—even death on a cross. He chose us to be his company, we must do the same.

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[1] Rollefson, John, “Feasting on the Word, Preaching the Revised Common Lectionary.” David L. Bartlet and Barbara Brown Taylor, Editors. Louisville, KY: Westminster John Knox Press, 2010, page 154

[2] Ibid.

Whatever Is Right

This sermon was heard at the First Presbyterian Church in Marshall, Texas on Sunday September 18, 2011, the 25th Sunday in Ordinary Time.

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Exodus 16:2-15

Psalm 105:1-6, 37-45

Philippians 1:21-30

Matthew 20:1-16

May the words of my mouth and the meditations of our hearts be acceptable to you, O Lord, our rock and our redeemer.  Amen.

Through our ears, our modern ears, this parable is odd. So let’s start with something very important, this is a parable. The differences between the story and historic custom will make that clear.

Historically, when looking for day laborers, an overseer would go to the town square and would select all of the laborers he would need for the day’s work. The overseer would be skilled in knowing the job and the number of people needed to do the work. At the end of the day, the overseer, probably with a household treasurer of some sort, would pay the men and send them on their way.

In our parable, it is the landowner who goes to square to hire laborers. Unlikely. He not only goes out at sunrise, he goes out again at 9:00 am, noon, 3:00 pm and again at 5:00 pm. Highly unlikely. It’s more likely that the landowner would have either been at the square solving the problems of the world like ancient landowners did or been busy making more deals like modern businessmen do. 

Further, the simple fact that there would still be men waiting to be hired one hour before quitting time doesn’t ring true either. They would have either found work or not expected to work that day because, as I just said, the overseer gets all of his workers at sunrise.

Now, as there are some facets of this parable that don’t ring true, some of the details are dead solid perfect. The day was long; the work day started at 6:00 am and ended at 6:00 pm, generally from sunrise to sunset. There would still be enough time to get the staples needed before heading back to what passes for a home to these migrant workers. Very few had families so the single denarius would keep them marginally fed and sheltered.

Last week I said that the denarius was a living wage, in truth it is just barely a living wage. It would not be like the wages of an average household in Marshall like I said last week. It would be more like living on $11,000, poverty level. It is said that the life of a day laborer was short and hard, some things never change.

So if we have established one thing about this parable, it is that Jesus was telling a story, a story with a lesson for the disciples to understand. A story that would have some elements that would ring true to every one of his disciples and some that would be outrageous. This is what we need to take from this parable first, it is a parable, it’s not “ripped from the headlines” like Wednesday’s premier of “Law & Order: Special Victims Unit.”

This is actually a good thing because let’s be honest, I’m just as miffed that the men who only showed up for an hour got the same pay as the men who worked hard all day long. It goes with our mindset; an honest day’s work for an honest day’s pay. You work twelve hours, you get twelve hours worth of pay. You pick so many bushels of grapes or sheaves of wheat or hundreds of widgets you get paid for that much work. It’s what’s right.

I know when I was young, and somebody on Thursday said the same thing, I thought the next day would be a real bad day for the landowner; nobody would want to work all day for him ever again! He could get all of the “one hour labor” he wanted, but all day? No way.

These are just more reasons we need to look at this as a parable and not as a true story.

As far as I’m concerned paying for the work done, not paying for standing around is right, and I suspect many of you feel the same way. Shoot, even the workers who put in a full day thought it was unfair. This is not the way of the parable.

But then again, I’m looking at this from my modern point of view. I come from the point of view of a man who once managed a business that had a half-million dollar annual revenue in the late 80’s. I managed employees in the private and public sectors, and did it with a point of view that comes from having a Bachelor of Science in Business degree. Even with a degree in College Student Development, I am still inclined to process budgets and create spreadsheets like the business student I once was.

I notice I’ve just spent the last few minutes going on about what this parable is not. It’s not a real story. It’s not based on fact. It’s not “ripped from the headlines.” It never has been and probably never will be taught in business school. We are not familiar with anything like it.

This is the point of view that is familiar to most of us, but there is another. In his 1996 book “Santa Biblia: The Bible through Hispanic Eyes”,[1] Justo Gonzales notes that this parable elicits surprisingly different reactions when read to typical, middle-class audiences in America compared to Hispanic audiences. Gonzales says:

These are people who identify with the problems of the field workers. They understand the laborer who travels in his pickup truck trying to find work with little success, or, even if he finds work, he is standing around waiting until the job materializes.

At the end of the parable when the landowner pays the wages, the Hispanic congregation applauds when the laborers who worked for only one hour get paid a full day's pay. They are not confused by this, but understand that the people looking for work and who have been waiting for work need a day's pay to survive. They rejoice, then, at the grace that is not contrary to justice, but that flows with justice. They are paid what they need and deserve rather than the wages they might have been paid had society's concept of justice prevailed.[2]

According go Gonzales, Hispanic migrant workers going from farm to farm to look for work at the will of the master understands grace in ways that stereotypically Presbyterians do not. Sorry about using a stereotype, but it applies here. Statistics show that most Presbyterians live at an income level that is above the national average. We are more likely to be the overseer than the migrant.

Still as we know all too well about statistics, “numbers don’t lie but numbers don’t bleed.”[3] Statistics speak to a people, to a nation; but they can never portray the situation of an individual.

Getting back from the caveat and onto the main point, on the whole we don’t experience the grace of God fashioned in this parable as much as we experience what we would consider it being wronged by someone who gets more than we think they deserve.

I can speak for myself, when I was young my dad worked for TWA, Trans World Airlines. He lost several promotions because of concessions made to labor unions in contract negotiations. Just when one labor union would settle and he was back in line for promotion, bam, here’s the next waiting to take what would ultimately come from him. He was quite unhappy about the situation and that made the little boy in me upset too. So I get this.

Maybe for me the first point is that I don’t understand the actions of the landowner. Based on the values I learned as a young boy at my father’s knee and a young man in college, it doesn’t seem right. But there is one thing I can say I understand about the parable. Something we can all understand is that it’s the landowner’s right to do whatever he wants with his money, his land, and his crop. If he chooses to give everyone the same pay for unequal work then that’s up to him.

Jesus asks “Are you envious because I am generous?” Well, maybe the answer to that simple question is yes, I am.

But there’s another old expression, a prayer if you will, that would work for his situation. “Lord, please give me what I need and not what I deserve.” Based on our reading from last week I mentioned that we commit $2 billion worth of sin against the Lord while we commit (based on my adjusted figures) a paltry $7,000 against one another. In that parable the Lord forgives greatly and expects us to forgive one another too.

This week’s reading provides us with the idea that it doesn’t matter when we come to the party, the reward is the same. This is one of the many ways to imagine grace.

It’s combining these two readings that makes me stand up straight. We owe a debt to the Lord that is as great as the value of the whole Dallas Cowboys Football Organization, and even though we cannot repay such a debt we are forgiven. Today we see that not only are we forgiven; but regardless of when we come to the table we are given this day our daily bread.

Sounds familiar, “Give us this day our daily bread and forgive us our debts as we forgive our debtors.” You see, daily bread isn’t the request for quail and manna from our Exodus reading. We should never look to return to the fleshpots of our own little Egypt’s where we trade our personal slavery for full bellies. Our prayer is for what we need to get us through the day—each and every day. The Lord’s Prayer doesn’t handle our 401(k) or other wonders of wealth. In the Lord’s Prayer we’re just like a day laborer in the name of the Lord asking not asking for all we want and more, but for just what we need.

Our debts are forgiven as we forgive our debtors, and last week’s reading made that painfully real when the master sent the unforgiving slave to prison and torture. This week we learn that the master, the landowner in this parable, will do with what is his as he pleases.

Maybe, just maybe that is the point of this parable. The Lord God works in wonderful and mysterious ways, ways that are far more generous than we could ever hope or imagine. It’s easy to understand why we aren’t that generous. Economists tell us that economics is the study of the use of scarce resources. Whenever we look at a parable of Jesus that includes money, it is our habit to look at the wealth like a scarce resource that will ultimately dry up. That’s our world, that’s our economics.

The glory of God is that the denarii of the parable will never run out. In the kingdom of God, the landowner will never run short. People will come daily and there will always be enough. That’s the glory of God.

That is what makes God so completely different than us. God’s grace and God’s mercy know no bounds. As our parables teach us, our wisdom, our forgiveness, our ideas of what’s right pale next to the Lord’s.

As for the interpretation at the end, “So the last will be first and the first will be last,” I’m not sure how well this fits. Yes, those who came last were paid first and vice versa, but there is something more important. Those who came to the master, the landowner, all received what was right. Whether you were hired at sunrise or at 5:00 in the afternoon; whether you have lived your life as a disciple or came to faith later in life, all who come receive the full day’s wage.

It was pointed out to me this week that those who came later, those who came only with the promise that they would be paid “whatever is right” showed more faith. Those who came later came to the vineyard with no specific promise of wage, they only knew that they came with the promise of whatever is right, whatever is just. They weren’t promised whatever is fair, they were promised something different and something better. They were promised what is right.

No, this parable is outrageous for our ears. In the day and time we live in it seems more like welfare than wage, but grace is the promise. We are promised whatever is right, whatever is just. Thank God we receive this instead of what we deserve.

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[1] Gonzales, Justo, “Santa Biblia: The Bible through Hispanic Eyes,” Nashville: Abingdon Press, 1996 pages 62-63.

[2] http://www.homileticsonline.com/subscriber/illustration_search.asp?keywords=fairness+&Search=7&imageField.x=0&imageField.y=0

[3] Walkenhorst, Bob, “Too Many Twenties.” From “The Rainmakers” CD “Skin”