This sermon was heard at the First Presbyterian Church in Berryville, Arkansas on Sunday September 28, 2008, the 26th Sunday in Ordinary Time.
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.
I’m a big sports fan, gee, you didn’t know, right? Growing up in the suburbs of Kansas City I cut my sports fan teeth rooting for the Royals and the Chiefs, loving their glory years and mourning their down years. I remember the Kansas City Spurs Soccer club from the late 1960’s; the Scouts hockey team, who are now the New Jersey Devils; the NBA’s Kings who are now in Sacramento; and even various and sundry incarnations of indoor soccer Comets.
I watch a lot of ESPN, “The Worldwide Leader in Sports.” I love watching SportsCenter, the highlights show. Just a glimpse of the home team helps me through the day. But there’s a guilty pleasure too, I love the banter. Some people say they tell too many jokes, make too many puns, but that’s just fine with me. Each announcer has at least one phrase that is theirs alone, a tag line. It is a way for the audience to identify the announcer. And they can hang on for years.
One of my favorites belonged to a man named Larry Beil who hasn’t been on the network in ten years. I still remember the way he would talk as a basketball player drove to the hoop, rising above the rim, slamming the ball down “with authority.” The way he said “with authority” became so popular that it was even mocked by the creators of the cartoon “South Park” in the voice of Eric Cartman. Cartman often tells other characters “Respect my authori-tie!”
The authority of a basketball player driving the lane or a cartoon third grader is one thing, but the authority challenged by the chief priests and the elders is another. Authority is one of the points of our gospel reading today. As Jesus is in the temple teaching the people, the chief priests and elders come in to challenge him. They asked “by what authority are you doing these things, and who gave you this authority.” These are good questions and deserve good answers.
In the ancient sense, authority is the ability to do something “to the extent that there are no hindrances in the way.” [1] We mustn’t confuse this with the concept of power. Power is the intrinsic ability to do something where authority is having the right to use that power. So authority comes when there is nothing in the way of using power.
Before we answer the chief priests’ and elders’ questions, let’s answer the question about their authority to ask their questions. When the chief priest[2] enters the sanctuary, he bears the names of the twelve tribes of Israel on his breastplate. This shows that he represents the whole people of Israel.[3] Only the chief priest can enter the Holy of Holies, and only on Yom Kippur, the Day of Atonement, to make recompense for the nation's sin. The Chief Priest is important to the people and the temple. Representing the people, the entire nation, he has the power and the authority to ask Jesus “what in the name of all that’s holy are you doing, and by what authority.”
As for the elders, while they had their own power and authority, in this situation, I see them as the faithful entourage behind the chief priest. They were a Greek chorus if you will echoing the words and sentiments of their leader.
Sure, the priests, the elders, the scribes, and the Pharisees get a bad rap, often deserved, but we must remember they have the authority to ask these questions. When we ask the chief priests who they are, they are the ones with the authority to ask Jesus who he is. If they don’t they neglect their responsibilities and their duties.
So now that we have established that the chief priests, with the elders in tow, have the authority to ask, let’s answer their question, “By what authority are you, Jesus, doing these things, and who gave you this authority?”
Authority comes from someone who is greater. The Lord of the Manor is granted authority from the King. The head of a corporation receives authority from the shareholders. The chief priest receives his authority from the Lord established in Exodus. What is the source of Jesus’ authority? The joy of this answer is that the authority of Jesus is the authority the Father freely gives his Son.
The Father gives the Son the authority over all things in heaven and on earth. The Son is no junior partner; he has the full power and authority of the Father and the Holy Spirit. He does what he sees the Father doing. He works where he sees the Father working.
Jesus receives no single commission, no focused ministry. Jesus doesn’t run the “earth-and-humanity-division” of God’s good creation. His authority is his own rule in free agreement with the father.[4] The Father endows the Son to do the work.
To quote the Presbyterian Church’s Book of Order, “All power in heaven and earth is given to Jesus Christ by Almighty God, who raised Christ from the dead and set him above all rule and authority, all power and dominion, and every name that is named, not only in this age but also in that which is to come.”[5]
There is a reason Jesus doesn’t say all of this though. This story, as it hinges on authority isn’t about authority. This is the first of a group of five stories in Matthew’s gospel where Jesus’ opponents try to trap him, but are bested by him in public debate. Yes, the chief priests and the elders have the authority to ask, to challenge Jesus, but they had bad intentions. They sought to trap and kill Jesus, but this was not the time for that. That time won’t come until Good Friday. By the reckoning of time in Matthew’s narrative, that time comes in less than one week.
Given in freedom, not surrendered under coercion or taken by force, the Father gives the Son all that is His and trusts the Son with the Word and the work. Continuing in freedom, Jesus imparts his authority to the body he leaves on earth, the Church. As the Head of the Church to whom all power is given, he gives it to the disciples in his age and in every age.
We are the stewards of God’s creation; we are the body of Christ on earth. We are called to continue his ministry empowered by the Holy Spirit. This is a solemn responsibility we are called to follow. As I say it like this, it sounds weighty, nothing we can do on our own, but this is the glory of God, we are not on our own. Continuing the previous quote from the Book of Order, “God has put all things under the Lordship of Jesus Christ and has made Christ Head of the Church, which is his body.”[6]
Christ calls the Church into being, giving it all that is necessary for its mission to the world, for its building up, and for service to God and all creation. Christ is present with the Church in both Spirit and Word.
But what does that mean? What are we called to do as the body of Christ? If you will, what is the scope of our authority?
One of the ways the church describes itself is by something called The Great Ends of the Church. The Great Ends have been a part of American Presbyterianism for over 100 years. The great ends of the church are the proclamation of the gospel for the salvation of humankind; the shelter, nurture, and spiritual fellowship of the children of God; the maintenance of divine worship; the preservation of the truth; the promotion of social righteousness; and the exhibition of the Kingdom of Heaven to the world.[7]
This congregation, this part of the body of Christ has its own description of how we show Christ to the world. Our Mission Statement says we gather and welcome the broken people of the world and through God’s love make us one. I love this and believe it is a mission we follow in our lives inside and outside these walls.
Still, the Great Ends and our mission statement may seem a little wordy. That’s the problem with mission statements is that they are heavy on intention, but light on execution. They are great for saying what we want to do, but not so much on how we are going to do it. So how is authority imparted to this part of the body of Christ? How do we exercise it?
The Session, which is the Minister and the Elders, the Session is responsible for the mission and government of each individual congregation.[8] For this congregation, within these seven people, with Christ as the head of the Church, is all power and authority vested to do the work of God on earth.
This includes opportunities for evangelism to be learned and practiced in and by the church so that members may be better equipped to articulate their faith, to witness in word and deed to the saving grace of Jesus Christ, and to invite persons into a new life in Christ.[9] This includes receiving members into the church.[10] This includes leading the congregation in participation in the mission of the whole Church in the world.[11] This includes ordering worship;[12] including preaching the word, celebrating the sacraments, and praying in song and silence.
Oh, the Session does much. There are a lot of duties in nineteen sections plus subsections found in the Book of Order. Some of these are specifically administered by the Minister of Word and Sacrament, others are not. Some are reserved and others are delegated.
But the rubber meets the road where each member of the church exercises their authority as the children of God. Again, this comes from the Book of Order:[13] We accept Christ’s call to be involved in the responsibly in the ministry of his Church by:
Proclaiming the good news,
Taking part in the common life and worship,
Praying and studying Scripture and the faith of the Christian Church,
Supporting the work of the church through the giving of money, time, and talents,
Participating in the governing responsibilities of the church,
Demonstrating a new quality of life within and through the church,
Responding to God’s activity in the world through service to others,
Living responsibly in the personal, family, vocational, political, cultural, and social relationships of life,
Working in the world for peace, justice, freedom, and human fulfillment.
This is what we have all been called to do. We have the power and we have the authority. By the power and authority of the Triune God these are our responsibilities with the authority to exercise them. The power has been demonstrated for us by God incarnate, our Lord Jesus Christ. The authority has been given through his Lordship to his body which is the church. After his death and resurrection, we became empowered to continue his work by the presence of God’s Holy Spirit.
Finally, this authority has been given to us with the assumption that we will be good stewards; exercising good use of the authority we have been given. It is essential that we pursue the ends and goals of the Church in the nature of Christ.[14] As the Apostle Paul told the Philippians, we are to be of the same mind, acting in the interests of others, not ourselves. We are to be in the same mind as was in Christ Jesus. A mind not shared by the chief priests and elders.
As the church, we are called to God’s continuing work on earth. We are called to worship and praise. We are called to service and mission. We are called to extol his name in evangelism. In the words of St. Francis we are all called to “preach the gospel, and if necessary use words.” And through the power of our Lord we can, with authority.
[1] Kittel, Gerhard, “Theological Dictionary of the New Testament.” Geoffrey Bromiley, translator and editor. Volume II, Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 1964, pages 562.
[2] Priests and Levites, Interpreter’s Dictionary of the Bible
[3] Exodus 28:29
[4] Kittel, page 568
[5] PC(USA) Book of Order, G-1.0100a
[6] Ibid.
[7] Ibid, G-1.0200
[8] Ibid G-10.0102
[9] Ibid G-10.0102a
[10] Ibid G-10.0102b
[11] Ibid G-10.0102c
[12] Ibid. G-10.0102d
[13] Ibid. G5-0102a-i
[14] Kittel, page 568
Sunday, September 28, 2008
Sunday, September 21, 2008
Amazing Grace
This sermon was heard at the First Presbyterian Church in Berryville, Arkansas on Sunday September 21, 2008, the 25th Sunday in Ordinary Time.
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
First published in 1945, George Orwell’s “Animal Farm” is a satirical allegory reflecting events leading up to and during Stalin era in Russia before World War II. The story uses the setting of a farmer, a farm, and the livestock to portray the Czars and the Bolsheviks. At first, all animals are equal; this becomes the Seventh Commandment of Animal Farm. However, class and status disparities soon emerge between the different animal species.
The novel describes how a society’s ideologies can be manipulated and twisted by those in positions of social and political power, including how a utopian society is made impossible by the corrupting nature of the very power necessary to create it. By the end of the book, the pigs have learned to walk upright and started to behave similarly to the humans against whom they revolted in the beginning. [1]
The famous quote “All animals are equal, but some animals are more equal than others” is a proclamation by the pigs that control the government. This proclamation becomes the revised version of the Seventh Commandment of Animal Farm. The new commandment is a comment on the hypocrisy of governments that proclaim the absolute equality of their citizens but give power and privileges to a small elite.
By now, I imagine you are wondering how I am going to connect “Animal Farm” to this parable. Oddly, it’s easier than you think.
This is one of Jesus’ kingdom of heaven parables found only in Matthew’s gospel. It is a story of the amazing grace of God that extends to all persons in the kingdom of heaven equally. Of course, in our dog-eat-dog world, this parable seems more outrageous than amazing. And it was that way to the parable characters too.
You know how this parable works. Early in the morning, the landowner goes to the village marketplace to find day workers. Let’s start right here. This very sentence is a sign that the kingdom of heaven is different from the world we know. The landowner goes to the village marketplace. Not the manager, not the foreman, not even the personnel director; the landowner goes to find day workers. The big man goes to hire the workers and negotiate with them.
Everyone agrees on the daily wage, a denarius. It’s a living wage, it won’t make a farm worker rich, but it will keep a roof over the family’s head, food on the table, and gas in the truck.
The landowner repeats this process at nine, noon, three in the afternoon, and five. These workers are promised they will be paid “whatever is right.”[2] This is where we are being set up; we know what is right, or what is usual. They will be paid for either a portion of the day or per bushel harvested. Per hour or piecemeal, this is the way we would expect to be paid. Either way, the daybreak folks will get more, it’s only fair. But these workers weren’t promised what was fair; they were promised what is right.
So at the end of a long day, a day longer for some than others, the owner told his manager to call the laborers together for their pay with the last coming first and the first coming last. Sound familiar?
They were paid in order, the five o’clock shift, then the three o’clock, the noon, the nine, and finally the daybreak shift. And they all received the usual daily wage. Every one of them received a denarius whether they were there an hour or all day. This ticked off the folks who had been there all day long. The hours are long, the day is hot, the work is hard, and everyone walked out with the same pay. And just to add what they considered insult to what they felt was injury, they had to wait around to watch everyone else get a full day’s pay first. They had to watch the short-timers get paid the exact same amount they earned, what they felt they alone deserved.
Then one of them said what the rest of them were thinking, “These last worked only one hour, and you have made them equal to us who have borne the burden of the day and the scorching heat.”
There it is. He didn’t say “you paid them the same,” he said “you have made them equal to us.” There it is, merit. They didn’t deserve the same thing because they aren’t like us. They didn’t work all day. They could have been with us in the field, but they weren’t and you have made them equal to us.
This is our world. Jefferson wrote in the Declaration of independence, “We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights, that among these are Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit of Happiness.” Our world promises that all men are created equal. What we do with our God given equality is up to us.
In the kingdom of heaven, all men-and women-are equal. Not created equal, in the kingdom of heaven we are equal. This is the difference between merit and grace. On earth, we earn what we get. In the kingdom of heaven, we receive without earning, and we receive more than we could ever merit.
This is actually harder for the church to understand than we might think. If it were not, Jesus would not have said anything about it.
But in this time where Gentile God-fearers are crashing the church of the Jewish Christians, this is a real concern. In a later time when the church sold golden tickets to absolve sins called “plenary indulgences,” this is a real concern. Still in a later time when people argue about who are the true believers and who are the unfaithful leading the church down the wrong path, this is a real concern. Shoot, in this time when people argue and churches divide over what music is sung to what accompaniment, this is a real concern.
Perhaps Jesus knew that human beings would cause divisions in the church and he wanted us to know that all people are equal.
And nobody is more equal than anybody else. Nobody.
Still, this causes a real crisis in the church. No one phrased it better than Jürgen Moltmann:
The Christian life of theologians, churches and human beings is faced more than ever today with a double crisis: the crisis of relevance and the crisis of identity. These two crises are complementary. The more theology and the church attempt to become relevant to the problems of our present day, the more deeply they are drawn into a crisis of their own identity. The more they attempt to assert their identity in traditional dogmas, rights and moral notions, the more irrelevant and unbelievable they become.[3]
Moltmann calls this the identity-involvement dilemma. If we become too involved in the world we are drawn into a crisis of identity as the people of God. If we hold too tightly to who we are as the church, the church loses sight of the world it has been called to serve doing God’s reconciling work. It’s a Catch-22, but as Joseph Heller wrote; Catch-22 is the best catch there is.
Upon Moltmann’s observation, theologian Shirley Guthrie asks, “whether and how we can maintain Christian identity and faithfulness in a pluralistic church and society without becoming exclusive, intolerant, and irrelevant; and whether and how we can be an open inclusive, relevant community of Christians without losing our Christian identity and authenticity.”
And this isn’t a new problem; it has been going on since the Gentiles started fearing God and following Jesus. The only thing that is new is the way we describe the problem. The issues are new; but the problems they bring, whether recent or aged, are not. The problems are loss of identity and loss of relevance.
But here’s the crux of the matter; all of these problems are ours, they aren’t God’s. God never loses identity, and in the same breath never loses relevance. God is in the world. God walked the face of the earth sharing our joys and concerns, sharing everything except for our sin. That would come upon him at the cross. Jesus tells us of his simple amazing grace and the overwhelming breadth of his promise of equality in the kingdom. So the people who are harmed by our problems are us.
Shakespeare’s “Romeo and Juliet” is the story of two families that don’t get along. In fact, Shakespeare doesn’t even say what their argument is about, only that “theirs is an ancient grudge.”[4] And in the end, when the ancient grudge fuels the deaths of the star-crossed lovers, the Prince tells the crowd, that as Capulet and Montague have lost children, so too the Prince has “lost the brace of kinsmen. All are punished.”[5], [6]
Let us know that if we lose our way in the Lord, we are punished. When we fail to know that in the kingdom of heaven all are equal, we are punished. When we fail to treat others as equals in the kingdom of heaven, we are punished. We are punished as we lose the brace of kinsmen. And while the Lord never looses the brace of kinsmen, the Lord grieves as we cause ourselves to be punished when we reject others.
In his book “Santa Biblia: The Bible through Hispanic Eyes,” Justo Gonzales notes that this parable elicits surprisingly different reactions when read to typical, middle-class audiences in America compared to Hispanic audiences.
Most people are perplexed that someone who had worked for only an hour should be paid the same as someone who has worked for eight hours. It seems patently unfair. Moreover, most people don't understand the fuss. The logic is so clear, typical Americans cannot understand on what grounds one could argue the fairness of Jesus’ approach.
When the story is read or studied by a Hispanic audience, however, the reaction is quite different. These are people, Gonzales says, 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.[7]
This parable of the kingdom of heaven is a story of the amazing grace of God that extends to everyone in the kingdom of heaven equally and abundantly. In the kingdom of heaven, all are equal. This parable understands that in the kingdom of heaven, justice is served when all receive the full measure of grace without regard to merit. It’s the story of grace being extended fully and extravagantly to all who need God’s grace.
It understands that Orwell’s Animal Farm is a human society, and that God’s grace and power cannot be corrupted like we are. The kingdom of heaven is greater and more grace filled than any human utopia could ever hope to be.
Of course, in our dog-eat-dog world, this seems more outrageous than amazing. This is the world we as the Church of Jesus Christ must reach beyond. There is alone the Son Jesus Christ, our head, our brother, our pastor, and the great bishop of our souls, the one through whom we are elect;[8] through whom we are the church, his body on earth. Hence when we fail to recognize the equality of all persons through the amazing grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, we are all punished.
[1] Animal Farm, Wikipedia, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Animal_Farm_(book), retrieved September 20, 2008.
[2] Matthew 20:4
[3] Moltmann, Jürgen, “The Crucified God.” New York: Harper and Row, 1974, page 7.
[4] Shakespeare, William, “Romeo and Juliet.” Act 1, Scene 1, Line 3.
[5] Ibid, Act 5, Scene 3, Line 294.
[6] Pronounced “punish-ed”
[7] Gonzales, Justo, “Santa Biblia: The Bible through Hispanic Eyes.” Nashville: Abingdon Press, 1996, pages 62-63. Found in Homiletics Online, http://www.homileticsonline.com/subscriber/printer_friendly_installment.asp?installment_id=3125 retrieved September 16, 2008.
[8] From the Scots’ Confession, Chapter VIII, Paragraph 2
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
First published in 1945, George Orwell’s “Animal Farm” is a satirical allegory reflecting events leading up to and during Stalin era in Russia before World War II. The story uses the setting of a farmer, a farm, and the livestock to portray the Czars and the Bolsheviks. At first, all animals are equal; this becomes the Seventh Commandment of Animal Farm. However, class and status disparities soon emerge between the different animal species.
The novel describes how a society’s ideologies can be manipulated and twisted by those in positions of social and political power, including how a utopian society is made impossible by the corrupting nature of the very power necessary to create it. By the end of the book, the pigs have learned to walk upright and started to behave similarly to the humans against whom they revolted in the beginning. [1]
The famous quote “All animals are equal, but some animals are more equal than others” is a proclamation by the pigs that control the government. This proclamation becomes the revised version of the Seventh Commandment of Animal Farm. The new commandment is a comment on the hypocrisy of governments that proclaim the absolute equality of their citizens but give power and privileges to a small elite.
By now, I imagine you are wondering how I am going to connect “Animal Farm” to this parable. Oddly, it’s easier than you think.
This is one of Jesus’ kingdom of heaven parables found only in Matthew’s gospel. It is a story of the amazing grace of God that extends to all persons in the kingdom of heaven equally. Of course, in our dog-eat-dog world, this parable seems more outrageous than amazing. And it was that way to the parable characters too.
You know how this parable works. Early in the morning, the landowner goes to the village marketplace to find day workers. Let’s start right here. This very sentence is a sign that the kingdom of heaven is different from the world we know. The landowner goes to the village marketplace. Not the manager, not the foreman, not even the personnel director; the landowner goes to find day workers. The big man goes to hire the workers and negotiate with them.
Everyone agrees on the daily wage, a denarius. It’s a living wage, it won’t make a farm worker rich, but it will keep a roof over the family’s head, food on the table, and gas in the truck.
The landowner repeats this process at nine, noon, three in the afternoon, and five. These workers are promised they will be paid “whatever is right.”[2] This is where we are being set up; we know what is right, or what is usual. They will be paid for either a portion of the day or per bushel harvested. Per hour or piecemeal, this is the way we would expect to be paid. Either way, the daybreak folks will get more, it’s only fair. But these workers weren’t promised what was fair; they were promised what is right.
So at the end of a long day, a day longer for some than others, the owner told his manager to call the laborers together for their pay with the last coming first and the first coming last. Sound familiar?
They were paid in order, the five o’clock shift, then the three o’clock, the noon, the nine, and finally the daybreak shift. And they all received the usual daily wage. Every one of them received a denarius whether they were there an hour or all day. This ticked off the folks who had been there all day long. The hours are long, the day is hot, the work is hard, and everyone walked out with the same pay. And just to add what they considered insult to what they felt was injury, they had to wait around to watch everyone else get a full day’s pay first. They had to watch the short-timers get paid the exact same amount they earned, what they felt they alone deserved.
Then one of them said what the rest of them were thinking, “These last worked only one hour, and you have made them equal to us who have borne the burden of the day and the scorching heat.”
There it is. He didn’t say “you paid them the same,” he said “you have made them equal to us.” There it is, merit. They didn’t deserve the same thing because they aren’t like us. They didn’t work all day. They could have been with us in the field, but they weren’t and you have made them equal to us.
This is our world. Jefferson wrote in the Declaration of independence, “We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights, that among these are Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit of Happiness.” Our world promises that all men are created equal. What we do with our God given equality is up to us.
In the kingdom of heaven, all men-and women-are equal. Not created equal, in the kingdom of heaven we are equal. This is the difference between merit and grace. On earth, we earn what we get. In the kingdom of heaven, we receive without earning, and we receive more than we could ever merit.
This is actually harder for the church to understand than we might think. If it were not, Jesus would not have said anything about it.
But in this time where Gentile God-fearers are crashing the church of the Jewish Christians, this is a real concern. In a later time when the church sold golden tickets to absolve sins called “plenary indulgences,” this is a real concern. Still in a later time when people argue about who are the true believers and who are the unfaithful leading the church down the wrong path, this is a real concern. Shoot, in this time when people argue and churches divide over what music is sung to what accompaniment, this is a real concern.
Perhaps Jesus knew that human beings would cause divisions in the church and he wanted us to know that all people are equal.
And nobody is more equal than anybody else. Nobody.
Still, this causes a real crisis in the church. No one phrased it better than Jürgen Moltmann:
The Christian life of theologians, churches and human beings is faced more than ever today with a double crisis: the crisis of relevance and the crisis of identity. These two crises are complementary. The more theology and the church attempt to become relevant to the problems of our present day, the more deeply they are drawn into a crisis of their own identity. The more they attempt to assert their identity in traditional dogmas, rights and moral notions, the more irrelevant and unbelievable they become.[3]
Moltmann calls this the identity-involvement dilemma. If we become too involved in the world we are drawn into a crisis of identity as the people of God. If we hold too tightly to who we are as the church, the church loses sight of the world it has been called to serve doing God’s reconciling work. It’s a Catch-22, but as Joseph Heller wrote; Catch-22 is the best catch there is.
Upon Moltmann’s observation, theologian Shirley Guthrie asks, “whether and how we can maintain Christian identity and faithfulness in a pluralistic church and society without becoming exclusive, intolerant, and irrelevant; and whether and how we can be an open inclusive, relevant community of Christians without losing our Christian identity and authenticity.”
And this isn’t a new problem; it has been going on since the Gentiles started fearing God and following Jesus. The only thing that is new is the way we describe the problem. The issues are new; but the problems they bring, whether recent or aged, are not. The problems are loss of identity and loss of relevance.
But here’s the crux of the matter; all of these problems are ours, they aren’t God’s. God never loses identity, and in the same breath never loses relevance. God is in the world. God walked the face of the earth sharing our joys and concerns, sharing everything except for our sin. That would come upon him at the cross. Jesus tells us of his simple amazing grace and the overwhelming breadth of his promise of equality in the kingdom. So the people who are harmed by our problems are us.
Shakespeare’s “Romeo and Juliet” is the story of two families that don’t get along. In fact, Shakespeare doesn’t even say what their argument is about, only that “theirs is an ancient grudge.”[4] And in the end, when the ancient grudge fuels the deaths of the star-crossed lovers, the Prince tells the crowd, that as Capulet and Montague have lost children, so too the Prince has “lost the brace of kinsmen. All are punished.”[5], [6]
Let us know that if we lose our way in the Lord, we are punished. When we fail to know that in the kingdom of heaven all are equal, we are punished. When we fail to treat others as equals in the kingdom of heaven, we are punished. We are punished as we lose the brace of kinsmen. And while the Lord never looses the brace of kinsmen, the Lord grieves as we cause ourselves to be punished when we reject others.
In his book “Santa Biblia: The Bible through Hispanic Eyes,” Justo Gonzales notes that this parable elicits surprisingly different reactions when read to typical, middle-class audiences in America compared to Hispanic audiences.
Most people are perplexed that someone who had worked for only an hour should be paid the same as someone who has worked for eight hours. It seems patently unfair. Moreover, most people don't understand the fuss. The logic is so clear, typical Americans cannot understand on what grounds one could argue the fairness of Jesus’ approach.
When the story is read or studied by a Hispanic audience, however, the reaction is quite different. These are people, Gonzales says, 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.[7]
This parable of the kingdom of heaven is a story of the amazing grace of God that extends to everyone in the kingdom of heaven equally and abundantly. In the kingdom of heaven, all are equal. This parable understands that in the kingdom of heaven, justice is served when all receive the full measure of grace without regard to merit. It’s the story of grace being extended fully and extravagantly to all who need God’s grace.
It understands that Orwell’s Animal Farm is a human society, and that God’s grace and power cannot be corrupted like we are. The kingdom of heaven is greater and more grace filled than any human utopia could ever hope to be.
Of course, in our dog-eat-dog world, this seems more outrageous than amazing. This is the world we as the Church of Jesus Christ must reach beyond. There is alone the Son Jesus Christ, our head, our brother, our pastor, and the great bishop of our souls, the one through whom we are elect;[8] through whom we are the church, his body on earth. Hence when we fail to recognize the equality of all persons through the amazing grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, we are all punished.
[1] Animal Farm, Wikipedia, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Animal_Farm_(book), retrieved September 20, 2008.
[2] Matthew 20:4
[3] Moltmann, Jürgen, “The Crucified God.” New York: Harper and Row, 1974, page 7.
[4] Shakespeare, William, “Romeo and Juliet.” Act 1, Scene 1, Line 3.
[5] Ibid, Act 5, Scene 3, Line 294.
[6] Pronounced “punish-ed”
[7] Gonzales, Justo, “Santa Biblia: The Bible through Hispanic Eyes.” Nashville: Abingdon Press, 1996, pages 62-63. Found in Homiletics Online, http://www.homileticsonline.com/subscriber/printer_friendly_installment.asp?installment_id=3125 retrieved September 16, 2008.
[8] From the Scots’ Confession, Chapter VIII, Paragraph 2
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