Dishonest? Unrighteous? Shrewd?

This sermon was heard at The Federated Church in Waterford, Oklahoma on Sunday September 18, 2016, the Twenty-Fifth Sunday in Ordinary Time.

Jeremiah 8:18-9:1
Psalm 79:1-9
1 Timothy 2:1-7
Luke 16:1-13

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

As you recall, last week I mentioned that there are some Sundays pastors don’t look forward to preaching. Welcome to one of those Sundays. It seems logical that the parables are ready made for sermons, Jesus tells a story, the pastor explains the story, we have coffee after church and go to lunch. Unfortunately, parables aren’t that easy. Give me an Old Testament narrative for that sort of sermon any day.

The parables are often filled with strange twists and turns that betray simple retelling. On top of twists, there are cultural variables we don’t understand. So if the pastor tries a simple retelling, it’s possible to skate across the surface of the parable glazing over important points. Skating across the text reminds me of the line from an old song, “If you should go skating on the thin ice of hot life, don’t be surprised if a crack in the ice appears under your feet.”

Jesus teaches his disciples, out loud, “The master commended the dishonest manager because he had acted shrewdly. For the people of this world are more shrewd in dealing with their own kind than are the people of the light. I tell you, use worldly wealth to gain friends for yourselves, so that when it is gone, you will be welcomed into eternal dwellings.” If you aren’t confused, you aren’t paying attention. I’ve preached this passage several times and it never ceases confusing me. With this paragraph is Jesus commending dishonesty? It seems so out of character. What’s going on here?

Let’s look at the parable again. There was a manager who was being wasteful with a Rich Man’s possessions. This isn’t refuted by the manager; he squandered the rich man’s possessions. So the rich man pulls the manager aside and says, “‘What is this I hear about you? Give an account of your management, because you cannot be manager any longer.”

“The manager said to himself, ‘What shall I do now? My master is taking away my job. I’m not strong enough to dig, and I’m ashamed to beg—I know what I’ll do so that, when I lose my job here, people will welcome me into their houses.’”

First, the rich man did something silly. To put this in modern terms, he fires his manager, then demands he go back to his office and put his books together so he can report on whether he was wasteful or worse. These days you’re met at your desk by security and the forensic accountant and you might get to leave with the photograph of your wife and kids; but not until security makes sure you haven’t written any computer codes on the back of your pictures.

Second, let’s give this manager some credit, he’s self-aware. Too proud to beg, too weak to dig, he needs a new job and he’s sure he’s not going to get a letter of recommendation. So what does he do, he plots to endear himself to the people who may give him his next job, people who need managers, the people who owe his master money. So he gets in contact with them and plays “Let’s make a deal.”

This is where I got the cover for today’s bulletin: The boss yells “You’re fired” and the manager responds “Okay, mind if I take care of a couple things first?”

He calls in the first debtor and asks, “‘How much do you owe my master?” Let’s pause here. There’s one guy in charge of knowing how much Olive Oil Guy owes his master and he doesn’t seem to know. If there were three or four people in the books that’s one thing but there aren’t. It’s just the manager and he doesn’t know, he should be fired for that alone.

Then again, he could be shrewdly offering Olive Oil Guy a chance to set his own terms. He may know good and well the master is owed nine hundred gallons and hoped Olive Oil Guy would take his own discount? “How much do you owe? Wink-wink.” “Ah, four hundred and fifty gallons? Wink-wink?” but this little conspiracy doesn’t play out.

Alas the manager was clueless or Olive Oil Guy was honest; so the manager says, “Take your bill, sit down quickly, and make it four hundred and fifty.” This continued with the man who owed his master wheat who got a 20% discount instead of a 50% discount.

When the rich man caught wind of what happened and scripture gives us this gem, “The master commended the dishonest manager because he had acted shrewdly.” This is where knowledge of the languages hurts more than it helps. The word our bibles translates as “master” is very common in the Greek New Testament, usually it’s translated as “Lord.” Imagine how dizzy that made the disciples, this is the Lord? I’m dizzy? How are you doing?

John Dominic Crossan quotes other bible scholars when working this text saying this man wasn’t stealing from his boss, he was stealing from himself. This is what made him dishonest and shrewd rather than a felon. Let me explain this in a modern setting which may make more sense.

Let’s say a big boss has someone in sales working on commission. The boss gets the quarterly reports and notices that somebody has been very naughty. Office supplies have gone missing and somebody has traded up their office chair for something nicer, a Cadillac Escalade (Boy, those “Push it in, pull it in, drag it in” trade-in sales are great, aren’t they!).

Knowing who has mismanaged corporate assets, the boss calls this shrewd employee in and as a good reformed Christian believes in grace; so the boss tells the employee to get their stuff in order and get out. Too proud to beg, too weak to dig what does the employee do? Go to the clients and give them discounts. But if there is any more theft from the boss, grace will turn to disgrace and a place on the Police Report in the paper. So the employee gives discounts from their commissions hoping for a quick job offer.

Yes, it’s a kickback. Yes, this is illegal in America, but this isn’t America. This isn’t even real; this is a parable. So Crossan and these scholars aren’t looking at the grand action of the parable like theft like I have for years. He’s seen as being shrewd; though shewed isn’t a particularly complementary word.

The Greek word used here gets a workout from the translators. Some use dishonest, others use shrewd, others unrighteous. You will hear me say this time again, all translation is interpretation. The word used depends on the intent and the theological slant of the translation committee.

Dishonest? He’s not telling anybody where their discount is coming from. The master will know. Do the debtors? The parable doesn’t say, but they might. But who would hire a crook? The parable tells us the manager was wasteful, but is that the same as dishonest? He doesn’t lie to the boss, he just discounts everybody’s debt without telling the boss. Not good, but not dictionary dishonest.

Shrewd? Yes, he is being shrewd. He’s taking his share and he’s using it to try to secure his future without telling anybody what he’s doing. Unfortunately, there’s too much melodramatic baggage with “shrewd” to suit my taste. I imagine the manager twirling a handlebar mustache while not doing his job and pursuing a soft landing. It works, but it’s not quite right.

Unrighteous? That’s the word I prefer. While dishonest and shewed can work, I prefer unrighteous because there’s a theological basis to it. Job is righteous. This guy, not so much because his actions served his lifestyle. He did whatever he had to so he could keep living not like a rich man, but in a rich man’s house. He didn’t want to do the work to be a master, a Lord, he wanted to be his slave, as long as he was a comfortable slave.

We read in 1Timothy our Lord sent his Son so that we may come to the knowledge of truth, the truth of the righteousness of Christ. Seeking righteousness in the love of cash, status, comfort—especially comfort in slavery, will never get us where we want to be, where we need to be, where God wants us to be. We cannot love these things equally. As I said last week, we must love Christ above everything if we are to love at all.

In 1987, Oliver Stone made “Wall Street” starring Michael Douglas and Charlie Sheen. This is the movie where Douglas made the famous “Greed, for the lack of a better word, is good” speech. Since the movie came out Douglas has lamented that speech. Not the quality of the words or even the acting, but its interpretation by now two generations of business school yuppies who think that wealth is all that matters. He tells them that they don’t get it. They forget that Sheen’s character goes to jail. Douglas’ character is yet to be dealt with by the Securities and Exchange Commission.

Greed is not good. It’s not dishonest. It’s not shrewd. It is unrighteous. We need to spend our time and commit our energies to the one who is righteous instead. Amen

Storytelling

This sermon was heard at the First Presbyterian Church in Marshall, Texas on Sunday June 17, 2012, the 11th Sunday in Ordinary Time. Happy Father's Day.

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1 Samuel 15:34-16:13

Psalm 20

2 Corinthians 5:6-10, 14-17

Mark 4:26-34

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

On August 1, 1981, a small cadre of subscribers to one New Jersey cable television provider was introduced to the fledgling moments of what has become a juggernaut. At this moment, the screen showed the launch of the Space Shuttle Columbia on not just its maiden voyage, but the maiden space voyage of the shuttle program. It was followed by shots of the launch of Apollo 11 and still photos of an astronaut looking at a strange flag. The flag, while its logo did not change, its color schemes did. The image was the logo of a brand new cable network. In that moment, using the images of the greatest technological achievements and the greatest journey of exploration humanity has ever known, MTV started its journey.

The first video shown was by a New Wave Synthpop duo called “The Buggles” titled “Video Killed the Radio Star.” How's that for a prophecy?

If imitation is the sincerest form of flattery, Ted Turner isn’t above some sweet adulation. A few years later, Turner started the Cable Music Channel. Turner’s enterprise was geared to play a broader mix of music than MTV’s Rock and Pop format. After only one month of losing money, Turner sold the venture to MTV showing that flattery goes only so far. The Cable Music Channel became the domain of MTV’s first sister venture. Where MTV was geared toward a younger audience, this new venture was geared toward a slightly older audience. Video Hits One, VH1, became the Adult Contemporary version of Music Television.

Soon the MTV family of networks decided that a little variety was in order. Beyond music videos came music video news, live concerts, and concert movies. From this came movies with a rock and roll motif. One of the early examples of the reality TV craze was MTV’s “The Real World.” This eventually devolved into a debacle known as “The Jersey Shore.” Let me just add that if you have never heard of these shows you will become no better informed about life by learning about the MTV Networks versions of this particular genre.

But among these shows is one that allowed musical acts tell the stories behind their songs. “VH1 Storytellers” allowed artists to tell the stories about their music, writing experiences and memories. Then they would perform the song in front of an intimate audience. One of the great things about “Storytellers” is that it would allow bands and songwriters to share details about songs that might otherwise be missing. It would also allow the artist to disavow spurious interpretations of their songs.

There is one singer that may never appear on “Storytellers” because of the importance he places on the listener’s experience. Seal Henry Samuel, more commonly known as Seal, wrote in a set of liner notes that he doesn’t put lyrics to his songs on CD’s because he believes how the listener decodes the music and lyrics is at least as important as the work he puts into writing and recording the songs. Of course no matter how important this was to him years ago, Seal’s lyrics are now found in his CD booklets.

I tell this overly long story to make some points about storytelling. The first point I want to make is that some stories work for some people and don’t for others. If you haven’t paid a hoot-and-a-holler to music on television then this story just bored you to death. You may have wondered where it was going, then again, you might not have cared a lick and prayed I would finish so we can get to Catfish Express early enough to avoid the line. That last phrase was code for the notorious expression “beat the Baptists,” but that’s another point.

The choice of words in telling a story is the difference between making a news report and spinning a yarn. Good storytelling includes words and phrases that mean something more to the listener. We’re church goers, we’re mainline Protestants, we start worship at 11:00 AM; so when I say “beat the Baptists” I’m saying more than just “get to Catfish Express early enough to avoid the line.” That little phrase tells the world not only who we are but who we aren’t. It provides a grain of context to the story that ordinary reporting does not.

This goes to another point, one made by Seal, listening to a story is as important as telling the story. Creating the message is what communication experts call this encoding the message. What the listener does is decoding the message. Further, listening, decoding, is the one element of storytelling the speaker has no control over. I can try to encode, to mold my words to touch everyone, but I know not everyone will decode, will hear the story the same way. This encoding and decoding process is one of the ways storytelling goes awry.

I’ve mentioned context, but culture is another important element to good storytelling. This is where I want to start talking about holy writ. One often shared complaint is that scripture is “no longer relevant.” Now, of course I disagree. What kind of Minister of Word and Sacrament would I be if I didn’t disagree? Now this I will say, the most basic and most important truths of scripture are still quite relevant. The themes of scripture remain true to all human existence too. What may or may not be as relevant are the methods used to share the gospel.

At issue here is that life in the ancient Mid-East under the rule of the Roman Empire is completely different from anything we experience here in 21^st Century East Texas. If you say that the geography, topography, and climate of the Texas Hill Country isn’t that different from ancient Palestine I would agree with you. There is some shared reference there. What I would remind you is that in ancient Palestine you couldn’t drive ten miles to the Chevron for an Icee.

Much that seems so obvious to us now meant something different in everyday life in the time of our Lord. One pertinent example is that in the next few months there will be increased chatter among Presbyterians about “biblical marriage.” It is vital to us to note that in Genesis there are several different kinds of “biblical marriage” and only one of them is “one man to one woman.” Frankly, that is the only wedding service the Session will approve in this sanctuary and I’m fine with that, but to say it is the only scriptural form is wrong. This is what happens when we impose the framework of our culture over the words of another.

Culture, context, language; these things fall neatly into the encoding and decoding of the gospel message. If the message is shared in a way that can’t be deciphered by the listener then the message is lost. If it is shared with loaded language then a different message may be sent. When loaded or jargon filled language is used walls can rise before the message can be fully sent. In fact, what I just said about marriage might have proven that very point.

Storytelling is a wonderful way of sharing a message, sharing the gospel, but it is not without its pitfalls.

Mark’s gospel tells us that Jesus chose to speak using parables, ancient stories loaded with broad concepts and multilayered messages. Some people find that very annoying. Some days I find it annoying!

Why didn’t Jesus come right out and say what he meant? Why did he leave behind all these cryptic sayings, loaded with innuendo, destined to be interpreted and reinterpreted, instead of a crisp code of laws or a stack of essays with titles like “How to Be a Good Disciple,” “A Brief Definition of the Kingdom of God” or “Seven Key Features of the Coming Kingdom and What This Means to You.”

Instead we have this culturally ancient, cross-eyed, cryptic, incomplete, awkward, and at times seemingly absurd yet eternally true collection of sayings known as the parables of Jesus.

A list of rules never changes, never adapts. Written essays are like insects encased in amber—beautiful and precisely formed, but no longer vital and alive. It takes the fluid format of a parable—a story that can never be told quite the same way twice—to keep breathing mysterious and glorious new life into the Good News. This way these stories are still vital 2,000 years after they were first told. With their many facets they are far more illusive and mysterious than hard and fast rules.

If you still think Jesus would have gotten his points across better with hard and fast rules, I ask you to remember the last time you sat down and really enjoyed reading Leviticus or the first few chapters of Numbers.

Then consider this; if the hard and fast rules and customs of family status and inheritance were followed in our reading from the Old Testament, the Call of David would never have happened. If Samuel had just anointed the eldest son as tradition dictated, Jesse’s eldest, the boy whose name means “God is Father,” Eliab[1], would have become king. Instead, the Lord is in charge and Samuel follows. He anoints the eighth and youngest son of Jesse. The rules were broken and it worked out pretty well.

We come to know that by preaching to his ancient and modern disciples in parables, Jesus lets us make the Good News become our own story, our own experience. None of us are farmers and few of us are gardeners, yet as we are swept up in these stories about seeds, we ourselves become part of a new parable—the parable of our lives. Taken all together, our individual experiences of the kingdom, our personal stories of God’s work and witness in our lives, end up creating a new gospel.

Know this; we are mistaken if we think our tradition stems from only the four gospels of the scriptural canon. As well as Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John; the church has two millennia of other gospels to celebrate; the books of Augustine and Aquinas, Luther and Calvin, Bonhoeffer and Barth. These “gospels” have become vital parts of our tradition because of their eternal reliance on the power of God and the reconciling work of Christ.

There are still other gospels that may not be quite so well-known, but have tremendous influence in our lives in this part of the body of Christ. We also remember “The Gospel According to Grandma;” or “The Gospel According to Mr. Al, Vicke, and Miss Marie;”[2] or “The Gospel According to That Kid at Camp Whose Name I Can’t Even Remember.” These personal parables enlighten our lives and the gospel.

All of us are in the process of writing our own gospels—our own accounts of experiencing the Good News of the coming kingdom in our midst. Writing a gospel through the very act of living is part of being a disciple of Christ. Sharing our gospel through the very act of living is also part of being a disciple of Christ. It is why Jesus gave the power of the parable to all those listening to his words. Storytelling is one of the most basic practices common to all human communities.

Stories connect us to one another, to our ancestors, to our world and to our Lord. In this week’s gospel text, Mark notes that when Jesus spoke to the crowds around him, he “spoke the word to them, as they were able to hear it; he did not speak to them except in parables.” Jesus knew that only parables had the ability to make the Good News of the kingdom a potent reality for every listening ear.

The mystery of how this works is glorious. People want proofs, rules, and standards; and Jesus gives us parables. William Sloane Coffin, created a godly monologue about our want for rules and God’s gift of parables in these words from a 1980 Advent sermon:

These creatures of mine are very clever.  They are always looking for evidence to make intelligently selfish decisions. That’s why their evangelists, instead of the freedom they need, give them all the proofs they want. I have told these evangelists there are no proofs for my existence, only witnesses. Nevertheless they go on proving one ineffable mystery after another with all the ardor of orthodoxy stamping out heresy. But I am the Lord God, and will not seek to overcome selfishness by appealing to selfish motives. So, as the prophet promised, I will send my people a son. I will seek to captivate their hearts, not conquer them. I will seek to open their minds, not crack their skulls. They, of course, will continue to fight me as they always have, but the contest between us will not be one of power—only of endurance. I will show them that true conquerors are not those who can inflict the most, but those who can suffer the most. I will show them that love never ends.[3]

  How is it that the stories of a Jewish carpenter recorded so long ago resonate so clearly with us now? Well, that is one of the blessings of our Messiah the wonderful storyteller. Words that could have been codified to provide hard and fast rules have value for the time they are written. Parables offer something better, truth, truth that resonates over time. This is the true value of the parable. This is the value of storytelling. Thanks be to God who is the author and teller of the greatest story ever told.

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[1] Brown, F..  Brown-Driver-Briggs Hebrew and English Lexicon, The.  Peabody, MA: Hendrickson Publishers, 2001, page 45.

[2] These are the men and women who provide Children’s Sermons at First Presbyterian in Marshall.

[3] Coffin, William Sloane, The Collected Sermons of William Sloane Coffin, The Riverside Years, Vol. 1, Louisville, Westminster-John Knox Press, 2008, page 387.

Always Being Reformed

This sermon was heard at the First Presbyterian Church in Marshall, Texas on Sunday October 10, 2011, the 28th Sunday in Ordinary Time.

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Exodus 32:1-14

Psalm 106:1-6, 19-23

Philippians 4:1-9

Matthew 22:1-14

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 joys of cable and satellite TV is that there are hundreds and hundreds of channels; and once someone finds a program that works it is copied and spun off until there is a channel devoted to it. Sports channels began that way, so did the Fox Reality Channel until it went off the air. I’m waiting for “The Wedding Channel.” Somewhere, with all of the shows devoted to one bit of the wedding industry or the other, there’s going to be one place where “Bridezillas” everywhere can hook up with the “Cake Boss” and then “Say Yes to the Dress.”[1]

It is the nature of the parable to have several different kinds of truth in its words, this parable about a wedding banquet is no exception. There is historical and cultural truth. Since we are not fully familiar with those times, we may not catch some of those references. There is literary truth, because the parable as a form of literature contains truth in that context. There is also the truth of interpretation since there is nearly 2,000 years of analysis behind Matthew’s gospel.

So, let’s begin with the setting of our parable, the king who gave a wedding banquet for his son. One of the historical things we need to know is that before a wedding celebration, days or weeks in advance, the guests would have received invitations delivered by the king’s slaves. This announcement would not have the precise time or day of the wedding feast though. Another bit of history we need to know is that at this time weddings were not the timed to the minute thing they are today. It would take some time for the king’s slaves to prepare the great banquet.

Our parable doesn’t say how many oxen and fatted calves were slaughtered and prepared, but as it was a king who gave our parable’s banquet, we can imagine the number was substantial. The language tells us it was absolutely plural, so the preparations took quite a while. The banquet master would get in touch with the priest to butcher the animals. Then they would need to be cooked. How long does it take to cook not an ox but oxen? Just consider how long it takes to smoke a brisket an go up from there.

He would have needed the people who provided bread, spices, and other foods. And don’t forget the wine merchant. Since so many were involved in its preparation, the kingdom and all who were invited would know the feast was coming, just not exactly when.

Since preparing a wedding banquet was a long and inexact process, there was a two-step invitation procedure. The first invitation was sent so that the guests would know something was coming. The first invitation also made it so they would not be surprised when the slaves came with the “day of event” invitation.[2]

Another important historical element to this piece is that when the people say, “we’re busy” to the king’s servants; it means more than “we’re busy.” To reject the king’s invitation, or more properly the king’s command, is an act of rebellion. To do it en masse is a sign of conspiracy.[3] Historically, no king would stand for this.

Parables are great, but these historical and cultural nuances that the chief priests, elders, and Pharisees would have known are lost on us until we learn them. There are elements of truth in the history and culture of this story, but there is truth beyond history and culture.

Another part of the truth comes from the literary qualities of the parable. One of the key concepts of the parable is that it is not a true story. Even though as we have just heard, there is historical truth mixed in, this story does not reflect an actual event.

So in our story, after the slaves return to the king mistreated and worse, the king wages war on those who reject him and his invitation. This part of the story should be a red flag that this is not a true story. I ask what king would delay his son’s wedding and let his supper get cold to go and wage war on a city, his city? This is wonderfully epic, filled with dramatic exaggeration, and highly unlikely.

As a nation, our recent experience with “shock and awe” warfare shows there is no way to wage war and be home for dinner in any age. So in the realm of factual events, the battle described in this story would not have happened. But in the parable we are given a clear lesson, we see that those who betrayed the king got what they deserved.

As literature, this parable brings us a broad epic sense of scope which the story misses without its literary elements. It’s not that all pieces of the parable add up, but as a story, there is truth within the exaggeration.

As for truth found in interpretation, there is much. This is the third of three parables Jesus spoke to the Pharisees, chief priests, and elders in the temple. Scholars say the first parable, the one of the two sons, focuses on John the Baptist and the people’s response to his ministry. The second, the parable of the vineyard, uses allegory to interpret Jerusalem’s fall as punishment for the leaders’ unfaithfulness. This third parable is a final warning to the church of Jesus Christ to remain faithful and not follow the footsteps of the Pharisees, chief priests, and elders.[4]

The history of interpretation gives us a chronological progression of stories warning the Pharisees, chief priests and elders who rejected John; then rejected the prophets and then the Son; and a final warning that the church might never reject Jesus and the vocation he has lain upon it.

Often, we speak of faith in terms of putting on new clothes. We talk of the church as being the bride of Christ. So a part of the history of interpretation leads us to be called to put on Christ as we join together with him as his bride.

The truth found in the history of interpretation is that while all are called, those who do not respond to this call are dealt with harshly. I am not saying that we are saved by works because we are saved by grace through faith. I am saying that there are dire consequences if we accept the Lord’s invitation and all we do is show up expecting to be fed.[5] This judgment was true in the days of the prophets, in the days of Jesus, and it is true for us today.

Ecclesia reformata, semper reformanda; the church reformed and always reforming. This has been the call of the reformed churches since the days of Luther, Calvin, Knox and dozens of others. These words are being shared still in Sunday Schools, pulpits, and in seminaries. These words are important to what we understand as our specific place in the Body of Christ, the universal Church.

There is another way to translate this statement which I prefer. “The church having been reformed is always being reformed.” It’s longer and not nearly as catchy, but it’s important for us. This translation maintains the Latin verb forms[6] which focus on God’s work on the church. The church is not an active participant in the kingdom, it’s passive. This is important, from a grammatical point of view, it’s passive not active.

This means that we can do nothing on our own, it is only by God in Christ, it is only by our salvation. It is only by our constant sanctification that we can make any difference at all. The church exists only to do God’s work shaped by God alone. The church does work, but only under the authority of Christ by the power of the Holy Spirit.

The chief priests, elders, and Pharisees seemed to have forgotten this. They thought they were the king, the mice and the cheese[7] and they thought they had the world by the tail. They knew their positions were precarious, the Holy Land was under Roman rule, but they had the system figured out… as long as nothing changed.

Jesus was there to tell them that times were changing. Using three parables of judgment, Jesus shows us, history teaches Jesus did not show them, Jesus shows us that there is peace and there is grace, but it is not cheap. God paid a great price, suffering death on the cross to give us what we could never earn.

So like the guests who came to the banquet, we are called to be transformed, reformed, and dressed in our own wedding robe. If we are not transformed by God’s invitation truly we are in no better shape than those who rejected Jesus 2,000 years ago.

Today Marla and Baby Elizabeth will put on that robe. Symbolically they will receive the sign of the beginning of Christian transformation in the waters of baptism. They have been called and they have chosen to answer. God honors the sacraments he institutes.

Our reading ends as Jesus says that many are called but few are chosen. While this sounds like a threat, it is actually a promise. It sounds like a warning, but it is a goal. It is up to us to live into our baptism. It is up to us to remember these promises, the ones we made when we were baptized. It is up to us to remember these promises when we were baptized as babes and someone made them for us. It is up to us to remember the promises we have made as elders, sponsors, and members of this part of the Body of Christ. This is how we begin to remember our baptism.

Now it’s up to us, do we remember and live into the promises of God or do we fade into the antiquity of the chief priests, elders, and Pharisees? Friends, let us go to the banquet and put on the wedding coat of the Lord. Let us remember the waters of our baptism. Let us approach God in joy and peace. Let us be reformed, and continue always being reformed.

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[1] Actually, it has been done, a couple of times; at least once as a TV channel and more recently as in internet portal. So the idea’s out there, all it needs is a little more traction and then it’s off to the races.

[2] The New Interpreter’s Bible. Vol. VIII. Leander Keck, General Editor. Nashville: Abingdon Press, 1995, page 417.

[3] Ibid.

[4] Ibid. pages 412-419

[5] Ibid. page 419

[6] “Reformata” is the Perfect Passive form of the verb. This denotes action performed with future implications. “Reformanda” is the Passive Present form which means action is taking place on it, not by it.

[7] Title of an old children’s book.

Bragging Rights

This sermon was heard at the First Presbyterian Church in Marshall, Texas on Sunday October 2, 2011, the 27th Sunday in Ordinary Time.

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Exodus 20:1-4, 7-9, 19-23

Psalm 19

Philippians 3:4b-14

Matthew 21:33-46

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

There’s an inherent danger when preaching the parables. They seem like such well prepared self-contained sermons in themselves that most young pastors just take them at face value and preach them to the congregation. I get to tell you this is true not just because I read it in a book,[1] but because I have committed the same error. How could you not? The chief priests and Pharisees did. Verse 45 tells us that when they heard Jesus’ parables, they knew he was talking about them. Then again, I read it that way too.

They knew because they heard the story like an allegory. Allegories are special kinds of parables meant to be symbolic narratives where one thing in a story lines up with something in real life. This parable is almost always read like an allegory.

It begins with the landowner who represents God the Father. He plants a vineyard which usually represents the people of Israel. In this case it also represents the kingdom of God, but that comes when Jesus interprets the story. The things in the vineyard, the wall, winepress, and watchtower don’t point to anything particular, but it does show that it takes real work to set up a vineyard.

The landowner hires farmers; the New Revised Standard Version says these farmers were tenants. This points out that the farmers have no property rights; they work the land, but have no rights to the land or the crop.

When the harvest time approached, the farmer sent his servants to collect the fruit. This is different from Luke’s version where the land owner collects only his share. Luke’s version is more like the contracts negotiated with tenant farmers and share croppers everywhere. Matthew’s reflects that the entire crop belongs to the landowner. There is no share for the farmers until the landowner gives it to them. This is a nod to the sovereignty of God. As I say before the offering, “the earth is the Lord’s and all that is in it.”[2] This reading of the parable takes that very seriously.

The servants represent the prophets of Israel, and like these mythical servants, they were beaten, killed, and stoned.

The next verse is the fly in the ointment to a real allegory. “Last of all, he sent his son to them. ‘They will respect my son,’ he said.” While this thought works well for the story, I honestly don’t believe God the Father thought that for a minute.

The tenant farmers figure the land will be theirs if there is no one left to inherit it, so after throwing the son from the vineyard they kill him. This represents the ultimate death on the cross. Our reading takes place the day after Jesus’ entry into Jerusalem, a day after the cleansing of the temple and removing the moneychangers. We know how prophetic these words truly are; as do those who heard the gospel of Matthew, recorded some forty years after these events took place.

Jesus sets up the allegory, everything except for the discipline of the wicket tenants. How should they be disciplined? Jesus asks the chief priests and Pharisees for their input. “What will he do to those tenants?”

Harsh judgment seems to be the order of the day for Israel. Nathan and King David have a similar conversation about Uriah and Bathsheba. Nathan tells the story of a rich man who steals a poor man’s only lamb. When David says the rich man should repay the poor and repay dearly, Nathan tells King David, “You are the man.”

The temple leaders tell Jesus that those tenants are wretches who will be brought to a wretched end. Then the landowner should turn over the plot to folks who will take care of business and live up to the agreement. The New International Version says “tenants who will give the landowner his share of the crop at harvest.” Other translations leave out “his share” maintaining the integrity of the sovereignty of the landowner, the sovereignty of God.

Jesus tells them that in accord with the judgment they have proclaimed they have set their own punishment. The kingdom of God will be taken away from them and given to a people who will produce its fruit. On either side of this proclamation, Jesus indicts them using imagery from Psalm 118:

The stone the builders rejected

has become the capstone.

The LORD has done this;

and it is marvelous in our eyes.

In a wild twist, Jesus reveals himself as the stone the builders rejected who becomes the cornerstone. He tells them that they have two choices, fall on the stone and be broken or let the stone fall on them and be crushed.

Not much of a choice is it. I would love to say that Jesus is invoking Psalm 51 here, “The sacrifice acceptable to God is a broken spirit; a broken and contrite heart.” I would love to tell you Jesus is telling them that they can either be broken by the gospel or crushed with it, but then I must also say that I can’t find any scholars who share that point of view.

Even if I am right, the chief priests and Pharisees heard it in the worst way. This is the moment in the Gospel that they decide once and for all Jesus must die, not for the sins of the people, but because he has rubbed the shine off of their apple.

In an allegory, my job would be done. If I were treating this like a simple “x=y” story then my job would be done, but to what end? There are a couple of good morals to take from this story, something like “Beware the judgment you pronounce, lest it fall upon you.” Jesus is a fan of discipline and mercy—and yes not only can this exist hand in hand but it must. The temple crowd would have nothing of that, they wanted blood. If this is what they want, then Jesus is able to give it to them.

But we must beware when we plug things in “x” for “y.” When some read verse 43, they read it as Jesus prophesies that the Jews will be cast from the church and the gentiles will be the new chosen people. There are some problems with this interpretation though, both having to do with audience.

We need to remember to whom Jesus is speaking at that moment. He is teaching in the temple, but like with last week’s reading, he is making his comments toward the leaders of the temple. He is directly addressing the chief priests, elders, and Pharisees. This message is not meant for the people of Israel, it is meant directly for the temple leadership.

Then the next thing we need to learn is that what we read as “the kingdom of God will be taken away from you and given to a people who will produce its fruit.” can also be rightly translated as “given to people who will produce its fruit.” It’s a subtle difference, but it’s important. I say Matthew is not identifying a different race of people who will receive the vineyard. He is saying “not these leaders” but “others” will be called to tend the Lord’s vines. This is important because of Matthew’s audience.

As we have said all year, the Gospel of Matthew was written to the Jewish Christians. Matthew specifically spoke to those followers of the Lord Jesus Christ who were educated in the synagogue. He wrote to people who grew up knowing the law and the prophets. Because of this, we can be sure that Matthew’s gospel would have never disinherited all Jews.

That would make another good moral to the story: Tread lightly, conventional wisdom may be neither conventional nor wise.

This then, as Al might say, reminds me of a story from the bible. As the gospel gnawed upon me this week, our reading from Philippians caught my attention. Preceeding this reading, someone was bragging to the Philippians about their status as a teacher. They boasted about their position in this life. Paul warns them this is not good.

Paul begins by telling the Philippian people that if anyone has a reason to brag, he has their trump card. He was a Hebrew of status among other Hebrews, as a follower of the law he was a Pharisee, as to his zeal he persecuted the church, as for legalistic righteousness he was faultless. But whatever that meant in the world, it means nothing compared what he gains as a follower of Christ.

Paul teaches there is nothing in this world that compares to being a follower of Christ. Everything else is rubbish. Everything else is slag. We have no righteousness on our own, the only righteousness we have is in Christ.

If we think we have bragging rights because of this or that or the other, we don’t. The only thing any of us has to brag about is righteousness in Christ.

To me, what is most important in our gospel reading is Jesus’ instruction to the leaders of the temple, in our day to the leaders of the Church. We must remember that this message was to the leaders, not the rank and file. This one is for the upper command officers, not those below full bird Colonel.

The farmers in the parable would have had slaves themselves to do the hard work of tending the vines. This parable wasn’t for them, it was for their leaders—the tenant farmers.

This parable wasn’t for the people who were at the temple bright and early to hear Jesus teach, it was for the chief priests, elders, and Pharisees who interrupted his regularly scheduled program.

Last month I ended a sermon[3] saying:

I don’t want anyone to think that I am indicting someone about a particular situation. I’m not. But let me say this, this sermon is not about you but it is for all of us. It is for the church. It is for the disciples. It is for the people of God. If that convicts each of us and all of us, that’s as it should be.

This sermon ends differently; this parable isn’t about all of us but it is for some of us. It is for the leadership, in our case it is for the Session, committee chairs, teachers, and especially me. It’s for the folks in the denominational offices and it’s for the people who lead groups that seek to influence the church. We must be wary when we approach situations with what we know, because like those temple leaders we may not know what we think we do. We must beware that what we think we know, what we are so proud of, is folly to Christ.

It is up to us. It is up to the leadership of the church to constantly seek the will of the triune God in everything that we do. It is not good for us to lean exclusively into the wisdom of what we’ve always done. It is not good for us to look to a glorious past alone as a model for the future. It is up to everyone here today to hold your leader’s feet to that holy fire.

If we could do as we have always done there would be no need for the Christ or the Holy Spirit, but we know better than that. It is up to us not to brag about what we have been, but what that moves us toward in the future, a future of life in Christ in the Spirit. Let me just add this, if you think I am pointing a finger at you, please know the other fingers point back at me. Paul’s message for the church is right, our bragging rights are in Christ alone.

---

[1] Long, Thomas, “Preaching the Literary Forms of the Bible.” Philadelphia: Fortress Press, 1989, 87-106.

[2] Psalm 24:1

[3] Andresen, Paul, “This Sermon Is Not About You.” http://timelovesahero.blogspot.com/2011/09/this-sermon-is-not-about-you.html, retrieved .September 28, 2011

The Mysterious Sermon

This sermon was heard at the First Presbyterian Church in Berryville, Arkansas on Sunday June 14, 2009, the 11th Sunday in Ordinary Time.

1 Samuel 15:34-16:13
Psalm 20
2 Corinthians 5:6-10, 14-17
Mark 4:26-34

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

[1]Storytelling of any sort, amusing anecdotes or tragic tales, is an unrepeatable art form. The variety of people listening, the inflections in voice, the mood of the day, the color of the sky—they all combine to create a one-time-only atmosphere for the spoken word. A story may bring a tear or a smile at one telling, and yet, the very next listener experiences the same words in a completely different way.

Mark’s gospel tells us that Jesus chose to speak in parables. Some people find that very annoying. Why didn’t Jesus come right out and say what he meant? Why did he leave behind all these cryptic sayings, loaded with innuendo, destined to be interpreted and reinterpreted, instead of a crisp code of laws or a stack of essays with titles like “How to Be a Good Disciple,” “A Brief Definition of the Kingdom of God” or “Seven Key Features of the Coming Kingdom and What This Means to You.”

Instead we have this culturally ancient, cross-eyed, cryptic, incomplete, awkward, and at times seemingly absurd yet eternally true collection of sayings known as Jesus’ parables.

A list of rules never changes, never adapts. Written essays are like insects encased in amber—beautiful and precisely formed, but no longer vital and alive. According to pastor and author Barbara Brown Taylor, even sermons, the Word of God proclaimed, have the shelf life of homemade mayonnaise.[2] It takes the fluid format of a story—a tale that can never quite be told the same way twice—to keep breathing mysterious and glorious new life into the Good News.

If you still think Jesus would have gotten his points across better with hard and fast rules, I ask you to try remembering the last time you sat down and really enjoyed reading Leviticus or the first few chapters of Numbers.

Consider this; if the hard and fast rules and customs of family status and inheritance were followed in our reading from the Old Testament, the Call of David would never have happened. If Samuel had just anointed the eldest son as tradition dictated, Jesse’s eldest, the boy whose name means “God is Father,” Eliab[3], would have become king. Instead, the Lord is in charge and Samuel follows. He anoints the eighth and youngest son of Jesse. The rules were broken, but it worked out pretty well in this case.

Despite these shortcomings, people still try to develop rules based on scripture. Only now we call them creeds, catechisms, and confessions. The earliest forms of the earliest of the confession, The Apostles’ Creed, were spawned about 150 years after the death and resurrection of Christ while the most recent of the particularly Presbyterian Creeds, A Brief Statement of Faith, isn’t even thirty years old.[4] From the first to the twenty-first century, we never really change how we try to replace mystery and glory with interpretation and legalism.

Without the easy ability Jesus’ parables have to engage us and entice us into their world, even God’s Word becomes a hard read. How these stories which are foreign to our lives become the fabric of our earthly life and heavenly salvation is wonderful and glorious.

But the process of how these stories are still vital 2,000 years after they were first told, with their many interpretations, is far more illusive and mysterious than hard and fast rules.

We come to know that by preaching to his followers in parables, Jesus lets us make the Good News become our own story, our own experience. As we are swept up in the story, we ourselves become part of a new parable—the parable of our lives. Taken all together, our individual experiences of the kingdom, our personal stories of God’s work and witness in our lives, end up creating a new gospel.

We are mistaken if we think our tradition stems from only the four gospels of the scriptural canon. As well as Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John; the church has two millennia of other gospels to celebrate; the books of Augustine and Aquinas, Luther and Calvin, Bonhoeffer and Barth. These “gospels” have become vital parts of our tradition because of their eternal reliance on the power of God and the reconciling work of Christ.

There are still other gospels that may not be quite so well-known, but have tremendous influence in our lives in this part of the body of Christ. We must remember that the personal parable stories that make up “The Gospel According to Grandma;” or “The Gospel of Pastor Mark, the Reverend Doctor Hal, and Pastor Pam;” or “The Gospel According to That Kid at Camp Whose Name I Can’t Even Remember;” have affected our lives dramatically.

All of us are in the process of writing our own gospels—our own accounts of experiencing the Good News of the coming kingdom in our midst. Writing a gospel through the very act of living is part of being a disciple of Christ. Sharing our gospel through the very act of living is also part of being a disciple of Christ. It is why Jesus gave the power of the parable to all those listening to his words. Storytelling is one of the most basic practices common to all human communities.

Stories connect us to one another, to our ancestors, to our world and to our Lord. In this week’s gospel text, Mark notes that when Jesus spoke to the crowds around him, he “spoke the word to them, as they were able to hear it; he did not speak to them except in parables.” Jesus knew that only parables had the ability to make the Good News of the kingdom a potent reality for every listening ear.

The mystery of how this works is glorious. People want proofs, rules, and standards; and Jesus gives us parables. William Sloane Coffin, creating a godly monologue, shared these words in a 1980 Advent sermon:

These creatures of mine are very clever. They are always looking for evidence to make intelligently selfish decisions. That’s why their evangelists, instead of the freedom they need, give them all the proofs they want. I have told these evangelists there are no proofs for my existence, only witnesses. Nevertheless they go on proving one ineffable mystery after another with all the ardor of orthodoxy stamping out heresy. But I am the Lord God, and will not seek to overcome selfishness by appealing to selfish motives. So, as the prophet promised, I will send my people a son. I will seek to captivate their hearts, not conquer them. I will seek to open their minds, not crack their skulls. They, of course, will continue to fight me as they always have, but the contest between us will not be one of power—only of endurance. I will show them that true conquerors are not those who can inflict the most, but those who can suffer the most. I will show them that love never ends.[5]

Demonstrating this power of witness, Andrew Young, former American ambassador to the United Nations, tells this story,[6] this parable of power, grace, and reconciliation; about an experience he had in South Africa when he was visiting at the invitation of Nelson Mandela. For years Mandela was a leading opponent of apartheid, South Africa’s official policy of racial segregation. In 1964, the white establishment locked him up for life. But as his legend grew, so did the worldwide campaign to set him free. He was released in 1990. When apartheid was abolished, and South Africa held its first democratic elections in the spring of 1994, Nelson Mandela was elected president.

Thirteen months later, Mandela invited Andy Young to be his guest when South Africa hosted the Rugby World Cup Tournament. Now rugby is a white man’s game. The South African team, like most rugby teams, is entirely white. And South Africa is about 80 percent black. So, even though the world championship was being played right there in Johannesburg, there was a deliberate absence of support for the team.

As the tournament approached, a heated debate broke out about the South African team symbol -- a leaping gazelle called a “springbok.” Most of the white Afrikaners said, “The springbok has been the symbol of every rugby team we’ve ever had.” Most black South Africans said, “Exactly! It reminds us of South Africa’s racist history, and we want it changed.” It was an explosive situation.

Now, Nelson Mandela has impeccable political sensibilities. More importantly, he understands the saving power of grace. A few days before the opening game, Mandela visited the South African team. After the visit, he called a press conference. Mandela showed up wearing a rugby jersey and an athletic cap with the team mascot, a springbok, on it. The newspaper and TV reporters were there and recorded it all. Mandela said that until the elections, he and most other black people in South Africa had always supported whoever was playing against the Springboks. “But regardless of the past,” he said, “these are our boys now. They may all be white, but they’re our boys, and we must get behind them and support them in this tournament.”

The next day, the Springboks’ coach sent word for his players not to show up in their practice gear. He told them to wear their suits and ties. He took them out to Robben Island, to the prison where Nelson Mandela had spent nearly three decades of his life behind bars. The coach and every player on the team walked into Mandela’s cell.

As they stood there, the coach said, “This is the cell where Nelson Mandela was imprisoned. He was kept here for 27 years by the racist policies of our government. We Afrikaners tolerated his imprisonment for all those years, and yet he has backed us publicly. We can’t let him down.”

The tournament opened, and the Springboks played above their heads. To everyone’s surprise, they won their first game. In fact, they made it into the final game against New Zealand, a perennial power in rugby. It was like Arkansas State playing USC. And yet, at the end of regulation, the game was tied.

President Mandela was in the stands, wearing a Springbok jersey. During the timeout, he brought a South African children’s choir out of the stands. They sang an old African miners’ song which to them is sort of like Swing Low, Sweet Chariot was to the slaves in this country. Within minutes, 65,000 people in the stadium were standing and singing this black African miners’ song. Andy said, “I don’t know anything about rugby, and I don’t understand the words of the song, but I was in tears.”

When the Springboks took the field, they were unstoppable. They won the World Rugby Championship. And for the next 24 hours, whites danced with blacks in the streets of South Africa. One of the most divided nations on the planet was united by something some people consider insignificant—a rugby match. But God used it to help heal a nation.

What was in the minds of black South Africans when they saw Nelson Mandela take the podium in a Springbok jersey and cap? What was in the minds of the Springboks when they were standing in Mandela’s cell? We may never know. That is the mystery of this story is how these two earthly symbols of division became symbols of racial reconciliation.

The story begins with the work of reconciliation between God and all creation begun by our Lord Jesus Christ. It is extended by a man who was a prisoner of national sin for twenty-seven years; and a prisoner of Afrikaner culture long before his incarceration. It is received by a grateful nation. It is celebrated by dancing in the streets.

What is it about games that can make us the best people we can be, physically and spiritually? How is it that the stories of a Jewish carpenter recorded so long ago resonate so clearly now? How is it that God walked the earth as we do still today? If I knew, that would be the end of the mystery, wouldn’t it?

[1] This is an edited version of this sermon idea from HomileticsOnline.com, http://www.homileticsonline.com/subscriber/btl_display.asp?installment_id=2711, retrieved June 8, 2009.
[2] Reported by Sallie Watson in the Presbytery of Arkansas newsletter, June 2009, link found at http://presbyteryofarkansas.org/frmNewsletter.aspx, retrieved June 9, 2009.
[3] Brown, F.. Brown-Driver-Briggs Hebrew and English Lexicon, The. Peabody, MA: Hendrickson Publishers, 2001, page 45.
[4] PC (USA) Office of the General Assembly, “The Book of Confessions, Study Edition.” Louisville: Geneva Press, 1996.
[5] Coffin, William Sloane, The Collected Sermons of William Sloane Coffin, The Riverside Years, Vol. 1, Louisville, Westminster-John Knox Press, 2008, page 387.
[6] As told by Bishop Bevel Jones in a sermon before the 1996 United Methodist General Conference in Denver, HomileticsOnline.com, http://www.homileticsonline.com/subscriber/illustrations_for_installment.asp?installment_id=2711, retrieved June 8, 2009.

Bring Light into the World

This sermon was heard at the First Presbyterian Church in Berryville, Arkansas on Sunday November 9, 2008, the 32nd Sunday in Ordinary Time.

Joshua 24:1-3a, 14-25
Psalm 78:1-7
1Thessalonians 4:13-18
Matt 25:1-18

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

Last weekend, Saturday Night Live producer Lorne Michaels was the guest on Mike Huckabee’s Fox News TV show. They were discussing political humor during a campaign year. One of the things they agreed on is that all satire, particularly political satire, isn’t funny unless there is some truth inside the joke.

Every year I say that stewardship is about more than money. This is a very biblical interpretation of stewardship. I very strongly believe as the psalmist teaches, “The earth is the Lord’s and all that is in it, the world, and those who live in it.”[1] Yes, there is a focus on cash. Cash can be measured easily. Cash has to be reported to the Presbytery annually. Cash is one of the many ways humans, and particularly Americans, keep score. I have even spoken and written about that quite a bit lately. But in a turn away from the cash call, I have said that more than anything we can take to the bank, proper tithing must start with a change of attitude.

Still if your first responses to these thoughts on stewardship are “Circle the wagons! Grab your wallets! Hide the women and children!” I couldn’t blame you. I could even see this as a satirical skit on Saturday Night Live, the pastor drones on about stewardship as voiceovers of the congregation’s thoughts take center stage over the words of the preacher.

Well, as is so often the case, fools go where angels fear to tread and this year I am going to preach not one, but two stewardship sermons. This week we will explore stewardship through the parable of the twelve bridesmaids, or virgins depending on your translation, and next week it’s onto the parable of the talents.

As with all of the parables Jesus shares with his disciples, there are two things happening, the first is an artistic aspect. We read “the kingdom of heaven will be like this.” This means that the kingdom will be comparable to this description; it does not mean that the kingdom of heaven will be identical to this. We are not supposed to take this description literally.

There is a mythical quality to the artistic element of the parable. The tale Jesus shares with his disciples allows them to think, ponder, and dream beyond the limits they impose upon themselves. It shows us not just the vision of the words, it gives us something to consider beyond the words.

The second thing is that the parable’s situation is one that the people who originally heard this story would know. The disciples themselves would never have been bridesmaids, but they would have all been members of wedding parties at one time or another.

Several were married; Peter we know was married because Jesus healed his mother-in-law. I am reasonably sure all of them had been to a wedding banquet. John’s gospel even has Jesus’ first public miracle at a wedding in Cana. The disciples would have known the lay of the land of the wedding banquet.

Now there was one thing they would have had no problem with that I did. What exactly did Jesus mean when he said that they trimmed their lamps? If you are my age, “trimming the lamp” is as complicated as hoping the proper light bulb is in the cupboard. It’s as easy as making sure the flashlight has batteries.

It seems easy enough to all of us, trim the lamps means trim the lamps; it means to cut the wicks so that the burned stuff is gone and the wick is even. Marie Bolerjack told me that if the lamp is not trimmed properly, it will smoke when it burns and soot builds on the globe. If not trimmed properly, not only will the amount of light the lamp emits be dimmed, the lamp will probably burn more oil and could be dangerous.

Oddly though, the Greek word translated “trimmed” means more than just preparing a wick for burning.[2] Everywhere else in the New Testament, this word means to adorn or to put in order. Since I don’t think any of the bridesmaids were using the bedazzler on their lamps, I don’t think adorn is a proper translation. A more appropriate translation choice could have been to put their lamps in order before the bridegroom arrives. Trimming the wicks as we understand it would be a part of putting the lamps in order, but there is more than that. Another part of trimming the lamps would be filling them with oil.

This is where we separate the wise bridesmaids from the foolish. Nobody wise would have traveled with their lamps filled with oil. The lamp of the day was open at the top. The oil would not be in a closed oil well like globe or hurricane style lanterns. Sloshing and spilling would have emptied the lamp long before they reached the door where they waited. A wise bridesmaid would have carried her oil in a separate sealed container and added it when the time was right. This would have been wise.

Perhaps this is the foolish bridesmaids’ foolishness. Maybe they carried their oil in their lamps, spilling along the way to guarantee that there would be nothing left in their lamps by the time they reached their destination.

Only the wise five that remained, the five that carried the light, were invited to enter the wedding banquet. The other foolish five were waking shopkeepers; maybe one at a time, maybe five at a time; seeking oil for their lamps.

Only the five that had put their lamps in order before reaching the bridegroom’s door were invited to enter the banquet. When the other five arrived with their lamps burning they were denied entrance to the banquet. The master saying, “Truly I tell you, I do not know you.” To me, this describes the element of stewardship we must acknowledge today, what does it mean to put our lamps in order?

The obvious place to look at this is in the last verse of our gospel reading where Jesus gave his disciples this warning: “Keep awake therefore, for you know neither the day nor the hour.” Some ancient authorities go as far as to say “you know neither the day nor the hour in which the Son of Man is coming.” This translation bugs me though. Whether the bridesmaids entered the banquet or not had nothing to do with them being awake or asleep. All of them slept, all of them were awake when the bridegroom arrived. The difference was not whether one was awake or not, it was whether they were prepared or not. So simply being awake doesn’t seem to describe the difference well enough.

But another way this can be translated is that Jesus warned his disciples not just to be awake, but to be alive, to be fully alive.[3] Jesus wants more than warm bodies. He wants the church to be filled with people who are more than just awake. Awake is a threshold; alive, truly alive is what he wants the church to be.

Our Lord calls us to aspire to and to work toward the life He gives us and calls us to live; to be good stewards of the life, the world, and the gifts we have been given. Our goal, our call, our vocation is be the light of God in the world and to bring light into the world.

The most common way we bring the light is by doing good works. Praise God this part of the body of Christ does many good works in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ. In the last year, we delivered 360 backpacks filled with school supplies to the Loaves and Fishes Food Bank for needy children in Carroll County. Some members also contribute their time and their vehicle to the Food Bank.

We have opened our doors for community worship services and for civic organizations. We contribute time and money to Presbyterian seminaries and Hispanic ministry in northwest Arkansas.

We work to fight hunger and do the work of the greater church, including Presbyterian Disaster Relief, through contributions to the Presbytery. We give time and energy to many good causes for the glory of our Father who is in heaven. But there is more, oh so much more we can do and need to do.

One thing we all need to do more of is to share worship. Here’s an uncomfortable question, “When was the last time you invited someone to come and worship with this part of the body of Christ?” Mike Nelson tells this story about this:

When I was interning at a Lutheran Church in north Minneapolis, I had the privilege of sharing an office with Bob Evans, a retired pastor who served our congregation as voluntary “evangelism consultant.”

One week he had an insert run off for the Sunday worship bulletin that simply stated, “Surveys show that the average Lutheran invites someone to church once every 14 years.”

At the bottom he asked the tongue-in-cheek question: “How many of you are past due?”[4]

This is just one way we can trim the lamps of our lives. Don’t misunderstand me, I know that inviting someone to worship may cost more than we will ever find in our bank accounts. Inviting others puts us individually and corporately on display. It puts us on the line to show that we worship and work for the glory of God in the world. What could cost us more than that?

This parable is loaded with many symbols. When this gospel was written these elements would have been important to all of its listeners. Jesus is known far and wide as the bridegroom. While not mentioned by name in this parable, the church is called the Bride of Christ. The wedding banquet refers to the anticipated Messianic Banquet; a great feast for the faithful in the age to come that was a feature in Jewish and Christian speculation about the end time.[5] Oil is often used in scripture and in worship to represent the Holy Spirit. But frankly, there isn’t a scriptural parabolic use of bridesmaids. Interpreters instead liken them to the members of the church who will be sorted like the sheep and the goats in the end times.[6]

The symbols are glorious and illuminating, but there is still that same old problem of reading parables like watching “The Da Vinci Code” filling in scriptural allusions like watching Tom Hanks fill in the blanks of Dan Brown’s prose.

What we can say is that the kingdom of heaven will be like a great banquet. A banquet the Lord our God hosts when all of creation is put into order. When through the Holy Spirit we work to do God’s will to put creation into order.

Another interesting thing about the word English bibles translate as trimmed is that it comes from the same root word as the words for world, earth, and ultimately creation; the sum of everything here and now, all of the cosmos. In the common use of the word, it pointed to an orderly creation, a universe where all is beautiful.[7] So as the earth is the Lord’s and all that is in it, all of what is good and ordered and created is from and for the Lord. As we trim the lamps of our lives, we participate in making the orderly creation which God envisions. As we trim the lamps of our lives, we work to bring back toward Eden the creation our Lord began.

So this is our goal, this is our endeavor; this is how we serve as good stewards over God’s creation. We let our light shine before others, that they may see our good works and give glory to our Father who is in heaven.[8]

[1] Psalm 24:1, NRSV
[2] Theological Dictionary of the New Testament, Gerhard Kittel, editor. Vol. III. Grand Rapids, MI, Eerdmans, 1965, page 867.
[3] gragorew, “A Greek-English Lexicon of the New Testament and other Early Christian Literature.” Revised and edited by Frederick William Danker, Editor, based on Walter Bauer's Griechisch-deutsches Wörterbuch zu den Schriften des Neuen Testaments und der frühchristlichen Literatur, sixth edition, ed. Kurt Aland and Barbara Aland, with Viktor Reichmann and on previous English editions by W.F.Arndt, F.W.Gingrich, and F.W.Danker. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, electronic edition 2000
[4] HomileticsOnline.com, Timothy F. Merrill, Executive Editor, http://www.homileticsonline.com/subscriber/illustration_search.asp?keywords=invite , retrieved November 8, 2008.
[5] Messianic Banquet, Interpreter’s Dictionary of the Bible
[6] New Interpreter’s Bible, v. viii, Leander Keck, General Editor. Nashville: Abingdon Press, 1995, page 450 and HomileticsOnline.com, http://www.homileticsonline.com/subscriber/btl_display.asp?installment_id=93000101, retrieved November 5, 2008.
[7] Kittel, page 868-880
[8] From The Second Helvetic Confession, Chapter XVI - Of Faith and Good Works, and of Their Reward, and of Man's Merit, paragraph 6..

Where Truth Lies

This sermon was heard at the First Presbyterian Church in Berryville, Arkansas on Sunday October 12, 2008, the 28th Sunday in Ordinary Time.

Exodus 32:1-14
Psalm 106:1-6, 19-23
Philippians 4:1-9
Matthew 22:1-14

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

Parables are wonderful stories with one big problem. As the parables are read, people who know scripture tend to respond saying, “Ah yes, this is a wonderful story” and with that, tune into past experiences with the parable instead of paying attention to it as it is being shared anew.

This is one of many truths about the parables of Jesus Christ; we listen to them through the ears of our experience, not the ears of the Holy Spirit. Believe me, when I say “we” I mean “we” because I have to fight this temptation as much as anybody else.

Within this parable, there are many different kinds of truth. There is historical and cultural truth as the parable has references that we may not catch because we are not familiar with the history and culture. There is literary truth, because the parable as a form of literature contains truth in that context. There is also the truth of interpretation since there is nearly 2,000 years of analysis behind Matthew’s gospel.

So, let’s begin with the king who gave a wedding banquet for his son sending his slaves to call those who had been invited to the wedding banquet. One of the first historical things we need to know is that long before the celebration, the people would have received invitations. While they did not know the precise time or day of the wedding feast, because of the hustle and bustle of preparing for the celebration, they would not be surprised when the slaves came with the “day of event” summons.[1]

Another bit of history we need to know is that at this time weddings, while grand feasts, are not the timed to the minute thing they are today. For the king’s slaves to prepare a great banquet, the oxen and the fat calves had to be slaughtered and prepared. This is nothing like my macaroni and cheese with summer sausage casserole in the oven for today’s potluck.

Preaching another scripture passage about cooking a full team of oxen, the Reverend Doctor David W. Johnson said:

“I’ve never actually boiled an ox. Or wanted to. I do a brisket now and again. That takes all afternoon. I have no idea how long it took to boil the oxen, but it wasn’t done in an afternoon. How long would it take to butcher and dress twenty-four oxen, cook them all up, and prepare beef stew for a bazillion? Maybe a week. Maybe a year. Maybe three years plus two summers.”[2]

Our parable doesn’t say how many oxen and fatted calves were slaughtered and prepared, but as it was the king who gave the banquet, we can imagine the number was substantial. The language tells us it was absolutely plural, so took preparations took quite a while. Many were involved in other preparations for the wedding feast, not just the slaves but other citizens of the kingdom too. The banquet master would get in touch with the priest to butcher the animals. He would have needed the people who provided bread, spices, and other foods. And don’t forget the wine merchant. Since many were involved in its preparation, the people knew the feast was coming.

Another important historical element to this piece is that when the people say, “we’re busy” to the king’s servants; it means more than “we’re busy.” To reject the king’s invitation, or more properly the king’s command, is an act of rebellion. To do it en masse is a sign of conspiracy.[3] Historically, no king would stand for this.

Parables are great, but these nuances are lost until we learn them. There are elements of truth in the history and culture of this story, but there is truth beyond history and culture.

Another part of the truth comes from the literary qualities of the parable. One of the key concepts of the parable is that it is not a true story. Even though as we have just heard, there is historical truth mixed in, this story does not reflect an actual event.

So in our story, after the slaves return to the king mistreated and worse, the king wages war on those who reject him and his invitation. This part of the story should be a red flag that this is not a true story. I ask what king would let supper get cold to go and wage war on a city? This is wonderfully epic, filled with dramatic exaggeration, and highly unlikely.

Further, as a nation we have recent experience about the success of a campaign of “shock and awe.” There is literally no way to wage war and be home for dinner in this or any age. So in the realm of factual events, the war events described in this story would not have happened. But in the parable, we see that those who betrayed the king got what they deserved.

As literature, this parable brings us a broad epic sense of scope which the story misses without its literary elements. It’s not that all pieces of the parable add up, but as a story, there is truth within the exaggeration.

As for truth found in interpretation, there is much. This is the third of three parables Jesus spoke to the Pharisees, chief priests, and elders in the temple. Scholars say the first parable, the one of the two sons, focuses on John the Baptist and the people’s response to his ministry. The second, the parable of the vineyard, uses allegory to interpret Jerusalem’s fall as punishment for the leaders’ unfaithfulness. This third parable is a final warning to the church of Jesus Christ to remain faithful and not follow the footsteps of the Pharisees, chief priests, and elders.[4]

The history of interpretation gives us a chronological progression of stories warning first those who rejected John; then the Pharisees, chief priests and elders who rejected the prophets and then the Son; and a final warning that the church might never reject Jesus and the vocation he has lain upon it.

Often, we speak of faith in terms of putting on new clothes. We talk of the church as being the bride of Christ. So a part of the history of interpretation leads us to be called to put on Christ as we join together with Christ as the bride of Christ.

The truth found in the history of interpretation is that while all are called, those who do not respond to this call are dealt with harshly. I am not saying that we are saved by works because we are saved by grace through faith. I am saying that there are dire consequences if we accept the Lord’s invitation and all we do is show up expecting to be fed.[5] This judgment was true in the days of the prophets, in the days of Jesus, in the days of Matthew’s gospel; and it is true for us today.

As these words are the words of Jesus, there is more truth in them than we will find in our interpretation of them. Two thousand years of interpretation alone cannot give us the truth of God’s word.

A way to consider the differences between historical truth and mythical truth comes from the voice of the Rev. William Sloane Coffin. On February 5, 1978 he spoke these words in a sermon about the miracle of turning water to wine from John’s gospel:

“Several years ago, driving south through Virginia, I crossed the mighty Rappahannock River. Amazed at its width, I couldn’t help concluding that George Washington’s throwing arm must have been comparable to Reggie Jackson’s if he hurled, as he reputedly did, the silver dollar from one bank clear across to the other. Suppose one day modern scholarship should establish that the silver dollar splashed. Would George Washington no longer be father of his country? Obviously not, because George Washington is father of his country not because he hurled a dollar clear across the Rappahannock or because he could not tell a lie about that fallen cherry tree—what choice did he have?—but because he was commander of the Revolutionary forces and the first president of the United States.”[6]

Let us consider this question for ourselves, was George Washington the father of our country because of the cherry tree incident or because of his service in the American Revolution? Was he father of our country because he could throw a coin across a river or because he was our nation’s first President? I think we can agree he is the father of our country because of the important work he did in securing our freedom and leading the nation.

In a way, sometimes the facts can get in the way of the truth. The debate over whether these stories actually happened or not gets in the way of the truth that they embody. These stories may not be true in the sense that they actually happened, but this does not dilute the truth behind them. The myth helps inform the truth that makes us better able to understand who Washington is to the people of this nation.

This brings us to the question we must ask ourselves about Jesus. Is he our Lord and Savior because of all of the cool stuff he did? Is he Lord of our life because he could turn water to wine? Is he Lord because he could best the highly educated leaders of the temple as they tried to trick him into speaking heresy against the temple or rebellion against Rome? Is he Lord because he could turn a phrase and tell a wonderful story? Or is he our Lord because he is who he says he is; the Son of God and the Son of Man?

The truth we find beyond history, beyond literature, beyond interpretation, beyond anything our minds can fully conceive; the truth we find is that Jesus is Lord because he is God. He is God since before the beginning. He is God when he walked the earth. He is God when he was crucified and on the third day rose again from the dead. He is God who sits at the right hand of God the Father Almighty. The parables help us understand who Jesus is; but they do not define who Jesus is.

The wonder and the glory of the truth is that all are invited to the wedding banquet. All are welcome to a place at the Messiah’s table. The wonder and the glory of the truth is that all are sought by the king’s slaves.

This leads us to one more truth, the truth beyond being called to the table. The truth of our call and our vocation as the church of Jesus Christ is that we are all called to be God’s faithful servants; calling the people, both good and bad, to join the messianic feast of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. In this truth we are called to respond to the Lord our God as faithful servants, putting on Jesus as we enter into the banquet and into the world.

And as the servants of the Lord Almighty, we are called to invite others to the banquet. As we are called by the Lord to come, we are called by the Lord to bring others. By grace, our faith is to be an active expression of God’s love for all creation. This is one of the ways we wear the wedding robe. This is how we put on the garment of Jesus Christ.

There is much this parable offers us to find where truth lies, and its eternal truth is this: We are called to come to the table. We are called to bring others to the table. And it is the King of Glory who calls us first.

[1] The New Interpreter’s Bible. Vol. VIII. Leander Keck, General Editor. Nashville: Abingdon Press, 1995, page 417.
[2] Johnson, David W. from personal correspondence. The “three years and two summers” is a reference to the usual amount of time it takes to earn a Master’s of Divinity from Austin Presbyterian Theological Seminary.
[3] Ibid.
[4] Ibid. pages 412-419
[5] Ibid, New Interpreter’s Bible, page 419
[6] Coffin, William Sloane, “The Collected Sermons of William Sloane Coffin.” Louisville, KY: Westminster John Knox Press, 1987, page 40.