“CALLOUS REMOVAL”
Proper 21 -- Ezekiel 18: 1 – 4, 25 – 32; Psalm 25: 3 – 9; Philippians 2: 1 – 13; Matthew 21: 28 – 32
A sermon by The Rev. Gene Tucker, given at Trinity Church, Mt. Vernon, IL, on Sunday, September 28th, 2008
Callous removal…….
My dad was a guy who worked with his hands all his life. A highly talented man who had little in the way of formal education (he finished eighth grade, then had to go to work to help support the family during the Great Depression), he was gifted by God with an innate ability to do all things mechanical. When I was very young, he operated a small town blacksmith shop, and when I was about six or seven, he took up the craft of drilling water wells (some of them 600 – 800 feet deep!).
During most of the time I either watched him work, or helped him during the summers drilling wells, I rarely ever saw him wear gloves.
As a consequence, his hands were the hands of a working man, that is to say, they were heavily calloused.
Occasionally, in the evening as he was sitting in the living room in front of the television set, he’d pull out an old fashioned single edge razor blade and begin cutting the calluses off of his hands.
To this day, it’s a scene in my minds’ eye that still sends shivers up my spine! Even back then, I couldn’t stand to watch him do it for very long.
But, as long I as could stand to watch him, I never saw him cut himself or draw blood….He was obviously well practiced at getting rid of those calluses.
Well, my reaction, those shivers up my spine, might well describe the chief priests and the elders’ reaction to Jesus comments, heard in our Gospel today.
For, you see, the chief priest and the elders, the ruling elite of Jesus’ day, are the target of Jesus’ question, “What do you think?” Jesus is engaging in one last attempt at callous removal with these power brokers of the Temple in Jerusalem. For these chief priests and elders had become calloused, impervious to the inner and outer holiness that God demands if His people. For the matching of our insides and our outsides is at the root of the Parable of the Two Sons that Jesus tells today.
Hold that question in your mind for a moment, “What do you think?” as we turn our attention to the setting of today’s encounter. For we must understand the setting for the interchange we read today, as well as the next two Sunday’s readings, in order to understand the greater picture that emerges from our Gospel passage for today.
Jesus has made His triumphal entry into Jerusalem at the beginning of the last week of His earthly life. And now, in the Temple precincts, He has cleared away the money changers in the courtyard of that Temple.
Now, today, we witness the exchange of questions between the chief priests and the elders, as they ask Him (Matthew 21: 23 – 27) “By what authority” He is doing the things He does.
Instead of answering them, Jesus asks them a question, “The baptism of John, where did it come from? From heaven, or from men?”
The chief priests and the elders commiserate a little, and then answer, saying, “We do not know.”
(You see, their answer, Matthew tells us, was predicated not on the truth of the matter, but on expediency….they said they did not know because to have acknowledged John’s ministry as valid would have meant that they should have believed John the Baptist and his call to repentance. On the other hand, to have said that John’s ministry was of human origin would have incurred the wrath of the crowds, who held John in high esteem.)
Now, we are ready to look at this parable, the Parable of the Two Sons, which is the first of three parables Jesus will tell directly to these members of the ruling class of 2,000 years ago. (We will read and study all three today and in the next two Sundays.)
And, just in case the chief priests and elders thought they could duck the meaning of this parable, Matthew records Jesus’ “zinger” at the end of the parable, when we read, “Truly, I say to you, the tax collectors and the harlots go into the kingdom of God before you….” (Zingers like this are a feature of Matthew’s writing style…there can be no mistaking the applicability and the meaning of Jesus’ parables!)
So, Jesus says, “What do you think? A man had two sons; and he went to the first and said, ‘Son, go and work in the vineyard today.’ And he answered, ‘I will not’; but afterward he repented and went. And he went to the second and said the same; and he answered, ‘I go sir,’ but did not go.”
As we unpack the meaning of this parable, we ought to remember that the biblical meaning of a vineyard is that it often refers to the nation of Israel. It is an image that Isaiah and others (The Psalms, for example) use quite frequently…..Isaiah 5: 1 – 7 probably forms the background of today’s teaching. In Isaiah 5: 7 we read that “The vineyard of the Lord of hosts is the house of Israel, and the men of Judah are its pleasant planting.”
For Jesus’ audience, the ruling elite of 2,000 years ago who knew the Scriptures well, the image of the vineyard and its correlation to Israel could not have been missed. They knew precisely that Jesus was referring to them!
And, just as Isaiah paints a picture of God’s judgment on Israel, Jesus proclaims judgment on the leadership of Israel in His own day: Isaiah proclaimed God’s judgment because of the injustice and lack of righteousness that God’s people practiced. Jesus proclaims judgment because of the calloused attitudes that characterized the leadership of His day, attitudes that showed a basic disconnect between outward profession of faith in God, but actions that demonstrated just the opposite. The callousness of the chief priests and elders would be seen most clearly in the wickedness of their determination to get rid of Jesus.
In both cases, Isaiah and Jesus, calloused hearts are at the root of the problem each was addressing.
Jesus’ words are calculated to cut away the hardened layers, much as that razor blade cut into the calluses on my father’s hands.
Calluses occur when routine actions that we do every day, whether they are the actions of fine, liturgical worship, or just the routine of day-by-day living, result in a gradual hardening of our sensitivity to God and the radical holiness that He demands.
That seems to be the case with the chief priests and the elders….As keepers of the Temple, the new (and not-yet-completed) Temple was a magnificent structure. And they, the priests and the elders, were the keepers of the Temple, and of all the religion that it signified.
Maybe they were “building worshippers”, you know, people who just like fancy buildings, nice furnishings, and who like to be in places of honor in such magnificent surroundings.
Perhaps they thought that excellent liturgical worship (we should remember that Israel’s worship, like the vast majority of Christianity from which it sprang, was liturgical worship) was a good substitute for inner holiness. Maybe they liked good religious displays, and thought that would please God.
The Gospels do not paint a very pleasant picture of the chief priests, the elders, or the Pharisees, those groups who were “in charge” in Israel 2,000 years ago.
But the disease that plagued all of these groups, can also plague us….
So, Jesus’ question comes to us today, as well, “What do you think?”
What do we think of our outer actions and words?
What do we think of our inner disposition, that is, the disposition of our hearts?
Do the two match one another? Does our “inside” match our “outside”?
One final comment: Jesus tells His audience today, “The tax collectors and harlots go into the kingdom of God before you.” Why did He say that? I think the answer is that those who were “unclean” in the estimation of the chief priests, the elders and the Pharisees had little to lose. As a consequence, they probably recognized their callousness in terms of their hearts’ inner disposition. Since they had less to lose, they were much more willing to admit the disconnect between inner attitudes and outer actions.
The Lord calls us to admit our own callousness, and to allow Him to remove these barriers which insulate us from God’s radical call to inner and outer holiness.
AMEN.
Sunday, September 28, 2008
Sunday, September 21, 2008
19 Pentecost, Year A
“UNEARNED SPIRITUAL INCOME”
Proper 20 -- Jonah 3: 10 – 4: 11; Psalm 145: 1 – 8; Philippians 1: 21 – 27; Matthew 20: 1 – 16
A sermon by The Rev. Gene Tucker, given at Trinity Episcopal Church, Mt. Vernon, IL (on the occasion of the Parish Picnic at the Whippoorwill Club), Sunday, September 21st, 2008.
Back during my professional singing days, I used to marvel at the power the musicians’ union had. This is the union that all professional orchestra players belong to.
They did everything “by the clock”. In fact, rehearsals were so regulated by the power of the clock that a large clock was always mounted onstage during rehearsals so that the conductor could see exactly when to start the rehearsal, when to take a mandatory break, and when to stop the rehearsal.
The unions’ power was so absolute that players would get up from their chairs in the middle of a phrase, stop playing, and walk off the stage when the clock dictated the end of the rehearsal.
At times, when the work we were doing was unusual (and therefore unfamiliar), or when it was a lengthy work to begin with, negotiations would have to be undertaken with union representatives, the players, and the conductor or leader of the organization that was putting on the concert to authorize additional rehearsal time at the end of the normal period. Often, these discussions hinged on the financial status of the hiring organization, as it asked itself, “Do we have the funds available to pay the number of players we have in the orchestra for the additional minutes of rehearsal we need?”
Now this sermon isn’t intended to be a commentary on the existence of unions, the purposes they stand for, management practices, or anything else. (In fact, the orchestral unions came into being because of the dictatorial antics of such super-conductors as Gustav Mahler,[1] who would force the musicians under their direction to rehearse until they decided it was time to stop, no matter how long that was!)
But it is intended to be a reflection on the way our society operates: We live by the clock…..so much pay for so many hours’ work, for example. There are laws governing how much more pay is required beyond 40 hours’ work, and laws with mandate a certain minimum wage. We are concerned (and rightly so) that people get what they’ve earned. We advocate for “what’s fair” in any given situation, a key trait that Americans have demonstrated again and again down through the years.
So today’s Gospel reading, Jesus’ parable about the “unfairness” of paying those who were last hired the same as those who were first hired, rubs us the “wrong way”, doesn’t it?
It’s obvious Jesus wasn’t interested in “fairness” as we define it.
But Jesus is keenly interested in God’s mercy, and especially God’s mercy as it is shown to those who least deserve it.
In fact, that seems to be Jesus’ point: we can’t “earn” God favor and blessing, not at all.
But we risk getting ahead of ourselves. Let’s turn to the passage we read this morning, and examine it more in detail…..
We begin by recalling the context of this parable….
In chapter 19,[2] Jesus had been confronted with a rich young man who asked Him, “Teacher, what must I do to inherit eternal life?” In reply, Jesus tells the young man that in order to gain that status, he must “obey the commandments.”
An exchange about the commandments ensues between Jesus and the young man. The fellow claims he has followed all of them, saying, “All these I have kept.”
Then, Jesus tells him that he lacks one thing: “Go and sell all you have and give it to the poor,” He says. We read then that the young man turned away sadly, because he had great wealth.
You see, in essence, what Jesus asked this rich young man to do was to give up being first, in order to become last. The reversal of status, in this case, is related to material wealth.
It is in this context that today’s parable unfolds.[3]
Let’s notice some of the details of our Lord’s teaching, heard today:
[1] An Austrian conductor (1860 – 1911) who was also Conductor and Music Director of the New York Philharmonic in the early years of the 20th century.
[2] Verses 16 - 24
[3] In much the same way as John’s Gospel text does. An encounter between Jesus and an individual occurs, which leads to a teaching/discourse/parable.
[4] Matthew 19: 30
Proper 20 -- Jonah 3: 10 – 4: 11; Psalm 145: 1 – 8; Philippians 1: 21 – 27; Matthew 20: 1 – 16
A sermon by The Rev. Gene Tucker, given at Trinity Episcopal Church, Mt. Vernon, IL (on the occasion of the Parish Picnic at the Whippoorwill Club), Sunday, September 21st, 2008.
Back during my professional singing days, I used to marvel at the power the musicians’ union had. This is the union that all professional orchestra players belong to.
They did everything “by the clock”. In fact, rehearsals were so regulated by the power of the clock that a large clock was always mounted onstage during rehearsals so that the conductor could see exactly when to start the rehearsal, when to take a mandatory break, and when to stop the rehearsal.
The unions’ power was so absolute that players would get up from their chairs in the middle of a phrase, stop playing, and walk off the stage when the clock dictated the end of the rehearsal.
At times, when the work we were doing was unusual (and therefore unfamiliar), or when it was a lengthy work to begin with, negotiations would have to be undertaken with union representatives, the players, and the conductor or leader of the organization that was putting on the concert to authorize additional rehearsal time at the end of the normal period. Often, these discussions hinged on the financial status of the hiring organization, as it asked itself, “Do we have the funds available to pay the number of players we have in the orchestra for the additional minutes of rehearsal we need?”
Now this sermon isn’t intended to be a commentary on the existence of unions, the purposes they stand for, management practices, or anything else. (In fact, the orchestral unions came into being because of the dictatorial antics of such super-conductors as Gustav Mahler,[1] who would force the musicians under their direction to rehearse until they decided it was time to stop, no matter how long that was!)
But it is intended to be a reflection on the way our society operates: We live by the clock…..so much pay for so many hours’ work, for example. There are laws governing how much more pay is required beyond 40 hours’ work, and laws with mandate a certain minimum wage. We are concerned (and rightly so) that people get what they’ve earned. We advocate for “what’s fair” in any given situation, a key trait that Americans have demonstrated again and again down through the years.
So today’s Gospel reading, Jesus’ parable about the “unfairness” of paying those who were last hired the same as those who were first hired, rubs us the “wrong way”, doesn’t it?
It’s obvious Jesus wasn’t interested in “fairness” as we define it.
But Jesus is keenly interested in God’s mercy, and especially God’s mercy as it is shown to those who least deserve it.
In fact, that seems to be Jesus’ point: we can’t “earn” God favor and blessing, not at all.
But we risk getting ahead of ourselves. Let’s turn to the passage we read this morning, and examine it more in detail…..
We begin by recalling the context of this parable….
In chapter 19,[2] Jesus had been confronted with a rich young man who asked Him, “Teacher, what must I do to inherit eternal life?” In reply, Jesus tells the young man that in order to gain that status, he must “obey the commandments.”
An exchange about the commandments ensues between Jesus and the young man. The fellow claims he has followed all of them, saying, “All these I have kept.”
Then, Jesus tells him that he lacks one thing: “Go and sell all you have and give it to the poor,” He says. We read then that the young man turned away sadly, because he had great wealth.
You see, in essence, what Jesus asked this rich young man to do was to give up being first, in order to become last. The reversal of status, in this case, is related to material wealth.
It is in this context that today’s parable unfolds.[3]
Let’s notice some of the details of our Lord’s teaching, heard today:
- All workers are paid the normal, daily wage in Jesus’ day, one denarius.
- Only the first workers are hired with a contract (one denarius). All the others go into the field on faith, relying on the landowner’s assurance that he will pay them “whatever is right”. (Note, however, that those hired at the 11th hour were simply told to “go and work in my vineyard”.)
- The divine principle of “the last shall be first, and the first shall be last”[4] is played out when the workers are paid: those hired at the 11th hour (5:00 PM by our reckoning) are paid first, as those hired first, watch, and wait until they are paid last.
Now, we should reflect a little on what this text might have meant to Matthew’s Church(es), and what it might mean to us today.
No doubt, as the church(es) to whom Matthew was writing in the late first century engaged in spiritual battle with the Jewish leadership of that day, Jesus’ parable might have spoken to them quite clearly:
This parable might have signaled that a new day had dawned with Jesus’ teaching, a new epoch in which favor with God could not be earned.
God’s favor now comes with the New Covenant that Jesus ushered in. Moreover, new people are being included in this new agreement with God, people who are like those who were hired at the 11th hour.
Specifically, to Matthew’s church, those who were “last chosen” might well have been Gentiles, on whom God’s favor now rests. By contrast, those first chosen in the parable (those hired with a guaranteed wage) might have been equated to God’s Chosen People, the Jews, whose covenant had been guaranteed by the terms of the Mosaic Law, the Torah. Many Jews of Jesus’ day believed that the Torah was a covenant with God in which a person earns acceptance by God by following the commandments (just as the rich young man asserted that he had done).
But what might Jesus’ parable mean to us today?
One of the central lessons must surely be: we cannot earn God’s favor!
God’s mercy and generosity rests on God’s sense of fairness, not ours.
Furthermore, the only response we can make to enter into God’s mercy and favor is to answer the call to go and “work in the vineyard”.
For, by God’s reckoning, any thing we might do – any work of devotion, any act of kindness - does not equate to a specific response on God’s part. We are not on “God’s clock”, in which “so-much-work = so-much-of-God’s rewards”.
No, Jesus’ clear teaching tells us that the only way to gain God’s favor is to respond to the invitation to follow God’s invitation. That is the only response we can make.
The rest of God’s mercy and blessing comes from God’s generosity, not from our ability to earn it. God’s mercy and blessing often comes in unexpected ways, at unexpected times, and in unexpected amounts.
AMEN.
[1] An Austrian conductor (1860 – 1911) who was also Conductor and Music Director of the New York Philharmonic in the early years of the 20th century.
[2] Verses 16 - 24
[3] In much the same way as John’s Gospel text does. An encounter between Jesus and an individual occurs, which leads to a teaching/discourse/parable.
[4] Matthew 19: 30
Sunday, September 14, 2008
18 Pentecost, Year A
“COULDN’T WE JUST SKIP THIS ONE?”
Proper 19 -- Ecclesiasticus 27: 30 – 28: 7; Psalm 103: 8 – 13; Romans 14: 5 – 12; Matthew 18: 21 – 35
A sermon by The Rev. Gene Tucker. given at Trinity Church, Mt. Vernon, IL; Sunday, September 14th, 2008
Couldn’t we just skip this one?
This Gospel text makes me uncomfortable.
It reminds me of my own hard-heartedness, my own stubbornness and unwillingness to forgive.
“How often should I forgive my brother”, Peter asks…..
Thanks, Peter.
We could have done without this question, couldn’t we?
But Peter is the one who’s constantly barging into the difficult situations. He’s the one who’s not afraid to jump over the side of the boat, into the raging waters. He’s not the least bit shy about getting in Jesus’ face about His prediction of His coming suffering and death: “This shall never happen to you!” Peter said.
Maybe Peter’s head wasn’t screwed on tightly when he asked the Lord this question, “If my brother sins against me, how often should I forgive him?”
Or, maybe Peter was simply picking up on an important thread that was part of Jesus’ teaching about discipline within the body of Christ, that is, the Church, the text we read last week.
Remember that bit about “regaining your brother or sister”, which we read last week? That seems to be one of the main reasons for the detailed instructions our Lord gives us about how to treat a brother or sister who’s offended us (or the Church) in some way…. “Keep reaching out to him or her” seems to be the idea… “Treat them as a Gentile or a tax collector,” Jesus says. After all, that’s what Jesus did: He kept reaching out to these outcasts, these outsiders, trying to restore the ties of love which can conquer any obstacle, any barrier of human making.
So, last Sunday’s text about discipline in the Church, and this Sunday’s reading, which begins with Peter’s question, “If my brother sins against me”, are linked. The word “my brother” is the link.
Having linked the two ideas: church discipline and forgiveness, let’s move on now to the text itself.
Notice, first of all, that Jesus gives an astronomical answer: Forgive your brother or your sister 77 times! (Or, as some manuscripts read, “seventy times seven” = 490 times).
No doubt Peter thought he’d provided the perfect answer as part of his question, “How many times should I forgive my brother, seven times?” You see, in biblical reckoning, “seven times” of anything was a complete unit, just like the creation of the world is described as having taken seven days, at the end of which God rested from all His labors. Seven is the number of completeness.
But Jesus’ answer, outlining a multiple of that complete number, is followed by a parable in which He describes the debt owed by the servant to the King in astronomical terms….10,000 talents was a lot of money in biblical times, about equal to the wages of a day laborer for 150,000 years.[1]
Jesus uses this parable to dramatize the great forgiveness that is ours when God lays aside our debt and burden of sin. That’s the point, I think.
Moreover, the king in Jesus’ parable not only forgives the debt, but recasts it as a loan.[2] (Notice that the stage is now set for the king to recall the unforgiving servant, in order to assert his continuing control over that servant through the recasting of the debt as a loan….Our Lord is a master storyteller!)
But, by way of hyperbole, Jesus turns the tables, casting the light of our eyes on the unforgiving ways of the servant, who refuses to forgive a very small debt of only 100 denarii, equal to about three-to-four-months’ wages for a day laborer in Jesus’ day.
“Pay what you owe!”, the unforgiving servant demands of his friend, grabbing him by the throat.
It is then that the unforgiving servant’s fellow servants, acting in accordance with the mechanisms our Lord outlined in last week’s Gospel reading, use those mechanisms to take their witness to the man’s actions to the king: Having observed the actions of this hard-hearted man, they take their notice of the offense to the next higher (and only other) level, just as Matthew 18: 15 – 20 says they should.
As usual, Jesus’ parable ends with a “zinger” that is so typical of Matthew’s writing style: Just at the end of the parable, we read this, “So my heavenly Father will also do to every one of you, if you do not forgive your brother or your sister from your heart.”
Matthew really wants us to get the point, doesn’t he? That’s the purpose of this one-line summary of the meaning of the parable. No possible interpretation of the parable is left to chance, none at all: “So will my heavenly Father do to every one of you, if you do not forgive your brother or your sister from your heart.”
Matthew’s desire for clarity is also found in his fondness for repeating himself….Matthew often includes two of Jesus’ teachings on any given subject, just so we are entirely clear about Jesus’ meaning and intent.[3]
With regard to Jesus’ teaching about forgiveness, the other passage Matthew relates to us in which Jesus deals with the issue of forgiveness: ours and the Lord’s, may be found in chapter six, beginning at verse 14….This passage follows the Lord’s Prayer, and it explains the line (which we say week-by-week on our Communion service), “And forgive us our trespasses, as we forgive those who trespass against us.” Here (verse 14), we read, “For if you forgive men when they sin against you, your heavenly Father will also forgive you. But if you do not forgive men their sins, your Father will not forgive you.”
Couldn’t we just skip this one, too?
It makes us uncomfortable, because it reminds us that we are to be a channel of God’s forgiveness.
Apparently, if we do not forgive others, God will not forgive us.
God’s forgiveness stops with us, if we hoard it.
God’s forgiveness cannot be our personal, private possession, according to this text.
God’s forgiveness means that we control the “tap” of God’s forgiveness….For if I forgive others, then God will open the floodgates of forgiveness for me. We hold the key, we are in charge.
We can choose to block God’s forgiveness, or we can choose to be conduits for God’s forgiveness.
God’s forgiveness is the lifeblood of human relationships, and it is the lifeblood of our relationship with God.
God’s forgiveness flows out of His overwhelming love for us. Like the king in today’s parable, the depths of His forgiveness stem from His mercy and His love. How else can we explain the cancelling of the debt, and its recasting as a loan?
We’re on the hook!
The God who is more ready to hear than we are to pray, the God who is more ready to forgive than we are to ask for forgiveness, or to offer it to others, stands, waiting for us to realize that the blessings of God’s forgiveness do not flow in one direction only, that is to say, only to us.
No, God’s forgiveness can flow into us only to the extent that we allow forgiveness to flow out of us to others.
For we are called as Christians to be conduits, channels of God’s grace, God’s love, and God’s forgiveness.
I don’t know about you, but this text makes me uncomfortable. I’d just like to skip it and go on to next week’s reading.
For it reminds me that I fall short of God’s standard of forgiveness. I fall short because of pride, because of shortsightedness that makes me think “it’s all about me”, and because I have a short memory that forgets God’s blessings.
May Almighty God enable us to see the larger picture, to remember God’s past faithfulness and generosity, and to soften the soil of our hearts, that we may be instruments of God’s grace and God’s forgiveness.
AMEN.
________________________________________________________________
[1] A talent was equal to about 6,000 drachmas. A day laborer, who was paid one denarius per day, could earn one talent in about 15 years’ worth of work. One report suggests that the entire tax burden exacted by King Herod was about 900 talents per year in Jesus’ day.
[2] Alas, this detail is missing from the Revised Standard Version (RSV) translation we use, as it is in other renderings, as well. They characterize the amount owed as a “debt”, but the Greek states it is a “loan”.
[3] A good example of Matthew’s fondness for including two of Jesus’ teachings may be found in Jesus’ teachings on marriage and divorce. Compare the teachings as they are found in Matthew 5: 31 – 32 and 19: 3 – 10, for example.
Proper 19 -- Ecclesiasticus 27: 30 – 28: 7; Psalm 103: 8 – 13; Romans 14: 5 – 12; Matthew 18: 21 – 35
A sermon by The Rev. Gene Tucker. given at Trinity Church, Mt. Vernon, IL; Sunday, September 14th, 2008
Couldn’t we just skip this one?
This Gospel text makes me uncomfortable.
It reminds me of my own hard-heartedness, my own stubbornness and unwillingness to forgive.
“How often should I forgive my brother”, Peter asks…..
Thanks, Peter.
We could have done without this question, couldn’t we?
But Peter is the one who’s constantly barging into the difficult situations. He’s the one who’s not afraid to jump over the side of the boat, into the raging waters. He’s not the least bit shy about getting in Jesus’ face about His prediction of His coming suffering and death: “This shall never happen to you!” Peter said.
Maybe Peter’s head wasn’t screwed on tightly when he asked the Lord this question, “If my brother sins against me, how often should I forgive him?”
Or, maybe Peter was simply picking up on an important thread that was part of Jesus’ teaching about discipline within the body of Christ, that is, the Church, the text we read last week.
Remember that bit about “regaining your brother or sister”, which we read last week? That seems to be one of the main reasons for the detailed instructions our Lord gives us about how to treat a brother or sister who’s offended us (or the Church) in some way…. “Keep reaching out to him or her” seems to be the idea… “Treat them as a Gentile or a tax collector,” Jesus says. After all, that’s what Jesus did: He kept reaching out to these outcasts, these outsiders, trying to restore the ties of love which can conquer any obstacle, any barrier of human making.
So, last Sunday’s text about discipline in the Church, and this Sunday’s reading, which begins with Peter’s question, “If my brother sins against me”, are linked. The word “my brother” is the link.
Having linked the two ideas: church discipline and forgiveness, let’s move on now to the text itself.
Notice, first of all, that Jesus gives an astronomical answer: Forgive your brother or your sister 77 times! (Or, as some manuscripts read, “seventy times seven” = 490 times).
No doubt Peter thought he’d provided the perfect answer as part of his question, “How many times should I forgive my brother, seven times?” You see, in biblical reckoning, “seven times” of anything was a complete unit, just like the creation of the world is described as having taken seven days, at the end of which God rested from all His labors. Seven is the number of completeness.
But Jesus’ answer, outlining a multiple of that complete number, is followed by a parable in which He describes the debt owed by the servant to the King in astronomical terms….10,000 talents was a lot of money in biblical times, about equal to the wages of a day laborer for 150,000 years.[1]
Jesus uses this parable to dramatize the great forgiveness that is ours when God lays aside our debt and burden of sin. That’s the point, I think.
Moreover, the king in Jesus’ parable not only forgives the debt, but recasts it as a loan.[2] (Notice that the stage is now set for the king to recall the unforgiving servant, in order to assert his continuing control over that servant through the recasting of the debt as a loan….Our Lord is a master storyteller!)
But, by way of hyperbole, Jesus turns the tables, casting the light of our eyes on the unforgiving ways of the servant, who refuses to forgive a very small debt of only 100 denarii, equal to about three-to-four-months’ wages for a day laborer in Jesus’ day.
“Pay what you owe!”, the unforgiving servant demands of his friend, grabbing him by the throat.
It is then that the unforgiving servant’s fellow servants, acting in accordance with the mechanisms our Lord outlined in last week’s Gospel reading, use those mechanisms to take their witness to the man’s actions to the king: Having observed the actions of this hard-hearted man, they take their notice of the offense to the next higher (and only other) level, just as Matthew 18: 15 – 20 says they should.
As usual, Jesus’ parable ends with a “zinger” that is so typical of Matthew’s writing style: Just at the end of the parable, we read this, “So my heavenly Father will also do to every one of you, if you do not forgive your brother or your sister from your heart.”
Matthew really wants us to get the point, doesn’t he? That’s the purpose of this one-line summary of the meaning of the parable. No possible interpretation of the parable is left to chance, none at all: “So will my heavenly Father do to every one of you, if you do not forgive your brother or your sister from your heart.”
Matthew’s desire for clarity is also found in his fondness for repeating himself….Matthew often includes two of Jesus’ teachings on any given subject, just so we are entirely clear about Jesus’ meaning and intent.[3]
With regard to Jesus’ teaching about forgiveness, the other passage Matthew relates to us in which Jesus deals with the issue of forgiveness: ours and the Lord’s, may be found in chapter six, beginning at verse 14….This passage follows the Lord’s Prayer, and it explains the line (which we say week-by-week on our Communion service), “And forgive us our trespasses, as we forgive those who trespass against us.” Here (verse 14), we read, “For if you forgive men when they sin against you, your heavenly Father will also forgive you. But if you do not forgive men their sins, your Father will not forgive you.”
Couldn’t we just skip this one, too?
It makes us uncomfortable, because it reminds us that we are to be a channel of God’s forgiveness.
Apparently, if we do not forgive others, God will not forgive us.
God’s forgiveness stops with us, if we hoard it.
God’s forgiveness cannot be our personal, private possession, according to this text.
God’s forgiveness means that we control the “tap” of God’s forgiveness….For if I forgive others, then God will open the floodgates of forgiveness for me. We hold the key, we are in charge.
We can choose to block God’s forgiveness, or we can choose to be conduits for God’s forgiveness.
God’s forgiveness is the lifeblood of human relationships, and it is the lifeblood of our relationship with God.
God’s forgiveness flows out of His overwhelming love for us. Like the king in today’s parable, the depths of His forgiveness stem from His mercy and His love. How else can we explain the cancelling of the debt, and its recasting as a loan?
We’re on the hook!
The God who is more ready to hear than we are to pray, the God who is more ready to forgive than we are to ask for forgiveness, or to offer it to others, stands, waiting for us to realize that the blessings of God’s forgiveness do not flow in one direction only, that is to say, only to us.
No, God’s forgiveness can flow into us only to the extent that we allow forgiveness to flow out of us to others.
For we are called as Christians to be conduits, channels of God’s grace, God’s love, and God’s forgiveness.
I don’t know about you, but this text makes me uncomfortable. I’d just like to skip it and go on to next week’s reading.
For it reminds me that I fall short of God’s standard of forgiveness. I fall short because of pride, because of shortsightedness that makes me think “it’s all about me”, and because I have a short memory that forgets God’s blessings.
May Almighty God enable us to see the larger picture, to remember God’s past faithfulness and generosity, and to soften the soil of our hearts, that we may be instruments of God’s grace and God’s forgiveness.
AMEN.
________________________________________________________________
[1] A talent was equal to about 6,000 drachmas. A day laborer, who was paid one denarius per day, could earn one talent in about 15 years’ worth of work. One report suggests that the entire tax burden exacted by King Herod was about 900 talents per year in Jesus’ day.
[2] Alas, this detail is missing from the Revised Standard Version (RSV) translation we use, as it is in other renderings, as well. They characterize the amount owed as a “debt”, but the Greek states it is a “loan”.
[3] A good example of Matthew’s fondness for including two of Jesus’ teachings may be found in Jesus’ teachings on marriage and divorce. Compare the teachings as they are found in Matthew 5: 31 – 32 and 19: 3 – 10, for example.
Sunday, September 07, 2008
17 Pentecost, Year A
"REFORM SCHOOL"
Proper 18 -- Ezekiel 33: 1 – 11; Psalm 119: 33 – 40; Romans 12: 9 – 21; Matthew 18: 15 – 20
A sermon by The Rev. Gene Tucker, given at Trinity Church, Mt. Vernon, IL; Sunday, September 7th, 2008
Every once in awhile – actually (as I think back on it) more like once a week – my wife gets upset with me. Usually, it’s for a very good reason: I’ve just “spouted off” about something that’s managed to get under my skin. Or, I may have just asked her opinion about some matter that I know perfectly well was outrageous to begin with. Or – on still other occasions, I will say something humorous that’s intended to make those big brown eyes glisten with a combination of disbelief, mild shock and a look that says, “OK, I know you’re pulling my leg (again!).”
On those occasions – those occasions where I’ve said blurted something out - I often get a response that goes something like, “Gene, I hope you won’t (fill in the blank).” On other occasions, a stare has the same effect. When I was growing up, my mother would simply look over her glasses, and say “Sonny boy”. (Whenever I heard he words, “Sonny boy”, I knew the words that would follow would be serious ones.) You can see I’m a veteran when it comes to dealing with women, especially when I, as a male, am hopelessly outnumbered.
Now you have to understand that I come from a family which is overwhelmingly female: I have three younger sisters, I have two daughters, two granddaughters, and two female Cocker Spaniels. Even my mother was my dominant parent!
So, you can see that I’ve lived my entire life in the company of – and under the supervision of – women. So you can understand why I often refer to my wise and longsuffering spouse as “my adult supervisor”!
If my humorous remarks and pronouncements about some issue or another get bad enough, my wife can enlist the aid of any number of family members to straighten me out, all of them female. My daughters, both of them wise and extraordinarily talented persons, can be summoned by a phone call or an email to “gang up” on me, if the need should arise, as it does with some regularity.
But usually, my wife – being possessed of great discernment and wisdom, simply chooses to deal with my irksome words and jokes by keeping her corrective responses confined to the privacy of our own home. It’s probably a fortunate thing that some of the words I hurl at the television set, and my wife’s corrective interjections, are matters that never get past the front door.
Why would my wife exercise such discretion in managing her husband’s wit and mercurial responses to news stories?
The answer is that she is practicing something we in the church would call subsidiarity.
(Now I know that the word “subsidiarity” is right on the tip of your tongues, isn’t it? After all, we use the principle of “subsidiarity” just about every day in our lives, somehow.)
The idea of subsidiarity is that the lowest (and smallest) level of the church that can adequately deal with any issue that arises, should be the level that handles the situation.
Put subsidiarity into practice, and a good example of it in the church would be the choice of colors and types of flowers for the altar is a matter which affects only Trinity Church. So, Trinity Church’s appointed leaders for altar flowers, and those who have chosen to give the flowers, make the choice about the type, color and arrangement of the flowers. The decisions made do not affect St. John’s, Centralia (for example), or any other church.
Subsidiarity is at work in today’s Gospel, as we hear Jesus’ words, “If your brother sins against you, go and tell him his fault, between you and him alone.” Essentially, Jesus is saying, “Handle this at the lowest and smallest level possible.”
However, just as husbands and fathers can get out of hand at times, requiring additional, female wisdom, restraint and insight to be brought to bear, additional witnesses may be required to bring their wisdom into a situation which has arisen in the body of Christ, that is, the Church, as well.
Notice, then, that Jesus now says, “But if he does not listen, take one or two others along with you, that every word may be confirmed by the evidence of two or three witnesses.”
Jesus is following the dictates of Deuteronomy 19: 15, which requires the confirmation of two or three witnesses in order to establish a matter before a court of law.
So, by the involvement of two or three others, the next level of involvement is reached.
But then Jesus allows for the matter to be brought before the entire church, which is the gathering of all the believers. “If he refuses to listen to them, tell it to the church,” He says.
With the matter now before the entire Church, the last step is finally reached: “If he refuses to listen even to the church, let him be to you as a Gentile and a tax collector.”
We ought to pause here for a moment.
Often, this final step, “Let him be to you as a Gentile and a tax collector” is misunderstood, it seems to me…..It is taken as a sign that the individual is to be cast out of the assembly, the church. And this part of the text might well be grounds for expelling a sinful brother or sister from the fellowship of the church.
But when we consider Jesus’ actions toward Gentiles and tax collectors, we know that He was often found in their company.
Why did Jesus do that? Why did He hang out with Gentiles and tax collectors? His purpose was to win them over, to straighten out their sinful ways and to end their wayward inclinations.
Could it be that another meaning Jesus seems to be indicating is that the church is to continue to reach out to a wayward brother or sister, in order to win them back to the Lord’s ways?
Quite possibly.
What might a motivation be for such a reaching out, an attempt to regain a brother or sister (as Jesus indicated in the beginning of His teaching on this subject)[1]?
I think the answer lies in the illustration I began with this morning: marriage.
In marriage, husband and wife commit to one another in lifelong relationship, “for better, for worse.” Marriage creates a covenant relationship between the spouses, a relationship in which the inevitability of pain and difficulty is acknowledged, even on the couple’s wedding day! On page 429 of the Book of Common Prayer, we read these words, “Give them grace, when they hurt each other, to recognize their fault, and to seek each other’s forgiveness and yours.”
Notice the word “when” in this petition….We admit that pain and disillusionment will be a part of the marriage that follows the wedding ceremony. (Can you tell I am thinking a good bit about our younger daughter’s upcoming wedding, as I prepare for the homily that will be delivered that day?)
You see, the pain of wrongdoing which is an inevitable part of any marriage affects not only the two persons who are married to each other, but the covenant relationship, which is a third entity created by the marriage – the union of a man and a woman - itself, that exists as a result of the commitment each partner has made to the other.
In the same way, wrongdoing, fault, or sin, as Jesus refers to it in His opening remark, affects the covenant relationship which exists between any two persons who are members of the church. That covenant relationship is the church itself. Estrangement between members of the church impairs the “gathering together” that Jesus speaks of in verse 20, where He says, “Wherever two or three are gathered in my name there am I in the midst of them.”
“Best to nip it in the bud,” Jesus seems to be saying, in essence. “Do it privately,” He seems to be adding, perhaps because it’s quite possible that the individual is totally unaware of his/her fault. (Isn’t that one reason God gives us to each other in the church, so that we can be accountable to one another in love? After all, we can’t see ourselves and our actions as others see us. We need their perspective to help us live lives that are pleasing to God.)
It’s also possible that the person confronted would be very embarrassed by the revealing of the fault that lies within to others who may not be aware of it, either.
The motivation, then, seems to stem from a deep love and concern for the person’s spiritual and emotional wellbeing.
However, if pride and stubbornness seem to be present in the individual, then others can be enlisted to deal with the situation.
In this way, only an appropriate level of concern is applied to the situation. High priority is given to the individual’s privacy and welfare, in the hopes that winning them back are given the best chances for success. Only when the one-on-one approach fails are others brought into the process.
At the heart of the matter is Church unity and Church discipline. Call it “reform school” for God’s chosen people, the body of Christ, the Church, if you will.
One final word is in order: We hear in today’s Gospel reading the words we heard a couple of weeks ago, “whatever you bind on earth shall be bound in heaven, and whatever you loose on earth shall be loosed in heaven.” As we reflected on that occasion, these words constitute a traditional Jewish rabbinical saying that refers to the maintenance of correct and acceptable teaching.
And so, the two truths stand together: the church is called to maintain the Lord’s teaching, even as it continues to seek out those who have strayed from the Lord’s ways.
In these two, we find the mystery of God’s love for us, for the God who establishes His righteous ways and makes them known, also seeks us out in the midst of our own sinful and wayward ways, so as to bring us back into a closer walk with Him.
AMEN.
_______________________________________________
[1] See verse 15.
Proper 18 -- Ezekiel 33: 1 – 11; Psalm 119: 33 – 40; Romans 12: 9 – 21; Matthew 18: 15 – 20
A sermon by The Rev. Gene Tucker, given at Trinity Church, Mt. Vernon, IL; Sunday, September 7th, 2008
Every once in awhile – actually (as I think back on it) more like once a week – my wife gets upset with me. Usually, it’s for a very good reason: I’ve just “spouted off” about something that’s managed to get under my skin. Or, I may have just asked her opinion about some matter that I know perfectly well was outrageous to begin with. Or – on still other occasions, I will say something humorous that’s intended to make those big brown eyes glisten with a combination of disbelief, mild shock and a look that says, “OK, I know you’re pulling my leg (again!).”
On those occasions – those occasions where I’ve said blurted something out - I often get a response that goes something like, “Gene, I hope you won’t (fill in the blank).” On other occasions, a stare has the same effect. When I was growing up, my mother would simply look over her glasses, and say “Sonny boy”. (Whenever I heard he words, “Sonny boy”, I knew the words that would follow would be serious ones.) You can see I’m a veteran when it comes to dealing with women, especially when I, as a male, am hopelessly outnumbered.
Now you have to understand that I come from a family which is overwhelmingly female: I have three younger sisters, I have two daughters, two granddaughters, and two female Cocker Spaniels. Even my mother was my dominant parent!
So, you can see that I’ve lived my entire life in the company of – and under the supervision of – women. So you can understand why I often refer to my wise and longsuffering spouse as “my adult supervisor”!
If my humorous remarks and pronouncements about some issue or another get bad enough, my wife can enlist the aid of any number of family members to straighten me out, all of them female. My daughters, both of them wise and extraordinarily talented persons, can be summoned by a phone call or an email to “gang up” on me, if the need should arise, as it does with some regularity.
But usually, my wife – being possessed of great discernment and wisdom, simply chooses to deal with my irksome words and jokes by keeping her corrective responses confined to the privacy of our own home. It’s probably a fortunate thing that some of the words I hurl at the television set, and my wife’s corrective interjections, are matters that never get past the front door.
Why would my wife exercise such discretion in managing her husband’s wit and mercurial responses to news stories?
The answer is that she is practicing something we in the church would call subsidiarity.
(Now I know that the word “subsidiarity” is right on the tip of your tongues, isn’t it? After all, we use the principle of “subsidiarity” just about every day in our lives, somehow.)
The idea of subsidiarity is that the lowest (and smallest) level of the church that can adequately deal with any issue that arises, should be the level that handles the situation.
Put subsidiarity into practice, and a good example of it in the church would be the choice of colors and types of flowers for the altar is a matter which affects only Trinity Church. So, Trinity Church’s appointed leaders for altar flowers, and those who have chosen to give the flowers, make the choice about the type, color and arrangement of the flowers. The decisions made do not affect St. John’s, Centralia (for example), or any other church.
Subsidiarity is at work in today’s Gospel, as we hear Jesus’ words, “If your brother sins against you, go and tell him his fault, between you and him alone.” Essentially, Jesus is saying, “Handle this at the lowest and smallest level possible.”
However, just as husbands and fathers can get out of hand at times, requiring additional, female wisdom, restraint and insight to be brought to bear, additional witnesses may be required to bring their wisdom into a situation which has arisen in the body of Christ, that is, the Church, as well.
Notice, then, that Jesus now says, “But if he does not listen, take one or two others along with you, that every word may be confirmed by the evidence of two or three witnesses.”
Jesus is following the dictates of Deuteronomy 19: 15, which requires the confirmation of two or three witnesses in order to establish a matter before a court of law.
So, by the involvement of two or three others, the next level of involvement is reached.
But then Jesus allows for the matter to be brought before the entire church, which is the gathering of all the believers. “If he refuses to listen to them, tell it to the church,” He says.
With the matter now before the entire Church, the last step is finally reached: “If he refuses to listen even to the church, let him be to you as a Gentile and a tax collector.”
We ought to pause here for a moment.
Often, this final step, “Let him be to you as a Gentile and a tax collector” is misunderstood, it seems to me…..It is taken as a sign that the individual is to be cast out of the assembly, the church. And this part of the text might well be grounds for expelling a sinful brother or sister from the fellowship of the church.
But when we consider Jesus’ actions toward Gentiles and tax collectors, we know that He was often found in their company.
Why did Jesus do that? Why did He hang out with Gentiles and tax collectors? His purpose was to win them over, to straighten out their sinful ways and to end their wayward inclinations.
Could it be that another meaning Jesus seems to be indicating is that the church is to continue to reach out to a wayward brother or sister, in order to win them back to the Lord’s ways?
Quite possibly.
What might a motivation be for such a reaching out, an attempt to regain a brother or sister (as Jesus indicated in the beginning of His teaching on this subject)[1]?
I think the answer lies in the illustration I began with this morning: marriage.
In marriage, husband and wife commit to one another in lifelong relationship, “for better, for worse.” Marriage creates a covenant relationship between the spouses, a relationship in which the inevitability of pain and difficulty is acknowledged, even on the couple’s wedding day! On page 429 of the Book of Common Prayer, we read these words, “Give them grace, when they hurt each other, to recognize their fault, and to seek each other’s forgiveness and yours.”
Notice the word “when” in this petition….We admit that pain and disillusionment will be a part of the marriage that follows the wedding ceremony. (Can you tell I am thinking a good bit about our younger daughter’s upcoming wedding, as I prepare for the homily that will be delivered that day?)
You see, the pain of wrongdoing which is an inevitable part of any marriage affects not only the two persons who are married to each other, but the covenant relationship, which is a third entity created by the marriage – the union of a man and a woman - itself, that exists as a result of the commitment each partner has made to the other.
In the same way, wrongdoing, fault, or sin, as Jesus refers to it in His opening remark, affects the covenant relationship which exists between any two persons who are members of the church. That covenant relationship is the church itself. Estrangement between members of the church impairs the “gathering together” that Jesus speaks of in verse 20, where He says, “Wherever two or three are gathered in my name there am I in the midst of them.”
“Best to nip it in the bud,” Jesus seems to be saying, in essence. “Do it privately,” He seems to be adding, perhaps because it’s quite possible that the individual is totally unaware of his/her fault. (Isn’t that one reason God gives us to each other in the church, so that we can be accountable to one another in love? After all, we can’t see ourselves and our actions as others see us. We need their perspective to help us live lives that are pleasing to God.)
It’s also possible that the person confronted would be very embarrassed by the revealing of the fault that lies within to others who may not be aware of it, either.
The motivation, then, seems to stem from a deep love and concern for the person’s spiritual and emotional wellbeing.
However, if pride and stubbornness seem to be present in the individual, then others can be enlisted to deal with the situation.
In this way, only an appropriate level of concern is applied to the situation. High priority is given to the individual’s privacy and welfare, in the hopes that winning them back are given the best chances for success. Only when the one-on-one approach fails are others brought into the process.
At the heart of the matter is Church unity and Church discipline. Call it “reform school” for God’s chosen people, the body of Christ, the Church, if you will.
One final word is in order: We hear in today’s Gospel reading the words we heard a couple of weeks ago, “whatever you bind on earth shall be bound in heaven, and whatever you loose on earth shall be loosed in heaven.” As we reflected on that occasion, these words constitute a traditional Jewish rabbinical saying that refers to the maintenance of correct and acceptable teaching.
And so, the two truths stand together: the church is called to maintain the Lord’s teaching, even as it continues to seek out those who have strayed from the Lord’s ways.
In these two, we find the mystery of God’s love for us, for the God who establishes His righteous ways and makes them known, also seeks us out in the midst of our own sinful and wayward ways, so as to bring us back into a closer walk with Him.
AMEN.
_______________________________________________
[1] See verse 15.
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