Please join us to find a place of prayer and rest in a busy week. From intimacy in prayer God is able to do many things.
Let the message about Christ, in all its richness, fill your lives May you never give up praying. When you pray, may you keep alert and be thankful. Pray that together we may make the message of the mystery of Christ as clear as possible. Amen (Based on Colossians 3 and 4)
Our readings are from Joshua 24:1-3 and then 14-25 , Psalm 78:1-7, 1 Thessalonians 4:13-18, and Matthew 25:1-13.
The psalm, it says, I will open my mouth in a parable. I will utter dark sayings from of old, things that we have heard and known that our ancestors have told us.
I will open my mouth in a parable! From this scripture, we can see that everything that we read in the Bible is as a parable, something that we are to apply our wisdom to. I suppose when we come together and we share scripture, it is an act of worship, a shared practice. We are a community of this practice. A community of communities yes. This is one of the practices we come together to share and through which we can worship the Lord our God.
We use the Revised Common Lectionary based on the 1965 Vatican 2 changes and published in 1969. The Revised Common Lectionary is from 1994 and it’s been adopted by many churches including Catholic churches and Protestant churches. It follows a pattern: Scripture, Psalm, Letter and Gospel. Maybe we can see this as being the path of understanding: a tradition of revelation. We have a Scripture, we have a Psalm and then we have a Letter and then we have a Gospel, maybe even in the order that they were written down as well. And so we see one reflecting on another; our part is where we speak and we join together in our meetings and we discuss what we have read. This is our part of the sequence: Scripture, Psalm, Letter, Gospel and our own testimonies.
Joshua! If we look back at the psalm portion that I have chosen to base what I’m speaking on, I will open my mouth in a parable. I will utter dark sayings from of old, we can see we’re looking here to find wisdom that will help us live today, help us know the Lord today and be an act of worship.
From Joshua, we have the end of the story of Joshua’s conquest and he’s facing the people and he shares, choose this day whom you will serve. We can see that there’s a real harshness and a real joy in the scripture. A joy in knowing the Lord, but a a real harshness when Joshua says,
“You cannot serve the Lord for it for he is a holy God. He is a jealous God. He will not forgive your transgressions or your sins. If you forsake the Lord and serve foreign gods, then he will turn and do you harm and consume you after having done you good.”
That sounds very, very difficult and very harsh. But it’s a truth that Joshua spoke. It’s a truth that’s recorded here for us to ponder. And if we see the whole of scripture as a parable, a revelation, revealing God, we need to apply our wisdom. I could stand here and I could talk from worldly wisdom about this, but I myself have been shaken and stirred as it were by the harshness of these words and I have to go away and I have to ponder especially where it says, he will turn and do you harm and consume you after having done you good.
As we read the rest of the scriptures maybe they will throw some light on this.
Joshua is insistent, put away the foreign gods that are among you and incline your hearts to the Lord. And the foreign gods he’s talked about are the gods from their history and the gods in the land to which they’d been brought into. The people turn and they say,
“The Lord our God, we will serve and we will obey him.”
Joshua lays down statutes and ordinances that will enable them to live together as a community with a past and within a people that are not serving the Lord.
Thessalonians! People are dying. The expectation was that the Lord would return and he hasn’t returned. And it’s great times of trial I judge. Paul’s heart towards these people is that they’re losing close friends, family maybe, and he is saying that they should have a hope, that they should not grieve as others do who have no hope. He lays before them a promise. He says, then we who are alive, who are left, will be caught up in the clouds together with them to meet the Lord in the air. And so we will be with the Lord forever. And this will be at the proclamation of an angel. Now we can take that as our hope. Our hope is in the future coming of the Lord.
Future coming of the Lord? However we understand it, the Christian response to the life that we’re living is that Jesus will return. Jesus is returning in each of us each day in the love and kindness that we show one another, the support we give one another and the works we do for one another.
We know that we are able to love God and we are able to love one another as Jesus commanded us and bring Jesus into our communities. So, we’re not looking to a future hope that rejects what’s going on now. We’re looking to a hope that enables us to live now and today. And therefore, we encourage one another weekly in this meeting with many words of worship and encouragement.
To the passage in Matthew! Again, this can appear very harsh. In our reading together this morning, we noted how harsh it was.
The bridegroom is delayed. These young women have gone out, ten of them, to greet the bridegroom. They know that there is a wedding feast coming and they’ve gone out to greet the bridegroom. Five wise ones have taken extra oil because they don’t know when he’s coming. They know he’s delayed. The others have not taken oil with their lamps to greet him. He’s coming in the night. As the bridegroom was delayed, all of them became drowsy and slept. At midnight there was a shout, “Look, here is the bridegroom. Come out to meet him.” So they go out to meet him.
The foolish ones, after dressing their lamps presumably, realize that they have not got enough oil to greet the bridegroom. They ask for oil from the other five faithful ones, but they say, “If we give you oil, we won’t have enough. You need to the dealers and buy some for yourselves.”
Remember, this is at midnight. I wonder which dealers would be open for them to be able to buy oil. Presumably, they’d have to wait till the morning. It would be a long delay. And while they go to buy oil the bridegroom comes, and those who were ready go with him into the wedding banquet, and the door is shut. Now when they come back, the young women with oil in their lamps say, “Lord, Lord, open to us.” But the Lord replies, “Truly I tell you, I do not know you.” And then Jesus adds, “Keep awake, therefore, for you know neither the day nor the hour.”
Keep awake, therefore, for you know neither the day nor the hour!
How are these scriptures all related together? The Common Lectionary that we use put these readings together for a purpose.
We could see that in Joshua there’s a warning to the people about being ready, serving the Lord in a foreign land. Jesus himself says that you cannot love God and love Mammon. We must read these scriptures in terms of our faith. We cannot serve the Lord in a way that isn’t true to what Jesus has called us to. Jesus has called us to a love of God and a love of our neighbour. He has called us and he says you cannot love God and Mammon. You cannot hate your brother and say that you love God, John tells us in his letters. So, we know that there’s a very simple way that Jesus has called us to. Yes, we do not see him, but we know that he is to return. We know that daily he is returning in each of us. When we see the glimmer of the bridegroom coming: we see the kindness, we see the joy, we see the hope in the people of God, we know that the bridegroom is coming.
But it’s been a long time and we, all of us maybe, have become drowsy and fallen asleep. But in becoming drowsy and falling asleep, if we’ve done the hard work, we’ve done the work of renewing our hearts, we’ve done the things Jesus has called us to do, we are prepared. We’ve cared for the widow. We’ve cared for the poor. We’ve looked after the needs of those who are in prison. We’ve provided for those who are ill and who are sick. Within our hearts we know righteousness to reign. We’ve looked towards goodness. We’ve looked towards faithfulness. We’ve looked towards justice. We’ve looked towards truth. This is oil that we have with us. When the bridegroom comes, we are ready and we are able to display these gifts in the flame, the light that shines within. It’s too late to greet the bridegroom if you have to go away and buy this oil. You have to find this oil somewhere. But the bridegroom is already here. Go to the dealers and buy some for yourselves. They’ve looked towards themselves maybe. and then they find themselves short of the oil that they need to greet the bridegroom.
Maybe the message is not so harsh but reality. It’s harsh if we look at it and we are judgmental. But if we get reassurance and we feel I’m putting in this hard work and it is difficult. It’s a difficult path that we’ve been called to in these times.
We’re in a foreign land, as it were, where Mammon rules, where maybe we have a past that causes us to stumble. But we have the Lord Jesus healing us of our past and drawing us on in righteousness towards our futures. The oil within us may not sustain us when we’re called to service. What might the service be? What might greeting the bridegroom be? We know we’ll be called up into the heavenlies, but we know that sometimes the call to follow after the bridegroom is a difficult calling in itself.
You know for example we might find ourselves bearing a cross that’s very heavy. We are called to take up this cross daily and to take it up with joy. Remember the throne of the bridegroom is the cross. The Thessalonians maybe were expecting more glory but then they were seeing that those around them were being killed and were dying. Their hope was that Jesus would return.
We can see from the parable that is the story of Joshua, it says, choose this day whom you will serve and that’s our daily choice. I feel the choice is who will we serve and have that oil within us that enables us in the day of trouble and testing to follow Jesus; to follow Jesus’s call.
Maybe the shock of the story awakens expectation within us. Let’s listen to this. And yes, that’s a difficult harsh word that Jesus is speaking, but it’s not really a harsh word if we see it as a call to preparation for great joy.
Grace and peace to you all. We here will discuss these scriptures and much wisdom will come out. The parable will have reached deeply into our hearts. The parable of the readings. And we are grateful to the Revised Common Lectionary for giving us this challenge. Grace and peace to you all.
We’re looking at Joshua 37-17. Psalm 107. We’re looking at portions 1:7 and 33-37. And then we’re reading from Thessalonians 2:9-13 and Matthew 23: 1-12.
So now we’re in the story of Joshua. And if we were to think of a reprise for this message we would use the last line of Matthew where it says, all who exalt themselves will be humbled and all who humble themselves will be exalted.
The promise to Joshua is, this day I will begin to exalt you in the sight of all Israel so that they may know that I will be with you as I was with Moses.
And we can see that a great miracle is wrought through God that enables them to cross over the Jordan on dry land. In the midst of this story, it says, “So now select 12 men from the tribes of Israel, one for each tribe.” But it’s not these men who carry the ark. It’s the priests who carry the ark. And their job is to stand in the midst of the now dried up river while the people pass through the riverbed. The job of the 12, we find out later on in the story, is to pick up 12 stones, 12 large stones, to make a memorial so that the people might remember this great event. Also, we see that they’re passing through the Jordan, the Jordan is where Jesus was baptized, through whom we now know the goodness of God, and where God declares Jesus to be his Son in whom he is well pleased.
We can see in this story there are echoes of what Jesus was to do and where he was to begin his ministry. The ministry of Joshua is to occupy the land and we can see that as being a story of redemption of the land.
Now to the psalm. We can see the love of God, the love of God towards the people, the love of God towards turned to their needs. And we can see, he turns rivers into a desert, springs of water into thirsty ground, a fruitful land into salty waste because of the wickedness of its inhabitants.
The way we live our lives has an effect. The way God has made the creation means the way that we live our lives affects the ground on which we depend. And we can see that it’s the poor, those who are needy who cry out. Some wandered in desert wastes, finding no way to an inhabited town. Hungry and thirsty, their soul fainted within them. Then they cried to the Lord in their trouble and he delivered them from their distress. We can see that when they’re crying out to the Lord, the Lord provides them with the home that they needed. He turns a desert into pools of water, a parched land into springs of water. I think we can see it’s their righteous act of calling on God that changes the nature of the land on which they live.
It had become uninhabitable because of the wickedness of its inhabitants. But these people who come to this parched land see it turning from a desert into pools of water and from parched land into springs of water and there he lets the hungry live and they establish a town to live in. They sow fields and plant vineyards and get a fruitful yield.
We can see this in practical ways around the world where people who choose to live righteously find great fruit. And where people choose to live in a wicked way not relying on the Lord, find that the very land on which they live becomes polluted, becomes desecrated. That’s not to say that we are to blame people for that. We are to love. We know that in exercising love and encouraging people to turn to the Lord, then great miracles can happen. And we can see God’s heart. He says he lets the hungry live and they establish a town to live in. And hopefully that is the church.
In Thessalonians, looking back to our reprise, which was, all who exalt themselves will be humbled, and all who humble themselves will be exalted, we can see that Paul is commending himself. He’s commending what he has brought to them. And he says, “You are witnesses and God also how pure, upright, and blameless our conduct was.” He’s boasting. He’s boasting in the Lord. And hopefully the people are hearing what he is saying. They’re not seeing him as being commended by God for the wrong things. And he makes sure of that. He says, “We dealt with each one of you like a father with his child, urging and encouraging you and pleading with you that you lead a life worthy of God.”
Paul knows that even in their poverty and in their affliction that being together and leading worthy lives was the way of salvation for them both practically and spiritually and they are being called into a kingdom, a kingdom of glory. Maybe not a kingdom that we can see, but a kingdom that bears the marks of the spirit. And his prayer is, we are constantly giving thanks to God for this that when you receive the word of God that you heard from us, you accepted it not as a human word but as what really it is, God’s word which is also at work in you believers.
So, Paul recognizes that he is reaching out and liberating the word of God that is within each of them already. He knows the word to be at work in his heart and he knows the word of God is at work in their hearts and he wants to bring them to that free and bountiful place by liberating what’s within them.
He recognizes that This word of God is at work in new believers. We can see that whereas he was working from the outside to reveal what was within them, God is working from the inside and enabling Paul to liberate what he has placed in each of their hearts, the light that shines within them, so that they might be disciples of Jesus and they might show forth righteousness; the righteousness in the Psalms… He lets the hungry live and establishes a town to live in. As I said, I see that as being the church.
To Jesus now. He’s speaking to the crowds. He says, “The scribes and the Pharisees sit on Moses’ seat. Therefore, do whatever they teach you and follow it.” That’s quite surprising but then he caveats it and he says, “Do not do as they do, for they do not practice what they teach.” We find that in this world we will hear many people saying many things that are truthful and many things that are encouraging but the measure that Jesus puts on our words is that we do what we say to do. We practice what we teach.
Anyone can speak good words because God is within the goodness of what people speak. But we are not judged by what we say, we need to be equal to the good words we say . What it seems is that these words that these people speak only serves to exalt themselves. Not like Paul.
Paul wants them to live a worthy life and he has given a pure and upright and blameless testimony to back what he’s saying. These people Jesus judges have their reward on the earth. Their reward is being seen; being exalted in the community. Jesus says things that are quite troubling. He says, do not be called rabbi, for you have one teacher. You are all brothers and sisters. Call no one father on earth, you have one Father in heaven. Nor are you to be called instructors, for you have one instructor, the Messiah: the exalted one, the anointed one.
How are we to be together? How are we to gather together and organize ourselves? This is what Jesus says, the greatest among you will be your servant. The greatest among you will be your servant. Paul teaches us as well, doesn’t he, in Ephesians that all is to be done for the people, for the peace of the people, for the benefit of the church. And so as we seek to lead our communities, as we seek to organize our communities, as we seek to fill our communities, we have, as it were, a guide rail that binds us into the kingdom of heaven, a narrow way spoken by Jesus that is a delight and a freedom to us.
How many of us have suffered at the hands of leaders who have not borne this in mind? How many of us have thrived with leaders who have borne these words in mind?
We can see it says here, he turns rivers into a desert, springs of water into thirsty ground, a fruitful land into salty waste because of the wickedness of its inhabitants. We can say that the message of the gospel is a river. We can say that the work of the Holy Spirit is a spring of water. We can say that the community of the people is a fruitful land. But because of the wickedness of its inhabitants, these turn from what they are, to what they were never meant to be.
If we turn to the Lord and cry to the Lord in our trouble, he delivers us from this. distress. He turns deserts into pools of water, parched land into springs of water, and there he lets the hungry live, and they establish a town to live in. They sow fields and plant vineyards and get a fruitful yield. There is a huge promise in the psalm to a failing Church where leadership is toxic. There’s a huge promise in what Jesus teaches, all who exalt themselves will be humbled, and all who humble themselves will be exalted. Grace and peace. Amen.
Our readings today are Deuteronomy 34:1-12, Psalm 90:1-6 and 13-17, although I’ll include verse 11 and 12, 1 Thessalonians 2:1-8, and Matthew 22:34- 46.
Our reading for the Old Testament is of the death of Moses, and God has brought him to and shown him the land of promise, but Moses is not to enter it himself. Moses the servant of the Lord died there in the land of Moab. By the Lord’s command he buried him in a valley in the land… but no one knows his burial place to this day. Moses was vigorous in his old age, his sight was good, he was able to see the whole land. We hear here that the Lord commanded his death and the Lord buried him. Moses was a man who knew God face to face, a man who was a prophet in Israel, a man who would not be surpassed in the work of grace to the people of Israel.
Psalm 90 is a prayer of Moses. At its centre, it says, “Turn, O Lord, how long? Have compassion on your servant.” Turn, O Lord, how long? Have compassion on your servants. The word turn refers back to the verse where it says, “You turn us back to dust and say, return back, you mortals.” It’s a deep turn; a turning of God towards them, to have compassion on his servants; is a cry of Moses that we heard in his asking for the people not to be destroyed.
Now I’m going to include verse 11 and 12 here, although it’s not in the Revised Common Lectionary readings today and says …who considers the power of your anger. Your wrath is as great as the fear that is due to you. So teach us to count our days that we may gain a wise heart. That’s seen as being the purpose of this prayer. Teach us to count our days that we may gain a wise heart.
Again, in the psalm we hear of the wrath of God, the sense that God is against the people and Moses is crying out that God would turn and have compassion on them. God would understand. God would forgive. God would show his grace towards them. It’s an understanding Moses has of the nature of God. The nature of God to have mercy. The nature of God to show compassion. God is called upon by Moses to exercise this great power and Moses’s heart is that this wrath is as great as the fear that is due to God, and I think that’s what the wrath stands-for, for me as well.
In our creation and in our humanity, we have a huge capacity to love. We have a huge capacity towards mercy and compassion in ourselves. We know the power of God in this. And we should exercise the power of God. We should become those who communicate this great love. When this love is not communicated, when our culture, our society, who we are, does not communicate love, we find that in its place a space is made. Space is made where God who does not compel us to be, who does not coerce us to be, where his love is withdrawn, and where wrath finds a place.
We just need to listen to the news. Just need to look around us. I can look around now. I can see the sunshine. I can see the beauty of creation. I can feel and see the wind in the gardens round about and it is beautiful and yet when I look about there is destruction and we are causing destruction. We are part of the destruction of this great beauty and yet in the moment we can know love and we can show compassion and we can give to the creation its due. The Psalm says, your wrath is as great as the fear that is due to you. And we can know that measure. We can know that measure in our daily lives. We can know what we need to bring to God and it matters, however small.
In Thessalonians, we have a beautiful passage where Paul talks about the bringing of the Gospel and he says, …our appeal does not spring from deceit or impure motives, of trickery, but just as we have been approved by God to be entrusted with the message of the Gospel even so we speak, not to please mortals but to please God who tests our hearts. And then it says here, …we were gentle among you like a nurse tenderly caring for our own children. So deeply do we care for you that we’re determined to share with you not only the Gospel of God but also our own selves because you became very dear to us.
This is the heart of God towards us. This is the heart of Paul towards the Thessalonians. He knows he has seen God. He considers the power of his anger. He considers the wrath of God as being as great as the fear that is his due. We need to be taught, we need to count our days, we need to gain wise hearts in these difficult times.
Now when we turn to the Gospel reading, we see that Jesus is being tested. They’re trying to get him to fall into a trap. They say, “Teacher, which command in the law is the greatest?” He says, “You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, and with all your mind. This is the greatest and the first commandment, and the second is like it. You shall love your neighbour as yourself. On these two commandments hang all the law and the prophets.”
What was the test they were putting him to? They were putting him to the test of taking one of the commandments and putting it above all the others. And then they would accuse him of not keeping the written commands that he was not obeying; he would be in their power; they would be able to counter and contradict him being people who were experts in the law. So he could choose a commandment and fail. The other trap that he could fall into is he could deny the commandments. He could deny the written commandments and say these are not important. But he doesn’t do that. He answers them with love. He answers them with the dynamic of love. It’s love that gives life to the commandments.
Love is the matrix within which the commandments rest. And it’s not coercive. God can’t force us to love. You could say, well, God can force us to obey commands. These teachers of the law, they had gathered together to challenge Jesus; they wanted to exercise their power over him through the written word. But Jesus points them to the fact that, as Paul does later, it’s only love that makes it make sense, not their power but the power of love. And love will win people over whereas their commandments will put a barrier between people and God because of their hunger for power.
And then he turns. He wants to test their hearts as well. He talks to them about who the Messiah is. And they say to him, “The Messiah is the son of David.” He’s one of them; is of their line. Jesus turns this round and he says, …Who is it then that David by the spirit calls Lord? How is that David by the spirit calls the Messiah Lord, saying, “The Lord said to my Lord, sit at my right hand till I put your enemies under your feet.” Jesus says, “Then if David thus calls him Lord, how can he be his son?”
…No one was able to give him an answer, nor from that day did anyone dare to ask him any more questions because, what he was pointing out was, the Messiah was to be Lord and the Lord was beyond the house of David. Messiah was more than the house of David.
The Messiah was to be a person who was more than a nation; more than a national bloodline. And we need to be careful. We need to be careful that this is our heart as well. We don’t see Jesus as being our possession, being within our bloodline, being within our tradition, being someone who we have power over because he’s “one of us”. No, Jesus isn’t “one of us”. Jesus is Lord.
Wesley, Frank, 1923-2002. Churinga (pure light, glory of God)
Our readings are from Exodus 33:12-23, Psalm 99, 1 Thessalonians 1: 1-10, and Matthew 22:15-22. today, we’re thinking about the things that are God’s.
The first story is the story of Moses. Moses is wanting reassurance from God… now I have found favour in your sight, please show me your ways so that I may know you and find favour in your sight. That seems rather circular. But Moses really wants to know God. And God has dealt with him and has dealt with his people, he’s led them by fire and cloud, through statute and through decrees as it says in Psalm 99. But Moses wants to have the reassurance that God is with them, that God goes with them, and he knows that this is what will make the people distinct. In this way they shall be distinct, from every people on the face of the earth, the distinction is the Lord is with them.
And the Lord promises that they will have peace and favour in his sight. as he goes with them. But Moses pursues God even further and wants to see God. Moses says, “Please show me your glory.” Moses wants to know the glory of God. And God gives him his request. Though he does not show him his face, he shows him his back.
In the psalm, we can see that The Lord is proclaimed as king. Let the peoples tremble. He sits enthroned upon the cherubim. Let the earth quake. The Lord is great in Zion. He’s exalted over all the peoples. And then it goes on to say,
“Mighty King, lover of justice, you have established equity. You have executed justice and righteousness in Jacob.”
These are the things of God that are proclaimed to Moses. Justice, equity, and righteousness. Not only does God execute justice, he is a lover of justice. And he establishes equity. Equity is provision based on need. It’s not equality. Some will get more, some will get less, but all will end up with the same. We know that God will give us what we need because God has established equity. He’s given out decrees and statutes. Towards the end of the psalm we learn of God’s justice, it says of the people in the desert, “Oh Lord our God, you answer them. You were a forgiving God to them but an avenger of their wrongdoings.”
In the psalm there’s a recognition that there are consequences of not following after the way of God. God withdraws his presence and allows things to happen that cause them anguish. And this appears to the people of God as vengeance. He’s an avenger of their wrongdoings. It’s a harsh word avenger of their wrongdoings. This is the God who is revealing to them his presence. This is the God who is accommodating their knowledge of gods.
We have a revelation of God that goes beyond that. We know and we hope that God is an avenger of wrongdoings. Otherwise, how could he be a God of justice? And we see that there are consequences, aren’t there? But we see that suffering in the world persists and is pervasive. It’s ubiquitous in this creation.
We have the letter to the Thessalonians to help us understand. In Thessalonians, Paul speaks of the message that’s been preached to the Thessalonians… our message of the gospel came to you not in word but also in power and in the Holy Spirit and with full conviction. And he praises them for being imitators of him. In spite of persecution, you received the word with joy from the Holy Spirit. I’ll repeat that. In spite of persecution, you received the word with joy. We can see that there’s much persecution in the world. This isn’t the vengeance of God. This is a God who stands with us. He is with us, which is what is our distinctive, what distinguishes us. These people have been delivered from the worship of idols to serve a living and true God. We are delivered to serve a living and true God. And we are called to wait for his son from heaven whom he raised from the dead, Jesus who rescues us from the coming wrath. How are we to perceive the coming wrath?
We’ve seen that in the Psalms the psalmist sees this as God being the avenger of wrongdoings. And we can see there’s much wrath in the world. We can see how for example Christians in Gaza are standing despite losing family members and close friends. They’re standing and they’re standing in the hope of Jesus and in the love of Jesus. And in the midst of all the turmoil, they’re providing education for all children. They’re providing safety for all peoples. They are going beyond their community and welcoming all within their gates. And this is despite the persecution, the anguish they suffer at the losses they experience.
And we can see that this is the wrath in creation; the freedom in creation allows this suffering. God is strong within this. He’s strong with his presence. He is a mighty king, lover of justice who establishes equity and executes justice and righteousness amongst us. We can see that does not necessarily make us the strong, we may find ourselves being the very weak and the brunt of much evil and there is much confusion in the nations. But we have God with us, his Holy Spirit with us, the word of joy within us. We can expect that God will work powerfully and in the Holy Spirit with full conviction, the full conviction that we are loved.
Now to the gospel today. The Pharisees plotted to entrap Jesus. He’d said many are called few are chosen. And as I proposed last week, the few who were chosen were the ones chosen to be thrown out. And we find, as a friend of mine pointed out, that Jesus is the one who is rejected. He is the one who’s crucified. He is the one who’s removed from Jerusalem, crucified outside the gates. He is the one who suffers, the consequence of this idea of God that the Pharisees seem to have. A God who we would find, I would find, difficulty in following. This is the repute of Jesus… you are sincere and teach the way of God in accordance with truth and show difference to no one for you do not regard people with partiality. He is the rebel. He is the one who stands out who will not acquiesce, will not allow his word to be tainted for convenience. Tell us then what you think? Is it lawful to pay taxes to Caesar or not? Jesus is aware of their malice. They’ve just commended him, but he knows that they’re malicious. Why are you putting me to the test, you hypocrites? That’s a strong calling out, a categorization of them. Show me the coin used for the tax. They showed him the coin. They brought him a denarius, a day’s wages at that time. Then he said to them, whose head is this and whose title? They answered, “Caesars.” Then he said to them, “Give therefore to Caesar the things that are Caesars and to God the things that are God’s.” When they heard this, they were amazed and they left him and went away.
Give to God the things that are God’s. The taxation system was very harsh. They were called to be joyful. They were wealthy. They were called to be generous. There’s no promise in the scriptures that we won’t be taxed and that we won’t be called to give tribute maybe to people who we do not want to give tribute to, do not see as being righteous, do not see as being equitable, do not see as being lovers of justice. And yet Jesus doesn’t pick a fight with them. He picks a fight with those who would cause Jesus to be brought into disrepute. And we know they know that he will say what he needs to say. He will speak the truth. And the truth he speaks to them is don’t worry about paying taxes. Pay your taxes joyfully. I would say live at peace, know the truth, and render to God what is God’s. God asks them to be lovers of justice. God wants them to establish equity. God is holy. That is what they need to render. They need to render hospitality. They need to render love. They need to render what is truthful.
We need to be those people whose repute went out, like the Thessalonians. The way they preached to the people around about them, sounded forth from them, proclaimed, was their ways; their imitation of Paul and of Christ proclaimed the message of God. For they report about us what kind of welcome we had among you, and how you turned to God from idols to serve a living and true God, and to wait for his son from heaven, whom you raised from the dead, Jesus, who raises us, who rescues us from the coming wrath.
Landscape with Adoration of the Golden Calf Claude Lorrain
The readings today are Exodus 32:1-14, Psalm 106, Philippians 4:1-9, and Matthew 22:1-14.
Now, in approaching these, you’ve got to remember we’re waiting or wanting to know what God has to say to us. I cannot claim to be any great theologian, or great theorist, but I can see what’s written here and hopefully I can give you pause for thought and maybe you will find a way of seeking God for yourself in these words.
Anyway, the story in Exodus is quite interesting in that it has the end part of it, after all the shenanigans with oxes and Moses being away. God says to Moses something very strange. He says go down at once to your people whom you brought up out of the land of Egypt, they have acted perversely. God wants to destroy this people and he wants Moses to be the progenitor of a new people but Moses implores God and says, “Oh Lord, why does your wrath burn against your people?”
So, Moses turns it around and he says, “Turn from your fierce wrath. Change your mind and do not bring disaster on your people and then the phrase, that maybe causes some pause,… and the Lord changed his mind about the disaster that he planned to bring on his people.
As the psalm says, Moses stood in the breach, and it says had not Moses his chosen one stood in the breach before him to turn away his wrath from destroying them they would have been destroyed.
And in the midst of the psalm it says happy are those who observe justice who do righteousness at all times.
These people, they turned from righteousness, they turned from doing justice because Moses was not there to watch over them. And Aaron, Aaron seems to be quite a weak and fickle man in that he followed their directing.
What is this justice and righteousness that God’s calling us to? Well the beautiful passage in Philippians says, “Rejoice. Let your gentleness be known to everyone. The Lord is near. Do not be anxious about anything, but in everything by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving, let your requests be made known to God.”
So, their anxiety ended up with them making this horrible calf image and worship that instead of God. Now, we can see that there seems to be a bit of a contradiction here.
God’s calling us to be gentle. Let your gentleness be known to everyone. And yet when we read Exodus, we can see that God is anything but gentle in this account.
Coming to the gospel then maybe this is our key because Jesus speaks a parable. He’s spoken to the Pharisees; he’s taught the Pharisees and he’s told them all manner of things like the stone that the builders rejected will become the cornerstone on which they will stumble and the cornerstone will fall on them.
Let’s have a look at this. It’s the parable where the king has a banquet prepared for the wedding feast of his son. Those who are invited are summoned and told that it’s ready, but they didn’t want to come. They didn’t come and they made light of what it was.
And when he sent more people along to say come on it’s all ready, come to the wedding banquet, they decided not only were they going to ignore this king, some of them mistreated and killed some the slaves who had brought the message and the king was enraged. He sent his troops, destroyed those murderers and burnt their city.
Then he said to the slaves, the wedding is ready but those invited were not worthy. They go into the streets and they tell people you’re going to a banquet and the slaves gather in both the good and the bad. And then the wedding hall was filled with guests.
When the king came in to see the guests, he noticed a man there who was not wearing a wedding robe. And he said to him, “Friend, how did you get into here without a wedding robe?” The king was speechless. The King was enraged and he found his voice and threw the man out to suffer.
And then we have this very enigmatic little phrase of Jesus’s, …for many are called but few are chosen. What are we to think about this? Because this parable portrays a very violent and fickle king, a tyrant who is definitely not loved because people don’t want to go to the marriage feast; he’s capricious having destroyed the cities and murdered the people, he forces the feasters to come. Were they in fear? They must have seen what happened when the other people said they wouldn’t come, they got killed so maybe they said …we’re definitely going to go to this party then because we don’t want to end up being killed as well. They’re not there for a good reason, and then we have this person not wearing wedding robes.
Now I think, and I might be very wrong, that when Jesus says,…may be compared to a king, at the beginning of the parable, I think he’s talking to the Pharisees and he says, This is the god that you are following. You’re following this tyrant. You’re following this tyrant who is forcing people to the feast through violence and destruction and murder. And this is not the way of Jesus.
We can see from Paul, it says, “The Lord is near. Do not be anxious about anything, but in everything by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving, let your requests be made known to God, and the peace of God that surpasses all understanding will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus.
I think as a metaphor, Jesus is sneaking something in that is a bit strange to our ears. I think the person not wearing the wedding robe is the person who’s actually standing up to the tyranny of the king and we know from modern days, tyrants do not like people criticizing them. They, if they don’t get the prize they want, they make sure that everybody else is going to be removed from the earth, as they would put it. They react in a way that is violent. They react in a way that is disproportionate.
In fact, wiping out a city because it didn’t comply, because they didn’t come to your wedding banquet, is not a good thing. And we know this in our heart. When we hear this parable, if we’re with the Pharisees, then we hear a violent god and we agree with it. I’m not sure that’s what Jesus meant, he doesn’t want us to hear that. He wants us to hear , …friend, and not, …how did you get in here without a wedding robe?
And I think this is where Christianity stands. We stand against the tyrant. He called us in, good and bad. How can he criticize? He can criticize because everybody should have been in fear of him and should have been in a wedding robe.
I’m sure you’ve heard this read in different ways and the story in Luke is very different, but I think it’s a warning from Jesus that the Pharisees are out to get the followers of Jesus. And the followers of Jesus must hear it as well. Here we are. We’re standing here. We’re not in their party. We’re standing against what the Pharisees are standing for. And Jesus warns them, you will be thrown out into the outer darkness where there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth.
The irony is, is that we feel that’s our position before God if we have this view of God as being violent and capricious and a tyrant,
The kingdom of heaven is not like this. I think it is compared to this king’s rule. That word there, may be compared to, I’m no expert but it’s not …like but ..likened to, it’s a passive verb I am told.
But, be warned tyrants are capricious, they’re big babies and they’re easy to offend and resistance to a tyrant is dangerous, and yet truly Jesus is the cornerstone that they have rejected and on which they will stumble.
When it says, …for many are called but few are chosen, it seems it’s a contradiction; It tells us there’s something wrong with our interpretation of this story because the many are called are in the party. Well, who was the chosen one? Was it the guy who was thrown out or was it the many who remained within the party.
Jesus is putting a contradiction in there to alert us to this – this is not the way God is. This might be the way the history of Israel has gone. This might be the way the Pharisees view the history of Israel. But actually the few is the guy who was chucked out. The many are the ones who remained within the party. So I wonder if that’s pause for thought.
Enjoy Sunday, be blessed and rest in Jesus, knowing that, …happy are those who observe justice, who do righteousness at all times. Finally, brothers and sisters, Paul says, “Whatever is true, whatever is honourable, whatever is just, whatever is pure, whatever is pleasing, whatever is commendable, if there is any excellence, and if there is anything worthy of praise, think about these things.
““Come now, let us settle the matter,” says the LORD. “Though your sins are like scarlet, they shall be as white as snow; though they are red as crimson, they shall be like wool.”
Daily Readings from Lectionary
