Two Disobedient Sons

Matthew 21:28-32
Ordinary 26
September 27, 2020 

William G. Carter

Jesus said, “What do you think? A man had two sons; he went to the first and said, ‘Son, go and work in the vineyard today.’ He answered, ‘I will not’; but later he changed his mind and went. The father went to the second and said the same; and he answered, ‘I go, sir’; but he did not go. Which of the two did the will of his father?” They said, “The first.” Jesus said to them, “Truly I tell you, the tax collectors and the prostitutes are going into the kingdom of God ahead of you. For John came to you in the way of righteousness and you did not believe him, but the tax collectors and the prostitutes believed him; and even after you saw it, you did not change your minds and believe him.


I have great affection for this text. Thirty years ago this weekend, this was the Bible passage for the first sermon that I ever preached in this sanctuary. It was the last weekend of September. The day was governed by my candidating sermon. That is a Presbyterian tradition that is not actually in our official Book of Order. A minister preaches a sermon, and then a congregation votes on whether they want that preacher.

My loved ones were a little anxious about the event. The anxiety increased when they discovered I was preaching on this text. I thought it was irresistible. Just think, to stand in front of people you never met, give them a big smile, and the pronounce the words of Jesus, “The tax collectors and the prostitutes are going into the kingdom of heaven ahead of all of you.”

Thirty years ago, that was a good text for puncturing the hollow righteousness of the Pharisees. To keep it light, I referred to the movie “Pretty Woman” (if you saw it, you can figure out why). To keep it cheerful, I reminded us that John the Baptist ate bugs for breakfast before he preached repentance. Nevertheless you voted to keep me around, and here we are.

Today what draws my attention is not the word about tax collectors and prostitutes, but the little parable right before it. A father has two sons. Neither one of them wants to do what the father wants them to do. Then one of them changes his mind. Now, what do you think about that story?

Some of us have had children who would not clean their rooms. Some of us have other family members who don’t clean their rooms. The parent declares, “Clean it up!” One says, “No,” and later does it. The other says, “OK,” and then gets sidetracked by the cell phone. We know these children.

We might think Jesus should mention a third child – the one who immediately goes to the vineyard when the father sends him. But he doesn’t say anything about that. That would be too easy. It would prop up those who presume that they are flawless and always do what is right.

No, Jesus mentions only two kinds of people, those who resist the Father’s direction and later change their minds, and are those who say, “Yes, yes, I’ll go,” and then they do not go. What do you think about that? Which one of the children are you?

Maybe you will say that you are the first. When the order comes, your arms are folded. You stand unmoved. You hear some clear direction for your life. But you want to try it on your own, thank you very much. The only honest thing to do is to tell the Father the truth: “I’m not going where you want me to go. I’m not doing what you want me to do.” That kind of honesty is important. It has its own integrity. What you say is what you do.

But over time, things change. You change. The wisdom of the Father’s instruction begins to make sense. Either that or you’re going hungry, so you go out to the vineyard and earn some money by working with the grapes. Sooner or later you find yourself doing what the Father directed you to do. It took a while, but you end up in the place where he wanted you to go.

It’s important to see that Jesus is not particularly harsh about this extended time plan. It doesn’t seem to bother him that some people say no to the Father. That’s because Jesus is a Calvinist. Like John Calvin, Jesus knows that all people resist what the Father tells them to do. They may resist because they are cranky. They may resist because they are hardheaded. They may resist just to resist. Officially there is a religious word to describe this condition; let’s merely take this as a description of who we are.

The good news is that Christ is patient, even while the hard-heads are slow to come to their senses. Maybe life buffets them around or they decide their road is the wrong road. However it happens, they change direction. They discover the Old Father isn’t so clueless after all and has their best interests in mind. This is called the doctrine of salvation, where we end up in a different place from where we once were headed. Despite the initial resistance, Kid Number One gets in God’s door.

But then there’s that other child. This is the one who says all the right words but doesn’t do them. He speaks with respect, and even calls the Father “kurios,” that is, “Lord.” He agrees with the Father until the Father is out of sight, and then he doesn’t do what he says. Or he promises results – “I’ll go to the vineyard” -- but it will only be on his terms, and on his time schedule.

Jesus knows there are people in this second category. They sound so obedient, so correct, so connected to the will of the Father. But when the truth comes out, they are nothing more than fakes, charlatans, con artists. So what do you think? Which of these two is doing the Father’s will?

Take note: Jesus says these words in Jerusalem. He stands in the Temple, in the Religious Emporium. The Habitually Religious swarm around him like bees. And you can guess where this is going. One of the recurring criticisms of religious people is that they say one thing and do another. That it’s a lot of talk and no action.

Certainly this can happen. We all know people who say, “Lord, Lord,” and then sit on their hands. And sometimes we need to ‘fess up that we are not the people we proclaim to be. None of us ever totally live up to the life set before us in our baptism.

I think Matthew is shining light on this. He knows that there can be a serious disconnection between the Christian faith that people espouse and the deeds that they do.

Some years ago, I picked up a book in a Montana bookstore. It offered stories about some pioneers that settled there. The title is what sold me the book: Speaking Ill of the Dead: Jerks in Montana History.

One of the unsavory stories has to do with the mistreatment of Native Americans who were pushed off their land onto reservations. As new settlers in Montana enlarged their ranches, they enlisted the U.S. Army to shove back the Indians to the most useless scrub land. You know that already from history classes in school.

What you may not know are the accounts of how the supplies that our government sent to the displaced Natives rarely reached the people of the northern tribes. The supplies were often bushwhacked or sold by brokers to white settlers for a profit. A lot of Native Americans starved to death in the 1880’s because they never received the food that our government provided for them.

The most stunning detail is that the people responsible for this travesty were three successive directors of the Bureau of Indian Affairs, all of whom were United Methodist ministers.

What do you think? Jesus said, “Not everybody who says to me, ‘Lord, Lord’ will enter the kingdom of heaven, but only the one who does the will of my Father in heaven.” (7:21) He calls us to integrate word and deed, to hold together what we say and what we do. And he does this because he knows there are some who say to the Father, “I will go work in your vineyard, sir,” but they don’t seem to ever get there.

This is not a new issue. Nor is it a lighthearted one. In fact, it is so important that it shows up in the Ten Commandments. As God decrees, “You shall not take the name of the Lord in vain.” That commandment is not speaking of swearing if somebody bumps your fender. No, the commandment is about taking the name of the Lord – saying that we belong to God, saying that we are Christians – and then acting as if it doesn’t matter. That would be taking God’s name and doing so in vain.

To hear Matthew tell this parable, he wants to know the God will find some Christians in the church. He wants to know there are believers with integrity. He wants to see people who believe Jesus is the life of the world and live as if that is true. Talk is cheap, and God knows there is a vineyard ripe for harvest.

So a mere thirty years in, let me say it’s a delight to serve among people who take the Gospel seriously. This is a church that aims to live the faith with consistency and coherence. All of us have our lapses and bumps; around here, that is testimony for the patience of our Lord.

In the thick of a pandemic, we are serving the community. We are sharing the love of Christ. Thank you. This is really an extraordinary household of faith. I am grateful. And let’s keep going. We have a distance to go, and a lot more people to love.

(c) William G. Carter.  All rights reserved.

Life is Unfair

Matthew 20:1-16
Ordinary 25
September 20, 2020

The owner of the vineyard said, “Are you envious because I am generous?” The answer is yes.

Here is an annoying little story that never fails to create a reaction. The apparent lesson is that people are not rewarded for what they deserve. Some vineyard workers show up for an hour of work at the end of the day. They get paid the same as those who put in a hard day’s work. It’s simply not fair.

Now, I know there are protections for those who work. We might grumble, but we can expect it. The first time I pulled into a service station in New Jersey and tried to fill up the tank, the owner came out and yelled at me. “What do you think you’re doing? Put that nozzle back.” Somewhat stunned, I did as he commanded. Then he nodded at his worker who was paid to pump the gas. That’s the law in New Jersey. It preserves jobs.

We understand, even if we grumble. A good friend went to set up a display at a convention center in Manhattan. It was the night before a major trade show. He paid for premium parking, carried in poster boards, portable tables, all the sales materials. They stopped him before he could plug in the extension cord. That could only be done by a member of Local #3, International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers. The union electrician plugged in the cord, and then sat on a folding chair for the rest of his shift. The bill was astronomical. It might have been fair, but it didn’t seem fair.

Labor relations often raise questions of fairness. What is a fair day’s work? What’s not? How much should the job pay?

Jesus tells about five different groups of workers, each punching the time clock at different moments. The first group is recruited at the crack of dawn. By six AM, they are on the job. The next group stood around the market for a 9:00 coffee break. The vineyard owner finds them and sends them off the fields, promising “whatever is fair.”

At noon, the owner returns to the market and lines up some more workers. Apparently, he has a really big vineyard. Either that, or he hasn’t planned very well. He does the same at 3:00, and again at 5:00 – an hour before quitting time on the farm. According to the story, they are idle, just standing around. The boss puts them to work. This vineyard owner is really something

So you can imagine the excitement when the whistle blows, and they call it a day. The owner says to his pay master, “Line them up, starting with the ones that I hired an hour ago.” They all line up, tuck in their shirts, and stand tall. At the front of the line, everyone is given $200 – for an hour’s work! Maybe that’s a mistake, but they don’t argue and get on their way. Behind them, the line begins to buzz.

The 3:00 workers are next. All lined up, excited, enthusiastic. Each of them is given $200 for three hours work. It’s disappointing, but that’s an exceptionally good wage for a few hours of picking grapes. So they don’t say anything, lest there be a problem, so they take their money and go.

Then it’s the noontime workers. The buzz in the line has subsided, but they are hopeful they will do better than the workers just dismissed. Imagine their confusion when each of them receives $200 for the half-day’s work, the same as the 3:00 and the 5:00 workers.

If the 9:00 a.m. workers and the full day workers are paying attention, they probably know what’s coming. Oh, when the payroll line began, when they saw each of the 5:00 workers receive two crisp hundred-dollar bills, they began to multiply the numbers in their heads. $200 for an hour, times twelve hours? This is going to be a really good day.

When they saw the 3:00 workers each receive two crisp hundred-dollar bills, they thought well of the vineyard boss. He was kindly offering a tip to the latecomers who helped at the last minute. It was a magnanimous gesture.

But when the noon-time workers each got their measly two hundred dollars, there was grumbling in the ranks. The result, of course, was inevitable. At least one of them murmured, “If this cheapskate comes around tomorrow, looking for workers, I’m going to hide until 5:00.” It just doesn’t seem fair. Nobody is getting what they deserve.

Now, most of us have eaten grapes, perhaps sipped a few, but probably never picked them for money. Nevertheless we know unfairness when we see it.

Some friends were discussing those gender-reveal parties that announce if the baby will be a boy or a girl. The context might have been that terrible disaster in California, when a couple prepared to launch blue or pink colored fireworks and ended up setting a forest on fire. “I have a better idea,” the woman said. “If you are going to announce a baby’s gender, give everybody an envelope with money in it. If it’s a boy, make it an envelope with a dollar in it. If it’s a girl, make it an envelope with 72 cents.”

We groaned – to think that in this day, there is still that kind of difference between the pay for a man and the pay for a woman. (God bless Ruth Bader Ginsburg for her life’s work in advocating for equality!)

There are inequities in life. You have your list, I have mine.

• I think of two of the most capable young adults I have ever known. Each was bitten by a tick, didn’t know it, contracted Lyme disease and a few other diseases, and their health has been debilitated. Not fair.

• I think of the woman unable to conceive a child for years. She went for surgery. They told her it was corrected. Now that she can conceive, she has been unable to carry a baby to full term. It’s unfair.

• The smartest man in my life was stricken with a disease that robbed him of his ability to process any thought. It was humiliating for him. That was not fair.

• High school seniors were denied graduations due to the corona-virus. Third graders must watch their teachers on a computer for the same reason. The economy is shaken, and people have lost their jobs None of this is fair.

And yet – and you know in the parables of Jesus there is always a “yet” – unfairness is a matter of perspective. The 6:00 a.m. workers were in the right place at the right time. Same as the 9:00 workers, who had already enjoyed two cups of coffee before work. A lot of the good breaks in life are the result of another kind of unfairness. Ever think about that?

I do. My life has been charmed just because of when and where I was born. I was born white, raised as a male in a small town in America. My dad always had a good job. The family stayed intact. I attended good schools. My entire life has been full of encouragement from people who love me. Any one of those details could have gone another way.

I’m tempted to say, “I’m blessed.” But what could be said of those who haven’t received the advantages that I have? Shouldn’t they be blessed, too? Otherwise, all my privileges are unfair – and they have been received at the expense of those who really might have had a better life if they could have had just a little bit of all the goodness that I have taken for granted.

Now, if we confess any of this, we might have to swallow pretty hard. We might have to reconsider who we are and how we got to where we are. That’s hard work. But it is important work – even essential work.

Did you know that, back when Matthew wrote down this parable for his book, there was a major squabble in his church? Some of the Christians in his church had been there for a long time. Not only since 6:00 a.m., but for forty or fifty years. They were Jews who had come to believe that Jesus was the Messiah.

Into that vineyard, others had come – Gentiles, new believers. They had not put in their time. They didn’t now know the Bible. They held their worship bulletins upside down, didn’t know the difference between an introit and a benediction – and the Gospel announces they are equal with the rest. No difference between short-timers and old-timers, not so far as God is concerned. All are one in Christ.

Can’t you see the old-timers squirming? Can’t you hear them say, “Yeah, but…”? Can’t you feel the anxiety rising among the very-well-experienced when these newcomers come, not only with their energy and enthusiasm, but with the affirmation that also belong?

And to this, we hear the owner of the vineyard say, “Am I not allowed to do what I choose with what belongs to me? Or are you envious because I am generous?”

So I’m starting to think differently about this parable. Maybe the vineyard owner is onto something. For one thing, he did not rest until he got everybody working. If it weren’t for him, none of them would have gotten a job. If it weren’t for him, none of them would have gotten anything.

For another thing, he made it clear that he wanted every single one of his workers. They were there because he invited them. They were there because they were equally valuable to him. They all had a place in that vineyard.

So, is this story unfair? I suppose it is. The unfairness is rooted in the complete fairness of grace. That vineyard does not run on the seniority system. That vineyard does not reward for longer tenure. There are no advancement opportunities in that vineyard. All the kingdom of heaven offers is an invitation to work and completely equal benefits. That’s so fair that it doesn’t seem fair.

Just picture it: Grandma pulls a hot apple pie out of the oven. Three kids circle around. “Wait,” she says. “You all can have a big piece. Let it cool off a bit.” While it cools, she issues her plan: the oldest child will take a knife and cut the pie into pieces. The youngest will select the first piece, then the middle kid, and finally the biggest. “That’s not fair,” says the oldest. “I was here first.” But Grandma’s rule sticks.

Do you know what happens? Of course you do. The oldest kid gets out a laser-guided measuring stick, just to be sure little sister didn’t get one extra crumb more than he will. Those pie slices are exactly the same size. That’s what seems so unfair.

And yet it’s completely fair. In fact, it’s so fair that if it weren’t for Grandma, there wouldn’t be an apple pie. Which is to say, everybody gets even more than they deserve. That’s the good news.

Jesus gives us a parable that about giving up all comparisons. The vineyard is a place where we can’t say “this person has been here longer,” or “that person has been working harder.” There is no need to compare, contrast, or compete, because it will never get any of us a better position in God’s eyes. No, no. We are here because we are wanted. Let’s just leave it at that - and live in love and fairness, as if everybody here belongs.

(c) William G. Carter. All rights reserved.

Kingdom Arithmetic

Matthew 18:21-35
Ordinary 24
September 13, 2020

William G. Carter  

"How often should I forgive? As many as seven times?”

 As we begin a fall series on the Gospel of Matthew, let me say this Gospel exists for one reason: to make disciples of Jesus. Matthew wants to train people who are capable of following Jesus as their Lord. Jesus is the Christ, the Messiah, the Son of the living God. He is the One with authority over heaven and earth. He rules over us with crucified love. He calls us to live as he lives, to love as he loves.

This is what it means to take part in his dominion, what the New Testament calls “the kingdom.” The kingdom is not a place on a map. It is not a piece of turf surrounded by borders. Neither does it exist on a cloud in the afterlife, even though it is called the “kingdom of heaven.” No, the kingdom lives wherever Christ is king. The kingdom is wherever the teachings of Jesus are embodied in action, both here and now – and forever.

But old Matthew is not naïve. He knows Christian disciples are forged out of imperfect people. He understands that any of us can affirm Christ with the best of intentions, but our actions frequently fall short. Our pious words can ring hollow. Our good example could be as a sham of hypocrisy. That’s why we need constant training. That is why Matthew writes his book.

Today’s text begins with a question from one of the most experienced followers of Jesus: “Lord, if another member of the church sins against me, how often should I forgive them?” Do you hear what he says? Not “how many times should I forgive the man who robs my house?” Not “how many times should I forgive the wife that leaves me for another man?” But how many times should I forgive a fellow church member? Imagine that. Church members can hurt one another.

Simon Peter is the one who speaks and he doesn’t specify the sin. It could be the inveterate gossip who can’t help but talk behind your back. It could be the volunteer who can’t keep the hand out of the offering plate. It could be the leader who makes big promises but never gets anything done. It could be the lady with the smile who lies to your kids. It could be any number of things.

Matthew is not naïve. He knows, in the words of one theologian, “the church at its best is merely the world under the sign of the cross.” That’s why he reports how Jesus is constantly calls out hypocrisy, especially among the most religious people of his own day. They put on good appearances, but they are never as good as they profess to be. At least fourteen times in Matthew’s book, he calls out the hypocrites. We should never be surprised how many there are.

I remember Lois, wise old sage in my first church. She called up a church member who had slipped away and said, “We miss you. Why don’t you come back?” The lady replied, “I stopped going to church. Too many hypocrites there.” Lois said, “That’s why we want you to come back. There’s always room for one more.”

It is a hard reality: sinners in the church. Apparently plenty of them are repeat offenders, for Peter says, “How many times must I forgive them?” How many times?

Just a few sentences before, Jesus instructs Peter and the rest of us on what to do, specifically, “if another member of the church sins against you (18:15).” First thing you do: go to them directly. One on one. Privately. Quietly. You don’t publish the infraction on Facebook. You don’t send out a pile of anonymous letters. The point is not embarrassment, for that doubles the harm. The point is not punishment, for punishment is above our pay grade. No, the point is restoration, to regain the person as a brother or sister. In the community of Christ, that is the utmost priority.

And if they don’t listen to you as you share how you have been hurt, Jesus recommends taking one or two others along – not as a mob with torches and pitchforks, but fellow saints who will share in the conversation. The aim is restoring the fellowship. Gaining them back. It’s about healing. It’s about reconciliation. And if they don’t want that, they are excluding themselves from the peace you wish to make. “Wherever two or three gather in my name,” says Jesus, “I am there, right in the middle.”

Peter hears all of this. He considers it. Tradition says he’s going to be the first Pope of Rome, after all, so he has to get this excommunication thing down. So he asks the question: if somebody in the church sins against me, how many times do I have to forgive them?

That’s a good question. In the Bible, there is a collection of sermons by a prophet named Amos. God speaks up and says, “Three times there is a transgression, the fourth time I will punish.” (1:3ff) Three strikes – and after that, you’re out. That seems generous, don’t you think?

So Peter offers an answer to his own question. He doubles the three of Amos and adds one more. This is church, after all, and we all need to practice forbearance. “How about seven times, Lord? Should I forgive them seven times?

And we heard what Jesus says. Not seven times, but “seventy-seven” times. Or if you read the footnote in the text, you can translate it as “seventy times seven.” It’s a ridiculous number. Jesus does not mean it literally. We don’t forgive somebody four hundred ninety times, and then drop them on the four hundredth and ninety-first sin.

No, Jesus is pushing us into a hyperbole. What he offers is a fantastic number, a ridiculously enormous number. To translate “seventy times seven,” the better translation is a “bazillion gazillion.” That’s how many times you forgive the person who sins against you.

Now, all of this is a set up for the parable for today. Like so many of the parables of Jesus that Matthew tells, it starts out rather sweetly. It sounds pretty good. Then a trap door opens and we are pushed to extremity.

The parable is about a king who settles accounts with those indebted to him. There are two kinds of debt, according to the financial gurus. There is good debt, as in when you borrow a sum of money, you can pay it back, and you gain something in return. A reasonable mortgage is considered “good debt.” Pay it off, gain a house.

But there is also bad debt, frequently describes as being “in over your head.” or “under water,” or “up a creek without a paddle.” And that’s the plight of the poor sap in the parable. He was probably a peasant farmer who kept expanding his fields, buying more seed, enlarging his crops – and the whole thing collapses. Perhaps it’s a bad year for crops, or a bad couple of decades for him, but he’s deeply in debt. There’s no way he can ever repay it.

The king looks down at his ledger sheet, looks up at the servant, and says, “You owe me a whole lot of money.” “Yes sir.” “It says you owe me an enormous sum of money.” “Yes sir.” “It says here you owe me a bazillion gazillion dollars.” “Yes sir, but have patience with me, and I will pay it all back.”

Now, that’s crazy. He is a peasant. He is a tenant farmer. There is no way he can ever pay that back. The king is not stupid. He knows this. In a surprising move, the king rips the page out of that ledger book, crumples it up, and forgives the debt. The servant is free and clear. He is given with a clean slate. No more crushing burden. No more encumbrance. He can get on with his life. He can live in freedom.

It’s a wonderful story. It’s all about forgiveness, which is the supreme gift of freedom. When you forgive, you set somebody free. You set yourself free. The shackles fall away. Life begins again. That’s what we celebrate every single Sunday. That’s what we celebrate every single day. In Jesus Christ, God the King has forgiven all our mistakes, cancelled both our faults and defaults, and set us free. That’s the heart of the Gospel.

It sounds great – until the story goes on. For the king who forgives the peasant’s debt later hears the peasant won’t do the same to his neighbor. In fact, he hears that peasant has just grabbed his neighbor by the throat, shaken him rather vehemently, and demanded the neighbor pay him the twenty bucks he owes from last week’s football pool.

“Pay what you,” he says. When the neighbor can’t do it, the peasant throws him in prison (which is a ridiculous punishment for twenty bucks). When the king hears about this - because you know there are no secrets in the kingdom – the king says to one he had forgiven, “That prison cell is going to be a suite for two, until you both pay what you owe.” As far as we know, the peasant is still there.   

Now, this is an ornery story. If it makes you squirm, you get the point. It sounds like the king offered great forgiveness and then took it back. If that is what God is like, it makes me a little nervous. There are things God has forgiven me for that I hope don’t get brought up again. Shouldn’t God have the mercy to forgive us seventy-seven times? I certainly hope so. Our lives depend on that.

But that’s not the point. The man who was forgiven a bazillion gazillion didn’t allow the king’s mercy to enlarge his own sense of mercy. He was forgiven a great debt. And when he was given a chance to live out of that freedom, his first very response is to act like a jerk, to withhold from somebody else what he had received.  

The heart of the Gospel is the extraordinary forgiveness of God. The greatest expression is what happens after Jesus is crucified by the world that God loves. God raises him from the dead, sends him back, and he says, “I’d like to make disciples out of all of you.” If that’s not mercy, I don’t know what is. God forgives the worst thing we could ever do, as well as all the lesser worst things we still do. We live in the kingdom if we forgive one another.

This is a lesson we must be taught. It does not come naturally. We baptize a little boy this morning. The day is going to come when some other kid is going to break one of his toys. Should he strike back? Break the other kid’s toys? Get his revenge? Left to his own devices, he may retaliate and perpetuate the damage – unless we teach him that the Christian secret of life is mercy.

“How many times must I forgive?” The best answer is “more.” It is the only real answer.

In one of her books, Anne Lamott tells about her struggles with the mother of her son’s friend. The lady was gracious and kind, which annoyed Annie. She baked perfect cupcakes for school. She wore spandex bicycle shorts everywhere because she could. That woman’s life was so perfect that it disgusted her.

One Sunday, Anne sat in church. The scripture lesson was, “Forgive and you shall be forgiven.” She says,

Try as I might, I cannot find a loophole in that. It does not say, ‘Forgive everyone, unless they’ve said something rude about your child.’ And it doesn’t even say, ‘Just try.” It says, If you want to be forgiven, if you want to experience that kind of love, you have to forgive everyone in your life – everyone, even the very worst boyfriend you ever had – even, for God’s sake, yourself.[1]  

This is the truth of that line in a prayer that some of us pray all the time: “Forgive us our debts as we forgive our debtors.” It is never a one-sided petition, never a private business deal with God, as in “Hey Lord, would you please let me off the hook?” No, no, no. It is an all-sided covenant between God and all of us. The essence of this covenant is this: “in Jesus Christ, we are forgiven.” All of us. Everywhere. God in Christ has canceled the power of sin.

Without such mercy, we would be imprisoned somehow. We would be captives in penitentiaries visible or invisible. That is the warning of Matthew’s ornery parable for today.

But the good news is something that the Gospel of Matthew has told us before. Jesus says, “Blessed are the merciful for they will receive mercy (5:7).” Now that is the truth that will set all of us free.

(c) William G. Carter. All rights reserved.

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[1] Anne Lamott, Small Victories: Spotting Improbable Moments of Grace (New York: Riverhead Books, 2014) 50-51.

Old is New is Now

Old is New is Now
Matthew 13:52
Jazz Communion
September 6, 2020

And Jesus said to them, “Therefore every scribe who has been trained for the kingdom of heaven is like the master of a household who brings out of his treasure what is new and what is old.”

 

My friend Al Hamme tells about the night when John Coltrane brought his quartet to town. The venue was a pub called “Gentleman Joe’s.” It was in a rough section of Binghamton, New York. Al and a buddy got there early enough to claim seats next to the stage. As a saxophonist in his early twenties, Al was curious about Coltrane, who had played with Miles Davis, Dizzy Gillespie, and Thelonious Monk, and was now making an international name for himself.

The quartet took the stage, and Al’s companion nodded toward the pianist. Bobby Timmons was playing that night, filling in for the regular pianist for the group. Timmons had been friends with Coltrane from Philadelphia days. They had never recorded together, but Bobby was an outstanding pianist in his own right. Smartly dressed, he flashed a broad smile at Al as he slid onto the piano bench.

Coltrane counted off the first tune, a medium tempo blues, and Timmons held his own. After the saxophone played the melody, Bobby leaned in to play a hard-swinging piano solo. The patrons in the club nodded in rhythm. They clapped loudly when his solo came to an end.

Pretty soon, however, the music began to change. In recent months Coltrane’s band had begun to experiment with harmony, leaving behind chords and experimenting with modal scales. The drumming of Elvin Jones was ferocious, thundering in circular rhythms and swirls of cymbals. Reggie Workman’s basslines were single notes, accented heavily in repetitive pulses while Coltrane fired a fusillade of notes on his soprano sax.

The sounds swelled, the rhythms intensified, and suddenly Bobby Timmons stopped playing. His hands sat motionless on the keyboard. His jaw dropped open. With an astonished look, he turned to my friend Al and said, “What are they doing?” Indeed. What are they doing?

That is a worthy question if you listen to jazz. The music swirls around the room, alive and free, never static or fixed. It is a common experience for a jazz fan to hear a recording by a favorite musician, enjoy it, and lay down good money to hear that favorite musician play somewhere – and if the band plays that familiar song, it doesn’t sound anything like the recording. What are they doing?

The short answer is they are creating the music as it moves along. Or to quote Homer Simpson, “those jazz guys are just making things up.” Well, true; but not really. It’s more than that. They are creating something new out of something old.

Now, this is risky, especially in the presence of those who appreciate the “something old.” Today we hear one of the shortest parables Jesus ever told. He refers to the scribes of Biblical times. These were in the days before laser printers, before dot matrix printers, before Xerox machines, long before the printing press. The scribe of his day copied everything by hand. There was a high priority on accuracy. No room for mistakes. With one scroll open over here, and a blank papyrus over here, the old was transferred as is. No variation. No suggested improvements. The scribes stuck to the literal text. They checked one another’s work. The most accurate work was kept.

To over-extend an analogy, think of the scribes as classical musicians, sticking to the jots and tittles on the page. The manuscript says, "play an Ab.” Don’t make it an A natural. If there is any interpretation, it’s largely in the pacing or the personality of the conductor. For the most part, the music sounds the same every time.

 About a week ago, we were settling down one night. I called out, “Alexa, play Samuel Barber’s ‘Adagio for Strings.” Almost immediately, the robot in the box began to play that quiet, ascending melody in Bb minor. The tune climbs slowly for eight minutes, never in a hurry, resonating with my soul and drawing me in. It had been a long, draining day. Barber’s “Adagio” was consolation for my soul. I knew what to expect.

Contrast that with last Saturday night. It was August 29, the 100^th birthday of Charlie Parker, the great jazz saxophonist. “Alexa, play Charlie Parker.” I didn’t know what was going to come out next.

In jazz, there is a continuum between interpretation and improvisation. Louis Armstrong played the popular songs of his day, adding his own special touch. That's interpretation. Yet on a studio date in 1926, they turned on the recording machine and Pops bumped the music stand, causing the song lyrics to fall to the floor. So he made something up and ended up with a hit record. The public liked the new thing better than the old.

The new and the old. The old and the new. The scribe of the Jerusalem Temple or the scribe of the Kingdom of Heaven.

One of the comments about Jesus is that, whenever he preached, it was as fresh as his bread. He spoke of the same, old God – but he held the interest of the crowd. He spoke of forgiveness, mercy, justice, and compassion, all of them old words – but the audience heard something new. In one of the critiques that we find in the Gospel of Matthew, Jesus “taught them as one having authority, and not as their scribes (7:29).”

The Gospel of Matthew doesn’t like the scribes. In this Gospel, Jesus declares them stodgy and inflexible. He calls them out as hypocrites. He names them as “white-washed tombs.” He accuses them of being pedantic and small-minded, focusing on the commas of the Torah and never truly hearing the message.

I’m reminded of what Frederick Buechner once said about righteousness. He compared it to an exasperated piano teacher who says to one of the students, “You haven’t got it right!” Buechner says,

 

Junior is holding his hands the way he’s been told. His fingering is unexceptionable. He has memorized the piece perfectly. He has hit all the proper notes with deadly accuracy. But his heart’s not in it, only his fingers. What he’s playing is a sort of music but nothing that will start voices singing or feet tapping. He has succeeded in boring everybody to death including himself.

In other words, in terms from the Gospel of Matthew, the kid is merely a scribe. A lifeless scribe. Chained to the page and missing the point, especially the point of what music has the power to perform within us and among us.

There must be new with the old, and old with the new. If something is completely new, it will be dismissed as a curiosity. If it is completely old, it might be pronounced dead. Jesus says, “Every scribe who has been trained for the kingdom of heaven is like the master of a household who brings out of his treasure what is new and what is old.” Ahh – it’s both new and old, not either-or. Best of all, it’s his treasure.

According to the parables of Jesus, the treasure is where you put your heart. The treasure is where you sink your soul. The treasure is the gift to which you will commit your life. The wise person will give away everything to gain that treasure – for the wise person knows it is the one thing that will give back your life.

Talking like this, Jesus doesn’t identify or specify what the treasure might be. He simply affirms there is Something that demands your soul, your life, your all. And when you find it – or when it finds you – it employs your muscles and your mind, your breath and your heartbeat, your concentration and your freedom, your imagination, and your joy. You lose yourself in gaining the treasure. The kingdom of heaven is like that.

Today the music is both old and new. These tunes are so old they were written by somebody named Anonymous. Arising out of suffering and slavery, they name the pain and point beyond it. In five-note melodies and minor cadences, they resonate with our souls and offer a hidden treasure called consolation.

We played the “old” version of “Nobody Knows the Trouble I’ve Seen.” About the time that our friend Al was wondering what Coltrane was doing, Coltrane lifted that song from his grandfather’s hymnal, recorded it at a night club called the Village Vanguard, and re-titled it “Spiritual.” Something old, something new. Something borrowed, something really blue.

These are the “Sorrow Songs,” writes W.E.B. DuBois. This is music “of an unhappy people, of the children of disappointment; they tell of death and suffering and unvoiced longing toward a truer world, of misty wanderings and hidden ways.”[1] The music provides an appropriate soundtrack for this pandemic, to say nothing of our long national nightmare of racism and oppression.

So we play these tunes with reverence, imagination, and disciplined freedom. And we play in the service of moving all of us from “I’ve Been in the Storm So Long” to “We Shall Overcome.” This is the journey of our hope. It points to what DuBois called “a truer world,” what Jesus calls “the kingdom of heaven.”

So what are those jazzers doing? Retrieving something old, making something new, sharing hidden treasure, offering deep consolation, and pointing to our redemption.

(c) William G. Carter. All rights reserved. 

[1]W.E.B. DuBois, The Souls of Black Folk (New York: Bantam Classic, 1903) pp. 116-117.