She Wore Out Seven Husbands

Matthew 22:23-33
Ordinary 30
October 25, 2020

William G. Carter

The same day some Sadducees came to him, saying there is no resurrection; and they asked him a question, saying, “Teacher, Moses said, ‘If a man dies childless, his brother shall marry the widow, and raise up children for his brother.’ Now there were seven brothers among us; the first married, and died childless, leaving the widow to his brother. The second did the same, so also the third, down to the seventh. Last of all, the woman herself died. In the resurrection, then, whose wife of the seven will she be? For all of them had married her.” Jesus answered them, “You are wrong, because you know neither the scriptures nor the power of God. For in the resurrection they neither marry nor are given in marriage, but are like angels in heaven. And as for the resurrection of the dead, have you not read what was said to you by God, ‘I am the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob’? He is God not of the dead, but of the living.” And when the crowd heard it, they were astounded at his teaching.

The Bible has its stories. I’ve discovered that one of the best ways to understand begins by deciding what to call them. That might the interpretative key that can unlocks the meaning.

Take the well-known “Parable of the Prodigal Son,” for instance. Remember how that boy claims an advance on his inheritance, packs his bags, and runs off to blow it all in a far country, only to come home with his tail between his legs and beg for a place to stay? He’s the Prodigal Son. But that’s only half the story. He has a do-gooder older brother who never strayed, always did what right, and resents the grace that welcomed home the prodigal. There are two boys, not one, and the Father who loves them both. So let’s call it “The Man Who Loved Two Sons.”

Or the tale of the “Good Samaritan.” Jesus spins that one when asked by a self-righteous Bible scholar about defining the neighbor. Unlike the indifferent priest or the overly cautious Levite, the despised Samaritan stops his mule to climb down and care for somebody he doesn’t know who has been beaten and robbed. When Jesus asks the smug scholar which of the three acted humanely, the scholar cannot say the word, “Samaritan.” So let’s call that one, “The Neighbor You Don’t Want to Recognize.”

It's a fun little game. It’s also helpful, especially with the Bible stories we have tackled for the past couple of months. A father sends two sons to work in the vineyard; one says yes and doesn’t go, the other says no and finally gets there. Both are disobedient, so it’s the “Man with Two Disobedient Sons.” 

Or there’s the one popularly called the “Workers in the Vineyard.” All those workers were hired at different times, so they each expect different amounts in their pay envelopes. When the one-hour workers get a full day’s wage, the long-timers have multiplied that amount by the hours they’ve put in. Alas, all they get is a full day’s wage. Don’t call it the “Workers in the Vineyard.” Call it “The Boss Who Pays Everybody the Same.”

So what about the story we hear today? It’s a story from the Sadducees, not from Jesus. Sounds like a tale they’ve told many times, or at least a tale they’ve been polishing to toss at Jesus.

Who were the Sadducees? Matthew says they are the one who didn’t believe in the Resurrection, but they are more to them than that. They came from aristocratic families and were extremely wealthy. They ended up in high positions of authority in the Jerusalem Temple; the high priest Caiaphas was a Sadducee. And they were very conservative. That’s the truth of many wealthy people; the economic system tilts in their favor, so why should they mess with it?

Their conservativism supplied their religious views. Back in the day when the Bible was not yet a book but a collection of sacred scrolls, the Sadducees believed the only scrolls that counted were the Five Scrolls of Moses: Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers, and Deuteronomy. They dismissed the Writings, like Psalm 9, which says, “The needy shall not always be forgotten, nor the hope of the poor perish forever (9:18).” And they had little time for Prophets like Amos, who thundered against those “who trample the head of the poor into the dust of the earth, and push the afflicted out of the way (Amos 2:7).”

Oh, no. The Sadducees declared, “If Moses didn’t write it, we will ignore it.” That’s why they didn’t believe in the Resurrection. It wasn’t in the five scrolls of their Bible. The Pharisees and many of the Jewish people believed in a final Day of the Lord, a final raising of every soul, a final judgment where God sorts through the holy lives of the righteous and the condemnation of those who are evil. The Sadducees said, “No, that’s not in the Book. It’s not in our Book.” They said, “Moses didn’t mention a resurrection. It’s empty speculation.”

This shapes the story they offer to Jesus. They say, “Teacher, Moses taught that if a man died without an heir, it is his brother’s obligation to marry the childless wife and produce a baby.” Now, before you flinch, that one is in the Book, tucked away in the dark corner of Deuteronomy (25:5). It was a law given when there was fear of the family line being cut off. There’s never been any evidence that any brother actually tried this. Marrying your sister-in-law isn’t always a good idea.

But no matter to the Sadducees. They want to make a point. “Teacher,” they say, “suppose a man dies without a son and his brother takes up the manly duty and marries the childless wife. Then he dies without producing a son, so a third brother steps up and marries the childless widow. But he dies without a son, too. So it goes with four more brothers, all of whom are living under the same roof. One at a time, all seven of them marry the same woman, who never produces a child, and all seven die. Finally the woman dies.”

“So, Teacher, in this so-called Resurrection, whose wife is she going to be?”

It’s the kind of story you dream up if you have a lot of time on your hands. The kind of story you cook up while you’re twirling the tassels of your robe and running your fingers through your beard. It’s the kind of question you ask if you have a lot of money, with servants who pour you a cup of Earl Grey from a silver tea pot.

It’s a ridiculous story. I try to imagine the face of Jesus as he hears them spin it. Does he roll his eyes? Or does he cackle with laughter at the absurdity of it? Or does his cheek redden at the overt sexism of it all? I mean, this is a story about a “hypothetical woman.” She doesn’t have a name. She is merely a prop. The Sadducees’ assumption is that the seven-fold widow exists only to give one of the boys a son. Their story reduces her life to that.

I, for one, would like to give her greater dignity. She had to endure being passed around. She had to put up with an old Bible verse that presumed men get to do whatever they want. Yet she is a child of God, equally made in the image of the Almighty. She deserves more dignity than the Sadducees give her. That’s why I would name this tale, “She Wore Out Seven Husbands.” Let’s give her some credit for her robust endurance. Let’s bring her out of the shadows and into the light.

Ever notice that sometimes, or much of the time, people tell stories or ask question or repeat things based on their preconceptions? I did this a few minutes ago by presuming a lot of wealthy people are inherently conservative. The Sadducees have done it in the story by presuming all women are insignificant. The Sadducees also presume that God only works in ways that had been described by the five ancient scrolls of Moses.

So Jesus responds to the story by saying, “You are wrong. You have gone off the tracks.” These Sadducees, who like to dress up in fine robes, who stand up in the Temple and repeat the scripted rituals, have a fixed view of life, religion, and God. If something doesn’t fit their point of view, they dismiss it. If something crosses the lines they maintain, they refuse it. If something exists beyond what they can imagine, they ignore it.

Now, all of us are prone to do this. We reinforce our beliefs by surrounding ourselves with friends who agree with us. We select the cable TV stations that reinforce what we already believe. We diagnose a difficulty based on the assumptions we have already made.

Psychologists have a phrase for this. It’s called “confirmation bias.” In the words of the great philosopher Warren Buffett, “What the human being is best at doing is interpreting all new information so that their prior conclusions remain intact.”[1] In other words, I don’t want to change my mind nor enlarge my point of view; I want to stay the way I am.

This, says Jesus, is where the Sadducees go wrong. “You do not understand the scriptures,” he says. For one thing, you cannot keep telling stories that dismiss women as nameless props for the men. The scriptures declare women and men are equal in the eyes of God. If anything, Adam was the rough draft and Eve was the finished product.

What’s more, says Jesus, “You do not understand about God.” God is not a character in an ancient scroll, but the Living One who is the source of all life. God is free, alive, and eternal, not bound to any of our assumptions or opinions. “Hey Sadducees, what does God say to Moses out of the burning bush? ‘I am the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob.’ God speaks in the present tense, the eternally present tense.”

So God came before us – and God is waiting ahead of us. Resurrection is the step into God’s eternity. And in God’s eternity, it is wrong thinking to assume that everything here and now will continue into the full presence of the Holy God. Injustice? It will not continue before God’s righteousness. Corruption and bad behavior? They will evaporate before God’s purity.

There will be no more schools, for there will be no more ignorance. There will be no more hospitals, for all shall be healed. There will be no more temples or churches, for all who live eternally will dwell in the house of the Lord.[2] In the resurrection, says Jesus, we shall be living with the angels. Everything false, superficial, or just plain wrong will have passed away. This is the work of the living God. It shines light on how we are called to live here and now.

In the summer after I graduated from Princeton Seminary, I worked for a couple of weeks at a minister’s conference on campus. I was waiting for my first job to come through and needed the money. My job was to set up microphones and recording equipment for the conference teachers and speakers. That’s how I met a poet named Thomas John Carlisle. He had retired from the parish a few years before, and now he traveled around with books of poetry compiled from years of listening to scripture.

Here's a poem he wrote on our Bible text, entitled “Somebody’s Wife.”

Whose wife would she be in
In the resurrection
(if there should be one)?
Seven husbands
Might claim her
As their property.
What a grim dilemma!

No one thought of asking
Whose husband a man would be
If he outlived
A plethora of spouses –
As men often did.
That did not fit their plot.

Women were not supposed
To be so durable.
Frequency of pregnancy
And the vicissitudes of childbirth
Took a lethal toll.
Perhaps sterility could be a blessing
And barrenness have some benefits.

She who had seven times failed
To bear a child
Was not to be left out
In Jesus’ estimate.

Heaven does not perpetuate
The inequities of earth.
Though treated as a no one here
God provides for her and others
A revised and reasonable
Appraisal.

Worth trying now.[3]

“Heaven does not perpetuate the inequities of earth.” Thank God for that. Thank the Living God.

And today, as we remember She Who Wore Out Seven Husbands, let us pledge our lives to create a world as loving, just, and true as the heaven that God is bringing to earth, through Jesus Christ our Lord.

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

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[1] See, for instance, F. Diane Barth, “How Confirmation Bias Affects You Every Single Day,” Psychology Today, 31 December 2017. Retrieved online at https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/the-couch/201712/how-confirmation-bias-affects-you-every-single-day

[2] Thanks to Tom Long for this insight, in his commentary Matthew (Louisville: Westminster John Knox Press, 1997) p. 253.

[3] Thomas John Carlisle, Beginning with Mary: Women of the Gospels in Portrait (Grand Rapids: William G. Eerdmans Publishing Co., 1986) p. 54.

Show Me a Quarter

Matthew 22:15-22
October 18, 2020 

William G. Carter

Then the Pharisees went and plotted to entrap him in what he said. So they sent their disciples to him, along with the Herodians, saying, “Teacher, we know that you are sincere, and teach the way of God in accordance with truth, and show deference to no one; for you do not regard people with partiality. Tell us, then, what you think. Is it lawful to pay taxes to the emperor, or not?” But Jesus, aware of their malice, said, “Why are you putting me to the test, you hypocrites? Show me the coin used for the tax.” And they brought him a denarius. Then he said to them, “Whose head is this, and whose title?” They answered, “The emperor’s.” Then he said to them, “Give therefore to the emperor the things that are the emperor’s, and to God the things that are God’s.” When they heard this, they were amazed; and they left him and went away.

Of all the questions they put to Jesus, this is the first question his challengers ask: should we pay our taxes, yes or no? They want his opinion about that.

Those in authority have already questioned his authority, essentially asking, “Who do you think you are?” (21:23-27) He doesn’t answer. As we already learn from conversations with his disciples, Jesus wants to know who they think he is (16:13-20). His true identity is something they have to figure out. So he doesn’t answer and goes on his way.

But now there are interrogators buzzing around his head like hornets. He has stirred up the hive, both in his elusiveness and some of those ornery parables we have been hearing this fall. So they swarm the Savior and come at him, stinger first, “Tell us about taxes. Yes or no? What do you think?”

Those of us with grown children remember the look on their faces. So excited to get a real job! Two weeks later, so ecstatic to get the first real paycheck. The envelope is opened. There’s a moment of silence. And the question comes, “Where’s all the money? Why isn’t it all here?” Welcome to adulthood, honey. Taxes are a part of life.

“Hey Jesus, should we pay our taxes?” It’s a worthy question -- if you have a choice about it. 

Most of us don’t have a choice. In the attorney’s conference room to sign my first mortgage, I wondered out loud. “If the bank owns my house for the next thirty years, shouldn’t the bank pay the taxes?” My good attorney smiled and said, “It doesn’t work that way.” He paused and said, “Wish it did.”

For us, maybe the better questions are these: do you want teachers to be paid a living wage? Would you like public safety officers to be protected? Would you like to have straight roads without potholes? Well, maybe we should skip over that one. The greater point was well made by Oliver Wendell Holmes, the Supreme Court justice. He said, “Taxes are what we pay for civilized society.” We all need use a heavy dose of civilization, don’t you think?

Here in the Gospel of Matthew, it's curious that Jesus has already been asked if he pays his taxes. Back in chapter 17, the collectors asked if he paid the “temple tax.” The answer was yes, he does (Matthew 17:24-25). What was the temple tax? In that day, every Jewish male over the age of twenty was required to give two days’ wages every year to support the buildings and grounds of the Jerusalem Temple. You couldn’t worship there without supporting that institution. This tax was in addition to the ten percent tithe required by the Bible.

And you’ll be glad to know this is not what the Pharisees and Herodians were asking about. No, it was assumed that every believer supported the upkeep of the Temple and made their tithe to God. That was not the issue.

No, they were asking about the tax – the Empire Tax – the tax laid on their shoulders by Tiberius Caesar. He didn’t live in Jerusalem. He lived in Rome. He lived in an opulent palace in Rome and stationed his soldiers in Jerusalem to keep the Jewish citizens under his heavy foot.

Tiberius was not one of the better Caesars in Roman history. He built great roads, but he was reviled for his corruption. To quote the Roman historian Tacitus, “(Tiberius) was infamous for his cruelty and his veiled debaucheries. At the end, he plunged into every wickedness and disgrace; when fear and shame being cast off, he simply indulged his own inclinations.”

And the Pharisees and the Herodians ask Jesus, “Are you going to pay your taxes to support that guy?” It’s a good question, a really good question. It’s such a good question that they think they have him up against a wall.

On the one hand, if he pays the tax to Tiberius, he loses credibility with many of the people. For twenty-five years they have begrudgingly paid taxes to the Empire that occupied their towns and oppressed their lives. They protested the tax as an illegal act and moral outrage. If Jesus says, “pay it,” he loses the people who love him.

On the other hand, if Jesus says, “No, don’t pay any taxes to Tiberius,” one of the Herodians will whistle for the centurions to move in, grab this agitator, and get rid of him on their behalf. They think they’ve got him. They question Jesus with all the greasy smarminess they can muster. “Good Teacher, we know you’re fair, we know you’re impartial, we know you’re wise, yada yada yada…” 

As we know, he replies with a brilliant answer that sets them back on their heels. “Who’s got a quarter?” he asks. Whose image is on that coin? Then give to Caesar what belongs to Caesar. Give to God what belongs to God. And they are speechless. They had nothing to say. They stood frozen with their jaws open. Then they shuffled away.

They should have known better than wrestle with the Christ. The same imagination that created the parables that we’ve been hearing this fall is the imaginative mind that raises three important questions, questions still with us, questions which do not easily settle into oblivion.

First question: whose image is on the coin? That’s the literal translation: whose image? The word is ikon, and it’s a loaded term. According to the ancient story, when God made human people, God scooped up mud from the river back, shaped it, and blew holy breath into the nostrils. It came alive when it could breathe – that’s the Bible’s view of when life begins, when we breathe. God said, “This is good. Very, very good.” And the Bible declares we are created in the ikon of God – the image.

That is why the Bible commands us, “Don’t make any fake images,” and if you do, “don’t bow down before them.” That’s the Second Big Commandment.   

So let me ask you this: What’s a Pharisee doing, within the precincts of the Jerusalem Temple, with a Roman coin in his pocket? On the face of that coin is the icon of Tiberius Caesar. Around it is the inscription, “Son of the Divine Augustus.” Biblically speaking, it’s a graven image, a small circular metallic idol. There were money changers at the gate, so nobody would dare to bring such a secular coin, a denarius, inside the Temple court.

But notice this. Jesus does not criticize the presence of that coin. Nor does he critique the mingling of sacred and secular. Why? If he were a purist, someone so heavenly would have nothing to do with earth or as tempting as money. But we believe he is the Incarnate Son of God, the marriage of heaven and earth walking around on two legs. He has set aside all heavenly privilege to live with us. Jesus is the complete Image of God, and a good part of his work is to restore God’s Image in us. It is a work still in progress.

So that points to the second question: what belongs to Caesar? There are two answers: not as much as Caesar thinks, and more than Caesar realizes.

If Presbyterians know about anything, we know about government. We know a government is necessary for order and protection. A government is called to care for its people and cultivate their ability to flourish. A government cannot exist on pure oxygen; it needs funding to function, and financial oversight to function responsibly. And the other thing know is a government lives only by the voice of the people who are governed.

No government carries out these functions perfectly because governments consist of imperfect people. Some of them are sufficiently imperfect to believe they are doing a better job than they actually are. Our spiritual tradition tells us why this is the case. Political authority creates its own blind spots. Power is easily corrupted. That’s why Presbyterians have always insisted on systems of checks and balances, so that power can be shared, and authority can be held accountable.

What belongs to Caesar? The people, for one thing. The common good, for another. Neither the people nor the common good are served by a government that ignores them. And a government that can be bought or sold by the few will never provide for the needs of the many. That was the crisis of the Roman Empire which led to its inevitable collapse. The empire demanded a tax from those who would never benefit from it.

Here's the third question: what belongs to God? The best answer is everything. Today we opened with a line from the 24^th Psalm. The earth is the Lord’s and the fullness thereof. If Jesus unites heaven and earth, there is no place where God cannot reach. There is no sphere of influence that can totally exclude God’s influence.

Theologian Stanley Hauerwas reminds us that the pronouncement of Jesus is often misunderstood. We hear Jesus say, “Give to Caesar what belongs to Caesar, Give to God what belongs to God,” and we are tempted to believe there are dual allegiances – one to Caesar and country, and another to God.[1] Well, no. There is only one allegiance and that is to God. When we serve our country, it is one expression of how we serve the Only God to whom everything belongs. Caesar only exists because of the grace of God. Should Caesar ever be replaced, that also happens by the grace of God.

We know whose image is on the face of our coins. But whose image is on your face or mine? Whose image is on the face of friend or foe? It is the image of God. Looking at you, I see a striking family resemblance. That is why we value one another. That’s why we engage in God’s world. That’s why we vote, and we work to improve human government. That’s why we kneel beside those in need and care for one another.

And that’s why we pay attention to what we do with our money. Jesus did not dismiss the question about taxes because he knows we always must make choices. He didn’t spiritualize the matter of money because he knows money buys bread. As much as he knows the love of money can tempt us to evil deeds, he knows that money can also empower good works. Christ entrusts us with the stewardship of our choices. He calls us to bear the image of God in all that we do, all that we give, and all that we love. 

This is hard work. It’s grown-up work. Just as we noticed the shock on a kid’s face when she learns taxes were deducted from that first paycheck, so we acknowledge our lives are full of responsibilities. Some responsibilities come as a surprise. Other are welcomed joyfully. Still others shake us from complacency by their demands.   

Beneath it all is a question you can answer. It is the question that never goes away. In case you forgot the question, here it is again. What belongs to God? 

I think you know the answer.

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

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[1] Stanley Hauerwas, Matthew: Brazos Theological Commentary (Grand Rapids: Brazos Press, 2015), pp. 190-191.

Forgot His Tuxedo

Matthew 22:1-14
Ordinary 28
October 11, 2020 

William G. Carter

Once more Jesus spoke to them in parables, saying: “The kingdom of heaven may be compared to a king who gave a wedding banquet for his son. He sent his slaves to call those who had been invited to the wedding banquet, but they would not come. Again he sent other slaves, saying, ‘Tell those who have been invited: Look, I have prepared my dinner, my oxen and my fat calves have been slaughtered, and everything is ready; come to the wedding banquet.’ But they made light of it and went away, one to his farm, another to his business, while the rest seized his slaves, mistreated them, and killed them. The king was enraged. He sent his troops, destroyed those murderers, and burned their city. Then he said to his slaves, ‘The wedding is ready, but those invited were not worthy. Go therefore into the main streets, and invite everyone you find to the wedding banquet.’ Those slaves went out into the streets and gathered all whom they found, both good and bad; so the wedding hall was filled with guests. “But 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 in here without a wedding robe?’ And he was speechless. Then the king said to the attendants, ‘Bind him hand and foot, and throw him into the outer darkness, where there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth.’ For many are called, but few are chosen.”

 

There’s a story that some of our children know. The title tells you everything: Alexander and the Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Day. It’s story where nothing goes right. When young Alexander wakes up, he discovers the chewing gum that he enjoyed last night is stuck in his hair. He leaps out of bed and trips on his skateboard. At the bathroom sink, his favorite sweater drops in. He knows from the outset, it’s going to be a terrible, horrible, no good, very bad day.

After hearing the parable today, it sounds like the Gospel of Matthew is having a terrible, horrible, no good, very bad day. It begins with such promise. The king is throwing a party. There will be music and dancing and a lot of free food. All you need to do is show up!

That’s when everything goes wrong. The invited guests ignore the invitation. The king invites them again, but the guests joke about it. Some of them would rather work than celebrate. Others get downright nasty. They mistreat and then murder the messengers. Pretty soon, the king retaliated on the murderers in the same way that they mistreated his messengers. There’s a lot of blood, violence, and fire.

Jesus says, “The kingdom of heaven can be compared to this king.” That’s a head-scratcher. How is the kingdom like this king? No idea . . . except that the story goes on. The king tries Plan B. Rather than restrict the party to his invited guests (which he got rid of, anyhow), now the king invites everybody. He sends those poor servants back out to the streets, and says, “Fill my banquet hall!” And that’s what they do.

Matthew may be having a terrible, horrible, no good, very bad day, but I think we can make some connection. The kingdom is a free gift, like that party. The kingdom is an insistent invitation, like that king. The kingdom is now waiting for everybody to come.

But let it be said the kingdom can also be resisted and rejected. The inference, then, is the kingdom of heaven can be a dangerous place if you don’t live up to the invitation. For the story goes on, as we heard – there’s a Part 3, and the tossing-out of one of the guests. This is most troubling: to think that if you do show up, and you do respond, there’s a chance you might get thrown out on your ear. Many are called, at least one guest isn’t allowed to stay.

In a terrible parable, this is the worst part. Can’t Matthew make his point without getting so nasty about it?

In the Gospel of Luke, Jesus tells a story about a great big meal. Many are invited to the feast, but they give lots of excuses. That’s what Luke wants to emphasize: the everyday excuses. So the party planner buses in a crowd of the poor, the crippled, the blind, and the lame. They weren’t the king’s first choice, apparently, but the king wants to fill the banquet hall. Luke says you will miss God’s party if you keep giving excuses. Unlikely people will replace you.

Or there’s the Gospel of Thomas, a book that didn’t make the cut to get into the New Testament. Jesus tells another story like this. The king throws a party and people are invited, but the excuse-givers are specifically named as merchants and business people and merchants. They are too busy breaking the Sabbath to come to the party. So be forewarned by this good Jewish teaching about Sabbath-keeping: if you are consumed by a full schedule of commerce, the banquet is given to somebody else.  Surprise, surprise.

By contrast, Matthew’s version of the story sounds like the evil twin of these others. The king is vengeful when his messengers are murdered. He destroys everybody who ignores him. Then he throws the party anyway, filling every chair, only to furiously throw out an invited guest who was wearing the wrong clothes.

We can take the story literally, I suppose, and start assigning the part of the king to God, etcetera. But the story works better as is for its shock value. It’s supposed to be outrageous. It’s supposed to shake us up. Just when you think it ought to be excised from scripture, you realize that eight times Old Matthew insists the party is a “wedding,” not just any generic banquet. And then four times you hear him say the banquet is only for those are “invited.” At first, it’s not for everybody … but then it is.

And just when we think this is a story about including everybody in God’s party, a trap door opens at the last minute, and the poorly dressed sap gets thrown into “outer darkness.”

We must remember that this is Matthew who does the reporting. Since he’s talking about Jesus, you know he’s going to say a good bit about grace. But because he’s writing his book after fifty years of experience of what the church can be like, he is also going to remind us that God is a Judge. Grace leads to judgment. In the kingdom, there’s plenty of holy generosity, but there’s also a day of selective sorting.

It’s always been like this. Matthew remembers how Jesus said, "The kingdom of heaven is like a field planted with wheat and weeds.” (13:24-30). Good crops and bad grow side-by-side, until they are sorted at the final harvest and the weeds are burned.

"Again,” remembers Matthew, "the kingdom of heaven is like a net that was thrown into the sea and caught fish of every kind" (13:47-50). The generous catch is hauled ashore where it is sorted between the "good" and the "bad".  In case we don’t miss the comparison, Jesus says, "So it will be at the end of time."

I think we can see the sermon that Matthew is trying to preach. He sets this one in Holy Week, when Jesus is surrounded by the Holy Rollers of the Temple. Matthew knows religious people are not all that they say they are. Some of them put plastic grins over their meanness. Others don’t follow up on the promises and covenants they make.

In fact, I wonder if, in Matthew’s day, some of God’s chosen people weren’t very interested in acting particularly chosen. Maybe they were more consumed with consuming – making money and spending it - or consuming one another than about responding to a big party that was offered to them as a gift.  

Whatever the case, the parable announces there are some ornery people on the king’s guest list. That might cause us to squirm. I can think of a hundred different anecdotes to support this. Maybe you can, too. Even in the church, among God’s precious sons and daughters, there’s always some tiff that’s still unsettled. Maybe they bicker by the coffee pot. Or bicker because, these days, in the name of safety, there isn’t a coffee pot.

These days, some of my ministerial friends are getting push-back about the decision to hold off on large gatherings during a pandemic. Hate mail, veiled threats, blame, and abuse. A friend in North Carolina got a letter from an elder on his session after the session out-voted him on the matter. It said, “If you people don’t trust God enough to protect you from a virus, I’m going to find a church full of Real Christians.” I wonder if he might be directed to a friendly congregation of snake handlers.

It’s amazing that God puts up with any of us, you know. Some of the squabbles in God’s banquet hall will almost drown out the snoring of those who were invited but decided to skip out and get some sleep. And then, there’s that offensive notion that God might want to sort through the crowd. Really, now; do we want that?

Make no mistake: this is a Gospel story, so beneath it all, there’s a lot of grace. The king keeps inviting the whole town to a free, lavish feast. But this is a king with some expectations. He expects those gathered by grace to be transformed in graciousness. Accept the invitation, get along with the other party guests, maybe even say “thank you” if you’re able. It’s not your party, but the Host wants you to be here.

And he expects to see you properly dressed. Otherwise, you’ll get tossed out just like that hapless party guest who forgot his tuxedo.

So let’s focus on that for a minute. What’s that all about? The king never announced a dress code, especially for that mixed lot that he rounded up off the streets. As far as we know, he hasn’t handed out any clothing that he expects people to wear. (One of the participants in our weekly Bible study thinks he should have, but the story doesn’t say.)

All we know is the king weeds out the one guy who isn’t properly dressed. That’s one detail of the story that has given the theologians an opportunity to earn their paychecks.

• Saint Augustine said the wedding gown represented charity – the wedding guest wasn’t dressed in love.
• Martin Luther said the wedding gown symbolizes faith – the guest is inside the door, but he just doesn’t trust the host. So he gets expelled.
• John Calvin said the wedding gown is a metaphor for good works – you’ve got to grow up and act like a Christian even after you become a Christian.

All are good suggestions, but the best definition for the wedding gown comes from Jesus. Earlier in this book, Jesus talked about the “higher righteousness” of the kingdom. Jesus has already said it’s not enough to be like the scribes and Pharisees. It’s not enough to merely say the right words and go through the motions. The life of the kingdom must infuse every part of our being.

Over and over, Jesus says the “higher righteousness” is worn like a cloak by people who do the will of the heavenly Father (7:21).  They are the ones who:  

·         give up all arrogance and become humble like a child (18:2),

·         care for the lost, the left out, and the little ones (18:10),

·         forgive seven times, and seventy more times than that (18:22),

·         leave behind the charms of the world for Jesus’ sake (19:29),

·         give out cups of water to the thirsty and blankets to those who are chilled (25:34-36).

The higher righteousness is a life of unrestricted love, a life where others benefit by our goodness. It’s the life that becomes so joyful and generous that people can’t tell the difference between Jesus and you. Just imagine the conversation overheard in God’s banquet hall: “Hey, Henry, isn’t that Sally over there?”  “I can’t really tell; she looks like Jesus.”

This is the “higher righteousness.” Tt’s a life on earth that is saturated with the generosity of heaven. Grace may welcome us into the party, but it’s the higher righteousness keeps us there.

That is the message of this terrible, horrible, no good, very bad parable. It was a message pretty much lost on those who murdered the Christ who first told it. I hope it’s a message that we hear, not just with our ears but with our hearts.

In the final analysis, it’s one thing to know we are loved by God. All of us are loved by God, and it’s one thing to know we are loved by God. But it’s another thing to know we are admired by God. Do you know the difference?

It’s the difference between being invited to the party and being allowed to stay.

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

Stupid is as Stupid Does

Matthew 21:33-46
Ordinary 27 / World Communion
October 4, 2020

“Listen to another parable. There was a landowner who planted a vineyard, put a fence around it, dug a wine press in it, and built a watchtower. Then he leased it to tenants and went to another country. When the harvest time had come, he sent his slaves to the tenants to collect his produce. But the tenants seized his slaves and beat one, killed another, and stoned another. Again he sent other slaves, more than the first; and they treated them in the same way. Finally he sent his son to them, saying, ‘They will respect my son.’ 

But when the tenants saw the son, they said to themselves, ‘This is the heir; come, let us kill him and get his inheritance.” So they seized him, threw him out of the vineyard, and killed him. 

Now when the owner of the vineyard comes, what will he do to those tenants?” They said to him, “He will put those wretches to a miserable death and lease the vineyard to other tenants who will give him the produce at the harvest time.” 

Jesus said to them, “Have you never read in the scriptures: ‘The stone that the builders rejected has become the cornerstone; this was the Lord’s doing, and it is amazing in our eyes’? Therefore I tell you, the kingdom of God will be taken away from you and given to a people that produces the fruits of the kingdom. The one who falls on this stone will be broken to pieces; and it will crush anyone on whom it falls.” When the chief priests and the Pharisees heard his parables, they realized that he was speaking about them. They wanted to arrest him, but they feared the crowds, because they regarded him as a prophet.

One of my guilty pleasures is reading stories about stupid criminals. You’ve probably seen this sort of thing, often in tabloids or offbeat articles. These reports are revelations that crime does not pay. People will go to ridiculous lengths to plunder one another.

·         Heath Bumpous robbed a bank in Texas last year. It was the day before his wedding, and he needed the cash to pay for the ring and the reception hall. His fiancée sent him a text, “Did you just rob a bank?” She probably wouldn’t have recognized him on the surveillance photo if he had worn a mask or ten-gallon hat. The sheriff suggested they postpone the wedding.[1]

·         In Scotland, a man named Gary Rough went to a bookmaker in Glasgow. Rather than lay down a bet on the ponies, he pulled out a cucumber covered with a black sock and demanded the money. An off-duty police officer tackled him to the floor and said, “It’s all a joke.”[2] The officer said, “I don’t think so.”

·         Milton Hodges robbed a Lowe’s Home Improvement store in Kissimmee, Florida. He bolted away, jumped a fence, and landed in the Cypress Cove Nudist Report and Spa. No hiding there! The police said he was easy to spot and they apprehended him.[3]

It’s amazing how foolish criminals can be. I’ve been laughing ever since I saw Jasper and Horace, those two hapless thieves in “101 Dalmatians.” And I wonder if the criminals in today’s story ever realized how ridiculous they appeared.

After all, they had been living on rented land. They know how much the landowner has invested in that acreage. He cleared the fields, planted a vineyard, developed the property, surrounded it with a fence, and built a security tower. Then he rented it out to these fools who had no regard for him or his property. 

When it was time to collect the rent, those rascals beat up one rent collector, killed a second, and threw stones at a third. Then they did it all over again, one rent collector after another. So what do you think that absentee landlord should have done?

While you are thinking of an answer, let me remind us what he does. He sends his beloved son to them, in a last-ditch attempt to collect. When the criminals see who this is, they think that maybe they should kill him, too. “After all,” they reasoned, “if we kill the son, maybe the Father will write us into his will . . . and then we will end up with this vineyard.”

I can only size that up with a brief conversation from the classic movie, “Forrest Gump.” The neighbor kid asks Forrest, “Are you stupid?” He replies with a line that his mama taught him: “Stupid is as stupid does.”

These are incredibly foolish tenants in that vineyard. They are so focused on avoiding the rent, so set on refusing the rightful produce to the owner of the land, that they will murder his son and expect to end up with the vineyard. It just doesn’t make any sense.

Now, this is not a logical story. This isn’t even a crime drama. No, it’s a Gospel parable. A parable is a short story that reveals a hidden truth. In this case, it’s a two-fold truth. First, the people inhabiting that vineyard are missing the point. They are missing all kinds of points. You can’t terminate the Boss’s son and expect to gain what the Boss was going to turn over to him. It’s further evidence, final evidence, that they don’t understand it is the Boss’s vineyard. Everything they have depends on him.

And then there’s that second truth: this is a most unusual Vineyard Owner. It’s his land. It’s his vineyard. These are his workers, just as the rent collectors were his workers. What kind of Vineyard Owner patiently waits for them to come to their senses and pay the rent? What kind of Vineyard Owner keeps giving them one chance after another? By my count, seven chances – six rent collectors and his own son. 

Some might even think the Land Owner is the real fool here. He could have shut down the whole operation when the tenants seized the first rent collector. He could have drawn a line in the sand and said, “That’s it.” But no. He is patient. He will give them another try, and another, seven tries in all. It is harvest time. He has some grapes he wants to collect. The dangling question is, how far will he go?

This is Matthew’s ornery parable with its two-fold truth. The clueless tenants commit one crime after another under the mercy of their impossibly patient landlord. The question is, how patient will he be? How much longer will he let them get away with being so deplorable?

That’s the question that Jesus lifts into the air. It’s fascinating to me to hear the answer that his first audience offered up. They said, “He’s going to come and blast them out of the vineyard. He’s going to come and punish.” Now Jesus never inferred that, but that’s how they respond. This is fascinating to me because it opens a trap door, and they fall right into it.

These are the religious professionals, the Pharisees and the priests. According to Matthew, they will bear the responsibility of eliminating Jesus, the beloved Son of another Land Owner. The punishment they demand of the wretches in this story will fall back on them and crush them. This is the Gospel of Matthew, after all. According to Matthew, if you think God is all about retaliation and punishment, chances are that is the God you will end up with.

Yet the terrible judgment is that, if you think this way, you are missing the kind of God we meet in Jesus: generous to a fault, persistent to the end, infinitely patient, but still expecting good fruit. In fact, listen to how Jesus answers the question that he poses. He turns the whole punishment game on its head.

To make his point, he quotes a line from the Psalms: “The stone that the builders rejected has become the cornerstone.” (Psalm 118: 22). He might as well have added, “The son that the tenants rejected is the one who can pay their rent.”

The Presbyterian novelist Frederick Buechner once wrote an essay about the work of Flannery O’Connor. She was a great southern writer, and a lot of her stories turn on bizarre moments when God reveals strange and unexpected grace. It’s a glimpse of what Jesus announces of the kingdom: the one who is rejected may be the one most valued. This prompts Buechner to write:

If God is to save souls, he must do so with people who for the most part fight tooth and nail against the process… Human life is so distorted and distorting that the grace of God is broken to pieces by it - like light through a prism - and reaches us looking like everything except what it is…. It is often through such outlandish means as these that we are saved if we are to be saved at all, and opposed to our saving is all the madness and perversity not only of the world we inhabit but of the worlds we carry around inside our skins, that inhabit us.[4]

We live and work in a vineyard we do not deserve. The owner of it leases it to us anyway. He keeps checking to see if we’ve turned from abuse to fruitfulness. He desires for us to love the vineyard as much as he does. He wants us to stick it out until a new season brings fresh grapes.

So we return to the Table of God’s New Wine. Not only to be refreshed, but to be re-commissioned. We come to taste and see that God is good – and we are sent back into a world that is no friend of grace. Even if we fight against our own saving, we learn again that God has accomplished it anyway. Kindness is the will of the Father. Mercy is the bequest into which our names are written.

We come. All of us. And we pray that what we receive on this plot of land may renew the lives of those around us, until the day comes when hostility ceases, when abuse subsides, and every last one of us remembers that the rent has been paid – thanks to Jesus the Son.

(c) William G. Carter

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[1] https://www.washingtonpost.com/nation/2019/10/08/heath-bumpous-wedding-bank-robbery-texas/

[2] https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-scotland-glasgow-west-26370484

[3] https://929thebull.com/police-caught-a-thief-who-broke-into-a-nudist-resort-because-he-was-the-only-one-wearing-clothes/

[4] Frederick Buechner, “Foreword,” in Jill P. Baumgaertner, Flannery O’Connor: A Proper Scaring (Wheaton, IL, Harold Shaw Publishers, 1988) ix – x.