The Sixteenth Sunday After Pentecost Exodus 20: 1 – 4, 7 – 9, 12 – 20
Sunday, October 2, 2011 Philippians 3: 4b – 14
The Rev. Bambi Willis Matthew 21: 33 – 46
‘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 watch-tower. Then he leased it to tenants and went to another country.
Matthew 21: 33
I come to the pulpit this morning following a challenging week. This week we have grieved the death of George Davis, a trustee of this parish and a friend of many in this community. And last night, we enjoyed an “Elegant Evening at Hampton,” the culmination of many months of planning and long hours of work for those on our Fundraising Committee as they sought to raise monies for our building fund. This week has been full, laced with both joy and sadness, and we come together in worship this morning with many things on our hearts and minds.
What I observed this week in my comings and goings, was an exceedingly great carefulness, an amazing mindfulness of others and concern for our common life. As the week unfolded and new tasks surfaced, folk gently and with great care, offered themselves in all kinds of ways to insure that last night was, indeed, elegant, and this afternoon’s service of burial might be a comfort to George’s family.
I offer this observation in light of our gospel reading from Matthew this morning. This morning we hear a parable about tenants in a vineyard, tenants who were not mindful of their responsibility to be good stewards of what the landowner had given to them. Rather than fulfill their responsibilities to return to the landowner the fruit of the landowner’s vineyard, the tenants attempted to seize the vineyard and its fruits for themselves. The tenants, entrusted by the landowner to care for the landowner’s vineyard in his absence, seek to possess the vineyard for themselves, bringing upon themselves the just condemnation of the landowner.
In this parable, Jesus calls the people of Israel to be who God created Israel to be - tenant farmers in a vineyard that belongs to God, stewards of God’s kingdom. What I witnessed this week in any manner of ways were folk taking care of what God has so generously given to us – this church, this community and those who have been and are, a part of our common life. What happened this week was an exercise of stewardship.
About ten years ago, professor of theology at McGill University in Canada, John Hall wrote a book entitled The Steward: A Biblical Metaphor Come of Age. Hall wants to reclaim the richness of the image of a steward as a way to understand what being Christian means in the twenty-first century. To think of ourselves as “stewards” may help us live more faithfully in the midst of an increasingly anxious and often apathetic world, a world that is not at peace and which increasingly dismisses the possibility that Christianity has any “good news” to share.
In our parable this morning we meet “tenant farmers,” who like stewards, have a unique role to fill. The landowner plants a vineyard and then leaves, giving over the care of his vineyard to others, others whom he trusts to make his vineyard fruitful. These tenant farmers, like stewards, as Hall points out, “can be regarded almost as the representative or vicar of the one who has employed him.” On the other hand, these tenant farmers, are clearly not the owners of the vineyard, but are accountable to the landowner for what they do or fail to do.
Our ancestors in the faith had a very distinctive understanding of what it means to be human in this world. In the story of creation, humankind is a created being, a being who is not sovereign but whose life comes from a Creator. The Hebrew name given to the first human being, “Adam,” means “of the ground” and the Latin root of “human” is “humus” meaning “earth.” To be human means to be a part of creation and not divine.
But in the story of creation, our ancestors in the faith also affirmed that God created humankind for a particular purpose - “to till and to keep” God’s very good garden in the memorable words of Genesis. Humankind was created to be stewards, caretakers of creation, on behalf of the Creator. What our ancestors affirmed and what we sometimes forget, is that this world belongs to God and not to us. And, what our ancestors affirmed and what we sometimes forget, is that to be human is to honor our vocation to be stewards of God’s creation.
You and I have grown up in a world that desperately wants to know what makes us humans tick. We are a curious and complicated lot who can do great and glorious things as well as many horrible and awful things. And while much wisdom can be gleaned from medicine, psychology and the social sciences, at the end of the day, our perspective is limited by our humanness - we cannot get beyond our humanness. Our ancestors in the faith knew we could not ultimately “know” ourselves. What we can say is that who we are is a gift to us from God. We are not like other animals and we are not gods. Between those two affirmations we live and move and have our being.
Our ancestors knew humankind was not God. But our ancestors also knew we humans have gifts that have not been given to any other creatures and wisely understood that that gift had been given to us to be used not to privilege ourselves but to be exercised in the care of God’s creation. The wisdom of the ancients was to see within our humanness a responsibility, a de facto expectation of care and nurture for the world given the gifts that have been given to us. The image of a steward which is closely related to what Matthew calls “tenants” in our parable this morning, is a powerful metaphor for who we are as human beings, inviting us away from an image of ourselves as either Superman or nothing more than “a pack of neurons,” a friend once quipped. The image of a steward invites us to see ourselves as creatures who have been called, called to be the care takers of creation.
On Sunday, September 11th, on the front of your bulletin, at the bottom, was a quote from Danielle Spencer: “There is the family I was born into, and St. Asaph’s, the family I chose.” The following Sunday, the note told us, St. Asaph’s had given 70 pounds of food to Glory Outreach during the month of July. Last Sunday, we learned that to date, our prayer shawl ministry has taken 140 skeins of yarn and turned them into thirty-five prayer shawls since that ministry began in 2009. And this week, we note ____________________________. Each week, “Something to Note” will lift up the many ways this parish has exercised the gifts God has given us on behalf of this parish, this community and the wider world. Each week, I hope we all will be reminded that we are called to be stewards, to use the gifts God has given us on behalf of God’s very good creation.
Stewardship, sadly, has often been reduced in the church to “the money I give to the church.” Stewardship will include the giving of money for sure, but more than that stewardship is a way of being in this world, a way of being in this world that sees the world and all that is therein as a gift from God to be nurtured and cared for, not to be exploited for our good pleasure but cherished and tended. All of us, in any many of ways have been graced with gifts we are called to share and insofar as we do share the gifts God has given us, we become more truly human, more of who God has created us to be. May we this day, be mindful of all that we are and all that we have, and give thanks.
Sunday, October 2, 2011 Philippians 3: 4b – 14
The Rev. Bambi Willis Matthew 21: 33 – 46
‘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 watch-tower. Then he leased it to tenants and went to another country.
Matthew 21: 33
I come to the pulpit this morning following a challenging week. This week we have grieved the death of George Davis, a trustee of this parish and a friend of many in this community. And last night, we enjoyed an “Elegant Evening at Hampton,” the culmination of many months of planning and long hours of work for those on our Fundraising Committee as they sought to raise monies for our building fund. This week has been full, laced with both joy and sadness, and we come together in worship this morning with many things on our hearts and minds.
What I observed this week in my comings and goings, was an exceedingly great carefulness, an amazing mindfulness of others and concern for our common life. As the week unfolded and new tasks surfaced, folk gently and with great care, offered themselves in all kinds of ways to insure that last night was, indeed, elegant, and this afternoon’s service of burial might be a comfort to George’s family.
I offer this observation in light of our gospel reading from Matthew this morning. This morning we hear a parable about tenants in a vineyard, tenants who were not mindful of their responsibility to be good stewards of what the landowner had given to them. Rather than fulfill their responsibilities to return to the landowner the fruit of the landowner’s vineyard, the tenants attempted to seize the vineyard and its fruits for themselves. The tenants, entrusted by the landowner to care for the landowner’s vineyard in his absence, seek to possess the vineyard for themselves, bringing upon themselves the just condemnation of the landowner.
In this parable, Jesus calls the people of Israel to be who God created Israel to be - tenant farmers in a vineyard that belongs to God, stewards of God’s kingdom. What I witnessed this week in any manner of ways were folk taking care of what God has so generously given to us – this church, this community and those who have been and are, a part of our common life. What happened this week was an exercise of stewardship.
About ten years ago, professor of theology at McGill University in Canada, John Hall wrote a book entitled The Steward: A Biblical Metaphor Come of Age. Hall wants to reclaim the richness of the image of a steward as a way to understand what being Christian means in the twenty-first century. To think of ourselves as “stewards” may help us live more faithfully in the midst of an increasingly anxious and often apathetic world, a world that is not at peace and which increasingly dismisses the possibility that Christianity has any “good news” to share.
In our parable this morning we meet “tenant farmers,” who like stewards, have a unique role to fill. The landowner plants a vineyard and then leaves, giving over the care of his vineyard to others, others whom he trusts to make his vineyard fruitful. These tenant farmers, like stewards, as Hall points out, “can be regarded almost as the representative or vicar of the one who has employed him.” On the other hand, these tenant farmers, are clearly not the owners of the vineyard, but are accountable to the landowner for what they do or fail to do.
Our ancestors in the faith had a very distinctive understanding of what it means to be human in this world. In the story of creation, humankind is a created being, a being who is not sovereign but whose life comes from a Creator. The Hebrew name given to the first human being, “Adam,” means “of the ground” and the Latin root of “human” is “humus” meaning “earth.” To be human means to be a part of creation and not divine.
But in the story of creation, our ancestors in the faith also affirmed that God created humankind for a particular purpose - “to till and to keep” God’s very good garden in the memorable words of Genesis. Humankind was created to be stewards, caretakers of creation, on behalf of the Creator. What our ancestors affirmed and what we sometimes forget, is that this world belongs to God and not to us. And, what our ancestors affirmed and what we sometimes forget, is that to be human is to honor our vocation to be stewards of God’s creation.
You and I have grown up in a world that desperately wants to know what makes us humans tick. We are a curious and complicated lot who can do great and glorious things as well as many horrible and awful things. And while much wisdom can be gleaned from medicine, psychology and the social sciences, at the end of the day, our perspective is limited by our humanness - we cannot get beyond our humanness. Our ancestors in the faith knew we could not ultimately “know” ourselves. What we can say is that who we are is a gift to us from God. We are not like other animals and we are not gods. Between those two affirmations we live and move and have our being.
Our ancestors knew humankind was not God. But our ancestors also knew we humans have gifts that have not been given to any other creatures and wisely understood that that gift had been given to us to be used not to privilege ourselves but to be exercised in the care of God’s creation. The wisdom of the ancients was to see within our humanness a responsibility, a de facto expectation of care and nurture for the world given the gifts that have been given to us. The image of a steward which is closely related to what Matthew calls “tenants” in our parable this morning, is a powerful metaphor for who we are as human beings, inviting us away from an image of ourselves as either Superman or nothing more than “a pack of neurons,” a friend once quipped. The image of a steward invites us to see ourselves as creatures who have been called, called to be the care takers of creation.
On Sunday, September 11th, on the front of your bulletin, at the bottom, was a quote from Danielle Spencer: “There is the family I was born into, and St. Asaph’s, the family I chose.” The following Sunday, the note told us, St. Asaph’s had given 70 pounds of food to Glory Outreach during the month of July. Last Sunday, we learned that to date, our prayer shawl ministry has taken 140 skeins of yarn and turned them into thirty-five prayer shawls since that ministry began in 2009. And this week, we note ____________________________. Each week, “Something to Note” will lift up the many ways this parish has exercised the gifts God has given us on behalf of this parish, this community and the wider world. Each week, I hope we all will be reminded that we are called to be stewards, to use the gifts God has given us on behalf of God’s very good creation.
Stewardship, sadly, has often been reduced in the church to “the money I give to the church.” Stewardship will include the giving of money for sure, but more than that stewardship is a way of being in this world, a way of being in this world that sees the world and all that is therein as a gift from God to be nurtured and cared for, not to be exploited for our good pleasure but cherished and tended. All of us, in any many of ways have been graced with gifts we are called to share and insofar as we do share the gifts God has given us, we become more truly human, more of who God has created us to be. May we this day, be mindful of all that we are and all that we have, and give thanks.
The Seventeenth Sunday After Pentecost Exodus 32: 1 – 14
Sunday, October 9, 2011 Philippians 4: 1 – 9
The Rev. Bambi Willis Matthew 22: 1 – 1
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.
Matthew 22: 2 - 3
The parable we hear this morning from the gospel of Matthew begins reasonably enough: “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.” If we skip the intervening verses, the response of the king does not surprise us: in the light of the refusal of the invited guests to come to his party, the king simply opens his doors to anyone and everyone, no matter who they are. The banquet hall is filled, but not with the folk we would expect.
Were we to hear only this part of the parable, we would be inclined to enjoy watching this king host his party in spite of the snubs he has received from his originally invited guests. Indeed, we might even relish imagining that the folk who refused to come might regret their refusal after they heard the merriment of the guests taking place in the banquet hall. The originally invited guests are missing a grand party; surely they are sorry they refused to come!
Unfortunately, the parable as Matthew tells it is not that simple. The invited guests do not simply refuse to come to the wedding banquet; after being asked twice to come to the banquet, some of the invited guests actually kill the king’s messengers. In response, the king “sent his troops, destroyed those murderers, and burned their city.” Blood is flowing outside in the streets even as the wine is being poured into crystal goblets inside the banquet hall.
And to make matters worse, once the party begins, the king notices a man who is dressed inappropriately and throws him into the “outer darkness, where there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth.” This king sends out an invitation and as a result, a city is destroyed and one poor unprepared soul is thrown into hell. This king is very odd.
We read from the gospel of Matthew this morning and if we look at the other three gospels, we will not find this parable in the gospels of Mark, Luke or John. The closest parallel we find is in the gospel of Luke, but in that parable, there is no bloodshed and no one gets thrown into the “outer darkness.” The parable Luke tells us leaves us with a warm and fuzzy feeling for this king who refuses to be deterred from throwing a party by snooty guests who refuse to come and opens his party to anyone walking along the street. The king of course is God and God as we all know welcomes everyone.
Biblical scholars have long sought to figure out what Jesus really said in light of the variations of often similar stories in the four gospels. Our parable this morning is a good example. Most scholars agree that Jesus probably told a parable about a host who threw a party for certain folk who, after the invited guests refused to come, opened the doors to everybody. As the parable was remembered and handed on, details began to change, coloring the parable in ways Jesus may or may not have intended.
What we know is that each evangelist was writing to a particular community with particular needs and concerns and so, “preached” the good news with their community in mind. Matthew is writing to a community that is largely Jewish but quickly finding themselves no longer welcome in the synagogues. Matthew is also writing after 70 A.D., after Rome has destroyed the city of Jerusalem and burned down the Temple. When the king destroys the murderers and burns down the city in our parable this morning, Matthew’s community would have remembered the destruction of Jerusalem and seen that event as the inevitable consequence of taking up arms against Rome, which some Jews did. Matthew, in other words, is interpreting the experiences of his community in light of the life, death and resurrection of Jesus and calling his community to remain faithful because what is happening is all a part of God’s plan.
Unfortunately, Matthew can often sound “anti Jewish” when in truth, the folk Matthew takes to task are not Jews but the Jewish leaders. In our parable this morning, we need to be very careful not to interpret the parable in such a way that we turn the “invited guests” into “the Jews” whose place at the banquet table has been given to gentiles or to the church or to us because the Jews refused their invitation.
I believe we can thank Matthew for including that strange detail about a man who came to the wedding feast without a wedding garment. Not everyone who is pulled in off the streets is welcome as it turns out. Interpreters disagree about what the “wedding garment” signifies – some believe Matthew is thinking about baptism and the new life we take on in baptism. Baptizands in the early church were clothed with white robes when they were baptized and perhaps the lack of a wedding robe signifies that this man has come to enjoy the party but not the responsibility that comes with baptism.
But for whatever the reason, Matthew is highlighting for his community and for us, that being invited to the party does not guarantee a place at the table. The line between those who belong in the kingdom of God and those who do not, is not ours to draw. After what sounds like a violent condemnation of the Jewish leadership, Matthew turns to his community and says, in effect, “Not everyone 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.” Matthew places not only the Jewish leadership under judgment but all of us.
This week l carried with me, somewhat uncomfortably, the image of a smoldering city strewn with corpses in the midst of which was a magnificent banquet hall ablaze with lights and alive with music, merriment and tables filled with food. I thought about our elegant evening at Hampton last Saturday night and tried to envision what it would be like to have to step over dead bodies to get to the front door. As I was stewing over this image and our gospel reading, my computer crashed. Out of nowhere came dreadful messages that said my computer was infected with viruses, that my identity could be stolen and emails were being sent to others from my computer which I did not send. The messages sounded apocalyptic in their urgency and my only hope, the messages said, was in subscribing to an anti-virus program. I have an anti-virus program but for $52.95 I could have a different one that would save my computer and maybe my life from utter destruction.
Panic is perhaps not too strong a word to describe what I was feeling Thursday night, as I worried about my sermon for today, a wedding homily I preached yesterday, not to mention all of my files and what dreadful emails might be sent under my name. And all of this horror unfolded just hours before A.G. and I were due to have dinner with friends. Going out to dinner with friends was the last thing I wanted to do - I wanted to go immediately to a computer repair store and be rid of what sounded like a disease that was about to take the life of my computer and maybe mine as well.
The crash of my computer was a disruption I did not like nor ask for, but which threatened to distract me from the joy of having dinner with friends. As I sought vainly to “save” my computer and get on with what I needed to do, I came very close to refusing the invitation to dinner.
At the heart of our parable this morning is the ministry of a man who called people away from a world they could control, a world in which they were kings and into a world ruled over by God in which we are invited guests. Judgment confronts us every time we presume to be kings rather than guests, lords and masters of our fate rather than dearly beloved creatures of God.
I had to laugh on Saturday, after a week of sweating over this text, at how easy it is for me to miss the mark, to be blind to the kingdom, to get caught up in my world. I took my computer to Best Buy on Friday and hope to have it back next week. In the meantime, I am using A.G.’s, who for reasons I cannot say, but for which I am deeply appreciative, seems more able than I, to live in a world not of my own making. Let us hope that the Geek Squad at Best Buy can get rid of what ails my computer and that I might learn that “malware” is not an apocalyptic catastrophe.
Sunday, October 9, 2011 Philippians 4: 1 – 9
The Rev. Bambi Willis Matthew 22: 1 – 1
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.
Matthew 22: 2 - 3
The parable we hear this morning from the gospel of Matthew begins reasonably enough: “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.” If we skip the intervening verses, the response of the king does not surprise us: in the light of the refusal of the invited guests to come to his party, the king simply opens his doors to anyone and everyone, no matter who they are. The banquet hall is filled, but not with the folk we would expect.
Were we to hear only this part of the parable, we would be inclined to enjoy watching this king host his party in spite of the snubs he has received from his originally invited guests. Indeed, we might even relish imagining that the folk who refused to come might regret their refusal after they heard the merriment of the guests taking place in the banquet hall. The originally invited guests are missing a grand party; surely they are sorry they refused to come!
Unfortunately, the parable as Matthew tells it is not that simple. The invited guests do not simply refuse to come to the wedding banquet; after being asked twice to come to the banquet, some of the invited guests actually kill the king’s messengers. In response, the king “sent his troops, destroyed those murderers, and burned their city.” Blood is flowing outside in the streets even as the wine is being poured into crystal goblets inside the banquet hall.
And to make matters worse, once the party begins, the king notices a man who is dressed inappropriately and throws him into the “outer darkness, where there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth.” This king sends out an invitation and as a result, a city is destroyed and one poor unprepared soul is thrown into hell. This king is very odd.
We read from the gospel of Matthew this morning and if we look at the other three gospels, we will not find this parable in the gospels of Mark, Luke or John. The closest parallel we find is in the gospel of Luke, but in that parable, there is no bloodshed and no one gets thrown into the “outer darkness.” The parable Luke tells us leaves us with a warm and fuzzy feeling for this king who refuses to be deterred from throwing a party by snooty guests who refuse to come and opens his party to anyone walking along the street. The king of course is God and God as we all know welcomes everyone.
Biblical scholars have long sought to figure out what Jesus really said in light of the variations of often similar stories in the four gospels. Our parable this morning is a good example. Most scholars agree that Jesus probably told a parable about a host who threw a party for certain folk who, after the invited guests refused to come, opened the doors to everybody. As the parable was remembered and handed on, details began to change, coloring the parable in ways Jesus may or may not have intended.
What we know is that each evangelist was writing to a particular community with particular needs and concerns and so, “preached” the good news with their community in mind. Matthew is writing to a community that is largely Jewish but quickly finding themselves no longer welcome in the synagogues. Matthew is also writing after 70 A.D., after Rome has destroyed the city of Jerusalem and burned down the Temple. When the king destroys the murderers and burns down the city in our parable this morning, Matthew’s community would have remembered the destruction of Jerusalem and seen that event as the inevitable consequence of taking up arms against Rome, which some Jews did. Matthew, in other words, is interpreting the experiences of his community in light of the life, death and resurrection of Jesus and calling his community to remain faithful because what is happening is all a part of God’s plan.
Unfortunately, Matthew can often sound “anti Jewish” when in truth, the folk Matthew takes to task are not Jews but the Jewish leaders. In our parable this morning, we need to be very careful not to interpret the parable in such a way that we turn the “invited guests” into “the Jews” whose place at the banquet table has been given to gentiles or to the church or to us because the Jews refused their invitation.
I believe we can thank Matthew for including that strange detail about a man who came to the wedding feast without a wedding garment. Not everyone who is pulled in off the streets is welcome as it turns out. Interpreters disagree about what the “wedding garment” signifies – some believe Matthew is thinking about baptism and the new life we take on in baptism. Baptizands in the early church were clothed with white robes when they were baptized and perhaps the lack of a wedding robe signifies that this man has come to enjoy the party but not the responsibility that comes with baptism.
But for whatever the reason, Matthew is highlighting for his community and for us, that being invited to the party does not guarantee a place at the table. The line between those who belong in the kingdom of God and those who do not, is not ours to draw. After what sounds like a violent condemnation of the Jewish leadership, Matthew turns to his community and says, in effect, “Not everyone 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.” Matthew places not only the Jewish leadership under judgment but all of us.
This week l carried with me, somewhat uncomfortably, the image of a smoldering city strewn with corpses in the midst of which was a magnificent banquet hall ablaze with lights and alive with music, merriment and tables filled with food. I thought about our elegant evening at Hampton last Saturday night and tried to envision what it would be like to have to step over dead bodies to get to the front door. As I was stewing over this image and our gospel reading, my computer crashed. Out of nowhere came dreadful messages that said my computer was infected with viruses, that my identity could be stolen and emails were being sent to others from my computer which I did not send. The messages sounded apocalyptic in their urgency and my only hope, the messages said, was in subscribing to an anti-virus program. I have an anti-virus program but for $52.95 I could have a different one that would save my computer and maybe my life from utter destruction.
Panic is perhaps not too strong a word to describe what I was feeling Thursday night, as I worried about my sermon for today, a wedding homily I preached yesterday, not to mention all of my files and what dreadful emails might be sent under my name. And all of this horror unfolded just hours before A.G. and I were due to have dinner with friends. Going out to dinner with friends was the last thing I wanted to do - I wanted to go immediately to a computer repair store and be rid of what sounded like a disease that was about to take the life of my computer and maybe mine as well.
The crash of my computer was a disruption I did not like nor ask for, but which threatened to distract me from the joy of having dinner with friends. As I sought vainly to “save” my computer and get on with what I needed to do, I came very close to refusing the invitation to dinner.
At the heart of our parable this morning is the ministry of a man who called people away from a world they could control, a world in which they were kings and into a world ruled over by God in which we are invited guests. Judgment confronts us every time we presume to be kings rather than guests, lords and masters of our fate rather than dearly beloved creatures of God.
I had to laugh on Saturday, after a week of sweating over this text, at how easy it is for me to miss the mark, to be blind to the kingdom, to get caught up in my world. I took my computer to Best Buy on Friday and hope to have it back next week. In the meantime, I am using A.G.’s, who for reasons I cannot say, but for which I am deeply appreciative, seems more able than I, to live in a world not of my own making. Let us hope that the Geek Squad at Best Buy can get rid of what ails my computer and that I might learn that “malware” is not an apocalyptic catastrophe.
The Eighteenth Sunday After Pentecost Exodus 33: 12 – 23
Sunday, October 16, 2011 I Thessalonians 1: 1 – 10
The Rev. Bambi Willis Matthew 22: 15 – 22
Then Jesus said to them, “Give therefore to the emperor the things that are the emperor’s, and
to God the things that are God’s.”
Matthew 22: 21b
The Jewish religious leaders seek to trap Jesus this morning in our reading from the gospel of Matthew. “Is it lawful to pay taxes to the emperor or not?” they ask. Roman taxation was a political hot button in first century Palestine. Palestine was a vassal state of Rome and Rome demanded tribute to be paid by the Jews for the “privilege” of being governed by Rome. The Roman tax was a constant reminder that the Jews were not a free people but lived and worshipped under the watchful eyes of Rome, a powerful empire that tolerated no dissent and which moved swiftly to crush any hint of revolt. Indeed, the coin of the realm, with which the tax was to be paid, was engraved with an image of the emperor and his designation as the “Son of God,” a title Jews found blasphemous. The coin itself was idolatrous, giving to the emperor an authority that belonged only to God.
For many Jews, paying the tax was a breach of the commandment to worship God alone; for others, paying the tax was the only way to insure the continued existence of the Jews as not paying the tax would be viewed as an act of treason. The question put to Jesus is artful: if Jesus advocates paying the tax, Jesus will be accused of breaking the Jewish law; if Jesus advocates not paying the tax, Jesus will be accused of sedition against Rome.
In response, Jesus answers neither “yes,” nor “no.” Instead, Jesus tells his questioners: “Give, therefore to the emperor the things that are the emperor’s, and to God the things that are God’s,” or in the words many of us grew up with: “Render unto Caesar the things which are Caesar’s and unto God the things that are God’s.”
Oh, if only Jesus had simply answered “yes” or “no”! From the time Jesus uttered these famous words, folk have wondered what exactly Jesus meant. Did Jesus mean we are to give everything to God and nothing to Caesar (a.k.a., the nation) or did Jesus mean some things belong to God and some things belong to the nation and we must honor both loyalties? Is Jesus sanctioning secular rule or condemning secular rule or simply reminding secular rulers they are not God? The nature of the relationship between the faithful and the civic authorities has plagued the church from its beginnings.
Early on, some, such as Justin Martyr in the second century, sought to commend Christianity by describing Christians as good citizens, folk who do not seek to cause trouble but who seek to live in harmony with others. But early on, some Christians found civic life an invitation to compromise their faith and sought a life away from the cities and secular authorities. The faithful have not always viewed civic life in the same light; for the church, determining what belongs to God and what belongs to Caesar has never been easy.
Nineteen hundred years after Jesus spoke these famous (or infamous) words, many Christians believed that humankind was making steady progress in fixing the wrongs of the world – machines and education were changing the world and all this was God’s way of bringing into being the kingdom of God through the gifts God had given to human beings. The nations, particularly our democratic nation, were making the world a better place and optimism ran high that a perfect world lay within our grasp.
And then, just at the height of the optimism that secular authority, if it was democratic, would benefit all of mankind, a world war broke out. And not just one but two; and as the nations battled, what we learned was that humankind was capable of both great good and great evil. Progress, promoted we hoped by our civic governments could build not just railroads and automobiles, but also gas chambers and atomic bombs. What we thought was a steady progression into an increasingly optimistic future dissolved into chaos, a chaos that our parents and grandparents were a part of and in which, one way or another they had to take a stand.
The world wars were a watershed moment in theological circles. In Germany, the church was co-opted by the German government and used to denounce their Jewish neighbors. In the U.S., those who refused to fight were often seen as traitors. Nationalism, on both sides of the Atlantic, for the most part, trumped any serious theological refection upon the nature of a Christian’s relationship to the state, during this time of war. In the end, many simply gave up believing in God altogether.
In the midst of this unsettling time, theologian Richard Niebuhr wrote a remarkable book called Christ and Culture, a classic to this day. In this book, published just after the end of World War II, Niebuhr speaks of the “enduring problem” of Christianity’s relationship to culture, which includes what we call “the state.” From the beginning, Niebuhr argues, the church has not been of one mind over how the church ought to relate to the secular world and secular authorities. Some within the church have perceived the secular world in opposition to the Kingdom of God and sought a life away from the body politic. Others within the church have perceived the secular world as fundamentally aligned with God’s will – the church and the state are not opposed to one another but in basic agreement one with the other. In between those two extremes, Niebuhr notes three other kinds of relationships between the church and the state, relationships which preserve the distinction between the two, but in such a way that Christians have a foot in both worlds.
Niebuhr’s essay continues to be timely for us as we continue to be vexed by questions about prayer in schools, the use of the Bible in public education, and the place of religious views on issues of abortion and same gender marriages. Church and state may indeed be separated in these United States, but the relationship between the church and the state is far from resolved.
None of us, unfortunately, are spared from the “problem” which the Pharisees and Herodians raise in our text this morning and to which Jesus gives a less than clear response. Do our beliefs about God have anything to do with the way we vote or how we spend our money or the way we earn our living? Is there a relationship between politics and religion or should we never bring up both topics in the same conversation? Do politics have any place in the pulpit or ought religion have a voice in the public square? And how does our understanding of who Jesus was weigh in on this problem? Might we resolve the problem differently if we see Jesus as a first century revolutionary or a moral teacher or a revealer of supernatural truths?
We, in the Episcopal Church, understand ourselves as people of the “via media,” the middle way, a way that inclines neither toward papal dictates nor toward the inclinations of independent church bodies. We are a communion, bound together with other churches under the authority of a bishop, who shares equal authority with all other bishops. We value the dictates of conscience and the insights of others. We are not inclined to make pronouncements that are binding on the faithful nor do we believe that “truth” is simply whatever truth is for me. What this means in practice is that we believe that the problem of the relationship between the church and the state which we face this morning is best engaged in community.
But therein lies another problem. In order to be a communion, to grow and learn from one another, we must talk to one another and talking about politics or money or sex is, to say the least, difficult. Most of us, I suspect, believe that our faith ought to inform the way we engage the secular world, but most of us, I presume, are a good bit reluctant to engage one another in conversations about how our faith informs what we do or do not do in our daily lives. Perhaps intuitively, we know what Richard Niebuhr put down in writing – there is more than one way to be faithful and more than one way to “render unto Caesar what belongs to Caesar and to God what belongs to God.” Perhaps we are afraid that the way we have chosen may be questioned, questioned just as the Pharisees and the Herodians are questioned this morning as Jesus calls them to consider what belongs to Caesar and what belongs to God.
I am bemused that our gospel reading this morning comes in the midst of a time in our common life when we are thinking about budgets, money and stewardship. We are, this time of year, struggling to find ways to talk about money and your vestry is trying to uncover some new ways to talk about a perennially difficult subject. Thinking about the money that we have and what we do with it is not something we like to do.
The Pharisees and the Herodians in our gospel reading were not thrilled to hear what Jesus had to say in response to their question and “left him and went away.” The Pharisees and the Herodians were not pleased because instead of trapping Jesus, Jesus trapped them, confronting them with the “problem” we all face as we seek to be faithful to God in the midst of a secular world that also asks for our allegiance.
Jesus does not give us an answer this morning but rather a question: What belongs to God and what belongs to Caesar? We each will have to find our own way but we are not alone. We have one another. That is a reality we need to cherish and to trust. I pray we all might consider anew what it means to be a communion, to be a people who hear Sunday after Sunday the same stories but who must then take those stories and make sense of them in the lives we live from day to day. I pray we will not shrink from reflecting together on the “problems” that confront us as people of faith, trusting in the mercy of God to lead us where God would have us go.
Sunday, October 16, 2011 I Thessalonians 1: 1 – 10
The Rev. Bambi Willis Matthew 22: 15 – 22
Then Jesus said to them, “Give therefore to the emperor the things that are the emperor’s, and
to God the things that are God’s.”
Matthew 22: 21b
The Jewish religious leaders seek to trap Jesus this morning in our reading from the gospel of Matthew. “Is it lawful to pay taxes to the emperor or not?” they ask. Roman taxation was a political hot button in first century Palestine. Palestine was a vassal state of Rome and Rome demanded tribute to be paid by the Jews for the “privilege” of being governed by Rome. The Roman tax was a constant reminder that the Jews were not a free people but lived and worshipped under the watchful eyes of Rome, a powerful empire that tolerated no dissent and which moved swiftly to crush any hint of revolt. Indeed, the coin of the realm, with which the tax was to be paid, was engraved with an image of the emperor and his designation as the “Son of God,” a title Jews found blasphemous. The coin itself was idolatrous, giving to the emperor an authority that belonged only to God.
For many Jews, paying the tax was a breach of the commandment to worship God alone; for others, paying the tax was the only way to insure the continued existence of the Jews as not paying the tax would be viewed as an act of treason. The question put to Jesus is artful: if Jesus advocates paying the tax, Jesus will be accused of breaking the Jewish law; if Jesus advocates not paying the tax, Jesus will be accused of sedition against Rome.
In response, Jesus answers neither “yes,” nor “no.” Instead, Jesus tells his questioners: “Give, therefore to the emperor the things that are the emperor’s, and to God the things that are God’s,” or in the words many of us grew up with: “Render unto Caesar the things which are Caesar’s and unto God the things that are God’s.”
Oh, if only Jesus had simply answered “yes” or “no”! From the time Jesus uttered these famous words, folk have wondered what exactly Jesus meant. Did Jesus mean we are to give everything to God and nothing to Caesar (a.k.a., the nation) or did Jesus mean some things belong to God and some things belong to the nation and we must honor both loyalties? Is Jesus sanctioning secular rule or condemning secular rule or simply reminding secular rulers they are not God? The nature of the relationship between the faithful and the civic authorities has plagued the church from its beginnings.
Early on, some, such as Justin Martyr in the second century, sought to commend Christianity by describing Christians as good citizens, folk who do not seek to cause trouble but who seek to live in harmony with others. But early on, some Christians found civic life an invitation to compromise their faith and sought a life away from the cities and secular authorities. The faithful have not always viewed civic life in the same light; for the church, determining what belongs to God and what belongs to Caesar has never been easy.
Nineteen hundred years after Jesus spoke these famous (or infamous) words, many Christians believed that humankind was making steady progress in fixing the wrongs of the world – machines and education were changing the world and all this was God’s way of bringing into being the kingdom of God through the gifts God had given to human beings. The nations, particularly our democratic nation, were making the world a better place and optimism ran high that a perfect world lay within our grasp.
And then, just at the height of the optimism that secular authority, if it was democratic, would benefit all of mankind, a world war broke out. And not just one but two; and as the nations battled, what we learned was that humankind was capable of both great good and great evil. Progress, promoted we hoped by our civic governments could build not just railroads and automobiles, but also gas chambers and atomic bombs. What we thought was a steady progression into an increasingly optimistic future dissolved into chaos, a chaos that our parents and grandparents were a part of and in which, one way or another they had to take a stand.
The world wars were a watershed moment in theological circles. In Germany, the church was co-opted by the German government and used to denounce their Jewish neighbors. In the U.S., those who refused to fight were often seen as traitors. Nationalism, on both sides of the Atlantic, for the most part, trumped any serious theological refection upon the nature of a Christian’s relationship to the state, during this time of war. In the end, many simply gave up believing in God altogether.
In the midst of this unsettling time, theologian Richard Niebuhr wrote a remarkable book called Christ and Culture, a classic to this day. In this book, published just after the end of World War II, Niebuhr speaks of the “enduring problem” of Christianity’s relationship to culture, which includes what we call “the state.” From the beginning, Niebuhr argues, the church has not been of one mind over how the church ought to relate to the secular world and secular authorities. Some within the church have perceived the secular world in opposition to the Kingdom of God and sought a life away from the body politic. Others within the church have perceived the secular world as fundamentally aligned with God’s will – the church and the state are not opposed to one another but in basic agreement one with the other. In between those two extremes, Niebuhr notes three other kinds of relationships between the church and the state, relationships which preserve the distinction between the two, but in such a way that Christians have a foot in both worlds.
Niebuhr’s essay continues to be timely for us as we continue to be vexed by questions about prayer in schools, the use of the Bible in public education, and the place of religious views on issues of abortion and same gender marriages. Church and state may indeed be separated in these United States, but the relationship between the church and the state is far from resolved.
None of us, unfortunately, are spared from the “problem” which the Pharisees and Herodians raise in our text this morning and to which Jesus gives a less than clear response. Do our beliefs about God have anything to do with the way we vote or how we spend our money or the way we earn our living? Is there a relationship between politics and religion or should we never bring up both topics in the same conversation? Do politics have any place in the pulpit or ought religion have a voice in the public square? And how does our understanding of who Jesus was weigh in on this problem? Might we resolve the problem differently if we see Jesus as a first century revolutionary or a moral teacher or a revealer of supernatural truths?
We, in the Episcopal Church, understand ourselves as people of the “via media,” the middle way, a way that inclines neither toward papal dictates nor toward the inclinations of independent church bodies. We are a communion, bound together with other churches under the authority of a bishop, who shares equal authority with all other bishops. We value the dictates of conscience and the insights of others. We are not inclined to make pronouncements that are binding on the faithful nor do we believe that “truth” is simply whatever truth is for me. What this means in practice is that we believe that the problem of the relationship between the church and the state which we face this morning is best engaged in community.
But therein lies another problem. In order to be a communion, to grow and learn from one another, we must talk to one another and talking about politics or money or sex is, to say the least, difficult. Most of us, I suspect, believe that our faith ought to inform the way we engage the secular world, but most of us, I presume, are a good bit reluctant to engage one another in conversations about how our faith informs what we do or do not do in our daily lives. Perhaps intuitively, we know what Richard Niebuhr put down in writing – there is more than one way to be faithful and more than one way to “render unto Caesar what belongs to Caesar and to God what belongs to God.” Perhaps we are afraid that the way we have chosen may be questioned, questioned just as the Pharisees and the Herodians are questioned this morning as Jesus calls them to consider what belongs to Caesar and what belongs to God.
I am bemused that our gospel reading this morning comes in the midst of a time in our common life when we are thinking about budgets, money and stewardship. We are, this time of year, struggling to find ways to talk about money and your vestry is trying to uncover some new ways to talk about a perennially difficult subject. Thinking about the money that we have and what we do with it is not something we like to do.
The Pharisees and the Herodians in our gospel reading were not thrilled to hear what Jesus had to say in response to their question and “left him and went away.” The Pharisees and the Herodians were not pleased because instead of trapping Jesus, Jesus trapped them, confronting them with the “problem” we all face as we seek to be faithful to God in the midst of a secular world that also asks for our allegiance.
Jesus does not give us an answer this morning but rather a question: What belongs to God and what belongs to Caesar? We each will have to find our own way but we are not alone. We have one another. That is a reality we need to cherish and to trust. I pray we all might consider anew what it means to be a communion, to be a people who hear Sunday after Sunday the same stories but who must then take those stories and make sense of them in the lives we live from day to day. I pray we will not shrink from reflecting together on the “problems” that confront us as people of faith, trusting in the mercy of God to lead us where God would have us go.
The Nineteenth Sunday After Pentecost Deuteronomy 34: 1 - 12
Sunday, October 23, 2011 I Thessalonians 2: 1 - 8
The Rev. Bambi Willis Matthew 22: 24 - 46
Now while the Pharisees were gathered together, Jesus asked them this question: "What do you think of the Messiah? Whose son is he?"
Matthew 22: 41 - 42a
Many years ago, toward the end of a semester, a new book would show up on the shelves of many college bookstores. The book, appropriately called a "blue book," was a collection of sixteen blank pages stapled together between a pale blue cover. Blue books were used for final exams and when blue books showed up in the bookstore, everyone knew the last ritual of the semester was about to begin. Students were expected to write their answers to final examination questions in these small blank books which were then read and graded. Back then, students were required to buy their own blue books which always felt a little like buying the noose the hangman intended to put around your neck.
The ritual of final examinations is a time honored way of measuring what you have learned over the course of several weeks, months or years. And whether or not blue books are used, the ritual is always the same - the teacher poses a question, you give an answer and the teacher determines whether your answer is right, wrong or somewhere in between. Final examinations, like all tests, are predicated on questions. Asking questions is how we learn and we begin as young children asking why the sky is blue or why eating vegetables is more important than eating ice cream. Our capacity to ask questions reflects our basic curiosity about this world and our desire to understand the way this world works in all of its complexity. When we stop asking questions, we foreclose the possibility of learning something new.
In our gospel reading from Matthew this morning, a lawyer, a Pharisee, asks Jesus a question which Jesus answers and then Jesus asks the Pharisees a question which they cannot answer. And "from that day," Matthew tells us, "did any one dare to ask Jesus any more questions." Up until this point in the gospel of Matthew, Jesus has been asked a lot of questions by the Pharisees and the Sadducees, the Jewish religious authorities. The questions began with a question about why Jesus' disciples were breaking with the traditions of the elders, eating with unwashed hands and the like. Then came a question about divorce and what Jesus had to say about that; next a question about Jesus' authority after Jesus overturned the tables of the money changers in the Temple; and finally a question about the resurrection and whether marriage bonds survive after death. All in all, the questions were fair - tests designed to judge whether or not Jesus was really a prophet or simply a pretender. Today the questions end.
Today Jesus is asked "which commandment in the law is the greatest?" Jesus' answer would have come as no surprise to his questioners. Loving God and loving neighbor summarized the Ten Commandments, out of which grew 613 additional commandments, which comprised the Jewish law. Jesus is not giving a new answer but simply re-stating what every faithful Jew already knew - loving God and loving your neighbor as yourself was the heart of Jewish life and practice. But then Jesus asks a question and Jesus' question is not so readily answered.
Jesus asks the Pharisees what they think about the Messiah. "Whose son is he?" Jesus asks. "The son of David," they respond rightly. The promised Messiah was always understood to "be of the house and lineage of David." Beginning with Abraham, God had promised to set the world right through this people Israel, and King David modeled for the people Israel the kind of king the Messiah would be. But then Jesus quotes from psalm 110, understood to be written by King David, in which King David alludes to a Lord, a master, someone greater than himself. What Jesus is asking, in the words of N.T. Wright: "Is the Messiah David's son or David's master - or perhaps both?" The Pharisees have no answer. And the Pharisees, as well as all the other religious authorities, stop asking questions. Jesus' final exam is over; Jesus' blue book is complete; and the next time we meet the authorities is as they are arresting Jesus in the Garden of Gethsemane.
Is Jesus suggesting, perhaps, with this final question, that when the Messiah comes, these learned teachers of the law will not recognize him? Will the teacher not know the right answer when it is given? Why does this last question about the Messiah end all further questioning? Perhaps, Jesus has opened a possibility that is simply not possible for these teachers of the law.
When I was a freshman at what was then Mary Washington College, I signed up for a class entitled "Old Testament." I had grown up in the Episcopal Church and accordingly had never read the Bible. That semester, for the first time, I read the stories of the Old Testament. The final exam was one question: "Was the God of the Old Testament a God of wrath or a God of mercy?" I opened my blue book and began to write about how the God of the Old Testament was a God of mercy just as I had been taught in Sunday school. I had written about a page in my blue book when I tore it out and began writing again - this time bearing witness to the God I had met in the Old Testament who had consigned all the firstborn of Egypt to death, smitten anyone who dared to touch the ark of the covenant, settled God's people in the promised land by routing the indigeneous people who lived there, and who, in our reading this morning from Deuteronomy, allows Moses to see the promised land but not enter it.
The question on that final exam was asked by a woman who went on to teach and to write at Duke, acquiring national prestige for her theological insights. At the time, though, as I wrote that final exam, I felt like I had betrayed my faith, characterizing the God I worshipped as vengeful and violent. That was not the God I had met in Sunday School and the possibility that God might be something other than warm and fuzzy seemed sacreligious. The question this teacher had asked me invited me to break away from the assumptions of my youth, to consider the possibility that God may be more than I had been schooled to expect.
I never would have ventured into those waters had that question not been asked. Once asked, my complacent Sunday School world fell apart. The question prompted a restlessness that drove me for years and drives me still as I wonder who this God is that we worship. Funny, how one question can lead to all kinds of rumblings and ruminations. Some times I wish she had never asked that question. Some times I wish I could have clung to my Sunday School assumptions about God, about how God was loving and kind and compassionate and not a God who killed all the first born of Egypt simply because they were Egyptian. Sometimes I wish no one would rattle my world with uncomfortable questions. We perhaps need to be a bit more sympathetic to the plight of these religious teachers, more so than our evangelist Matthew often is.
We are here this morning because we believe "Jesus is the answer" in the language of a popular bumper sticker. But we are also here this morning because, in words I have yet to see on a bumper sticker, Jesus is also the question. Jesus was the one who said: "No one is good but God alone." Does that mean none of us are good? Jesus also said not to be anxious about what we will wear or what we will eat. Does that mean saving money for a rainy day is foolish? Jesus also called those who mourn "blessed." Does that mean we should go looking for grief? Jesus said he came not to bring peace but a sword. Does that mean Jesus came not to draw us together but to tear us apart? Jesus said any number of dfficult things, few of which all people at all times have understood in exactly the same way. Jesus - his life, death and resurrection - raises profound questions and always has. And you and I want answers. Unfortunately we cannot get an answer until or unless, we ask a question.
We live in a world that is drowning with information, literally swamped now by television and the internet, ways of getting answers sometimes before we have even asked a question. Watching T.V. the other night, I saw a commercial advertising a drug for an affliction I never knew about but which, I suddenly thought, I might have. I was being given an answer to a question I had yet to ask. And when we do have a question, where do we go? We go to people who can give us answers, to experts, not to people who might help us ask better questions.
Jesus poses a question this morning, a disturbing question about the Messiah to which the teachers of Israel cannot give an answer. And those very same teachers choose to stop asking questions. The tragedy in our text is not that the teachers have no answer to Jesus' question but that they chose to stop asking any more questions. And therein lies the lesson of our text for us. When we become certain that we know God and what God would have us do, when we stop asking questions, and simply give answers, God has a strange way of growing quiet. Maybe God grows quiet because if we have all the answers God has nothing to say.
Sunday, October 23, 2011 I Thessalonians 2: 1 - 8
The Rev. Bambi Willis Matthew 22: 24 - 46
Now while the Pharisees were gathered together, Jesus asked them this question: "What do you think of the Messiah? Whose son is he?"
Matthew 22: 41 - 42a
Many years ago, toward the end of a semester, a new book would show up on the shelves of many college bookstores. The book, appropriately called a "blue book," was a collection of sixteen blank pages stapled together between a pale blue cover. Blue books were used for final exams and when blue books showed up in the bookstore, everyone knew the last ritual of the semester was about to begin. Students were expected to write their answers to final examination questions in these small blank books which were then read and graded. Back then, students were required to buy their own blue books which always felt a little like buying the noose the hangman intended to put around your neck.
The ritual of final examinations is a time honored way of measuring what you have learned over the course of several weeks, months or years. And whether or not blue books are used, the ritual is always the same - the teacher poses a question, you give an answer and the teacher determines whether your answer is right, wrong or somewhere in between. Final examinations, like all tests, are predicated on questions. Asking questions is how we learn and we begin as young children asking why the sky is blue or why eating vegetables is more important than eating ice cream. Our capacity to ask questions reflects our basic curiosity about this world and our desire to understand the way this world works in all of its complexity. When we stop asking questions, we foreclose the possibility of learning something new.
In our gospel reading from Matthew this morning, a lawyer, a Pharisee, asks Jesus a question which Jesus answers and then Jesus asks the Pharisees a question which they cannot answer. And "from that day," Matthew tells us, "did any one dare to ask Jesus any more questions." Up until this point in the gospel of Matthew, Jesus has been asked a lot of questions by the Pharisees and the Sadducees, the Jewish religious authorities. The questions began with a question about why Jesus' disciples were breaking with the traditions of the elders, eating with unwashed hands and the like. Then came a question about divorce and what Jesus had to say about that; next a question about Jesus' authority after Jesus overturned the tables of the money changers in the Temple; and finally a question about the resurrection and whether marriage bonds survive after death. All in all, the questions were fair - tests designed to judge whether or not Jesus was really a prophet or simply a pretender. Today the questions end.
Today Jesus is asked "which commandment in the law is the greatest?" Jesus' answer would have come as no surprise to his questioners. Loving God and loving neighbor summarized the Ten Commandments, out of which grew 613 additional commandments, which comprised the Jewish law. Jesus is not giving a new answer but simply re-stating what every faithful Jew already knew - loving God and loving your neighbor as yourself was the heart of Jewish life and practice. But then Jesus asks a question and Jesus' question is not so readily answered.
Jesus asks the Pharisees what they think about the Messiah. "Whose son is he?" Jesus asks. "The son of David," they respond rightly. The promised Messiah was always understood to "be of the house and lineage of David." Beginning with Abraham, God had promised to set the world right through this people Israel, and King David modeled for the people Israel the kind of king the Messiah would be. But then Jesus quotes from psalm 110, understood to be written by King David, in which King David alludes to a Lord, a master, someone greater than himself. What Jesus is asking, in the words of N.T. Wright: "Is the Messiah David's son or David's master - or perhaps both?" The Pharisees have no answer. And the Pharisees, as well as all the other religious authorities, stop asking questions. Jesus' final exam is over; Jesus' blue book is complete; and the next time we meet the authorities is as they are arresting Jesus in the Garden of Gethsemane.
Is Jesus suggesting, perhaps, with this final question, that when the Messiah comes, these learned teachers of the law will not recognize him? Will the teacher not know the right answer when it is given? Why does this last question about the Messiah end all further questioning? Perhaps, Jesus has opened a possibility that is simply not possible for these teachers of the law.
When I was a freshman at what was then Mary Washington College, I signed up for a class entitled "Old Testament." I had grown up in the Episcopal Church and accordingly had never read the Bible. That semester, for the first time, I read the stories of the Old Testament. The final exam was one question: "Was the God of the Old Testament a God of wrath or a God of mercy?" I opened my blue book and began to write about how the God of the Old Testament was a God of mercy just as I had been taught in Sunday school. I had written about a page in my blue book when I tore it out and began writing again - this time bearing witness to the God I had met in the Old Testament who had consigned all the firstborn of Egypt to death, smitten anyone who dared to touch the ark of the covenant, settled God's people in the promised land by routing the indigeneous people who lived there, and who, in our reading this morning from Deuteronomy, allows Moses to see the promised land but not enter it.
The question on that final exam was asked by a woman who went on to teach and to write at Duke, acquiring national prestige for her theological insights. At the time, though, as I wrote that final exam, I felt like I had betrayed my faith, characterizing the God I worshipped as vengeful and violent. That was not the God I had met in Sunday School and the possibility that God might be something other than warm and fuzzy seemed sacreligious. The question this teacher had asked me invited me to break away from the assumptions of my youth, to consider the possibility that God may be more than I had been schooled to expect.
I never would have ventured into those waters had that question not been asked. Once asked, my complacent Sunday School world fell apart. The question prompted a restlessness that drove me for years and drives me still as I wonder who this God is that we worship. Funny, how one question can lead to all kinds of rumblings and ruminations. Some times I wish she had never asked that question. Some times I wish I could have clung to my Sunday School assumptions about God, about how God was loving and kind and compassionate and not a God who killed all the first born of Egypt simply because they were Egyptian. Sometimes I wish no one would rattle my world with uncomfortable questions. We perhaps need to be a bit more sympathetic to the plight of these religious teachers, more so than our evangelist Matthew often is.
We are here this morning because we believe "Jesus is the answer" in the language of a popular bumper sticker. But we are also here this morning because, in words I have yet to see on a bumper sticker, Jesus is also the question. Jesus was the one who said: "No one is good but God alone." Does that mean none of us are good? Jesus also said not to be anxious about what we will wear or what we will eat. Does that mean saving money for a rainy day is foolish? Jesus also called those who mourn "blessed." Does that mean we should go looking for grief? Jesus said he came not to bring peace but a sword. Does that mean Jesus came not to draw us together but to tear us apart? Jesus said any number of dfficult things, few of which all people at all times have understood in exactly the same way. Jesus - his life, death and resurrection - raises profound questions and always has. And you and I want answers. Unfortunately we cannot get an answer until or unless, we ask a question.
We live in a world that is drowning with information, literally swamped now by television and the internet, ways of getting answers sometimes before we have even asked a question. Watching T.V. the other night, I saw a commercial advertising a drug for an affliction I never knew about but which, I suddenly thought, I might have. I was being given an answer to a question I had yet to ask. And when we do have a question, where do we go? We go to people who can give us answers, to experts, not to people who might help us ask better questions.
Jesus poses a question this morning, a disturbing question about the Messiah to which the teachers of Israel cannot give an answer. And those very same teachers choose to stop asking questions. The tragedy in our text is not that the teachers have no answer to Jesus' question but that they chose to stop asking any more questions. And therein lies the lesson of our text for us. When we become certain that we know God and what God would have us do, when we stop asking questions, and simply give answers, God has a strange way of growing quiet. Maybe God grows quiet because if we have all the answers God has nothing to say.