Spokane Friends Meeting

You may have missed the event when George Fox out did Robin Hood.  He converted the Sheriff of Nottingham!  The first thing the sheriff did was to confess and make restitution to a woman he had cheated.  Then he went into the market place to preach repentance to people. Fox’s letters emphasize purity of life and called people ‘out of the world’s evil ways, words, worships, customs and fashions’.  Here is the ethical aspect of the Gospel.  God’s power, felt in one’s life enables us to change, to throw off the bondage of contemporary culture and live lives pleasing to God. 

Romans 1:.

I found myself working this week in the Book Romans. That material is two thousand years old. We no longer take a three story universe seriously. The early Quaker material that I was reading is nearly 400 years old.  Some of my preparation required reading some of Rufus Jones’ work.  He did his best work between the two world wars and with the generation most effected by Darwin and continental Biblical Criticism which tore Denominations apart in this country.  We really can’t understand what these writers were attempting to impart to us when we read what they wrote through twenty first century lenses.
The Apostle Paul began his letter to the church Rome introducing himself.  He begins :Paul, a servant of Jesus Christ, called to be an apostle, set apart for the gospel of God, which he promised beforehand through his prophets in the holy scriptures, the gospel concerning his Son, who was descended from David according to the flesh and was declared to be Son of God with power according to the spirit of holiness by resurrection from the dead, Jesus Christ our Lord, through whom we have received grace and apostleship to bring about the obedience of faith among all the Gentiles for the sake of his name, including yourselves who are called to belong to Jesus Christ, To all God’s beloved in Rome, who are called to be saints: Grace to you and peace from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ.

I’ve got to tell you that our contemporary translations have been badly watered down.  For instance  in this passage Paul identifies himself as a “slave”, not “servant.”  Those who have a real feel for the times in which Paul wrote understand that Paul sees himself completely at the discretion of his master. In our time it’s easier to understand servant – the concept of slave is beyond us to imagine. He is his master’s envoy.  Where Paul says that he is ‘set apart’  the Greek reads “separated”, actually it’s even more severe than that.  The better translation is “severed” into the Gospel of God.  Remember that the Greek word for the church is ‘ecclesia’ – the called out ones.  You might wonder, called out from what? called out for what? 

In the sixteenth verse of the first chapter Paul wrote:  For I am not ashamed of the gospel; it is the power of God… for salvation to everyone who has faith, to the Jew first and also to the Greek.

Ever thought about that phrase before?  It is from this passage that George Fox based his ministry. He wrote:  The Gospel it is the Power of God to Salvation, for he that believes receives the Power, receives the Gospel, by which Life and Immortality is come to Light, And the Power of God expels away that which Darkens Life, and Immortality from People; and Captivates their Souls, Spirits and Minds, & keeps them in bondage, which Power of God expels that away, and sets them at Liberty, and gives them Dominion over that which burthened them, and to feel and see before that was, which Darkens Life and Immortality from them; And through this Power of God, Life and Immortality shines over that, in which the Saints Fellowship, the Church Fellowship, wherein they come to be Heirs of the Power of God, Heirs of the Gospel, Heirs of the Fellowship, Church Members, Members one of another in the Power of God (the Gospel) that was before the Power of Darkness was.

The Gospel is the power of God.  The Gospel isn’t a message about the power of God.  You see, our confusion comes from thinking that we know what a gospel is.  It is a message of good news.  But that isn’t Fox’s meaning. When Fox says, with Paul, the “gospel of God is the power of God” they are not describing what most of us what call ‘a gospel’.  When Fox was asked ‘what is the gospel’ here was his answer.  “The priest told me Matthew, Mark, Luke and John were the Gospel.  I told him the Gospel was the power of God.”  In Fox’s  8 volume set of his works Fox uses the word ‘gospel’ about 1800 times and 429 of those times he explicitly equates the Gospel with the power of God.   Never does he uses the phrase ‘gospel  message’ and never says that a proposition or a message is the power of God or that preaching  a particular message will release into the world God’s power.

When Fox does speak of preaching the Gospel you  might think this gospel was a message.  But it becomes quickly clear that there is no proposition to be proved or debated.  What is the power of God? Fox answers “Friends … know the power in one another and in that rejoice: for then you rejoice in the Cross of Christ…which Cross is the power of God to all them that are saved.  So you know the power and feel the power, you feel the cross of Christ, you feel the gospel, which is the power of God unto Salvation to everyone that believeth.”  So instead of a proposition it is a power which can be felt in one’s self and  in others; it works  to save believers; it is one with the cross of Christ.  It’s work is liberation.  He wrote  the Power of God expels away that which Darkens Life, and Immortality from People; and Captivates their Souls, Spirits and Minds, & keeps them in bondage, which Power of God expels that away, and sets them at Liberty…”  Now that sounds like good news to me.

Let me try this one more way.  For Fox, the gospel is not a verbal thing.  He wrote: For the Jews that heard not, and saw not within, stood against the gospel: and Christ said , ‘their ears were stopped and their eyes were closed;’ and so they heard words but the gospel, the power of God, they could not hear, … so none hear but they that hear within….”

Robert Barclay, the scholarly contemporary of George Fox  quotes the Apostle Paul in Romans 1:16 in his attempt to contrast the Quaker understanding of the gospel with the conventional one.  He wrote: For the gospel is not a mere declaration of good things, being “the power of God unto salvation to all those that believe” (Rom 1:16).  Though the outward declaration of the gospel be taken sometimes for the gospel; yet it is but figuratively, and metonymy. For to speak properly the gospel is the inward Power and Life which preacheth glad tidings in the hearts of all men, offering salvation unto them and seeking to redeem them from their iniquities, and therefore it is said to be preached in ‘every creature under heaven” …

Fox’s hearers knew that they were being called, not merely to preach a message, but to change their way of life, and that was immediately.

You may have missed the event when Fox out did Robin Hood.  He converted the Sheriff of Nottingham.  The first thing the sheriff did was to confess and make restitution to a woman he had cheated.  Then he went into the market place to preach repentance to people. Fox’s letters emphasize purity of life and called people ‘out of the world’s evil ways, words, worships, customs and fashions.  Here is the ethical aspect of the Gospel.  God’s power, felt in one’s life enables us to change, to throw off the bondage of contemporary culture and live lives pleasing to God.

As Friends went out they were not content to make this proclamation in a passive manner.  They believed that they were to make this proclamation in a way that challenged the existing order and called all men and women to come out of it.  Fox wrote:

All husbandmen, and dealers about husbandry whatsoever, cattle, or ground, to you all this is the word of the Lord God: do rightly, holily, justly, honestly, plainly, and truly to all men and people, whomsoever ye have to deal withal; wrong not any in any case, though it be never so much to your advantage. Deny yourselves, and live in the cross [Luke 9:23] of Christ, the power of God [1 Cor 1:24], for that destroys injustice; and ‘without holiness none can ever see the Lord [Heb 12:14]; and out of righteousness there is no true peace.’ Therefore all, of what sort soever, or what calling soever, do justly, (whether ye be masters or servants, fathers or mothers, sons or daughters,) to one another, and to all, do that which is just and righteous, uprightly and holily; in that you will have peace, and see God. . . . For ‘the kingdom of God stands in righteousness, peace, and joy in the holy ghost [Rom 14:17].

“Peter declares that Jesus was about the business of changing people’s lives. He sums up Jesus’ ministry by saying that he “went about doing good and healing all who were oppressed by the devil”. Evil diminishes life for individuals and communities. It can dominate our will and remove the freedom to live in ways that are life-sustaining. It is seen in addictions and compulsions that drive the lives of individuals and the systems of abuse from which families and societies cannot seem to break free. The Gospels tell us that Jesus overcame what was killing people in order to restore them to life.”

Acts 10:34-43 Then Peter began to speak to them: “I truly understand that God shows no partiality, 35but in every nation anyone who fears him and does what is right is acceptable to him. 36You know the message he sent to the people of Israel, preaching peace by Jesus Christ—he is Lord of all. 37That message spread throughout Judea, beginning in Galilee after the baptism that John announced: 38how God anointed Jesus of Nazareth with the Holy Spirit and with power; how he went about doing good and healing all who were oppressed by the devil, for God was with him. 39We are witnesses to all that he did both in Judea and in Jerusalem. They put him to death by hanging him on a tree; 40but God raised him on the third day and allowed him to appear, 41not to all the people but to us who were chosen by God as witnesses, and who ate and drank with him after he rose from the dead. 42He commanded us to preach to the people and to testify that he is the one ordained by God as judge of the living and the dead. 43All the prophets testify about him that everyone who believes in him receives forgiveness of sins through his name.”

To appreciate the importance of these verses you need to understand its context. Cornelius is a Roman spit and polish soldier currently posted to the Empire’s headquarters in Caesarea. We are told that, though not a Jew he reveres God and contributes generously to meet the needs of people in the community. Because of his faithfulness Cornelius has a vision in which he is directed to summon Simon Peter to his home. At the time Peter is in Joppa, thirty miles away rooming with a Simon the tanner.

Tanning is considered one of the world’s dirtiest occupations. It wasn’t that tanners were ritually unclean, but there was a social repugnance for tanners because of their stench and filth. It was said for a tanner to look for a wife any place other than the family of another tanner was a waste of time. Simon the tanner may have stunk to high heaven but, from Peter’s point of view he was a Jew. The picture we are given is that Peter is living and breathing the smells of the tanning operation when he goes up on the roof top, probably for a breath of fresh air.

While there, like Cornelius, Peter has a vision. He sees a sheet full of unclean animals come down from heaven. A voice commands Peter to kill and eat these animals, but he refuses since, according to Jewish law, they are ritually unclean. Then the voice said, “What God has made clean, you must not call profane”. When the messengers from Cornelius arrive, Peter realizes that the vision wasn’t at all about unclean food, it was about how Jews were prejudiced against gentiles, that is non-jews. There is an Old Testament story with which Peter would have been familiar that happened in Joppa. Remember Jonah. God called him to preach to Gentiles and he decided he’d rather run away or die.

Peter thinks better of it and goes with Cornelius’ servants and enters his house. That’s important. Cornelius is a Gentile, an official in the occupying Roman army and he is from another nation. He may revere God and give alms generously, but he is a Gentile, not a member of the people of Israel. Does he belong to the people of God as Peter does, or not? Peter says to Cornelius ‘I need not tell you that a Jew is forbidden by his religion to visit or associate with anyone of another race. Yet God has shown me clearly that I must not call anyone profane or unclean…” I don’t know if you caught the irony in the story but Peter was much more comfortable staying in the stench and filth of Simon’s home than in the luxury of a Roman officials home. It makes you wonder how we make choices.

Later in our text find Peter begins his sermon saying “God shows no partiality,” for “in every nation anyone who fears and does what is right is acceptable to him.” To say that “God shows no partiality” means that belonging is not matter of one’s ethnic background. The issue is faith and the kind of life that flows out of faith.

In his message Peter declares that Jesus was about the business of changing people’s lives. He sums up Jesus’ ministry by saying that he “went about doing good and healing all who were oppressed by the devil“. Evil diminishes life for individuals and communities. It can dominate our will and remove the freedom to live in ways that are life-sustaining. It is seen in addictions and compulsions that drive the lives of individuals and the systems of abuse from which families and societies cannot seem to break free. The Gospels tell us that Jesus overcame what was killing people in order to restore them to life. It says that Jesus healed those who had been tyrannized by others. In simply theological language, Jesus’ goal was to release people from what made them captives. The Greek word usually translated “forgiveness” literally means “release.” Living destructively brings people to a point where the pattern of destruction defines the present and limits the future. For a person to have a different life, such behavior must no longer define us. This is what forgiveness means. It means that the grace of God brings release from the continuing to live destructively so that through a word of grace there can be a different future.

Do we live according to the words of Peter’s experience. “I truly understand that God shows no partiality, but in every nation anyone who fears him and does what is right is acceptable to him. Of course the question for us today is whether we embrace such grace for ourselves or others.

There’s a certain irony here:  Simon Peter’s comfort staying in the home of a Jewish Tanner and his great discomfort entering the home of a spit and polish Roman centurion. It says something about our prejudices.

Acts 10: 34-43 Our text for today comes from the pen of the same person who authored the Gospel of Luke.  Tradition says that Luke was a traveling companion to the Apostle Paul and not a disciple of Jesus.  His Gospel wasn’t written until about 90 A.D. or some sixty years after Jesus’ life and ministry.  The book of Acts was written sometime after that. That, of course makes great sense because at that time fewer than five percent of the population were literate, and those were of the wealthy elite. Luke is the only Gentile to have his writings included in the Bible.

The first part of our passage starts with Peter’s admission that the way God sees and accepts people is a challenge to Jews, good news for Gentiles and of great interest to Luke.  He uses Peter’s speech to summarize the life, teachings and ministry of Jesus of Nazareth, a Galilean no less, who was anointed by God with the Holy Spirit and with power and that he went about doing good and healing those who were oppressed the devil.

Acts 10:34-43 Then Peter began to speak to them: “I truly understand that God shows no partiality, but in every nation anyone who fears him and does what is right is acceptable to him.

To appreciate the importance of these words of Peter you need to understand the context out of which they arose. It all starts with Cornelius, a Roman officer stationed at the Roman capital of the area located in Caesarea. Luke sets the stage with this description of him. He was “a centurion in the Italian Cohort.” “He was a religious man, and he and his whole family joined in the worship of God. He gave generously to help the Jewish people, and was regular in his prayers to God.” And, because of his faithfulness in a vision he was instructed by an angel of God to summon Simon Peter to come to his home.  At the time Peter is in Joppa, a good thirty miles south of Caesarea, rooming with a Jewish tanner.

Tanning is considered one of the world’s dirtiest occupations.  It wasn’t that tanners were ritually unclean, but there was a social repugnance for tanners because of their stench and filth.  It was said for a tanner to look for a wife any place other than the family of another tanner was a waste of time.   Simon the tanner may have stunk to high heaven but, from Peter’s point of view he was a Jew.  The picture we are given is that Peter is living and breathing the smells of the tanning operation when he goes up on the roof top, probably to catch a breath of fresh air off the Mediterranean.

While there, like Cornelius, Peter also has a vision. A sheet full of unclean animals come down from heaven. A voice commands Peter to kill and eat these animals, but he refuses since they are ritually unclean according to Jewish law. Then the voice said, “What God has made clean, you must not call profane” (10:16). When the messengers from Cornelius arrive, Peter realizes that the vision is not just about unclean food, it is about unclean people.

You’ve got to remember another story rooted in Joppa.  It’s the story of Jonah who refuses God’s call to preach grace to the Gentiles and quite unsuccessfully tries to flee.  Peter goes with Cornelius’ servants and enters his house.  That’s important.  Cornelius is a Gentile, an official in the occupying Roman. He may revere God and give alms generously, but he is a Gentile, not a member of the people of Israel.  Does he belong to the people of God as Peter does, or not?  In the story of Cornelius Peter says to Cornelius ‘I need not tell  you that a Jew is forbidden by his religion to visit or associate with anyone of another race.  Yet God has shown me clearly that I must not call anyone profane or unclean…”

There’s a certain irony here:  Simon Peter’s comfort staying in the home of a Jewish Tanner and his great discomfort entering the home of a spit and polish Roman centurion. It says something about our prejudices.

Luke has Peter beginning his sermon saying “God shows no partiality,” for “in every nation anyone who fears and does what is right is acceptable to him.”  To say that “God shows no partiality” means that belonging is not matter of one’s ethnic background. The issue is faith and the kind of life that flows out of faith.  Some how that piece of good news has taken a back seat to latter day orthodoxy.

Then Luke, through the voice of Peter, offers a summation of Jesus’ life and work. “You know the message he sent to the people of Israel, preaching peace by Jesus Christ—he is Lord of all. That message spread throughout Judea, beginning in Galilee after the baptism that John announced: how God anointed Jesus of Nazareth with the Holy Spirit and with power; how he went about doing good and healing all who were oppressed by the devil, for God was with him.

We could spend a great deal of time on just those few sentences.  “…preaching peace by Jesus Christ”;  “he is Lord of all.” And then, after last Sunday seeing the significance of Galilee for Matthew reading Luke saying that though the message began in Galilee he speaks only of how it spread through Judea.  Then he describes in other terms Jesus’ ministry: how God anointed Jesus of Nazareth with the Holy Spirit and with power; how he went about doing good and healing all who were oppressed by the devil, for God was with him.  This is quite a challenge to orthodoxy.

For those of you who have problems with the phrase ‘oppressed by the devil’ I want to assure you that what Peter is quoted as saying isn’t what you may think he means.  It wasn’t until dualism became common a couple of centuries later that ‘the devil’ took on this cloak of being God’s adversary.  Luke already reminded us of the story of Jonah, well here is a reminder of the story of Job and God’s prosecuting attorney.  The one who challenges us in our easy faith.

In the thirty ninth verse of this passage Peter reports the Easter story: We are witnesses to all that he did both in Judea and in Jerusalem. (Again, notice Luke’s refusal to acknowledge Galilee). They put him to death by hanging him on a tree; but God raised him on the third day and allowed him to appear, not to all the people but to us who were chosen by God as witnesses, and who ate and drank with him after he rose from the dead. He commanded us to preach to the people and to testify that he is the one ordained by God as judge of the living and the dead. All the prophets testify about him that everyone who believes in him receives forgiveness of sins through his name.”

Peter declares that Jesus was about the business of changing people’s lives. He sums up Jesus’ ministry by saying that he “went about doing good and healing all who were oppressed by the devil”.   Regardless of whether evil should be personified or not, we  do see and experience that which diminishes life for individuals and communities. We’ve seen and experienced how it can dominate our will and remove the freedom to live in ways that are life-sustaining. It is seen in addictions and compulsions that drive the lives of individuals and the systems of abuse from which families and societies cannot seem to break free. What ever this is, it is like an undeniable infection or cancer that takes life away. To heal, the Gospels tell us that Jesus overcame what was killing people in order to restore them to life.  The same today.  That which is killing people, destroying lives and making life hell has to be named.  In simply theological language, the goal is that people might be released from sin. The Greek word usually translated “forgiveness” is aphesis, which literally means “release.”   Living destructively brings people to a point where the pattern of destruction defines the present and limits the future.  For a person to have a different life, such behavior must no longer define us. This is what forgiveness means. It means that the grace of God brings release from  living destructively so that through a word of grace there can be a different future.

For Luke, not only is it important to him personally, but he will later joyfully report how Peter says the same to church leaders in Jerusalem.  He says “this means…that God has granted life-giving repentance to the Gentiles also.”

Of course the question for us today is whether we embrace such grace.  Do the words of Peter’s experience has resonance with us?  “I truly understand that God shows no partiality, but in every nation anyone who fears him and does what is right is acceptable to him.

The radical truth of Christianity, which sets it off from all other world-faiths, is that God became a human being and not just any human being, but Jesus of Nazareth.  He was a Jew.  But he wasn’t just any Jew, he was a Galilean Jew.

Sunday after Easter

The Gospel of John actually ends with the twentieth chapter without mention of Galilee.  The twenty first chapter is an add on that corrects his story by describing a later meeting of  Jesus with his disciples at the sea of Tiberias, the Roman name for Galilee that, according to John, occurred sometime later.  There is no mention of Galilee in Mark or Luke.  Luke concludes his Gospel with Jesus and company going no farther than the little village of Bethany in the Jerusalem’s suburbs and reports Jesus’ ascension. And then in the Book of Acts, his sequel to his Gospel, we read this of Jesus: “giving instructions through the Holy Spirit to the apostles whom he had chosen. 3After his suffering he presented himself alive to them by many convincing proofs, appearing to them during forty days and speaking about the kingdom of God. 4While staying with them, he ordered them not to leave Jerusalem…”

Matthew, the contrarian, reports three times where certain disciples of Jesus were instructed to meet the Lord in Galilee after His resurrection. The first was during the Passover meal that Jesus ate the night of his betrayal. He informed his disciples, saying, “After I have been raised, I will go before you to Galilee” (Matthew 26:32). Three days later, on the day of Jesus’ resurrection when Mary Magdalene and the other women came to the empty tomb of Jesus, Matthew reports that the effusive angel told them to notify the disciples of Jesus’ resurrection, and to tell them exactly the same thing they were told three days earlier: “He is going before you into Galilee; there you will see Him” (28:7). Then, only three verses later, as the women were on their way to inform the disciples of Jesus’ resurrection and the message given to them by the angel, Matthew says that Jesus appeared to them and said: “Rejoice!… Do not be afraid. Go and tell my brothers to go to Galilee, and there they will see me” (28:9-10). Then Matthew tells us that the disciples went to Galilee.  Why Galilee?  Why not Jerusalem?  Why not Judea? What is so significant about Galilee, at least to Matthew?  This is another reason that the Gospel’s can’t be harmonized.  I have to wonder why Luke goes out of his way to say that the disciples were to stay in Jerusalem while Matthew is clear about Jesus’ instructions for them to go to Galilee.

The radical truth of Christianity, which sets it off from all other world-faiths, is that God became a human being and not just any human being, but Jesus of Nazareth.  He was a Jew.  But he wasn’t just any Jew, he was a Galilean Jew. True, Jesus was born in Bethlehem of Judea, but his stay in Bethlehem was only a matter of weeks, if that.  He was never known as Jesus of Bethlehem, but Jesus of Nazareth. Nazareth, in Galilee, that was his real home. Matter of fact he was conceived in Nazareth.  He made Galilee the center of his life and work. Why Galilee?

Unlike Jerusalem and Judean Jews, for Galilean Jews their home land was a multicultural, multiracial region. Galileans were, in every sense of the word, a racially and culturally mixed people.  Galilee was surrounded and inhabited by Phoenicians, Syrians, Arabs, Greeks, Romans and others.  This racial and cultural mix affected their language; Galileans were often ridiculed for not speaking correct Aramaic and Hebrew. Their speech betrayed them.  Remember how Peter was able to deny Jesus but he couldn’t deny being a Galilean:  “Certainly you are one of them, for you are a Galilean, your accent betrays you” (Mark 14:70; Matthew 26:73).  The terms “peasants,” “the common people,” the ‘am ha-arez —”the people of the land” —were all terms applied to Galileans, all of which carried the stigma of a religiously uneducated people.  The Talmud advises orthodox Judean Jews “No man may marry the daughter of the ‘am ha-arez, for they are like unclean animals, and their wives like reptiles, and it is concerning their daughters that Scripture says: ‘Cursed be he who lies with any kind of beast’ (Deut.  27:21).”

On the political side, Galilee was the headquarters for the majority of the revolutionary movements attempting to overthrow Roman oppression.  It was the home of Judas the Galilean, the founder of the Zealot Movement.  Tradition has it that about the time when Jesus was just a small boy in Nazareth, possibly 8-10 years of age, Judas the Galilean captured the weapons arsenal of Herod the Great and led a revolt against the Romans.  But Rome crushed the rebels, leveled the town, sold the women and children into slavery and crucified some two thousand Jews.  All of this took place merely four miles from Nazareth.  Can you imagine the impact that this must have made on Jesus’ young impressionable mind?    In Luke 13:1-3 Jesus relates the incident of Pilate mingling the blood of Galileans with their sacrifices.  Notice the tone of compassion towards the Galileans in His words:  “Do you suppose that these Galileans were greater sinners than all other Galileans, because they suffered this fate? I tell you, no.”  It could very well have been that some of these Galileans whom Pilate slaughtered were Jesus’ own playmates as a boy in Nazareth.  The point is that rebellion was so common in Galilee that the term “Galilean”  took on the dark political connotation of a possible association with Judas the Galilean.”  Remember the sign placed over Jesus’ head when he was crucified?  It read “Jesus of Nazareth, King of the Jews,” the connection to Galilean rebellious movements was very strong.  Here is another pretender to the throne; this is what Rome does to such!

Pedigree was also involved.  There was this notion that only Israelites of pure ancestry made up the pure Israel.   After the exile, genealogies became important in order to separate pure families from those racially mixed.  The books of Ezra, Nehemiah and 1 and 2 Chronicles, written after the exile, are all filled with genealogical lists.    In the post-exilic period, these lists were important in order to determine who was a pure Israelite.  A person could not be a priest unless they could prove their ancestral purity to at least five generations.  No person could hold a public office who was not of pure ancestry  nor would they associate in court or in public office with persons whose ancestry was of doubt.  Proof of pure ancestry was important for a woman to marry into a priestly family.  Every Israelite knew his immediate ancestors and could point to which of the twelve tribes he belonged.  If the Messiah were to come from any place it would be from Judea, from Bethlehem, from Jerusalem—  but not Galilee! When Nicodemus stood up in the Council and defended Jesus, even he was labeled as a Galilean: “Are you from Galilee too? Search and you will see that no prophet is to rise from Galilee!” (John 7:40-52).

Galilee was the land of the rejected, the despised, the outcasts and foreigners.  It was here where people, wanting to escape from the puritans of Judea could flee into anonymity and obscurity.  This is where Jesus found Mary Magdalene and healed her of demon possession.  Their racial and cultural mix and their constant contact with gentiles and heathens, resulted in Galileans being despised and rejected by the “pure” Jews of Jerusalem who saw themselves as the sole heirs of cultural and religious purity.   As far as the Jews were concerned, nothing good could ever come out of Galilee, except a bunch of, rabble-rousers, half-breeds, ruthless, unrighteous people who despise the teachings of God.  Thus Galileans were regarded as fools, heretics and rebels.   No wonder Nathaniel was shocked to hear that the Messiah was coming from Galilee.  It was the last place from which one would expect the Messiah to come. Remember his reply to Phillip?:  “Can any good thing come out of Nazareth?” (John 1:43-46).

There’s a huge change in how Jesus addresses his followers in this text.  We of the Religious Society of Friends hang our hats on the passage in John 14 where Jesus says “I no longer call you servants (or slaves) but friends”  and the reason given is that he had told his followers everything, making them equals in that they would love one another.  But the shift is even greater in this passage in Matthew.  He tells the women to go tell “my brothers” – this is ghetto talk, barrio talk… this isn’t ancestry.com, it’s brotherhood from sharing the same cultural realities.

Galileans, by their racial and cultural mixture, were not only deprived of earthly social positions, they were predestined to hell!  Yet, when one looks at the attitude of John the Baptist and Jesus, they both disdained the preoccupation with ancestral and racial purity.  When the Pharisees insisted they were the children of Abraham and had Abraham as their father, John tells them that it is not ancestral purity that matters in the Kingdom of God, but repentance  (Matthew 3:9).  And Jesus declares to the religious leaders, that it is belief in the Son of God,  and not in being descents of Abraham, that would save them (John 8:36).

The human scandal of God’s way does not begin with the cross, but with the historical-cultural incarnation of  Jesus, in Galilee.  That God chose to become a Galilean underscores the great paradox of the incarnation in which God becomes the despised and lowly of the world and identifies with them and becomes one with them.

In Mark 1:9, 14-15, we read that Galilee is not only the place from  which Jesus comes to be baptized, but the place into  which he returns to begin his ministry.  One of the challenges faced by persons of  minority groups, or people that have experienced a great deal of powerlessness in society, is that once they leave the barrio or the ghetto, no one wants to go back.  We’ve seen this with international students from third world countries sent abroad to get training to enrich their homeland only to choose not to return. The push for upward mobility is too strong, and people no longer want to identify with their roots, their people. And here is the reason for the importance for Jesus’ brothers to meet him in Galilee–somebody has to go back and tell them that there is hope.  Jesus comes from that ghetto, he is the quintessential “homeboy”!  Out of Galilee, the place of the nobodies, comes the Somebody of God, Jesus Christ, who goes back into Galilee to form a community of hope, a community consisting of the children of God.

After Matthew tells us that the keepers of the tomb reported their experience with the angel to the religious authorities and are given hush money he concludes his Gospel with this: Now the eleven disciples went to Galilee, to the mountain to which Jesus had directed them. 17When they saw him, they worshiped him; but some doubted. 18And Jesus came and said to them, “All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me. 19Go therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, 20and teaching them to obey everything that I have commanded you. And remember, I am with you always, to the end of the age.”

Here is the great commission. And the reality of to whom Jesus’ brothers were first called to go can’t be missed.  That’s were Jesus is and where we will meet Jesus, in Galilee among the Galileans.

…interestingly enough, even after two thousand years we can experience what those two women experienced in the cemetery on that first Easter morning.  We can, even today, experience the fellowship that his followers enjoyed on the Galilean shore.  The stories recounted in the other Gospels of Jesus coming among his followers – can still be ours today.  The living, aroused, Jesus is among us and as he said, is with us until the end of the age.  That’s the promise of Easter.

Easter

Scholarship suggests that the resurrection we celebrate today occurred on the morning of April 5^th in the year 33. That’s based on fixing the crucifixion at 3: p.m. on April 3^rd in the year 33.  The earliest account of Jesus’ resurrection is reported by the Apostle Paul in his first letter to the Corinthians, written from Ephesus in the year 56, some twenty three years later. All of the Gospel accounts are written even later. The point is, there are no eye witness accounts.  At best what we have preserved are stories that circulated within the wider fellowship of the followers of ‘the way’.

You recall that the women in Mark’s version go to the tomb wondering about who will roll the stone away.  In Luke and John the women find the stone rolled away and Jesus’ body missing. Matthew’s account of Easter morning starts similarly to John’s.  As soon as daylight permits, the text actually says “at the end of the Sabbath”, the two Marys begin their trek to see the tomb…and from that moment on Matthew’s story takes a very different course.    Matthew goes for the spectacular. It’s thunder and lightning, earthquake, wind and fire all rolled together. It is the best that nature can muster in response to the arrival of an angel of the Lord.

After the sabbath, as the first day of the week was dawning, Mary Magdalene and the other Mary went to see the tomb. And suddenly there was a great earthquake; for an angel of the Lord, descending from heaven, came and rolled back the stone and sat on it.  His appearance was like lightning, and his clothing white as snow. For fear of him the guards shook and became like dead men.

Matthew answers the question that the women in Mark’s version were asking “who will roll the stone away for us?”  The angel, that’s who.  And he not only rolls it back, he sits on it.  His is a commanding presence, shinning like lightning itself.  Those commissioned by the authorities, the Greek calls them ‘keepers’, to ensure that Jesus’ followers didn’t steal the body and then claim that the promised resurrection occurred, are rendered senseless, dumb-founded – shock and awe at the sight of the angel that rolled the stoned away and were completely shaken by the earthquake.

Matthew allows us to imagine what happens about the time the women arrive at the sepulcher.  The women were afraid.  Which is the first thing the angel says to them: But the angel said to the women, “Do not be afraid;…”  Yeah, right.  The commanding presence of this brilliant angel looking down at them from his perch atop the stone and they aren’t supposed to be afraid.   To complete the picture you have to imagine Mary Magdalene and the other Mary standing in front of the open tomb with the dumb struck keepers looking up at the angel. How different this is from the one young man in Mark and the two men who Luke says ‘stood by’.  And you’ll recall from reading John’s version, on Mary’s second trip to the tomb there are two angels in white sitting quietly where Jesus’ body had been laid.

The angel continued:  “I know that you are looking for Jesus who was crucified. He is not here; for he has been raised, as he said.  And he had said. You have to think back to Matthew 16 to when Jesus had tried to prepare his disciples for what lay ahead.  He told them that he must go to Jerusalem and suffer many things at the hands of the elders, the chief priests and the teachers of the law, and that he must be killed and on the third day be raised to life.  “He has been raised, as he said” the angel told them.  I wonder whether, in all the Passover activity and then the legal proceedings and then being witnesses to Jesus’ excruciatingly painful crucifixion that they had had time to reflect on what they had been told weeks or before.  But the angel knew.  He knew why they had come to the cemetery and he was exuberant in telling them the good news “he has been raised…”  A better Greek translation is ‘he has been roused’.

And what of us, do we, like those two Marys, still come to Easter morning expecting to find an entombed Jesus?  That’s not where Jesus is to be found.

Wrapping up his colloquy the angel says Come, see the place where he lay. Then go quickly and tell his disciples, ‘He has been raised from the dead, and indeed he is going ahead of you to Galilee; there you will see him.’ This is my message for you.”

This is the Easter story.  It was the message of the effusive angel “He has been roused from the dead.”  There’s a great story that still needs to be nudged out of the text but it isn’t the Easter story. It’s the story for next week. The Easter story is simple but is simply beyond my capacity to understand.  My brain gets in the way.

When we were in truck driving school and struggling to learn how to snug the DOT bumper of a 53 foot long trailer up against a dock our trainer said, ‘just follow it back’.  What?  Sitting in that high seat, staring at two rear view mirrors and the dock in the distance and he’s telling me to get out of my head and trust my instincts and allow the trailer to lead me.  It wasn’t a matter of belief, that’s a head trip.   It was simply a matter of letting off the clutch.

Easter’s like that.  Jesus was roused the Greek text says.  He was crucified, dead and buried, as the Apostle’s Creed confesses but God didn’t leave him there.  He didn’t leave his message there.  He didn’t leave his mission – not at all. Matthew says So they left the tomb quickly with fear and great joy, and ran to tell his disciples. Suddenly Jesus met them and said, “Greetings!” And they came to him, took hold of his feet, and worshiped him. 10Then Jesus said to them, “Do not be afraid; go and tell my brothers to go to Galilee; there they will see me.” 

During the Passover meal before the events of the last three days when Jesus ate the night of His betrayal, he informed his disciples, saying, “After I have been raised, I will go before you to Galilee.”  We will explore that next week.  Now, the serious challenge of Easter is no different than it was that morning in the garden, but, I think, quite a bit more difficult for us. We really don’t know how to get out of our heads, we don’t know how to extricate ourselves from geography and geometry.  We prefer to concoct theories about how things happen and then create belief statements that we repeat and ask others to repeat.  You can’t believe it but death wasn’t an end and we get to celebrate it’s new beginnings.

No one witnessed the resurrection – not even the struck dumb Roman keepers – But the witnesses that are most important are the time tested stories of people whose lives have been interrupted by the aroused Jesus.  Matthew tells us that the first two were the two Marys.  “Jesus met them and said ‘surprise, it’s me’ – that’s a lot closer to the Greek than ‘greetings’.  Later Matthew tells of a shore side breakfast and a commissioning. The other Gospels are similar in that regard.

The last words of Jesus in Matthew’s Gospel are these: “And remember, I am with you always, to the end of the age.”  We can’t comprehend it. But, interestingly enough, even after two thousand years we can experience what those two women experienced in the cemetery on that first Easter morning.  We can, even today, experience the fellowship that his followers enjoyed on the Galilean shore.  The stories recounted in the other Gospels of Jesus coming among his followers – can still be ours today.  The living, aroused, Jesus is among us and as he said, is with us until the end of the age.  That’s the promise of Easter.

You see, we can’t overlook the donkey. The donkey obediently bears the voice and provides the base for God to speak. The donkey which returns again and again over thousands of years to this same little square of real estate crushes our feet to get us to acknowledge the messenger and the message from God. And the message hasn’t changed. There is a God of promise, a God of hope, a God of compassion and grace who desires to have a relationship with us, with me, with you.

Matthew, in the twenty-first chapter, relates the story of Jesus’ entry into Jerusalem. The story on which Palm Sunday is based occurred about two thousand years ago. When they had come near Jerusalem and had reached Bethphage, at the Mount of Olives, Jesus sent two disciples, 2saying to them, “Go into the village ahead of you, and immediately you will find a donkey tied, and a colt with her; untie them and bring them to me. 3If anyone says anything to you, just say this, ‘The Lord needs them.’ And he will send them immediately.” 4This took place to fulfill what had been spoken through the prophet, saying, 5“Tell the daughter of Zion, Look, your king is coming to you, humble, and mounted on a donkey, and on a colt, the foal of a donkey.” 6The disciples went and did as Jesus had directed them; 7they brought the donkey and the colt, and put their cloaks on them, and he sat on them. 8A very large crowd spread their cloaks on the road, and others cut branches from the trees and spread them on the road. 9The crowds that went ahead of him and that followed were shouting, “Hosanna to the Son of David! Blessed is the one who comes in the name of the Lord! Hosanna in the highest heaven!” 10When he entered Jerusalem, the whole city was in turmoil, asking, “Who is this?” 11The crowds were saying, “This is the prophet Jesus from Nazareth in Galilee.”

Matthew is at great pains to place Jesus’ entering Jerusalem’s Temple Mount in the very center of Israel’s history and tradition. In his telling the story he quotes part of Zechariah 9:9 Rejoice greatly, O daughter of Zion! Shout in triumph, O daughter of Jerusalem! Behold, your king is coming to you; He is just and endowed with salvation, Humble, and mounted on a donkey,…. That Jesus is mounted on a donkey was no small thing. Now in our time we think of the donkey as an humble beast of burden and an animal of industry, clearly not a fit animal for any important assignment. Of course reality is that for the rough terrain of the eastern Mediterranean it was much better suited than the horse.

One of the most important stories in Jewish tradition is called “The Binding of Isaac”. It is found in Genesis 22:3: So Abraham rose early in the morning and saddled his donkey, and took two of his young men with him and Isaac his son; and he split wood for the burnt offering, and arose and went to the place of which God had told him. The place to which Abraham was commanded to take Isaac ostensibly to sacrifice his late in life miracle son was an elongated north-south stretch of mountainous wilderness known as Mount Moriah. When it occurred, four thousand years ago, the location meant nothing to the actors in this intense drama that ultimately contrasted a single God of abundance and grace with the blood thirsty gods of Caanan. But we know that that place in the wilderness would, in time, become the seat of David’s government and of Israel’s worship, the home to Solomon’s Temple and Herod’s Temple, the old city of Jerusalem. The fact that Abraham was mounted on donkey is no little thing in Israel’s salvation history.

The most important Biblical reference to a donkey is found in the tenth commandment which warns the Israelites to not covet their neighbor’s donkey. Had you ever noticed? I’ve just got to ask that of all the things in the world we might be tempted to covet, would it be our neighbor’s donkey? I dare not touch the question of whether it was a man’s wife or his donkey which is of greater importance. According to Jewish teaching, when the tenth commandment speaks of not coveting either another man’s donkey or his wife this has everything to do with seeking knowledge from God. The Jews recognized that a man’s wife represents a spiritual medium. In the reference to a donkey the Israelites are being warned not to seek messages from foreign prophets.

Probably the most famous donkey in the Old Testament is the one ridden by Balaam. You remembe the story. While on his way to curse the Children of Israel, Balaam and his donkey passed between two vineyards. Standing in their way was an angel with a drawn sword, but only the donkey was able see him. In an attempt to save his master, the donkey turned from the path and crushed Balaam’s foot against a stone wall. Balaam, oblivious to the angel’s presence, began to beat the donkey and at this point the donkey began to speak. By crushing Balaam’s foot the donkey was attempting to make Balaam aware of the presence of the messenger of God. The donkey of Balaam both speaks and carries the prophet on his back. The donkey is both “a voice” as well the means of delivery for God’s messengers. Of course the good news is that after the donkey speaks, Balaam is able “to see” the angel.

There are some other donkey stories. There is the message of salvation in the story whre Joseph sends wheat to his father from Egypt on the backs of donkeys. And when the Syrian general, Naaman, returned home he took dirt from the land of Israel on the backs of two donkeys we have a story about the importance of the land of Israel. I particularly like the story of Saul, before he was anointed king, He was actually on a mission to find his father’s donkeys. On that excursion Saul meets Samuel and his life is changed forever. It reinforces the connection between donkeys and communications from God. And of special importance for today, three thousand years ago, a thousand years before the time of Jesus, King Solomon entered what becomes the Temple Mount in Jerusalem to assume the throne of David, the very same piece of turf and, wouldn’t you know it, on the back of a donkey. The donkey again is the medium by which messages from God arrive.

Mounted on a donkey Jesus wasn’t just entering Jerusalem to cheering crowds. It’s too easy for us to envision an historical event in which the whole of Jerusalem lined the streets, thronging the new Messiah. What the authors of the Bible fail to tell us is that on the same day, while Jesus, mounted on a donkey, enters Jerusalem near the north entrance to the outer court of the Temple Pilate is parading through one of the main gates of the city on a war horse accompanied by a squadron or two of battle-hardened Roman soldiers.

There were two parades that day. The first and by far the biggest consisted of those who wanted to curry favor with the political, religious and military power. The other crowd is singing a pilgrims’ chant of “Hosanna” from Psalm 118:25-26. It is an acclamation of praise. “Son of David”, and “He who comes in the name of the Lord”, are both messianic titles. “Hosanna in the highest” is equivalent to “Glory to God in the highest.” Tradition doesn’t tell us what the other crowd was singing but you can bet it wasn’t “Blessed be he who comes in the name of the Lord”

It is important, however, not to cut story from its moorings so that it becomes a triumphalist celebration. Two thousand years before Jesus Abraham rode his donkey into the wilderness of Mount Moriah in obedience to God. A thousand years before Jesus Solomon, astraddle a donkey, entered David’s enclave to assume the throne of Israel. Matthew tells us that two thousand years ago, just like Solomon and Abraham before him, Jesus approaches that exact same piece of real estate mounted on a donkey.

In contrast to Pilate Jesus doesn’t enter Jerusalem as if he were a glorious king seeking the adulation of the populous, nor does he come as a conquering king seeking vengeance. Jesus comes in peace; he comes to bring peace between the Creator and his creation; he comes to break down the barriers that exist between humankind; he comes that we may find a peace that passes all understanding. Matthew has the crowd proclaiming Jesus as the king in Jerusalem who has come as an outsider, a prophet from Galilee (Matthew 21:11). This is not a case of “meet the new boss, same as the old boss”: things are going to change, and in the biggest of ways, when Jesus is king — starting with how kings rule. Matthew also wants people to know that when he says that Jesus is king, we’re not talking about kingship as it’s usually conceived, or kingship as it’s usually used by those who have it. Jesus is a king who restores the glory of God’s people, but not with military victories. Jesus is not like other kings. Jesus did not come to be “king of the hill,” but to fulfill our longing that, as we find in Isaiah 40 “every mountain and hill be made low; the uneven ground shall become level,and the rough places a plain.“

Isn’t that what the writer of the Gospel According to John meant when he wrote that Jesus said to Pilate, “my kingdom is not of this world”. It’s not that Jesus is uninterested in what happens on earth. Quite the opposite is true. Jesus didn’t come to tell us to give up on the earth, any more than he came to rule it like Pilate. Jesus came to redeem it. Jesus is king, but his kingship is not of Pilate’s world.Jesus didn’t come to take over Pilate’s system; he came to replace it. When we confess that Jesus is Lord and Christ, the anointed king, we are leaving no room for the Pilates of this world. When we confess Jesus as Lord – not in some distant world or only in the future, but of all that is, and of here and now – we are proclaiming the Good News. To affirm the vision of the kingdom and to live out its hopes in the present means championing alternatives to existing structures of oppression and authority. And it is possible, with Jesus as Lord, for all those with power to use it as he used his, for the vision of the prophets to find flesh among us who proclaim Christ the king.

You see, we can’t overlook the donkey. The donkey obediently bears the voice and provides the base for God to speak. The donkey which returns again and again over thousands of years to this same little square of real estate crushes our feet to get us to acknowledge the messenger and the message from God. And the message hasn’t changed. There is a God of promise, a God of hope, a God of compassion and grace who desires to have a relationship with us, with me, with you.

Matthew, in the twenty-first chapter, relates the story of Jesus’ entry into Jerusalem. The story on which Palm Sunday is based occurred about two thousand years ago. When they had come near Jerusalem and had reached Bethphage, at the Mount of Olives, Jesus sent two disciples, 2saying to them, “Go into the village ahead of you, and immediately you will find a donkey tied, and a colt with her; untie them and bring them to me. 3If anyone says anything to you, just say this, ‘The Lord needs them.’ And he will send them immediately.” 4This took place to fulfill what had been spoken through the prophet, saying, 5“Tell the daughter of Zion, Look, your king is coming to you, humble, and mounted on a donkey, and on a colt, the foal of a donkey.” 6The disciples went and did as Jesus had directed them; 7they brought the donkey and the colt, and put their cloaks on them, and he sat on them. 8A very large crowd spread their cloaks on the road, and others cut branches from the trees and spread them on the road. 9The crowds that went ahead of him and that followed were shouting, “Hosanna to the Son of David! Blessed is the one who comes in the name of the Lord! Hosanna in the highest heaven!” 10When he entered Jerusalem, the whole city was in turmoil, asking, “Who is this?” 11The crowds were saying, “This is the prophet Jesus from Nazareth in Galilee.”

Matthew is at great pains to place Jesus’ entering Jerusalem’s Temple Mount in the very center of Israel’s history and tradition. In his telling the story he quotes part of Zechariah 9:9 Rejoice greatly, O daughter of Zion! Shout in triumph, O daughter of Jerusalem! Behold, your king is coming to you; He is just and endowed with salvation, Humble, and mounted on a donkey,…. That Jesus is mounted on a donkey was no small thing. Now in our time we think of the donkey as an humble beast of burden and an animal of industry, clearly not a fit animal for any important assignment. Of course reality is that for the rough terrain of the eastern Mediterranean it was much better suited than the horse.

One of the most important stories in Jewish tradition is called “The Binding of Isaac”. It is found in Genesis 22:3: So Abraham rose early in the morning and saddled his donkey, and took two of his young men with him and Isaac his son; and he split wood for the burnt offering, and arose and went to the place of which God had told him. The place to which Abraham was commanded to take Isaac ostensibly to sacrifice his late in life miracle son was an elongated north-south stretch of mountainous wilderness known as Mount Moriah. When it occurred, four thousand years ago, the location meant nothing to the actors in this intense drama that ultimately contrasted a single God of abundance and grace with the blood thirsty gods of Caanan. But we know that that place in the wilderness would, in time, become the seat of David’s government and of Israel’s worship, the home to Solomon’s Temple and Herod’s Temple, the old city of Jerusalem. The fact that Abraham was mounted on donkey is no little thing in Israel’s salvation history.

The most important Biblical reference to a donkey is found in the tenth commandment which warns the Israelites to not covet their neighbor’s donkey. Had you ever noticed? I’ve just got to ask that of all the things in the world we might be tempted to covet, would it be our neighbor’s donkey? I dare not touch the question of whether it was a man’s wife or his donkey which is of greater importance. According to Jewish teaching, when the tenth commandment speaks of not coveting either another man’s donkey or his wife this has everything to do with seeking knowledge from God. The Jews recognized that a man’s wife represents a spiritual medium. In the reference to a donkey the Israelites are being warned not to seek messages from foreign prophets.

Probably the most famous donkey in the Old Testament is the one ridden by Balaam. You remember the story. While on his way to curse the Children of Israel, Balaam and his donkey passed between two vineyards. Standing in their way was an angel with a drawn sword, but only the donkey was able see him. In an attempt to save his master, the donkey turned from the path and crushed Balaam’s foot against a stone wall. Balaam, oblivious to the angel’s presence, began to beat the donkey and at this point the donkey began to speak. By crushing Balaam’s foot the donkey was attempting to make Balaam aware of the presence of the messenger of God. The donkey of Balaam both speaks and carries the prophet on his back. The donkey is both “a voice” as well the means of delivery for God’s messengers. Of course the good news is that after the donkey speaks, Balaam is able “to see” the angel.

There are some other donkey stories. There is the message of salvation in the story where Joseph sends wheat to his father from Egypt on the backs of donkeys. And when the Syrian general, Naaman, returned home he took dirt from the land of Israel on the backs of two donkeys we have a story about the importance of the land of Israel. I particularly like the story of Saul, before he was anointed king, He was actually on a mission to find his father’s donkeys. On that excursion Saul meets Samuel and his life is changed forever. It reinforces the connection between donkeys and communications from God. And of special importance for today, three thousand years ago, a thousand years before the time of Jesus, King Solomon entered what becomes the Temple Mount in Jerusalem to assume the throne of David, the very same piece of turf and, wouldn’t you know it, on the back of a donkey. The donkey again is the medium by which messages from God arrive.

Mounted on a donkey Jesus wasn’t just entering Jerusalem to cheering crowds. It’s too easy for us to envision an historical event in which the whole of Jerusalem lined the streets, thronging the new Messiah. What the authors of the Bible fail to tell us is that on the same day, while Jesus, mounted on a donkey, enters Jerusalem near the north entrance to the outer court of the Temple Pilate is parading through one of the main gates of the city on a war horse accompanied by a squadron or two of battle-hardened Roman soldiers.

There were two parades that day. The first and by far the biggest consisted of those who wanted to curry favor with the political, religious and military power. The other crowd is singing a pilgrims’ chant of “Hosanna” from Psalm 118:25-26. It is an acclamation of praise. “Son of David”, and “He who comes in the name of the Lord”, are both messianic titles. “Hosanna in the highest” is equivalent to “Glory to God in the highest.” Tradition doesn’t tell us what the other crowd was singing but you can bet it wasn’t “Blessed be he who comes in the name of the Lord”

It is important, however, not to cut story from its moorings so that it becomes a triumphalist celebration. Two thousand years before Jesus Abraham rode his donkey into the wilderness of Mount Moriah in obedience to God. A thousand years before Jesus Solomon, astraddle a donkey, entered David’s enclave to assume the throne of Israel. Matthew tells us that two thousand years ago, just like Solomon and Abraham before him, Jesus approaches that exact same piece of real estate mounted on a donkey.

In contrast to Pilate Jesus doesn’t enter Jerusalem as if he were a glorious king seeking the adulation of the populous, nor does he come as a conquering king seeking vengeance. Jesus comes in peace; he comes to bring peace between the Creator and his creation; he comes to break down the barriers that exist between humankind; he comes that we may find a peace that passes all understanding. Matthew has the crowd proclaiming Jesus as the king in Jerusalem who has come as an outsider, a prophet from Galilee (Matthew 21:11). This is not a case of “meet the new boss, same as the old boss”: things are going to change, and in the biggest of ways, when Jesus is king — starting with how kings rule. Matthew also wants people to know that when he says that Jesus is king, we’re not talking about kingship as it’s usually conceived, or kingship as it’s usually used by those who have it. Jesus is a king who restores the glory of God’s people, but not with military victories. Jesus is not like other kings. Jesus did not come to be “king of the hill,” but to fulfill our longing that, as we find in Isaiah 40 “every mountain and hill be made low; the uneven ground shall become level, and the rough places a plain.“

Isn’t that what the writer of the Gospel According to John meant when he wrote that Jesus said to Pilate, “my kingdom is not of this world”. It’s not that Jesus is uninterested in what happens on earth. Quite the opposite is true. Jesus didn’t come to tell us to give up on the earth, any more than he came to rule it like Pilate. Jesus came to redeem it. Jesus is king, but his kingship is not of Pilate’s world. Jesus didn’t come to take over Pilate’s system; he came to replace it. When we confess that Jesus is Lord and Christ, the anointed king, we are leaving no room for the Pilates of this world. When we confess Jesus as Lord – not in some distant world or only in the future, but of all that is, and of here and now – we are proclaiming the Good News. To affirm the vision of the kingdom and to live out its hopes in the present means championing alternatives to existing structures of oppression and authority. And it is possible, with Jesus as Lord, for all those with power to use it as he used his, for the vision of the prophets to find flesh among us who proclaim Christ the king.

You see, we can’t overlook the donkey. The donkey obediently bears the voice and provides the base for God to speak. The donkey which returns again and again over thousands of years to this same little square of real estate crushes our feet to get us to acknowledge the messenger and the message from God. And the message hasn’t changed. There is a God of promise, a God of hope, a God of compassion and grace who desires to have a relationship with us, with me, with you.

I can’t believe all the opinions I found about the goodness of sheep and the badness of goats trying to answer the question “What does Jesus have against goats?” I’ve got an answer. Nothing. According to the parable the Son of Man is not sorting sheep or goats. He is sorting people. They are simply divided the way a shepherd does. It’s a literary device. A simile. Through out the rest of the parable it is about those on the right or the left. You might recall in Exodus 12, when the original instructions for Passover were offered people were told they should choose a lamb of either a sheep or a goat.

Premised on how God has welcomed us, in the teachings of Jesus and the Apostle Paul, hospitality is presented as central to Christians’ life together. Today our culture reduces ‘hospitality’ to friendliness and private entertaining and with regard to the stranger, the indigent and the powerless, we have foisted this ancient obligation onto government and not for profit programs. Has genuine hospitality become a lost art? Christian hospitality remains a public and economic reality by which God re-creates us through the places and people we are given. Recovering this ancient tradition is essential in a world that has grown terrifyingly defensive and harsh.

Sarah Dylan Breuer says that all are invited to experience ‘salvation’ without precondition. And then goes on to answer the question “… what is salvation”? Both Jesus and Paul saw salvation not as merely a promise of a blessed afterlife. Salvation is something that starts today, and it’s about a certain kind of life — specifically, a life in community. And in both Jesus’ view and Paul’s, that’s not just any community, it’s a family. Jesus said that anyone who hears God’s word and does it is his sister or brother or mother (Mark 3:35). And the metaphor Paul most often uses for what we are as the Church, for who we are in Christ, is that we are sisters and brothers. Some modern translations have mangled that by employing the word “believers” for seeing the body of Christ of consisting of brothers and sisters. In other words, the invitation Jesus gives us is the invitation to relationship — with one another as much as with him and with the God who created us. Jesus’ invitation to us, his ragtag band of disciples from all nations, is to join God’s people. The invitation to join the community is issued to everyone. But the quality of life in the community — the extent to which our life together is an experience of members of one Body of Christ and a foretaste of the kingdom of heaven come to earth now — has a direct relationship to how we choose to live together once we accept Jesus’ invitation. That’s the invitation issued to us today. That’s the vision we’re called to claim as ours until it is realized for the world.

That’s the challenge of this parable spoken by Jesus.

Matthew 25:31-46

“When the Son of Man comes in his glory, and all the angels with him, then he will sit on the throne of his glory. 32All the nations will be gathered before him, and he will separate people one from another as a shepherd separates the sheep from the goats, 33and he will put the sheep at his right hand and the goats at the left.

Then the king will say to those at his right hand, ‘Come, you that are blessed by my Father, inherit the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world; 35for I was hungry and you gave me food, I was thirsty and you gave me something to drink, I was a stranger and you welcomed me, 36I was naked and you gave me clothing, I was sick and you took care of me, I was in prison and you visited me.’

Then the righteous will answer him, ‘Lord, when was it that we saw you hungry and gave you food, or thirsty and gave you something to drink? 38And when was it that we saw you a stranger and welcomed you, or naked and gave you clothing? 39And when was it that we saw you sick or in prison and visited you?’ 40And the king will answer them, ‘Truly I tell you, just as you did it to one of the least of these who are members of my family, you did it to me.’

Then he will say to those at his left hand, ‘You that are accursed, depart from me into the eternal fire prepared for the devil and his angels; 42for I was hungry and you gave me no food, I was thirsty and you gave me nothing to drink, 43I was a stranger and you did not welcome me, naked and you did not give me clothing, sick and in prison and you did not visit me.’

Then they also will answer, ‘Lord, when was it that we saw you hungry or thirsty or a stranger or naked or sick or in prison, and did not take care of you?’ 45Then he will answer them, ‘Truly I tell you, just as you did not do it to one of the least of these, you did not do it to me.’ 46And these will go away into eternal punishment, but the righteous into eternal life.”

As this parable is structured several things are important to acknowledge. Jesus sets this parable in terms of the Pharisaic doctrine of the resurrection of the body and the eternal life of the soul with which the Jews of his day were familiar. It is set in the Kingdom of God, sometime after earthly life has concluded and all is said and done. There is no opportunity for any do-over or changes. There is no opportunity to make a defense or offer a list of reasons, excuses or alibis. The Son of Man does a basic sort of all humankind. Sheep on his right. Goats on his left.

I can’t believe all the opinions I found about the goodness of sheep and the badness of goats trying to answer the question “What does Jesus have against goats?” I’ve got an answer. Nothing. According to the parable the Son of Man is not sorting sheep or goats. He is sorting people. They are simply divided the way a shepherd does. It’s a literary device. A simile. Through out the rest of the parable it is about those on the right or the left. You might recall in Exodus 12, when the original instructions for passover were offered people were told they should choose a lamb of either a sheep or a goat.

The one of the throne pronounces sentences. To those on the right he says: ‘Come, you that are blessed by my Father, inherit the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world’… And to those on the left he says ‘You that are accursed, depart from me into the eternal fire prepared for the devil and his angels;’. That seems awful unfair to us. We want to think that judgment would be a personal thing based on what we believe or our achievements or our intentions. That’s clearly not the picture Jesus paints in the parable.

In both cases the standard by which people were judged was either for I was hungry and you gave me food, I was thirsty and you gave me something to drink, I was a stranger and you welcomed me, I was naked and you gave me clothing, I was sick and you took care of me, I was in prison and you visited me.’ or , for I was hungry and you gave me no food, I was thirsty and you gave me nothing to drink, I was a stranger and you did not welcome me, naked and you did not give me clothing, sick and in prison and you did not visit me.’ Either you did nor did not respond to the needs of ‘The Son of Man’. That’s pretty simple.

Both neither those on the left or on the right have any conscious recollection of when they had or had not met the test. Both ask the same question: “Lord, when was it that we saw you hungry or thirsty or a stranger or naked or sick or in prison…?” Why was there no recall? Because the Son of Man wasn’t in the divine throne room sitting in judgment and wearing his robe. He was out in the world identifying with the indigent, unclean, struggling, mentally challenged, anxious, vulnerable, incarcerated, hungry, homeless and powerless. “…just as you did it to one of the least of these who are members of my family, you did it to me.” The least of these…

Could we really allow the Christ child, the boy born as king and the one appointed by God to judge the nations, to die of malnutrition in infancy in Africa, or have his hate kindled by living among the displaced being brutalized and depersonalized in a refugee camp knowing who this child is and just how little it would take to see him grow up and realize all he was created to be? Could we let a young girl have her life taken away in the sex trade or by spending her days fetching water rather than going to school, and her family suffering when the water she carries is causes illness? If we loved Jesus as much as we say we do, if we knew what we did and didn’t do for this family was what we did and didn’t do for the Christ? Or do we want to experience fellowship with Christ by serving and empowering the poor, outcast, and prisoners–the least of our world?

This invitation is not for after we die — then the chance to act is gone. It’s an invitation for this moment, this day, this generation. And, please, it’s not about avoiding punishment. It’s interesting to ask of his parable whether there were those on the left who had great intentions but failed to follow through and were there truly nasty people on the right who had unintentionally done the right thing. And what about this? Doesn’t this free us up from making decisions about who deserves our assistance and who doesn’t because they are in dire straits because of their own poor choices? I like the notion that those on the right didn’t do what they had done for praise or recognition nor did they do what they did out of obligation. Evidently they saw a need and met it, like George Mallory said of his climbing Everest, because it was there. There is no divine micromanagement of our lives.

What we do, the extent to which we respond to Jesus’ invitation not just to come into the House of God’s chosen people, but to live as one of the family, in relationship with and caring for the rest of the family, is the extent to which we experience eternal life, God’s just and peaceful kingdom, right here and now. It is in such community that we become aware of the needs of others. In Paul’s words, Christ’s risen life is the “first fruits,” and we are called to enjoy the full harvest of that abundant life. The goal is not justice. Justice alone leaves no room for mercy and grace. It’s hospitality. It’s sharing the extravagant grace of our creator. Do you want a taste of that? It’s there for you now, as abundant as are the opportunities to exercise compassion toward the least of Jesus’ sisters and brothers.

Tepid, lukewarm, indifferent, cool, halfhearted, apathetic, unenthusiastic, perfunctory,  noncommittal…those are words to describe the one who was ejected. Too un-involved to slip on a party robe.  Could our response to the gracious invitation of God become jaded that way?  Oh, that’s a different word with synonyms like tired, bored and lacking enthusiasm.  Of course that is what typically follows having too much of something.  Imagine, having too much of God’s hospitality and grace.

Matthew 22:

The background for our lesson today is pretty heady.  Jesus had just chased the money changers out of the Temple and then had withdrawn to Bethany for the night.  The next morning he returned and the Gospel reads: “When he entered the temple, the chief priests and the elders of the people came to him as he was teaching, and said, “By what authority are you doing these things, and who gave you this authority?”  The issue of authority continues up until today to be a huge issue for the professionally religious. But, before  Jesus answers he challenges them to answer his question first. “From where did the Baptism of John come, from heaven or men?”  Their answer was that they couldn’t tell, which was a way to cover up the fact the whatever they said would be used against them in the court of public opinion.

What follows are a couple of pretty brutal parables focused on the religious authorities. In one two sons were called to work in the father’s vineyard… one said he wouldn’t and did the other said he would and then didn’t. He chastised the leaders for their answer about which of  the two sons was the most righteous.   The next story was about those who operated a man’s vineyard on shares and in refusing to recompense the owner beat and killed the man sent to collect and then killed the owner’s son.  He asked the chief priests and elders what was required of the law.  Of course he used their answer to further show their hypocrisy. And that’s when they decided that Jesus was too much for them and that he needed to be incarcerated.  But, just like their unwillingness to answer Jesus’  first question to them, out of fear of the general public in that many considered Jesus a prophet, they did nothing.

Our  text takes up there.  Our modern translations simply say that Jesus, again, spoke to them in parables. Our word parable comes from the Greek  παραβολή (parabolē), meaning “comparison, illustration, analogy.”  It was the name Greek  rhetoricians gave to an illustration in the form of a brief fictional narrative. This one is not on the list of favorite New Testament parables….

Once more Jesus spoke to them in parables, saying: ²“The kingdom of heaven may be compared to a king who gave a wedding banquet for his son. ³He sent his slaves to call those who had been invited to the wedding banquet, but they would not come. ⁴Again 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.’ ⁵But they made light of it and went away, one to his farm, another to his business, ⁶while the rest seized his slaves, mistreated them, and killed them. ⁷The king was enraged. He sent his troops, destroyed those murderers, and burned their city. ⁸Then he said to his slaves, ‘The wedding is ready, but those invited were not worthy. ⁹Go therefore into the main streets, and invite everyone you find to the wedding banquet.’ ¹⁰Those slaves went out into the streets and gathered all whom they found, both good and bad; so the wedding hall was filled with guests. ¹¹“But when the king came in to see the guests, he noticed a man there who was not wearing a wedding robe,¹²and he said to him, ‘Friend, how did you get in here without a wedding robe?’ And he was speechless. ¹³Then 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.’ ¹⁴For many are called, but few are chosen.”

The king’s invitation list had been drawn up carefully and circulated. When all was prepared the king sent messengers to call those who had been invited. To a person, those he wanted to be there refused to come.  He sent different servants those who had been invited to say the time to come was at hand, explaining all he had done to make things ready. Making light of it some went to work others actually treated the king’s servants shamefully and actually killed them.  Angered, the king sent the army to kill the worst of the lot and destroy their city.

The banquet was ready and those the king preferred to attend had proven themselves unworthy of his hospitality.  That’s were that well rehearsed line is spoken “⁹Go therefore into the main streets, and invite everyone you find to the wedding banquet.’ ¹⁰Those slaves went out into the streets and gathered all whom they found, both good and bad; so the wedding hall was filled with guests.”

We’d really like it if Jesus’ parable ended there.  In the face of rejection by the preferred the banquet hall was filled with those caught up in a status free sweep of the community, the good and bad alike.  Were it to end there it would be this great story about the King’s universal  generosity, hospitality and welcome to all. In Luke’s version the first people caught up in the drag net were the poor, maimed and blind and lame but not being enough to fill the banquet hall the servants were told ‘Go out to the highways and hedges and compel people to come in that my house may be filled.’

That’s not how Matthew’s version ends.  You have to wonder what Matthew had in mind when he concluded the parable the way he did.

The banquet hall is packed with people not originally invited.  And one person in the whole gathering was not wearing a wedding garment.  When the king asked how he got in without the garment he didn’t know what to say.  The king had him tossed out.  Only one out of all those who packed the banquet hall was expelled.

In trying to make sense of this, Fred Craddock, some years ago, suggested that Matthew,  in writing the conclusion to Jesus’ parable, was aware of how easily grace can melt into permissiveness and wanted to warn the church against losing the distinction between accepting all persons and condoning all behavior.  All are invited to God’s banquet but there is more required than just having a belly button.

Another person wrote that she couldn’t sleep nights after reading this parable until she learned that it was the responsibility of the host to provide the wedding garment. The failure of the one tossed from the party was that he didn’t put on what had been provide him.

In Rom 13:12 the Apostle Paul wrote: The night is almost gone, and the day is near. Therefore let us lay aside the deeds of darkness and put on the armor of light.  In Ephesians six he counseled his readers to “Put on the full armor of God “ and then described each piece. But in Jesus’ parable in Matthew this wasn’t armor, armor for protection or of illumination.  This amounted to simply slipping into a robe that was provided.  It was part of being fully engaged in the celebration.  Coming in and consuming the banquet wasn’t just about good nutrition – it was about celebrating the king’s son’s wedding.

Tepid, lukewarm, indifferent, cool, halfhearted, apathetic, unenthusiastic, perfunctory,  noncommittal…those are words to describe the one who was ejected. Too un-involved to slip on a party robe.  Could our response to the gracious invitation of God become jaded that way?  Oh, that’s a different word with synonyms like tired, bored and lacking enthusiasm.  Of course that is what typically follows having too much of something.  Imagine, having too much of God’s hospitality and grace.

There’s a bit of African American spirituality that seems appropriate. It goes:

I’ve got a robe, you’ve got a robe, All of God’s children got a robe;
When I get to Heaven, goin’ to put on my robe, Goin’ to shout all over God’s Heav’n.

Refrain:
Heav’n, Heav’n, Ev’rybody talking ’bout heav’n ain’t going there,
Heav’n, Heav’n, Goin’ to shout all over God’s Heav’n.

In a culture built on “rights” and “justice,” there seems to be little room for generosity and abundance. No one can receive more than others. Envy rules. In this the tremendous place envy plays both in our economic dealings and in our dealings with God are revealed.

Matthew 20:1-16

The “parable of the laborers in the vineyard” is unique to Matthew.  One traditional interpretation of this parable has been to focus on the very last verse where it says “the last will be first…,” and insist on understanding the parable as a statement about the gift of eternal life as the ultimate equalizer, that will be granted to all “laborers in the vineyard.”  But there may be a more practical application that might require a different title.

From our contemporary context, this parable brings to mind issues of immigration and daily laborers. What is “fair” for those who work among us as migrant workers or labor in the various service industries which supporting our highly educated professional class and our technologically-driven economic complex? And, what is it to us if the minimum wage rises to assist those workers on the lowest end of our economic system?

It is fascinating that even after two thousand years this parable in Matthew 20 still arouses indignation in some people.

20“For the kingdom of heaven is like a landowner who went out early in the morning to hire laborers for his vineyard. 2After agreeing with the laborers for the usual daily wage, he sent them into his vineyard. 3When he went out about nine o’clock, he saw others standing idle in the marketplace; 4and he said to them, ‘You also go into the vineyard, and I will pay you whatever is right.’ So they went. 5When he went out again about noon and about three o’clock, he did the same. 6And about five o’clock he went out and found others standing around; and he said to them, ‘Why are you standing here idle all day?’ 7They said to him, ‘Because no one has hired us.’ He said to them, ‘You also go into the vineyard.’ 8When evening came, the owner of the vineyard said to his manager, ‘Call the laborers and give them their pay, beginning with the last and then going to the first.’ 9When those hired about five o’clock came, each of them received the usual daily wage. 10Now when the first came, they thought they would receive more; but each of them also received the usual daily wage. 11And when they received it, they grumbled against the landowner, 12saying, ‘These last worked only one hour, and you have made them equal to us who have borne the burden of the day and the scorching heat.’ 13But he replied to one of them, ‘Friend, I am doing you no wrong; did you not agree with me for the usual daily wage? 14Take what belongs to you and go; I choose to give to this last the same as I give to you. 15Am I not allowed to do what I choose with what belongs to me? Or are you envious because I am generous?’ 16So the last will be first, and the first will be last.”

To cut to the chase Jesus says the Kingdom of heaven is like this very responsible landowner.  More than anyone else he is critically aware that he can’t make wine from grapes on the vine.  He knows that he is in business.  He negotiates a usual days wage and sends those who were available out into his vineyard. He goes to the labor pool at nine but this time he doesn’t  negotiate with them he simply says “I’ll pay you what’s right!” He is desperate for more hands and he needs them now.  He does the same at noon and three.  Too much sun, to much rain, too little sun, too little rain and too long ripe on the vines cuts into his income.  He hires. He hires every available pair of hands to pick his grapes.  We shouldn’t miss the reality that his is not the only vineyard in the valley that needs pickers at the same time.  At this point he is in competition with the other wine producers who need the same help at the same time.  He is desperate. He goes out at five, with only a hour left to work.  I also think he may be thinking ahead, planning the work that’s needed the next day.  He needs all the hands he can get. But beyond that this vineyard owner is part of the fabric of the Jewish society in which Jesus lives and teaches.  Derived from the written and oral Torah there is a standard covenant of employer/employee relations from which Conservative Jews and Conservative Jewish institutions operate.  It is a commitment to treat their workers with dignity and respect; pay their employees a living wage and not knowingly put them at risk of injury or death. Employees, in turn, are expected to do their best work and treat their employers with the same dignity and respect due them.  This is a special relationship in which both employers and employees feel that their work in ‘sacred’ and they are involved in a partnership with God in the work of creation.In Leviticus and Deuteronomy the Torah specifies that one must pay a worker on the day that he completes his work. In Jesus’ parable the manager is sent out to pay the daily laborers – not for the hours they worked but a day’s wages.  The underlying principle is that a day worker needs a day’s wage to meet his family’s needs.  Paying less than that leaves the worker and his family destitute.   The Torah recognizes that often a worker is in urgent need of his wages; he needs to feed himself and/or his family. To postpone paying him may cause him distress and, in some cases, death.   In addition, by keeping this patter we train ourselves to be compassionate and kind. This, in turn, prepares us to accept God’s goodness to us.

This is a hard concept for us.  Jesus’ parable holds up for all to see a responsible business person. We are expected to live our values in the ways in which we care for members of our communities, in our choices about how to spend time and money, and in other aspects of our communal lives.  Conservative Jews do that because they believe that their commitments to individuals within their communities, their children, and to the principles of their system are not theoretical constructs. Low-wage workers are members of our communities.  If we are to live our values in our business practices, we will be considerate in determining how much to pay these employees and how to treat them.

Did you catch that last Sunday evening on Downtown Abbey when the Jewish family was asked whether it was hard for them, being Jewish, to get good employees?  The response was, “We are Jews and we pay well.”

That’s a pretty high bar.  Jesus started his story saying that the landowner and vineyard operator was like the Kingdom of God. In that, he meets his obligations and provides a model for others in the community.  Every worker gets a daily wage, not based on the hours worked but based on their need.

Then there are the grumblers.  Speaking of those who were paid a day’s wage but had worked fewer hours they said to the landowner “you have made them equal to us who have borne the burden of the day and the scorching heat.” And yes, that is exactly what he had done.  He paid each and everyone a living wage.

Rhetorically the landowner pleads: “Am I not allowed to do what I choose with what belongs to me? And of course in our culture the answer to that,  is ‘no’.  You can’t open a pot store next to an elementary school.  You can’t have topless baristas serving coffee in some neighbourhoods.  The owner’s property does not belong to him; it belongs to the community. Ask the people in Nebraska who are in court over pipeline proponents and their claims of imminent domain. Here, everyone gets only what is just. No room for generosity is allowed. All ownership that would allow for generosity is unjust.

In a culture built on “rights” and “justice,” there seems to be little room for generosity and abundance. No one can receive more than others. Envy rules. In this the tremendous place envy plays both in our economic dealings and in our dealings with God are revealed.  Is it true that there is more rejoicing over one sinner who repents than over the ninety-nine who need no repentance. We can lose the Kingdom of Heaven if we are just but begrudge generosity to others. Must God in dealing with us be only just? Must we blame God if God is more than just? Must we be more than just?

In the divine owner’s contract with us, we must accept one condition, namely, His generosity. Many a just man refuses it.

The last question was for the workers and us : Or are you envious because I am generous?  How do you respond to that?  The literal Greek is “Is your eye evil because I am good?”   Reference to the “evil eye” (ophthalmos poneros) suggested a deeper problem than meets our eye. As Jesus taught in the 6th chapter “The eye is the lamp of the body. So, if your eye is healthy, your whole body will be full of light; but if your eye is unhealthy your whole body will be full of darkness”. In this account, the “evil eye” was the opposite of generosity.  In both Islamic and Jewish cultures the ‘evil eye’ is taken quite seriously.  It’s about regretting the good fortune of another.  It’s about jealousy, greed and  stinginess.
So our  parable is really not about the “laborers in the vineyard.” In fact, this is not even a story about the productivity of the vineyard. We hear the complaints of those who have toiled all day long, but the story was really not about them either.  Rather, Jesus’ parable highlights the generosity of God.  God, the ultimate “landowner,” will use what has always belonged to the Creator for the good of all, even if humans fail to view the world through God’s eyes. In Jesus words in the fifth chapter God’s perfection is exemplified in God’s rain on the just and the unjust. The landowner’s question in the parable is Jesus’ punchline: “Are you envious because I am generous?”

Reconciliation and acceptance is meant to be at the core of who we are, and to be honest with you, if we can’t do it between ourselves in the church, how can we ever be agents of reconciliation in the world? Right here, Jesus gives a clear blue-print for how our community of faith might be a holy place where holy relationships might flourish. And, it’s something that we need to practice until it is so ingrained in our DNA, we can’t imagine living another way.

Our text from Matthew 18 is bracketed by parables and teaching on how we are to see ourselves in relation to others. Preceding the passage we read that Jesus responded to the question of who’s the greatest in the Kingdom by calling a child into the gathering. It was a clear call to humility and self deprecation and a warning about placing “a stumbling block” in the way of someone less prominent. Next comes the story of the shepherd who leaves the ninety-nine in order to restore a wayward lamb. The story emphasizes the value of every person. No one is expendable.

In the narrative immediately following our text Jesus tells Peter that the requirement of seeking reconciliation is beyond calculation. And added to that we hear the scathing story of the unforgiving servant which makes the point that God, from whom we have received grace, expects us to extend that grace to others. It’s more than mere forgiveness. We can actually take pride in how forgiving we’ve been. It can give us the notion that we are a step above another in righteousness. Forgiveness must come from the heart. Which takes us to our text. I’m reading from the New Revised Standard Version. It is an update of the American Standard Version.

15“If another member of the church sins against you, go and point out the fault when the two of you are alone. If the member listens to you, you have regained that one. 16But if you are not listened to, take one or two others along with you, so that every word may be confirmed by the evidence of two or three witnesses. 17If the member refuses to listen to them, tell it to the church; and if the offender refuses to listen even to the church, let such a one be to you as a Gentile and a tax collector. 18Truly I tell you, whatever you bind on earth will be bound in heaven, and whatever you loose on earth will be loosed in heaven. 19Again, truly I tell you, if two of you agree on earth about anything you ask, it will be done for you by my Father in heaven. 20For where two or three are gathered in my name, I am there among them.”

Some versions of Matthew have shown their King James heritage and have been less than helpful in getting to the heart of the intended message. Several other translations put new light on this passage.

First of all we need to note that this version translates the word for the “called out” as “the church”. According to the chronology of Matthew’s gospel Jesus is instructing the diverse group of persons who were accepted by him as disciples. At best the “called out” consists of the diverse gathering of those who have been following Rabbi Jesus. He calls them, “the called out”, that’s the literal translation of the word eclessia that has been translated as the assembly or ‘the church’. There was no such thing as ‘the church’ at that time.

The character of the ‘twelve’ was quite diverse. Tradition tells us that the core of this movement to reveal the new activity of God consisted of the twelve men. What adds to our confusion is that different lists in the New Testament included different persons. Some would suggest that the number was significant as a symbol of the new Israel and not to be taken in its numerically literal sense. We know that, though not listed among the males, women were part of this core. The first evangelists were, in fact, women. Those who followed Jesus represent the whole of the economic and social levels of the day. The group included journeymen, zealots, and Roman collaborators. What could possibly hold just a diverse group together?

We all have different ideas about what is a sin. Modern versions of the New Testament translate the Greek word ‘hamartia’ as “sin”. In Classic Greek it means to err. The word has migrated into English to describe a fatal flaw, an inherent defect or shortcoming, in the hero of a tragedy. We’ve often noted that the Greek word means ‘missing the mark’ as in shooting an arrow toward a target. It simply means ‘missing’.
Modern versions substitute the phrase “another member of the church” for the Greek which says that the person in question is your brother or sister. This substitution obscures from us the familial relationship Jesus intends to exist among the ‘called out’ ones. This person isn’t just some other person, it’s your sister or your brother.

Next, modern versions further confuse things when it adds ‘against you’ to the Greek. It’s not there. If we include “against you” the emphasis is on the personal nature of the offense. If we follow the best Greek manuscripts the focus is on what the other person did to offend.

So. Let’s try the first verse this way: “If a brother or sister among the called out is missing, go and point out the fault when the two of you are alone.”

“…go and show him his shortcoming and maybe how it effects you. The goal is to restore the relationship with your brother or sister. It’s a very private intervention aimed at reconciliation. I’d suggest it requires substantial prayer and thoughtful preparation. This is the most discreet and least threatening possible intervention. It protects them against unnecessary embarrassment, permitting reconciliation before the issue becomes general knowledge.

So, the text suggests step two if the first step failed. The first step was to confront the Christian brother or sister individually. Step two is to take witnesses for one more face-to-face confrontation. “But if he doesn’t listen, take one or two more with you.” The requirement for two or three witnesses comes from Torah law (Deuteronomy 19:15. This protects people against unfair accusations. The church is to be deliberate, careful, and fair in its discipline. If the conflict cannot be resolved during this second intervention, the “one or two others” will serve as witnesses before the church. Their testimony will help the church to understand the problem and to establish a remedy.

If he refuses to listen to them, tell it to the ‘called out.’ If he refuses to hear the assembly also, let him be to you as a Gentile or a tax collector.”

On the one hand, the phrase “let him be to you” is singular not “you-all.” The fact that “you” is singular in verses 15-17 and plural in verses 18-20 suggests that the advice to treat the offender as “a Gentile and a tax collector” is given as guidance for the person who began this intervention without resolution rather than the whole church. Of course, I couldn’t help wonder how Matthew himself would have received this word. In this view followers of Rabbi Jesus who can’t resolve a conflict with a brother or sister should just avoid each other.

From a corporate perspective the object is to restore an erring brother or sister to the fellowship, faith and practice of the group. Failing that, the advice is to relate to the person as an outsider –– a person of no faith –– spiritually dead. While it appears that the church is forcing the offender outside its circle, it is, in reality, only acknowledging publicly that the offender has already placed him/herself outside its circle. Should the body of the faithful ceases to be a marked by forgiveness, grace, and mercy you well could say that it ceases to be a church in any discernible fashion.

The last three verses of this passage are scary in their implications. 18Truly I tell you, whatever you bind on earth will be bound in heaven, and whatever you loose on earth will be loosed in heaven. 19Again, truly I tell you, if two of you agree on earth about anything you ask, it will be done for you by my Father in heaven. 20For where two or three are gathered in my name, I am there among them.”

Jesus says ‘listen up’. Jesus warns us that we dare not thumb our nose at the church. He says the body of the faithful have the authority that he previously gave to Peter. “Bind” and “loose” have to do with forbidden or permitted activities. They also have to do with who is and is not part of the body of Christ. When he says “that if two of you will agree…For where two or three are gathered together in my name” he is referring to Jewish worship practices which require the presence of at least ten adult Jewish males to hold a public worship. The Mishnah says, “But if two sit together and words of the law are gathered between them, the Divine Presence rests between them” (Aboth 3:2). Jesus chooses this latter standard of two persons, but makes no mention of adult males. Two or three! A person can pray alone, as Jesus demonstrated, but coming together in Jesus’ name multiplies the power. This minimal requirement should be an encouragement to us. And here’s the good part. Jesus says “there I am in their midst” (v. 20). In the beginning chapter this Gospel says, “They shall call his name Immanuel, which is being interpreted, ‘God with us’ ” (1:23). The Gospel will conclude with Jesus’ promise to be with us always (28:20). Here Jesus promises to be with every group of two or more who gather in his name.

Reconciliation and acceptance is meant to be at the core of who we are, and to be honest with you, if we can’t do it between ourselves in the church, how can we ever be agents of reconciliation in the world? Right here, Jesus gives a clear blue-print for how our community of faith might be a holy place where holy relationships might flourish. And, it’s something that we need to practice until it is so ingrained in our DNA, we can’t imagine living another way.

Because, for Jesus, there isn’t another way.