{"id":155,"date":"2023-10-09T09:25:10","date_gmt":"2023-10-09T14:25:10","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/stpaulsclaremore.org\/wordpress\/?p=155"},"modified":"2023-10-09T09:25:13","modified_gmt":"2023-10-09T14:25:13","slug":"sermon-10-8-23","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/stpaulsclaremore.org\/wordpress\/?p=155","title":{"rendered":"Sermon 10\/8\/23"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
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\u201cTradition<\/a><\/u> Isn\u2019t All That It\u2019s Cracked up To Be\u201d<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

By Bill Martin – 8 October 2023<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

PARABLES OF THE BIBLE<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

What kind of God do you have? In the last week of his life on earth, Jesus came face-to-face with the fact that his disciples then (yikes, now?) didn\u2019t have a complete understanding of who he wants, of the nature of God the father, and what living in the new kingdom that Jesus was ushering in was like. There was so much to teach and so little time. Trying to close this gap in understanding, Jesus told his followers parables of the Kingdom. You know, \u201cThe kingdom of heaven is like\u2026.\u201d.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

TROUBLES IN THE BIBLE<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Christian tradition has typically treated these parables as allegories. You may know, an allegory is a story in which a particular character represents something or someone else.  <\/p>\n\n\n\n

[You faithful folk who are in church every Sunday don\u2019t need me to re-preach previous lessons, but let me refresh your memories.]<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Three weeks ago we heard the parable of the unforgiving debtor. You\u2019ll recall that in that parable the King decided to settle his accounts with the servants. One man owed him 10,000 talents\u2014an impossible amount to repay.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The king felt sorry for him and forgave him the debt, whereupon the unforgiving debtor went out and put the arm on a guy who owed him 100 denarii. The unforgiving debtor threatened to imprison this poor soul, and when the king heard about it, he was enraged. He handed him over to the torturers until he could pay all his debt. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

As an allegory, the king represents God.  the first debtor represents a sinner of first proportion (like us?), And the second debtor is a sinner of much less degree. When the first debtor  refuses to forgive another as he has been forgiven (doesn\u2019t that sound familiar), God comes down him like a ton of bricks.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Two weeks ago we heard Jesus tell the parable of the laborers in the vineyard. Remember how the owner of the vineyard went out early in the morning to hire laborers for the harvest? Then he went out three more times during the day, and at the end of the day he paid everyone the same amount.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

 Allegorically speaking, who would you suppose the owner of the vineyard to represent? You guessed it, God. The first laborers represent the Jews, to whom Jesus originally came. The denarius represents salvation. The later groups of laborers represent Gentiles to whom Jesus came later. But both groups received the same salvation.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Last week we heard another parable regarding vineyards. From Jewish times on, the vineyard represented Israel. A father \u2013 that would be God \u2013 told the first son to go into the vineyard, and the son said that he would, but then didn\u2019t. A second son told father he wouldn\u2019t go, but then relented and went. The first son represents the scribes and the Pharisees who purport to obey God but don\u2019t. The second son represents tax collectors, prostitutes, and other sinners \u2013  like us \u2013 who don\u2019t appear to be righteous but in fact answer the call of Jesus.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

TROUBLES IN OUR OWN TIME<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

What kind of God do you have? If you hear Jesus allegorically, Following Christian tradition, you have a God who is, variously,  a king angrily settling accounts, a capricious employer, or an aggrieved father. Other parables cast God as having other forms of anger management issues. But, sometimes tradition isn\u2019t all that it\u2019s cracked up to be.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

GRACE IN THE BIBLE<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Maybe we should shuck the tradition of interpreting all of Jesus’ parables as allegories. We do so with the imprimatur of no less than that brilliant theologian, that amazing evangelist, that short, red \u2013 headed, physically deformed, irascible Paul. In his First Letter to the Thessalonians, Paul urges us \u201cto test everything and hold fast to  what is good\u201d. I ask again, \u201cwhat kind of God do you have?\u201d Based on the totality of Scripture,  our collective experience, the reflection of God shone forth in you friends of mine, and most of all in the words and examples of Jesus, God\u2019s son, my God is not a \u201cbig King angrily settling accounts,  a capricious employer, or an aggrieved father\u201d.  The parables must be telling us something else.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Restorative justice<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

For seven years, I was head of school at All Saints\u2019 Episcopal School. Carole, my wife, became the admissions director (and call if you\u2019ll pardon my saying so, under her  tutelage our enrollment sky-rocketed). It was a small, boarding and day school serving seven through 12th graders. About one third of the students came from the Vicksburg, Mississippi area and the rest came from 10 other states and five other countries.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

When We arrived, we inherited a disciplinary system based on retributive justice. Simply stated, that meant that we told the students that we expected them to screw up, when when they did we would catch them, and when we caught them we would punish them. That did little to reform the perpetrators and nothing to restore whomever or whatever was aggrieved.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

 With the support of soulful, prayerful colleagues, we changed that system to one based on restorative justice. The great theologian, Walter Brueggeman says that restorative justice is a process of \u201cdetermining what belongs to whom, and returning it to them\u201d.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Today\u2019s parable about the wicked tenants in the vineyard could easily be seen as an exercise in retributive justice. When the Tenants refuse to give the owner of the vineyard what belongs to him \u2013 that is, the fruits of the harvest \u2013 ultimately killing his own son, the owner retaliates  by killing them. A pretty good allegory, isn\u2019t it? But a true parable is a realistic story, true \u2013 to \u2013 experience which points beyond the everyday situations it describes.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

So, let\u2019s drill down to exactly what it is that God, through Jesus Christ, wanted from those chief priests and Pharisees \u2013 indeed from everyone in<\/p>\n\n\n\n

their time and from everyone in all times, in other words, from us, too.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Does God want us to behave properly, righteously, religiously? While it\u2019s true that we can pretty well mess up our lives by not behaving thusly, right behavior doesn\u2019t have a thing to do with God’s love and forgiveness for us.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Does God want us to think the right thoughts, to practice orthodoxy, to conform to the rules of religion? While it\u2019s true that right-thinking can help us to understand God and the world more clearly, such thinking, such believing, doesn\u2019t matter one fig to God when it comes to God\u2019s unconditional acceptance of us.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

What God wants from us is faith in God and faith in God\u2019s son.  As Richard Rohr, an astute Roman Catholic theologian with close ties to the Episcopal1 church, says, \u201cGod has always loved and always will love what God has created.\u201d Faith in God\u2019s love \u2013 belief in God\u2019s love, acceptance of God\u2019s love \u2013 those are the fruits that God expects from us, the tenant farmers of God’s creation.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Don\u2019t you love the simple profundity of the hymn, \u201cAll things bright and beautiful\u201d? Join me in reciting the refrain if you can remember it.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cAll things bright and beautiful, creatures great and small, all things wise and wonderful, the Lord God made them all.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u2018The Lord God made them all.\u201d And remember, \u201cGod has always loved what God has made\u201d.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

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