Readings hymns and sermon ideas for Sunday 5 November 2017

‘They love to have the place of honour at banquets (Matthew 23: 6) (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2017)

Patrick Comerford

Sunday next, 5 November 2017, is the Fourth Sunday before Advent (Proper 26). The readings provided in the Revised Common Lectionary, and set out in the Church of Ireland Directory, for next Sunday are:

Joshua 3: 7-17; Psalm 107: 1-7, 13-17; I Thessalonians 2: 9-13; and Matthew 23: 1-12.

These readings are available by clicking this link.

There is also an option to use the readings for All Saints’ Day, which falls on Wednesday, 1 November:

Jeremiah 31: 31-34; Psalm 34: 1-10; Revelation 7: 9-17 or I John 3: 1-3; Matthew 5: 1-12.

Whichever set of readings you decide to use next Sunday, you may constantly ask how to make connections with the different readings each Sunday. You may decide, for example, to preach on the Gospel reading. But it may be one of the other readings that has caught the imagination of the people you need to reach. Making connections helps to bring people on the journey with you.

So, these notes include ideas for the other readings next Sunday.

Joshua 3: 7-17

‘When you come to the edge of the waters of the Jordan, you shall stand still in the Jordan’ (Joshua 3: 8) … on the edge of the River Deel (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2017)

In the Old Testament reading, we see the connection between belief and action, but thinking and living. God tells Joshua that he will give a sign to show the people that God will be with him as he was with Moses. Joshua is to give the order to the priests and he tells the people that what they will see will show that God is with them. They believe and show their trust in God not just through intellectual assent, but through their actions, as they dare to cross over the River Jordan as they once crossed through the waters of the Red Sea.

Psalm 107: 1-7, 33-37

‘Some went astray in desert wastes and found no path to a city to dwell in’ (Psalm 107: 4) ... stray footprints in the sand (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2017)

In this psalm, the pilgrims travelling to Jerusalem thank God for their escape from various dangers. Their faith in God is a lived, truly living communal experience, and not merely about individual intellectual assent.

I Thessalonians 2: 9-13

Saint Paul reminds the members of the Church in Thessaloniki that they are witnesses to Christ not only in their beliefs but in the way they live their lives and in their conduct towards the new Church members.

Like a father teaching his children, he urges and encourages them, and pleads with them to walk in God’s ways, so that God’s word becomes made active in those who believe.

Matthew 23: 1-12:

‘They love to have the place of honour at banquets (Matthew 23: 6) (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2017)

In this morning’s Gospel reading, we are still in the Temple with Christ in Holy Week. There Christ has silenced his principal critics, the Sadducees and the Pharisees, showing their lack of understanding of the core message of the Bible and the Law. In this Gospel reading, he turns to speak ‘to the crowds and to his disciples’ about the scribes and the Pharisees, and their attitude to and teaching of the Law and the Bible.

Christ tells the people in the Temple that the Pharisees have authority to teach the Law, and he concedes that they are in an unbroken chain that goes back to Moses, for they ‘sit on Moses’ seat.’

But while honouring their teachings, the people should be wary of their practices. In their interpretation of the Law, they impose heavy burdens on others, yet do not follow the Law themselves.

Externally, they appear pious. They wear teffelin or phylacteries, small, black, leather boxes, on their left arms and foreheads with four Biblical passages as a ‘sign’ and ‘remembrance’ that God liberated their ancestors from slavery in Egypt (Exodus 13: 1-10; Exodus 13: 11-16; Deuteronomy 6: 4-9; and Deuteronomy 11: 13-21). They also have lengthy fringes or tassels on their prayer shawls (tallitot, singular talit), as visible reminders of the 613 commandments in the Law (see Numbers 15: 38, Deuteronomy 22: 12).

In verses 6-7, Christ gives four examples of vanity: they love places of honour at banquets, the best seats in the synagogues, being greeted with respect publicly, and being called ‘Rabbi,’ which means master and later becomes a title for the leader in a synagogue.

In verses 8-10, we are warned about the danger of loving honorific titles, such as ‘teacher,’ ‘father’ and instructor, for we are all students, we are all brothers and sisters, children of God and disciples.

Yet I too a father and have been a teacher and a tutor. Is Christ warning against the position or against seeking honours that have not been earned?

It is a truism that parents must earn the respect of their children, not seek or demand it. Most parents have, at one time or another, said to their children: ‘Do what I tell you, not what I do.’ Needless to say, children never listen to parents when we say something so silly.

All parents know, on the other hand, that actions speak louder than words.

Perhaps this passage in Matthew 23 may reflect later tensions between the Jewish synagogue and the new Christian community. But, in Christ’s own days, people expected a Pharisee to be a careful observer of the Law. Unlike the Temple priests and village elders, the Pharisees did not have a high social status.

Before the destruction of the Second Temple in 70 AD, the Pharisees were a relatively modest group of people without political power and they tried live out Jewish tradition and the Torah seriously and conscientiously in their daily lives. The Pharisees saw the Law as applying not only to every aspect of public life, but to every aspect of private, domestic, daily life too.

There is another well-worn statement: ‘It’s not where you start out but where you end up.’ The Pharisees started out with good intentions, but some of them ended by seeking to be great, seeking to be exalted (verses 11-12). They started out being concerned for holiness, but some ended at exclusion. They started out seeking to recognise God in all aspects of life, but some of them ended by seeking recognition at banquets and in the synagogue (verses 6-7).

Christ calls us to live in such a way that we can say to the world: ‘Do as we say and as we do.’

How do we teach this? By remembering that in ‘the greatest among you will be your servant’ (verse 11) and that ‘All who exalt themselves will be humbled, and all who humble themselves will be exalted’ (verse 12).

But the problem here is not so much a conflict between words and actions, but the need to make the connection between words and actions. Words must mean what they point to, and the actions must be capable of being described in words.

Most of us, as children, learned by watching how adults behave, we learn as members of the human community. As a child, when I needed to learn how to use a fork, I did not need a lecture on the hygienic and sanitary contributions that forks have made to the benefit European lifestyles since the introduction of the fork through Byzantium and Venice to mediaeval Europe; I did not need an engineering lecture on the practicalities and difficulties of balancing the prongs and the handle; I would have been too young to read a delightful chapter by Judith Herrin in one of her books on how the fork-using Byzantines were much more sophisticated than their western allies or rivals who ate with their hands (Judith Herrin, Byzantium – the Surprising Life of a Mediaeval Empire, London: Allen Lane, 2007, Chapter 19).

The same principle applies to everything else, as Andrew Davison of Westcott House, Cambridge, points out in his contribution to Imaginative Apologetics (London: SCM Press, 2011), the same principle applies to how we learn about everything else in life – cups, books, bicycles and so on. He might have added love – the love of God and the love of one another.

Ludwig Wittgenstein’s steps in the Great Palm House in the National Botanic Gardens, Glasnevin, Dublin (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

Some time ago, I was visiting the National Botanic Gardens in Glasnevin, Dublin. There, in the Great Palm House, are the steps on which the great 20th century German philosopher Ludwig Wittgenstein regularly sat in contemplation and thought while he was living in Dublin in the late 1940s.

Even if you find Wittgenstein difficult to read – and a good introduction is available in Fergus Kerr’s Theology after Wittgenstein (London: SPCK, 1997) – we can find useful insights in his writings.

Wittgenstein teaches us that thinking and language must be inter-connected. ‘Words have meaning only in the stream of life,’ he says. Thinking requires language, language is a communal experience, and, as Davison points out, we learn language as members of a human community and through induction into common human practices.

We can talk about prayer, forgiveness, and most of all about love itself, to others. But if it only remains talk and has no application, then the words have no meaning.

We might remind ourselves about the previous Sunday’s Gospel reading (Matthew 22: 34-46), when Christ tells the lawyer sent by the Pharisees and the Sadducees that the greatest commandments are to ‘love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your mind’ and to ‘love your neighbour as yourself.’ And, he adds: ‘On these two commandments hang all the law and the prophets.’

If the Pharisees, the Sadducees and the young lawyer were teaching and acting in conformity with these laws, if their words and actions were inter-connected, then there would have been an unassailable ring of authenticity to their teaching.

We may try to teach the two great commandments, but we only teach them with credibility when we live them out in our lives. There must be no gap that separates what we teach and how we live out what we teach in our lives.

The table remains bare if our words and our actions are not inter-connected (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

Collect:

Almighty and eternal God,
you have kindled the flame of love in the hearts of the saints:
Grant to us the same faith and power of love,
that, as we rejoice in their triumphs,
we may be sustained by their example and fellowship;
through Jesus Christ our Lord.

Post Communion Prayer:

Lord of heaven,
in this Eucharist you have brought us near
to an innumerable company of angels
and to the spirits of the saints made perfect.
As in this food of our earthly pilgrimage
we have shared their fellowship,
so may we come to share their joy in heaven;
through Jesus Christ our Lord.

Suggested Hymns:

These are among the hymns suggested in Sing to the Word (2000), edited by Bishop Edward Darling:

Joshua 3: 7-17:

647, Guide me, O thou great Jehovah
554, Lord Jesus, think on me
323, The God of Abraham praise
681, There is a land of pure delight

Psalm 107: 1-7, 33-37:

683, All people that on earth do dwell
39, For the fruits of his creation
353, Give to our God immortal praise
128, Hills of the north, rejoice
30, Let us with a gladsome mind
484, Lift high the cross, the love of Christ proclaim
45, Praise, O praise our God and King
372, Through all the changing scenes of life

I Thessalonians 2: 9-13:

517, Brother, sister, let me serve you
523, Help us to help each other, Lord
634, Love divine, all loves excelling
361, Now thank we all our God
387, Thanks to God, whose Word was spoken
532, Who are we who stand and sing?

Matthew 23: 1-12:

378, Almighty God, your word is cast
630, Blessed are the pure in heart
517, Brother, sister, let me serve you
219, From heav’n you came, helpless babe
614, Great Shepherd of your people, hear
495, Jesu, Jesu, fill us with your love
627, What a friend we have in Jesus

Readings hymns and sermon ideas for Sunday 29 October 2017

Bishop Charles Gore’s statue outside Birmingham Cathedral … ‘… Hang all the law and the prophets’? (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

Patrick Comerford

Sunday next, 29 October 2017, is the Fifth Sunday before Advent (Proper 25). The readings provided in the Revised Common Lectionary, and set out in the Church of Ireland Directory, for next Sunday are:

Deuteronomy 34: 1-12; Psalm 90: 1-6, 13-17; I Thessalonians 2: 1-8; and Matthew 22: 34-46.

The readings are available by clicking this link.

The last Sunday in October may also be observed as Bible Sunday, using these readings:

Nehemiah 8: 1-4 (5-6), 8-12; Psalm 119: 97-104 or 119: 105-112; Colossians 3: 12-17; Matthew 24: 30-35.

Whichever set of readings you decide to use next Sunday, you may constantly ask how to make connections with the different readings each Sunday. You may decide, for example, to preach on the Gospel reading. But it may be one of the other readings that has caught the imagination of the people you need to reach. Making connections helps to bring people on the journey with you.

So, these notes include ideas for the other readings next Sunday.

Introduction

Kerry Crescent in Calne, Wiltshire, recalls a FitzMaurice family title and a story told by Charles Gore (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

Charles Gore (1853-1932) was one of the great, almost formidable theologians at the end of the 19th and the beginning of the 20th century. He was the editor of Lux Mundi (1881), an influential collection of essays; the founder of the Community of the Resurrection (1892); and the first Bishop of Birmingham (1905). He was also from a well-known Irish family; his brother was born in Dublin Castle, his father, Charles Alexander Gore, was brought up in the Vice-Regal Lodge, now Arás an Uachtaráin, and his mother was from Bessborough, Co Kilkenny.

But formidable theologians are also allowed to play pranks on the unsuspecting. And it is told that Charles Gore loved to play a particular prank on friends and acquaintances when he was a canon of Westminster Abbey.

He would enjoy showing visitors the tomb of one of his collateral ancestors, the 3rd Earl of Kerry, with an inscription that ends with the words, highlighted in black letters and in double quotation marks: ‘hang all the law and the prophets.’

On closer inspection, he would point out, the words are preceded by ‘... ever studious to fulfil those two great commandments on which he had been taught by his divine Master ...’ ‘…hang all the law and the prophets.’

A more recent Irish-born theologian of international standing, Professor David Ford, sees these two commandments as the key, foundational Scripture passage for all our hermeneutical exercises.

David Ford was born in Dublin, and from 1991-2015 he was the Regius Professor of Divinity in the University of Cambridge. Speaking at the Dublin and Glendalough Clergy Conference in Kilkenny some years ago [2012], he was asked about some of the hermeneutical approaches he outlines in his recent book, The Future of Christian Theology (Chichester: Wiley-Blackwell, 2011). He said that if the two great commandments are about love, and God is love, then no interpretation is to be trusted that goes against love.

And he reminded the clergy present of Augustine’s great regula caritatis, the rule of love. If love is the rule, then the ‘how’ of reading scripture together is as important as the ‘what.’

In The Future of Christian Theology, he says: ‘Anything that goes against love of God and love of neighbour is, for Christian theology, unsound biblical interpretation.’

In other words, this passage, and its parallels in the other synoptic Gospels, provide for David Ford the key to understanding all Biblical passages.

Cambridge Divinity School ... David Ford has been Regius Professor of Divinity in the University of Cambridge in 1991-2015 (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

Putting the Gospel reading in context:

When preparing a sermon or reflection on a particular Gospel passage in the lectionary readings, it is always important to look at its context, not only in its setting within the readings, taking account, for example, of the Gospel readings the Sunday before and the Sunday after, but also in the context of the other readings that are being heard that Sunday.

Deuteronomy 34: 1-12

The Old Testament reading next Sunday is the final chapter of the Book Deuteronomy and the conclusions of the Law or the Torah, the first five books of the Bible. The wandering in the wilderness, and after 40 long years the people can now look to the promise of the future as they prepare to enter the Promised Land.

However, Moses has been told that he is going to die without entering the Promised Land because he ‘broke faith’ with God when the people demanded water and God provided it (see Numbers 20: 1-13). God shows Moses the whole Land from a mountain near the northern end of the Dead Sea. Moses, now an old man, dies suddenly in Moab (verse 6). We are told he dies as he lived: ‘at the Lord’s command’ (verse 5). Joshua is his successor and is commissioned.

Psalm 90: 1-6, 13-17:

The first section (verses 1-6) contrast God’s eternity with the short and troubled span of human life. The second part (verses 13-17) seeks God’s compassion and mercy.

I Thessalonians 2: 1-8

Saint Paul turns his back on the way other teachers and philosophers of his day seek popularity for “impure motives” and through ‘trickery.’ He wants neither ‘flattery’ nor his own advantage. Instead, he has been gentle and caring, sharing all that he has. In other words, instead of self-love, he has lived and worked in the love of God and the love of others.

Matthew 22: 34-46

In Saint Mark’s Gospel, these two commandments are cited in this way when one of the scribes comes and asks Christ which is the first commandment of all? (Mark 12: 28-31).

In Saint Luke’s Gospel, these two commandments are given in answer to a certain lawyer who stands up, tempts him, and asks him what he shall do to inherit eternal life (Luke 10: 25-28).

In this Gospel reading, the two great commandments come as part of a reply to a debate within the series of dialogues in the Temple in the week leading up to Christ’s passion, death and resurrection.

The Sadducees believed that human life ended with our physical death. Some of them have argued with Jesus, and have tried to show him, by quoting from the Torah or the Pentateuch, the first five books of the Bible, what they see as the absurdity of belief in the Resurrection.

Christ has told them that they neither understand the ‘power of God’ (verse 29), to transform us into a new way of being alive when risen. Nor have they understood the purpose of the Scriptures.

The Pharisees now ‘test’ (verse 35) Christ by asking him a question that was often debated at the time (verse 36): of the 613 laws in the Torah, which is most important?

The first part of Christ’s answer would not have surprised them.

However, the second part of his answer, his understanding that a ‘second’ commandment (verse 39) is of equal weight (“like it”) would have surprised them, for it was considered not be important.

Here Christ is citing Leviticus 19: 18, which says: ‘you shall love your neighbour as yourself.’ And he says this commandment is of equal importance with the first.

Yet, as Daniel Harrington says in his commentary on this Gospel (p. 315), and as Sarah Dylan Breuer writes in agreement with him, ‘there is no hint in the Bible of the modern psychological emphasis on the need for self-esteem and the idea that one must love oneself before loving others.’

She says self-esteem is a fine and people have benefited a great deal from the insights of modern psychology. But these interior emotional states were not a focus in first-century Mediterranean cultures.

The earliest Christian commentary on this text after the Gospels is James 2: 1-17, which may be a major help in discussing this.

When Christ says ‘love your neighbour as yourself,’ he is essentially saying, ‘treat all those around you as you would your own flesh and blood’ – as sisters and brothers in one family, deserving of equal honour and special care.

It is worth noticing that in that passage, James treats ‘faith’ and ‘love’ almost as synonyms.

Developing a right relationship of actively loving God and our fellow humans provides the key to understanding the Scriptures and to our faith.

The Pharisees regarded themselves as the experts in Biblical interpretation. But Christ now asks them some questions (verse 42).

At the time, the general understanding and expectation among people was for a political ‘Messiah’ who was descended from David, ‘the son of David’.

At the time it was also thought the David was inspired by the Spirit to write the Psalms. But in verses 43-44, Christ asks: ‘How is ... that David’ refers to ‘him’ (the Messiah) as ‘Lord’ (overlord), in writing ‘The Lord’ God (Yahweh) ‘said to my Lord’ (in other words, David’s overlord, whom Christ present in this dialogue as the Messiah) ‘sit ...’

So (verse 45), how can the Messiah be both David’s son and his overlord?

While in English and Greek, the word ‘Lord’ (κύριος, kurios) occurs twice, Christ may have quoted Psalm 110: 1 in Hebrew; there the words are different. He was probably not unique in taking ‘my Lord’ there to be the Messiah, for a political Messiah would defeat his ‘enemies’.

And so, the Pharisees too are shown not to understand the Scriptures. And the two great commandments certainly do not provide them with the hermeneutical key to understanding the whole of Scripture, as Professor David Ford would want us to have.

Collect:

Blessed Lord,
who caused all holy Scriptures to be written for our learning:
Help us to hear them,
to read, mark, learn and inwardly digest them
that, through patience, and the comfort of your holy word,
we may embrace and for ever hold fast
the blessed hope of everlasting life,
which you have given us in our Saviour Jesus Christ.

Post Communion Prayer:

God of all grace,
your Son Jesus Christ fed the hungry
with the bread of his life and the word of his kingdom.
Renew your people with your heavenly grace,
and in all our weakness
sustain us by your true and living bread,
who is alive and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit,
one God, now and for ever.

Suggested Hymns:

These are among the hymns suggested in Sing to the Word (2000), edited by Bishop Edward Darling:

Deuteronomy 34: 1-12:

563: Commit your ways to God.
567: Forth, in thy name, O Lord I go.
653: Lead, kindly light, amid the encircling gloom.
657: O God of Bethel, by whose hand.
323: The God of Abraham priase.
681: There is a land of pure delight.

Psalm 90: 1-6, 13-17:

6: Immortal, invisible, God only wise.
537: O God, our help in ages past.

I Thessalonians 2: 1-8:

645: Father, hear the prayer we offer.
567: Forth, in thy name, O Lord I go.
653: Lead, kindly light, amid the encircling gloom.
593: O Jesus, I have promised.
639: O thou who camest from above.
662: Those who would valour see (He who would valour see).
372: Through all gthe changing scenes of life.
529: Thy hand, O God, has guided.
491: We have a gospel to proclaim.

Matthew 22: 34-46:

515: ‘A new commandment I give unto you.’
250: All hail the power of Jesu’s name.
517: Brother, sister, let me serve you.
520: God is love, and where true love is, God himself is there.
125: Hail to the Lord’s anointed.
523: Help us to help each other, Lord.
495: Jesu, Jesu, fill us with your love.
525: Let there be love shared among us.
594: O Lord of creation, to you be all praise!
281: Rejoice, the Lord is King!
597: Take my life, and let it be.

Readings, hymns and sermon ideas for Sunday 22 October 2017

Christ Pantocrator … a fragment from a 13th century mural in the Church of the Archangel Michael in Preveliana in central Crete … where do we see the face of Christ? (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2017)


Patrick Comerford

Introduction:

Sunday next, 22 October 2017, is the Nineteenth Sunday after Trinity (Proper 24). For anyone preparing a sermon for next Sunday, this is a short Bible study based on the Gospel reading in the Revised Common Lectionary (RCL) readings: Exodus 33: 12-23; Psalm 99; I Thessalonians 1: 1-10; Matthew 22: 15-22.

This posting also includes some suggested hymns for next Sunday, the Collect and Post-Communion Prayer, some suggested hymns, and some photographs that can be downloaded for use on service sheets or parish bulletins.

Two months ago, I was visiting the Museum of Christian Art in an old church in Iraklion on the Greek island of Crete. The exhibits include many important icons that link the Byzantine tradition of icon writing with the development of modern Western European art. In a corner of this museum, there is a flaking and peeling fresco in which I could still feel clearly the face of Christ.

Next Sunday’s readings challenge us to ask where we see the face of God, and in asking whose face is on the coin he is presented to him, Christ may also be challenging us to consider where we see his face too.

Putting the Gospel reading in context:

It is possible to imagine a build-up to the Gospel reading in the themes we can find in the other readings, the Old Testament, Psalm and Epistle.

Exodus 33: 12-23

In the verses immediately before this reading 7-11, we are told that ‘the Lord used to speak to Moses face to face, as one speaks to a friend’ (verse 11).

Moses, who has found favour in the sight of God (verses 13, 16, 17) asks to see the glory of God (verse 18). God promises him ‘goodness’ (verse 19) and grace (‘gracious’), but God says Moses cannot see the face of God: ‘you cannot see my face; for no one shall see me and live’ (verse 20).

The people have already seen the golden calf and bowed down before it as an idol. But for many ancient peoples, to see a god’s face was to invite death.

Even so, God grants Moses more knowledge than that he gives to others: he will see his ‘back’ (verse 23) but not his face.

Psalm 99

Psalm 99 is a hymn of praise to God as king. The endings of verses 3, 5 and 9 may be a refrain, said or sung by worshippers as they ‘extol’ (verse 9) God.

God, on his throne above the ‘cherubim’ (verse 1, the half-human, half-animal creatures thought to hover above the altar in the Temple), is to be praised by ‘all the peoples’ (verse 2). ‘His holy mountain’ (verse 9) is no longer Mount Sinai but Mount Zion, the hill on which Jerusalem stands. But still God speaks to the people ‘out of a pillar of cloud’ (verse 9), so they cannot see his face.

I Thessalonians 1: 1-10

Saint Paul preaching in Thessaloniki ... a fresco in the Cathedral Church of Saint Gregory Palamas (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

This introduction to the first letter to the Church in Thessaloniki includes greetings of grace and peace from Saint Paul and his two companions, Silvanus (Silas) and Timothy.

The Church members in Thessaloniki have become ‘imitators’ (verse 6) of Saint Paul and of Christ, being joyful in spite of persecution. They have become examples for the other believers to imitate throughout Macedonia and Achaia (verse 7).

People know how they have turned their faces from idols to God and now worship and serve the ‘living and true God’ (verse 9).

Matthew 22: 15-22

The denarius with the image of Caesar represented a day’s labour ... Roman coins in a private collection in Callan, Co Kilkenny (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

The Gospel story is set in Holy Week, the week between Palm Sunday and Good Friday. The Gospel reading is set in the courtyards of the Temple in Jerusalem (Matthew 21: 23), the day after Christ has overturned the tables of the money-changers.

The money-changers were in the Temple because the coins in use in the Roman Empire included images, such as the image of Caesar, who called himself ‘lord’ and ‘divine’ when those titles truly belong to God alone, and ‘priest’ when that title challenges the ritual purity and claims of the Temple. Images like those on the coin are forbidden in the Temple of the God who forbids such images.

Christ is teaching in the Temple, where the religious and civic leaders of Jewish society, the priests and the elders, have challenged him about the authority for his words and his deeds, his teaching and his action.

He declines to answer the question. Then he tells the Parable of the Wedding Feast, which was the Gospel reading for last Sunday [15 October 2017].

Now Christ is confronted by two further sectors of Jewish society, the followers of the Pharisees (verse 15) and the Herodians (verse 16), the people who supported Herod, the Roman puppet king, and his successors. They too are united in their plot to entrap Christ, and while they appear to speak to him with respect, they speak with irony.

The question they put to him is the subject of great debate in Jewish circles at the time: should religious and loyal Jews pay the annual poll tax to Rome? (verse 17).

Jewish opinion was divided on this question, and the Zealots among them claimed that God’s people should not be subject to pagan Gentiles.

But, like last week’s question about the baptism of John the Baptist, this is a loaded question. This is yet another question loaded with presuppositions, with built-in fallacies and false dichotomies. A few weeks ago, we had the well-known example of the sort of question all lawyers know not ask: ‘When did you stop beating your wife?’

The question put to Christ in the Temple in this reading only allows one of two answers, Yes or No. But it is only a question about law. It does not ask, for example, whether it is moral to pay those taxes, or whether it is folly not to pay those taxes.

It is entrapment and it is fallacious. If Christ answers Yes, the Zealots and other Jews hostile to Roman rule are going to turn against him. On the other hand, if he says No, he risks being arrested for inciting rebellion against Rome.

Christ sees through the plot that is being set for him and the intended malice. He describes his interrogators as ‘hypocrites’ (verse 18) for pretending to respect him but intending to discredit him.

The coin they bring to Christ is a denarius (verse 19). The denarius was a silver coin and the most common Roman coin of the time. It is mentioned in the Bible more often than any other coin, and it is sometimes known as the ‘penny’ of the Bible because the King James Version uses that word for it.

The denarius was a day’s pay for workers and Roman troops. A few weeks ago [24 September 2017], in the parable of the labourers in the vineyard (Matthew 20: 1-16), we see that a denarius was the ordinary payment for a day’s labour (see Matthew 20: 2, 9, 10, 13).

There are other well-known examples of the denarius as common currency in the New Testament:

‘But a Samaritan while travelling came near him; and when he saw him, he was moved with pity. He went to him and bandaged his wounds, having poured oil and wine on them. Then he put him on his own animal, brought him to an inn, and took care of him. The next day he took out two denarii, gave them to the innkeeper, and said, “Take care of him; and when I come back, I will repay you whatever more you spend’.” (Luke 10: 33-35).

When he looked and saw a large crowd coming toward him, Jesus said to Philip, ‘Where are we to buy bread for these people to eat?’ He said this to test him, for he himself knew what he was going to do. Philip answered him, ‘Six months’ wages [200 denarii] would not buy enough bread for each of them to get a little.’ (John 6: 5-7)

But Judas Iscariot, one of his disciples (the one who was about to betray him), said, ‘Why was this perfume not sold for three hundred denarii and given to the poor?’ (He said this, not because he cared about the poor, but because he was a thief; he kept the common purse and used to steal what was put into it.) (John 12: 4-6)

Having looked at the head on the denarius he is given, Christ then looks at the inscription. In the parallel accounts (Mark 12: 13-17; Luke 20: 20-26), he asks: ‘Whose head is this, and whose title?’ (Mark 12: 16), or ‘Whose head and whose title does it bear?’ (Luke 20: 24).

The denarius of Augustus bore on its obverse a head or bust of the emperor crowned with a laurel wreath and with the inscription: Caesar Augustus, Divi Filius, Pater Patriae, ‘Caesar Augustus, Son of God, Father of His Country.’

On the reverse was a depiction of the imperial princes, Gaius and Lucius, the adopted sons of Augustus, each with a spear in his hand, with a background of crossed spears, a star representing heavenly sanction, an image of the stipulum or ladle used by Roman priests in their libations, and the litius of the augurate, and the added inscription Principes Iuventutis (‘the first among the young’).

The coin handed to Christ in the Temple is most likely the denarius of Tiberius, which on its obverse has the inscription Ti Caesar Divi Avg F Avgvstvs (Tiberius Caesar Divi Augusti Filius Augustus, ‘Tiberius Caesar, Son of the Divine Augustus, Augustus’), inscribed around an image of Tiberius with a laurel crown.

The reverse side depicts a seated woman as Pax. This was Livia Drusilia, wife of Augustus and mother of Tiberius; she died in AD 29 and was later deified by her grandson Claudius with the title Diva Augusta, and women were to invoke her name in their sacred oaths. On the coin, she holds a palm branch in her left hand and an inverted spear in her right hand, and the inscription on this side refers to Tiberius as Pontif Maxim (Pontifex Maximus), or ‘High Priest’ of the Roman State.

Christ does not even get around to flipping over the coin to read the inscription on the reverse side referring to Tiberius Caesar as the High Priest. But both inscriptions are affronts to monotheistic Jews, and so the coin should not have been in the hands of anyone in the Temple.

Yet, when Christ asks them to produce a denarius in that setting, they do so immediately. In other words, they themselves have already carried an image of Caesar and Diva Augusta, and blasphemous inscription, into the Temple of the Lord God.

Until that moment when the coin is placed in Christ’s hand, he is caught in the horns of a dilemma. It is the Passover season, and Jerusalem is flooded with hundreds or thousands of pilgrims who have arrived to remember and celebrate God’s liberation of their ancestors from slavery under foreign rulers.

Beneath the Villa Jovis in Capri, where the Emperor Tiberius threw his enemies off the cliff-top into the sea (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

At Passover, parallels might have been drawn between Tiberius and Pharaoh. Tiberius Claudius Nero, or Tiberius Julius Caesar, was a tyrant in his own right. He was Roman Emperor from AD 14 to AD 37. He spent most of the latter years of his reign in the Villa Jovis on the island of Capri, where Tiberius spent much of his final years, leaving control of the empire in the hands of the prefect Lucius Aelius Sejanus.

While Tiberius was in Capri, rumours abounded as to what exactly he was doing there. Suetonius and Tacitus record lurid tales of sexual perversity, including graphic depictions of child molestation, and cruelty, and most of all his paranoia. Those who questioned or challenged his power and divinity were often thrown off the cliffs at the Villa Jovis onto the rocks below and into the sea.

If Christ says paying taxes to Caesar is wrong, he risks provoking immediate action against him by the Romans. If he says paying taxes to Rome is right, those who question him are ready to accuse him of betraying the memory and tradition, faith and beliefs of the people as they recall their liberation from slavery and oppression.

But Christ trips up those who are sent to question him by showing that they are bearing proclamations of Caesar’s lordship and high priesthood into the very Temple of the God they claim to be serving with ritual purity.

The obvious questions here are not about what is lawful, or even what is moral or wise, but: who is the divine son, and who is the great high priest?

Christ has won the argument. He has unmasked his critics. There is no need for any further argument, there is no need to say anything more, there is no need to answer the question.

Yet, having won the argument, he answers the question anyway. What he says would have meaning for any Pharisee present. He says: ‘Give therefore to the emperor the things that are the emperor’s, and to God the things that are God’s’ (verse 21).

The word Christ uses in his answer, ἀπόδοτε, is translated as ‘render’ (KJV; RSV: ‘Render therefore to Caesar the things that are Caesar’s, and to God the things that are God’s’), ‘give back’ (NIV) or simply ‘give’ (NRSV, verse 21). But the verb ἀποδίδωμι (apodidomi) can mean to give back, restore or repay. It can mean to deliver, to give away for one’s own profit what is one’s own, to sell, to pay off, or to discharge what is due. It can refer to a debt, wages, tribute, taxes, or produce due.

Of course, to the Jews of that time, as to us now, all we have is given to us by God, and we owe everything to him.

So what in this world is God’s?

The alternative, paired Old Testament reading for this Sunday (Isaiah 45: 1-7) is helpful here. God addresses King Cyrus of Persia, who is a gentile but nevertheless ‘anointed’ and called by the God of Israel (verse 1). It is not only the people of Israel who are God’s, but all to whom God gives life and breath.

God tells this gentile king, that he is providing help ‘though you do not know me … so that they may know, from the rising of the sun and from the west, that there is no one besides me; I am the Lord, and there is no other. I form light and create darkness, I make weal and create woe; I the Lord do all these things’ (Isaiah 45: 4-7). East or west, light or dark, in all circumstances, God is God, and there is none other.

Our psalm for this Sunday describes God similarly as Lord of all peoples, of all the earth: ‘The Lord is king … he is high above all peoples’ (Psalm 99: 1-2).

Or, as Psalm 24: 1 puts it: ‘The earth is the Lord’s and all that is in it, the world, and those who live in it.’

As far as any of this relates to the question Christ was asked in the Temple, everything belongs to God, who is the rightful Lord of the earth and all that is in it, the world and all people in it.

When it comes to any worldly power that competes and makes demands to be our lord, whether it is a figurehead, a flag, or the exclusive claims of some nation-state nationalism, this is a place reserved exclusively for the Lord God.

The coin’s inscriptions, with their claims about Caesar’s divinity and high priesthood, and the idolatrous images of one who claimed divinity and his mother who is about to be deified, turn this from a debate about paying a poll tax to an occupying foreign power to an unmasking of the duplicitous thinking of those who challenge Christ’s authority in the Temple, in his teaching and in his table-turning, his words and deeds, while at the same time compromising their own claims to ritual purity within the bounds of the Temple.

Collect:

O God, without you we are not able to please you;
Mercifully grant that your Holy Spirit
may in all things direct and rule our hearts;
through Jesus Christ our Lord.

Post Communion Prayer:

Holy and blessed God,
you feed us with the body and blood of your Son
and fill us with your Holy Spirit.
May we honour you,
not only with our lips but in lives dedicated
to the service of Jesus Christ our Lord.

Suggested Hymns:

These are among the hymns suggested in Sing to the Word (2000), edited by Bishop Edward Darling:

Exodus 33: 12-23:

80, Great is thy faithfulness, O God my Father
6, Immortal, invisible, God only wise
554, Lord Jesus, think on me
557, Rock of ages, cleft for me

Psalm 99:

686, Bless the Lord, the God of our forebears
688, Come, bless the Lord, God of our forebears
431, Lord, enthroned in heavenly splendour
281, Rejoice, the Lord is King!
8, The Lord is King! Lift up your voice

I Thessalonians 1: 1-10

86, Christ is the King! O friends, rejoice
320, Firmly I believe and truly
312, Gracious Spirit, Holy Ghost
523, Help us to help each other, Lord
300, Holy Spirit, truth divine
584, Jesus calls us! O’er the tumult
637, O for a closer walk with God
639, O thou who camest from above
508, Peace to you
491, We have a gospel to proclaim

Matthew 22: 15-22:

10, All my hope on God is founded
259, Christ triumphant, ever reigning
263, Crown him with many crowns
353, Give to our God immortal praise
646, Glorious things of thee are spoken
94, In the name of Jesus
97, Jesus shall reign where’er the sun
535, Judge eternal, throned in splendour
102, Name of all majesty
363, O Lord of earth and heaven and sea
493, Ye that know the Lord is gracious
509, Your kingdom come, O God.

Readings, hymns and sermon ideas for Sunday 15 October 2017

Banqueting at the end-of-term dinner with the Durrell School of Corfu ... we are all invited to the heavenly banquet, but are we ready to accept the invitation? (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

Patrick Comerford

Introduction:

Next Sunday [15 October 2017] is the Eighteenth Sunday after Trinity (Proper 23). The readings in the Revised Common Lectionary (RCL) for that Sunday are: Exodus 32: 1-14; Psalm 106: 1-6, 19-23; Philippians 4: 1-9; Matthew 22: 1-14.

Putting the readings in context:

How can we make connections with the different readings each Sunday? You may decide, for example, to preach on the Gospel reading. But it may be one of the other readings that has caught the imagination of the people you need to reach. Making connections helps to bring people on the journey with you.

So, just a little note on the other readings for next Sunday:

Exodus 32: 1-14

The Old Testament reading from the Book Exodus is set after Moses has received the Ten Commandments from God on Mount Sinai.

Aaron and the Israelites have been waiting from Moses to come down from Mount Sinai. Moses has been up there 40 days and 40 nights and is late, or, as one translation puts it, ‘shamefully late.’

As the people wait, they grow impatient. In response to their impatience, Aaron takes gold from the people and makes a golden calf to represent God for the people. When God sees this, he is angry with the Israelites for worshipping a false god, and is filled with wrath.

After Solomon’s death in 930 BC, Israel split into two kingdoms. To stop people visiting Jerusalem in the south, Jeroboam, king of the northern kingdom, set up two golden calves, one at each of two alternative places of worship (see I Kings 12: 28-30). The writer is not only recording history, but is also teaching that Jerusalem is the only proper place for worship.

But, as we read this story we are uncomfortable not only with the worship of false gods, but with the wrath of God. Wrath is not an emotion we are comfortable with associating with God. Instead, we tend to think of God as loving, gracious, kind and so on.

What does the wrath of God mean?

How should we respond?

What is false worship? And what is appropriate worship?

Moses is not tempted by the offer to become the founder of a new “great nation”. Instead, he stands by Israel and pleads and argues with God.

Are there going to be times when what you think is a call from God becomes a temptation that you should resist?

When have you found yourself arguing with God?

Moses responds by standing before God and testifies to God’s power and might, reminding God of his faithfulness to the Israelites in bringing them out of Egypt. As Moses speaks, God changes his mind (see verse 14).

What other examples in the Bible can you recall when God changes his mind in response to prayer?

We often speak about God being unchangeable, yet in this passage we hear a story about God’s mind being changed in interaction with Moses.

What does it mean to you that God’s mind has been changed?

Is it possible that God can, at once, be both unchangeable but yet also changed?

Have you ever been impatient with God?

Have you ever had your mind changed as a result of praying?

Psalm 106: 1-6, 19-23

These portions of Psalm 106 continue the themes in our Exodus reading.

In the first portion of this Psalm, we move from praise and thanksgiving to petition and confession, through the full range of human emotion and the complexities of our relationship with God, relying on God’s continuing faithfulness.

In the second portion, though, we move to a confessional tone.

What spiritual practices do you have that help you balance your prayer life?

Philippians 4: 1-9

In this reading, we meet two leaders of the Church in Philippi, Euodia and Syntyche, women who have struggled alongside Paul in the work of the Gospel. Now they differ with each other in their understanding of the way of Christ. This causes disunity in the Church. But the Apostle Paul does not deal with them harshly, nor does he accuse them of divisiveness. Instead, he urges the members of the Church in Philippi to care for one another, to stay strong and faithful even when they face hardship, and to rejoice in the Lord always.

Apart from Paul, Euodia and Syntyche, there is a fourth, unnamed ‘loyal companion’ (verse 3), sometimes named Syzygus after the Greek description of him here. He is asked to be instrumental in achieving reconciliation. And there is a fifth person, Clement, who appears nowhere else in the Pauline texts.

The idea that God keeps a ‘book of life’ or a roll of the faithful to be opened at the end of time, is also found in Exodus 32: 32, Psalm 69: 28 and Luke10: 20.

At that time, many Christians were expecting the second coming, and thought it had been delayed. Like the freed slaves in the wilderness in the Old Testament reading, they think that the returning Christ, like Moses, is delayed, perhaps even shamefully late.

Are there divisions among them that are tantamount to idolatry?

Yet Saint Paul tells them: ‘The Lord is near’ (verse 5). The Philippians should seek unity in prayer and find peace in God.

Matthew 22: 1-14

A summer wedding in a monastery in Crete … who is invited to the wedding banquet? (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2017)

This parable, which is the third parable about the kingdom of heaven, is particularly difficult. It tells the story of a king hosting a wedding banquet for his son. The king has invited a long list of guests, but even after being repeatedly sought out, none of these guests comes to the banquet.

To refuse to come, to refuse a king’s command, is treason; to kill his slaves amounts to insurrection. So the king sends troops to put down the rebellion.

The king then sends his slaves into the streets to find enough people to sit at the tables at the wedding banquet. Notice how he invites all people, ‘both good and bad’ (verse 10).

Yet, when the king sees that a man is not dressed appropriately for the event, the king throws him into the outer darkness.

If you were to imagine yourself as one of the characters in this parable, who would you be?

And would you behave that way?

Are you the king, throwing a lavish wedding banquet?

Are you a wedding guest who has denied the generosity of the king?

Are you one of the people brought in from the streets, but not prepared for the celebration about to take place?

Where do you find Good News in this parable?

Christ’s audience would naturally associate a festive meal with the celebration of God’s people at the end of time. The wedding feast is a recurring image in the Bible of the heavenly banquet and the coming kingdom.

A grave in Kerameikós, Athens, where Pericles delivered his funeral oration (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

What is meant by the many and the few here?

I have read that in Western thought many is a quantity much more than the majority, while few is many less than the majority. In Eastern thought, one less than 100% would be considered few.

We could put the Greek use of ‘few’ and ‘many’ by Christ in this parable in its cultural context. Pericles, in his ‘Funeral Oration’ in Athens, according to Thucydides in his History of the Peloponnesian War, uses ‘the many,’ οἱ πολλοί (hoi polloi), in a positive way when praising the Athenian democracy. He contrasts them with ‘the few’ (οἱ ὀλίγοι, hoi oligoi), who abuse power and create an oligarchy, rule by the few. He advocates equal justice for ‘the many’, ‘the all’, before the law, against the selfish interests of the few.

When we celebrate the Eucharist, we remember that Christ is the victim, and that he said his blood is shed ‘for you and for many’ … you being us, the Church, the few in this parable; but the many, οἱ πολλοί (hoi polloi), refers to the masses, the multitude, the great unwashed, who are called too.

Christ dies for the many, the lumpen masses, all people, and not just for the few, the oligarchs. The many are invited to this banquet this morning. And who are we to behave like a tyrannical despot and exclude them? For if we exclude them, we are in danger of excluding Christ himself.

Peter Brueghel the Younger, ‘A Peasant Wedding’ (1620), in the National Gallery of Ireland (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2015)

Some questions:

This story has elements of harshness and tragedy, and some of the responses seem out of proportion to the crime.

The first guests are those who are hostile to Christ. The one who arrives without wearing wedding robes represents those who do not count the cost in becoming disciples. The judgment on anyone who does not prepare will be at least as severe as that on those who reject Christ. The final verse is the moral of the story – a generalisation of Christ’s intent in telling the parable: ‘For many are called, but few are chosen.’

Wedding garments were provided to all comers, so refusing to wear one was not a matter of pleading poverty – it was a deliberate and direct insult to the host.

Yet is the king in the parable a paragon of virtue or a model for how Christ behaves? Christ’s condemnation of violent retaliation is clear and consistent, not only in his teaching throughout his ministry but also in his example of becoming subject to death on a cross.

I have difficulties with the traditional, exclusive claims made in many interpretations of this parable, the standard storytelling of this parable. Is Christ proclaiming that God will retaliate violently when God’s messengers are attacked?

The wedding feast is a consistent image of the messianic banquet. How often do we try to shorten and edit the guest list for the party? The task of the slaves is to gather all – ‘both good and bad.’ If it is for anyone to decide who should be ejected, that call belongs to the king.

But there is another, alternative reading of this Gospel passage. The guests have been compelled to come to the banquet, not because they have something to celebrate, but because they are in fear of the tyrant.

In this telling, Christ is the only one who speaks out and who protested against the king’s tyranny, the tyranny of the kingdoms of this world, by refusing to wear the robe, and ended up being rejected, being ejected, and being crucified on behalf of the many, on behalf of all those who are marginalised, thrown out, expelled.

For many are called to the way of the Cross, but few are chosen.

On the other hand, we might think of the person was invited by the king, but who does not change. Many are invited to Christianity, come to the banquet, but do not change, thinking that God’s grace will cover it all.

As with Dietrich Bonhoeffer’s discussions of Cheap Grace and Costly Grace, we are invited to the banquet, but we must change.

Or you might see the guest who shows up without the wedding garment as being like someone coming to a party but refusing to party. How often am I like that person? Are you?

Toasting the bride and groom at a family wedding … did you ever attend a wedding, without joining in the party (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

Collect

Almighty and everlasting God:
Increase in us your gift of faith
that, forsaking what lies behind,
we may run the way of your commandments
and win the crown of everlasting joy;
through Jesus Christ our Lord.

Post Communion Prayer:

All praise and thanks, O Christ,
for this sacred banquet,
in which by faith we receive you,
the memory of your passion is renewed,
our lives are filled with grace,
and a pledge of future glory given,
to feast at that table where you reign
with all your saints for ever.

Suggested Hymns:

These are among the hymns suggested in Sing to the Word (2000), edited by Bishop Edward Darling:

Exodus 32: 1-14:

584: Jesus calls us! O’er the tumult
637: O for a closer walk with God

Psalm 106: 1–6, 19–23:

353: Give to our God immortal praise
30: Let us with a gladsome mind
634: Love divine, all loves excelling
45: Praise, O praise our God and King
20: The King of love my shepherd is

Philippians 4: 1-9:

349: Fill thou my life, O Lord my God
225: In the cross of Christ I glory
16: Like a mighty river flowing
636: May the mind of Christ my Saviour
505: Peace be to this congregation
507: Put peace into each other’s hands
539: Rejoice, O land, in God thy might
281: Rejoice, the Lord is King!
71: Saviour, again to thy dear name we raise
627: What a friend we have in Jesus

Matthew 22: 1-14:

406: Christians, lift your hearts and voices
408: Come, risen Lord, and deign to be our guest
418: Here, O my Lord, I see thee face to face
421: I come with joy, a child of God
587: Just as I am without one plea
433: My God, your table here is spread
445: Soul, array thyself with gladness
20: The King of love my shepherd is
448: The trumpets sound, the angels sing
529: Thy hand, O God, has guided
451: We come as guests invited
145: You servants of the Lord

Readings, hymns and sermon ideas for Sunday 8 October 2017

‘Now when the owner of the vineyard comes, what will he do …’ (Matthew 21: 40) … vineyards, vines, groves and terraces in Tuscany (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

Patrick Comerford

Introduction:

Sunday next, 8 October 2017, is Seventeenth Sunday after Trinity. For anyone preparing a sermon for next Sunday, this is a short Bible study based on the Gospel reading in the Revised Common Lectionary (RCL) readings: Exodus 20: 1-4, 7-9, 12-20; Psalm 19; Philippians 3: 4b-14; Matthew 21: 33-46.

The context:

How can we make connections with the different readings each Sunday? You may decide, for example, to preach on the Gospel reading. But it may be one of the other readings that has caught the imagination of the people you need to reach. Making connections helps to bring people on the journey with you.

So, just a little note on the other readings for next Sunday:

Exodus 20: 1-4, 7-9, 12-20:

The Old Testament reading is the account of Moses receiving the Ten Commandments from God on Mount Sinai. They have left their past behind them and this is the moment that marks the starting point of Israel as a self-defining community. A new covenant is made between God and Israel but, unlike God’s agreements with Noah and Abraham, here both parties have a stake in it, and either can break it.

This scene of God’s presence among people ends as it begins (in Exodus 19: 16-19), with ‘thunder and lightning’ (verse 18), trumpet blasts and ‘the mountain smoking.’ But it ends too with Moses telling the people: ‘Do not be afraid …’ (verse 20), words that we come later to associate with the Risen Lord.

Psalm 19:

Many of us are familiar with this Psalm because the concluding verse (14) has traditionally been used in the Church of Ireland to introduce sermons: ‘Let the words of my mouth and the meditation of my heart be acceptable in your sight, O Lord, my strength and my redeemer.’

In Psalm 19, the heavens and the earth also proclaim God’s glory and power (verses 1-6), the covenant is an expression of God’s will for Israel (verses 7-9), and we are reminded that the ‘fear of the Lord is clean and endures for ever’ (verse 9). This Psalm also links God’s judgement with God’s forgiveness. Note too the description of the psalmist as God’s ‘servant’ (verses 11, 13).

Philippians 3: 4b-14

Saint Paul has warned his readers about those who try to convince them that being a Christian requires accepting Jewish law, including circumcision. But true circumcision is of the heart and not of the ‘flesh,’ in other words paying more heed to the spirit rather than the letter of the law.

He is as Jewish as one can be, and he once persecuted Christians and faultlessly kept the Law. But he is not afraid to lose everything for the sake of gaining everything the Risen Christ has to offer (verses 8-10). He has left his past behind and looks forward to the goal and the heavenly prize that lies ahead (verses 13-14).

Matthew 21: 33-46

‘The stone that the builders rejected has become the chief cornerstone’ (Matthew 21: 42) … a cross cut into a cornerstone in the main church in the Monastery of Vlatádon in Thessaloniki (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

The parable of the wicked tenants as it stands in Matthew, Mark, and Luke is an allegory that emphasises the murder of God’s Son by Israel’s leaders and the transfer of Israel’s privileges to the church. The synoptic parallels are Mark 12: 1-12 and Luke 20: 9-19.

However, this passage comes with a ‘health warning’ and needs to be treated with great care. It began as a prophetic critique by a Jew of fellow Jews, designed not to damn Israel but to provoke repentance. In the course of Christian history, this passage and others like it were abused to advocate anti-Semitism, and even by the Nazis to justify the Holocaust.

In addition, these readings raise the danger of preaching what is now called ‘Supersessionism,’ the theological view that the Church has replaced the Jews as God’s chosen people. Although this view has been common throughout the history of Christianity and remains a common assumption among many Christians, since the Holocaust it has been rejected by mainstream Christian theologians and denominations.

The members of the Sanhedrin who first heard this parable would recall Isaiah 5: 1-7, which is the alternative Old Testament reading in the RCL for Proper 22. In that passage, God tells what will happen to his unfruitful ‘vineyard,’ ‘the house of Israel, and the people of Judah.’

In the parable, the landowner plants the vineyard, leases it out, and leaves. At harvest time, he sends successive sets of slaves ‘to collect his produce.’ All are mistreated. When he sends his son, he is killed. If a landowner died without an heir, the land passed to the first claimant, so by killing the son (presumably the only one), the tenants become landowners. Jesus’ hearers answer his question: the first tenants will suffer ‘a miserable death’ (verse 41) and other tenants will be found who will deliver.

Here, the landowner stands for God, the first tenants for Israel’s leaders, and the time the landowner is away for their period of stewardship of God’s chosen people. So the second tenants are replacements for Israel, probably those who follow Christ.

In verse 43, we are told that it is disastrous to oppose God and his patience will be exhausted. The leaders of Israel recognise his reference to Isaiah. If Christ were not so widely accepted as God’s ‘prophet’ by the crowds who they feared, they would have arrested him (verse 46).

Some observations:

Verse 33: This verse almost directly quotes the opening lines of Isaiah’s parable (see Isaiah 5: 1-7, the Song of the Unfruitful Vineyard).

Verse 35: ‘beat one, killed another, and stoned another.’ The parallel in Saint Mark’s Gospel lacks the stoning of a slave. Could this be a reference to the later stoning of Saint James in the year 62? (see Josephus, Antiquities, 20.9)

Verse 37: ‘his son.’ Saint Matthew omits the word ‘beloved’ used by Saint Mark (see Mark 6: 12). There is nothing in the text to identify the son as Christ. In Christ’s telling of the parable, this is true, but in Saint Matthew’s telling of the story, and among those he is writing for, is the son Christ?

Verse 38: ‘This is the heir.’ Notice how the tenants leap to a rash conclusion. They can only take what belongs to the son and heir if his father is already dead. But the landowner is alive and can punish them.

Verse 39: In Saint Mark’s Gospel (see 12: 8), the son is seized, then killed, then thrown out. But see how Saint Matthew changes the order – perhaps to fit the view that Jesus died outside the city (See also John 19: 17; Hebrews 13: 12-13).

Verse 41: Christ has already says (see 8: 11-12): ‘“I tell you, many will come from east and west and will eat with Abraham and Isaac and Jacob in the kingdom of heaven, while the heirs of the kingdom will be thrown into the outer darkness, where there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth”.’ (See also Acts 13: 46; 18: 6; 28: 28.)

Verse 42: Here Christ is quoting from Psalm 118: 22-23 to support his teaching. These verses are also quoted in Acts 4: 11 and I Peter 2: 7.

Verse 43: Christ’s conclusion is milder than the chief priests and elders have expected. The wicked tenants will not be destroyed, but they will lose the promise.

Verse 43: ‘the kingdom of God.’ In this context, probably the full end-time blessing.

Some questions

Are the slaves the prophets killed by Israel, culminating in Christ as the son?

Is Jesus ‘the son’ (verse 38, Aramaic: ben) and the ‘stone’ (verse 42, ‘eben)? This makes the connection between the parable and the saying that follows.

Who are the ‘other tenants’ (verse 41) and ‘a people’ (verse 43)?

Are these the Church as the true Israel?

Remember that for Saint Matthew the Church, the true Israel, is made up of believing Jews and converted Gentiles – how does this connect with what Saint Paul is saying to the Philippians in our Epistle reading?

Trying to read the text afresh and anew

‘There was a landlord who planted a vineyard’ ... grapes ripening on the vine in the Hedgehog in Lichfield (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

It is sometimes said that the parables are ways in which Christ makes truth more accessible, taking complicated theological ideas and rephrasing them in terms that anyone can understand. But sometimes he says he is telling his parables for the opposite reason, so that the crowds might not understand (see Matthew 13: 1-9, Mark 4: 1-9, and Luke 8: 9-10).

When confronted with these puzzling parables, we are sometimes tempted to resolve the ambiguities by interpreting them allegorically. We start out by deciding immediately the characters, the objects and the actions represent; we decide before we interpret or try to apply those parables which character or object represents God, which one is Christ, who represent the Disciples, and so on.

In other words, we try to harmonise difficult parables with our own already-formed views, rather than allowing those parables to challenge and reshape our views.

But Christ tries through his parables to get us to challenge what we already presume to be simply true.

In this parable, do we read it this morning in the way we have learned to read it? We already presume the landowner is God. God sends messengers to people (in particular, to Israel). The people reject the messengers. God sends his son. The people kill the son. So God is going to reject Israel and choose another people. But how well does the parable really fit that interpretation? How well does that interpretation fit the weight of the canon regarding the role of Israel?

As a point of comparison, it might be useful to look at the theology of Israel in Saint Luke’s Gospel and the Acts of the Apostles, where we find a continuing and central role for Israel. There the invitation extended to Gentiles through Christ is to join Israel, God’s people.

At the apostolic council in Jerusalem (see Acts 15), the Christian leaders present include Pharisees (see verse 5) – not former Pharisees, but Pharisees. In Acts (23: 6), Saint Paul continues to identify himself as a Pharisee – not as a former Pharisee.

For Saint Luke, the vineyard of Israel has not been taken away to be given to others. Instead, Christ has opened it to new workers called to gather in God’s abundant harvest.

The setting of the parable is the estate of a wealthy landowner. This landowner does not live on the land, and does not work at planting or harvesting. The hard work is carried out by the hired labourers, who must turn over most of what they grow to the landowner. The landowner in the parallel parable in Luke 19 is a harsh, demanding man, reaping what he does not sow (see Luke 19: 20).

This absentee landlord does not send messengers out of any great love for the people or the land, but to collect the profits from their labour that sustain his life of ease in the cosmopolitan city where he lives.

In Saint Matthew’s version of parable, the farmers have had enough. The next time the landowner sends one of his servants to collect the rent, the farmers send him packing. Forget how you have consistently read this parable for years. Those who listened to Christ telling this parable for the first time probably smiled at the demanding landlord getting a revolutionary response from the exploited tenants living on the edge and on the margins.

After all, Saint Paul tells us in the Pastoral Epistles: ‘for the scripture says, “You shall not muzzle an ox while it is treading out the grain,” and, “The labourer deserves to be paid”.’ (I Timothy 5: 18).

Then the landowner sends another agent to collect the rent. Again, the farmers get together to send him away empty-handed. More cause for rejoicing among the first listeners.

Then the son of the landowner arrives. He has a different standing than the messengers. He is the son, perhaps the ‘beloved son,’ probably the only son. If he is the heir and the landowner had died, then he has inherited the estate himself. If the son dies and he does not have an heir, the land goes to those who live on it, and the farmers will be free. The farmers have been resisting years of what they feel has been exploitation, and now they rise up and kill the son.

But the twist in the story is that the landowner is not dead. He does exactly what we expect him to do in the circumstances. He wreaks revenge, slaughters the farmers and replaces them with others. He does this so he can return to his life of ease in the city, living on the income provided by the labour of others.

But no-one among those who hear this ending to the story for the first time would hardly regard it as comforting or good news.

The chief priests and the scribes who are listening the audience, and who come from the same social class as the rich landowner and his hirelings, must realise that they have just heard a scathing condemnation from Christ of how they exploit their fellow Jews.

The peasants or tenant farmers who hear the story are reminded that escalating the spiral of violence only results in more violence being visited upon them and their children.

Everyone who listens is challenged to rethink their prejudices and their judgmental values.

In this, the parable is a challenge to us today.

In what ways are we like the absentee landlord, dependent on others’ exploitation to support our lives of relative ease?

How much do we consume without knowing or caring about where our clothes, our coffee, our computers, our gadgets and toys come from, or about cost to poor people and the environments in which they live?

In what ways are we like the agents, willing to do wrong to achieve what we think is right, to escalate interpersonal and international conflict in ways that will be visited upon generations to come?

And in what ways are we responding to Christ’s challenge to care for those the world disregards and to disregard the world’s standards of strength and honour?

As Sarah Dylan write, Christ challenges us to do the unthinkable, to turn the other cheek and let others think us weak, to care as much for God’s children who make our clothes and shoes, who mine the ore for our electronics and dispose of the toxic computer monitors we discard when want newer and better ones, as we do for our own children.

Christ challenges us to bless and honour the peacemakers rather than the mighty, to strive for justice and peace and the dignity of every human being above our own comfort.

Collect:

Almighty God,
you have made us for yourself,
and our hearts are restless till they find their rest in you:
Teach us to offer ourselves to your service,
that here we may have your peace,
and in the world to come may see you face to face;
through Jesus Christ our Lord.

Post-Communion Prayer:
God our guide,
you feed us with bread from heaven
as you fed your people Israel.
May we who have been inwardly nourished
be ready to follow you
all the days of our pilgrimage on earth,
until we come to your kingdom in heaven.
This we ask in the name of Jesus Christ our Lord.

Suggested Hymns:

These are among the hymns suggested in Sing to the Word (2000), edited by Bishop Edward Darling:

Exodus 20: 1–4, 7–9, 12–20

383, Lord, be thy word my rule
135, O come, O come, Emmanuel
637, O for a closer walk with God
638, O for a heart to praise my God
76, Sweet is the work, my God and King

Psalm 19:

606, As the deer pants for the water
153, Come, thou Redeemer of the earth
351, From all that dwell below the skies
631, God be in my head
696, God, we praise you! God, we bless you!
616, In my life, Lord, be glorified
97, Jesus shall reign where’er the sun
384, Lord, thy word abideth
432 Love is his word, love is his way
638, O for a heart to praise my God
34, O worship the King all–glorious above
35, The spacious firmament on high

Philippians 3: 4b–14

560, Alone with none but thee, my God
218, And can it be that I should gain
561, Beneath the cross of Jesus
11, Can we by searching find our God
566, Fight the good fight with all thy might
418, Here, O my Lord, I see thee face to face
99, Jesus, the name high over all
425, Jesus, thou joy of loving hearts
671, Jesus, thy blood and righteousness
588, Light of the minds that know him
81, Lord, for the years your love has kept and guided
248, We sing the praise of him who died
247, When I survey the wondrous cross
376, Ye holy angels bright

Matthew 21: 33-46

215, Ah, holy Jesu, how hast thou offended
326, Blessèd city, heavenly Salem
327, Christ is our corner stone
268, Hail thou once-despisèd Jesus
93, I danced in the morning when the world was begun
230, My Lord, what love is this
231, My song is love unknown
340, Sing and be glad, for this is God’s house!
493, Ye that know the Lord is gracious

A vineyard on the slopes at Fattoria il Poggia outside Montecarlo, near Lucca in Tuscany (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

Additional reading for this posting: SarahLaughed.net, Proper 22, Year A.