Standing Under the Scriptures
October 12, 2008

Dear Fellow Voyagers,

Our readings for this Sunday are:

Philippians 4.4-9: Paul calls on the Philippians to live into the gift of the knowledge of Christ that they have received.

Matthew 22.1-14: Jesus’ parable of the king’s marriage feast for his son deals with sloth, as the parable of the wicked tenants last week dealt with pride.

If I may say so, our class last Sunday to an unusual degree got to the heart of the passages we considered, in the event through discerning their relation to each other. To this outcome I may have contributed. Members of the class contributed more. But I think only the Holy Spirit could have enabled such fruitful interaction. I will try to convey how this came about.

We saw our first reading, Philippians 3.4b-14, as fitting into the same background as the passage from the previous chapter that we considered last Sunday. Paul was writing from prison, evidently in Rome, and giving indications of not expecting to see the Philippians again and of his sense that his ministry was drawing to a close. Accordingly he gave expression to his deepest feelings about them. As a result, we here see not only the indefatigable missionary and daring articulator of the theological implications of Jesus’ death and resurrection but also the pastor passionately concerned for his people. Above all, we can see that he fulfilled his ministry not out of some sense of obligation or to earn merit but out of his fervent desire to share what was most precious for him, namely his relationship with Jesus Christ. And, we noted, this is why we too should be missionaries, on the same basis that Paul was.

Last Sunday’s Philippians passage can be said to have three moments. The first is Paul’s citation of his credentials in Judaism: circumcised on the eighth day, as to the law a Pharisee, and the like. These are the sorts of things he might have put on his résumé, the value of which the world can recognize. The second is his declaration that these things and indeed all others have become for him useless and worse, compared with the surpassing worth of knowing Christ. And the third is what knowing Christ impels one to, namely “leaving aside what lies behind and straining forward to what lies ahead… the prize of the upward call of God in Christ Jesus.” We noted that as in his letters to other churches, he urges the Philippians to strive to the utmost but also to recognize that in the end God working in them has enabled any accomplishments of theirs. This may seem paradoxical. But in fact it is the only way we can avoid the anxiety attendant on relying on our own efforts, so as to have peace within ourselves.

Our Gospel reading, Matthew 21.33-45, was the parable of the wicked tenants. It concerns their behavior towards the householder who, after he had established a vineyard, let it out to them. Their behavior was atrocious and even bizarre: beating and killing and stoning the servants he twice sent to them to collect his share of the produce and finally killing his son in hopes of inheriting the vineyard themselves. The behavior of the householder may seem a little strange too: sending two sets of servants and finally his son, despite what had happened before. But we recognized that after a beginning grounded in the commercial transactions of the time---the householder’s seeking dividends from his capital investment---the parable soon shifts to the transaction of the Lord with his people.

We noted the parallels between this parable and the parable of the vineyard in Isaiah 5.1-7. And its similarities with and differences from Matthew 22.1-14, this Sunday’s Gospel reading, will no doubt be interesting to discuss. But a third parallel also came to our attention: the confrontation of Nathan the Prophet with King David over his cover-up of his adultery with Bathsheba, which brought about the death of Uriah her husband. We recalled that Nathan beguiled David with a story about a poor man’s pet lamb which a rich man appropriated for his guest’s dinner. And when David “waxed indignant” at the rich man, Nathan nailed him with, “You are the man!” (2 Samuel 12.7). Similarly, in the parable of the wicked tenants, when those hearing it express their indignation at the tenants, Jesus counters with

“The very stone which the builders rejected
has become the head of the corner (Psalm 118.22).

(Note: In a sermon preached just last week Michael Green, the eminent British evangelist, brought out the importance of this verse for the early Christians. I am attaching it because also of its resonance with what we are about in our class.)

And the chief priests and Pharisees in the audience then recognize that the parable is directed against them

The question at this point was what the parable was actually about. On its face it reflects Israel’s treatment of the prophets over the centuries and the religious authorities’ treatment of Jesus himself. But we still had to ask if this was its most basic meaning. We got at the answer through asking why the tenants behaved as they did. We concluded that it was because they came to regard the vineyard which the householder had entrusted to them as their own possession. As such they were determined to hang on to it at all costs. And by this prideful assertion of self they were led to commit the atrocities that they did. But our real breakthrough came when a class member pointed out the contrast between their stance and the stance which Paul commends to the Philippians, namely the regarding of everything other than knowing Christ as loss. They were thereby released---the word supplied by another class member---from servitude to the flesh, Paul’s term for the distinctions and possessions that the world has to offer. The tenants, however, were bound to these things and by their bondage were led to their own destruction. And we ourselves are not free of such bondage. To be sure it may not lead us to act as violently as the tenants did. But it will still cause us to miss out on the surpassing value of knowing Christ.

Thus there is a vital connection between the Philippians passage and the parable, the one casting a penetrating light on the other. But this is not just because of the pairing of the two readings in the lectionary. Instead it is because of the interconnection of all parts of the Bible. And when, leaving aside our preconceptions, we allow ourselves to be led by the Spirit, we can find it.

Faithfully, Fr. Ted