Seventeenth Sunday After Pentecost, October 5, 2014

Collect of the Day (Proper 22): Almighty and everlasting God, you are always more ready to hear than we to pray, and to give more than we either desire or deserve: Pour upon us the abundance of your mercy, forgiving us those things of which our conscience is afraid, and giving us those good things for which we are not worthy to ask, except through the merits and mediation of Jesus Christ our Savior; who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, for ever and ever. Amen. 

Reflections: Three points really stand out for me in this prayer. First, God is always more ready to hear than we to pray. Second, God is ready to give us more than we desire or deserve. And third, the things of which we most need forgiveness are probably precisely those things of which our conscience is afraid. I see these themes throughout the readings for this Sunday.

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

Then God spoke all these words: ŒI am the Lord your God, who brought you out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of slavery; you shall have no other gods before me. You shall not make for yourself an idol, whether in the form of anything that is in heaven above, or that is on the earth beneath, or that is in the water under the earth. [You shall not bow down to them or worship them; for I the Lord your God am a jealous God, punishing children for the iniquity of parents, to the third and the fourth generation of those who reject me, but showing steadfast love to the thousandth generation of those who love me and keep my commandments.] ŽYou shall not make wrongful use of the name of the Lord your God, for the Lord will not acquit anyone who misuses his name. Remember the sabbath day, and keep it holy. Six days you shall labor and do all your work. [But the seventh day is a sabbath to the Lord your God; you shall not do any work—you, your son or your daughter, your male or female slave, your livestock, or the alien resident in your towns. For in six days the Lord made heaven and earth, the sea, and all that is in them, but rested the seventh day; therefore the Lord blessed the sabbath day and consecrated it.]

Honor your father and your mother, so that your days may be long in the land that the Lord your God is giving you. ‘You shall not murder. ’You shall not commit adultery. “You shall not steal. ”You shall not bear false witness against your neighbor. •You shall not covet your neighbor’s house; you shall not covet your neighbor’s wife, or male or female slave, or ox, or donkey, or anything that belongs to your neighbor.

When all the people witnessed the thunder and lightning, the sound of the trumpet, and the mountain smoking, they were afraid and trembled and stood at a distance, and said to Moses, “You speak to us, and we will listen; but do not let God speak to us, or we will die.” Moses said to the people, “Do not be afraid; for God has come only to test you and to put the fear of him upon you so that you do not sin.” Then the people stood at a distance, while Moses drew near to the thick darkness where God was.

Reflections: hey had journeyed from Rephidim, entered the wilderness of Sinai, and camped in the wilderness; Israel camped there in front of the mountain. Then Moses went up to God; the Lord called to him from the mountain, saying

The giving of the Law in Exodus is anything but straightforward. In the previous chapter, the people of Israel had just arrived at the mountain in Sinai. God told Moses to cordon off the area, then to come to the top of the mountain where God then spoke to him. In the last paragraph of our reading, the people draw back in fear, urging Moses to mediate for them.

We have joined the story where God gives the teachings we know as the 10 commandments. However, the writing on the tablets (twice!) do not occur for a number of chapters (next week’s account). The intervening chapters are lists and lists of laws and principles to observe.

            The text is confusing; it’s clearly not a straightforward account. We have learned to expect a story to progress logically through time, but is not simply a tale; it is a repository of sacred memories. And as such, the ideas occur and recur in multiple versions and out of sequence.

            Although we are conditioned to expect a logical storyline, that may not be the most important element of a sacred text. Rather than tensing up against our understandable confusion, we might benefit more by reading it more like poetry, or like we might look at a painting.

            I see two themes from our collect emerging: that God is always more ready to hear than we are to pray, and that God is always ready to give us more than we desire or deserve.

First, that God is also always more ready to hear than we to pray. The Israelites shrink back from the terrifying mountain, with its thunder and lightning, the trumpet, the smoke. To merely touch the mountain can bring death. It’s risky to be too close to God. And what might one hear or see? What might happen? Understandably, they back away, pushing Moses forward. They delegate the scary stuff to someone else. How do we do the same thing? God yearns for us, for deep, personal union with us, but it’s easy to be too busy to notice.

Second, God is always ready to give us more than we desire or deserve. That statement pretty much sums up the God-human relationship over the whole of history.

Sometimes God seems to require a lot of reminding and prodding for God to pour out the gifts we ask for. The last few Sunday readings have shown the Hebrews increasing resentment over having left behind the “comforts” of their slave life in Egypt. What we don’t have concerns us far more than what we do have. God can seem mighty slow.

And even when God’s answers to our prayers (finally) do come, they can prove difficult to recognize; they don’t come with gift tags. God’s gifts can be easy to miss.  For the Hebrews to identify that white, frosty stuff as bread must have taken quite a bit of lateral thinking.

            Perhaps more problematic, though, is that God insists on giving us more than we desire or deserve. God gives us what we don’t have the good sense to want in the first place . . . and sometimes that includes things we have been doing our darndest to avoid.

            We know what we want—the good stuff, and more of it. God knows what we need—and it isn’t more of the status quo. Distressingly, perhaps, God isn’t interested in keeping us comfortable. God is interested in drawing us into the divine life.

        One thing we can be sure of is this: whether or not God gives us what want, we can be sure that God gives us what we need. For in all gifts—the hard ones as well as the sweet, God gives Godself, the greatest gift of all. 

Psalm 19

The heavens declare the glory of God, * and the firmament shows his handiwork.

One day tells its tale to another, * and one night imparts knowledge to another.

Although they have no words or language, * and their voices are not heard,

Their sound has gone out into all lands, * and their message to the ends of the world.

In the deep has he set a pavilion for the sun; * it comes forth like a bridegroom out of his chamber; it rejoices like a champion to run its course.

It goes forth from the uttermost edge of the heavens and runs about to the end of it again;*

    nothing is hidden from its burning heat.

The law of the LORD is perfect and revives the soul; * the testimony of the LORD is sure

The statutes of the LORD are just and rejoice the heart; *
    the commandment of the LORD is clear and gives light to the eyes.

The fear of the LORD is clean and endures for ever; *
    the judgments of the LORD are true and righteous altogether.

More to be desired are they than gold, more than much fine gold, *
    sweeter far than honey, than honey in the comb.

By them also is your servant enlightened, * and in keeping them there is great reward.

Who can tell how often he offends? * cleanse me from my secret faults.

Above all, keep your servant from presumptuous sins; let them not get dominion over me; *

    then shall I be whole and sound, and innocent of a great offense.

Let the words of my mouth and the meditation of my heart be acceptable in your sight, *

    O LORD, my strength and my redeemer.

Reflections: We do not know how often we offend. Neither do we dare even peek at our secret faults. Secret from ourselves, for God already knows, and loves us.

Epistle: Philippians 3:4b-14

I too have reason for confidence in the flesh. If anyone else has reason to be confident in the flesh, I have more: circumcised on the eighth day, a member of the people of Israel, of the tribe of Benjamin, a Hebrew born of Hebrews; as to the law, a Pharisee; as to zeal, a persecutor of the church; as to righteousness under the law, blameless.

Yet whatever gains I had, these I have come to regard as loss because of Christ. More than that, I regard everything as loss because of the surpassing value of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord. For his sake I have suffered the loss of all things, and I regard them as rubbish, in order that I may gain Christ and be found in him, not having a righteousness of my own that comes from the law, but one that comes through faith in Christ, the righteousness from God based on faith. I want to know Christ and the power of his resurrection and the sharing of his sufferings by becoming like him in his death, if somehow I may attain the resurrection from the dead.

Not that I have already obtained this or have already reached the goal (or: have already been made perfect); but I press on to make it my own, because Christ Jesus has made me his own. Beloved, I do not consider that I have made it my own; but this one thing I do: forgetting what lies behind and straining forward to what lies ahead, I press on toward the goal for the prize of the heavenly call of God in Christ Jesus.

Reflections: St. Paul continues to deal with a crisis of leadership that has arisen in the church at Philippi. Just prior to these lines, he has warned against self-styled authorities who criticize Paul for not requiring circumcision of the gentiles who had entered the community. The critics, themselves circumcised, considered their obedience to the Law as evidence of their superiority to Paul.

This is in fact the heart of the controversy that Paul addresses in his letter. It’s not simply a struggle for power, or an argument over proper procedure. Paul is defending what he considers essential to the message of Christ. His critics have missed a central truth: It is not necessary to become Jewish in order to have faith in Christ, for Christ calls us into a new reality, a new life. One that cannot be measured by our existing standards: not gender or ethnicity, language or income; not our status as servants, CEO’s, or slaves. All such criteria are irrelevant in the new order, to which we now (and increasingly) belong.

Paul’s apparent bragging demonstrates his point. By his critics’ own standards, he far exceeds them! But that means nothing to him, compared to Christ. In fact, concern with status or qualifications or riches or respect distract us from Christ, focusing us on ourselves, instead.

Gospel: Matthew 21:33-46

Jesus said, listen to another parable. There was a landowner who planted a vineyard, put a fence around it, dug a wine press in it, and built a watchtower. Then he leased it to tenants and went to another country. When the harvest time had come, he sent his slaves to the tenants to collect his produce. But the tenants seized his slaves and beat one, killed another, and stoned another. Again he sent other slaves, more than the first; and they treated them in the same way. Finally he sent his son to them, saying, ‘They will respect my son.’ But when the tenants saw the son, they said to themselves, ‘This is the heir; come, let us kill him and get his inheritance.’ So they seized him, threw him out of the vineyard, and killed him. Now when the owner of the vineyard comes, what will he do to those tenants? They said to him, He will put those wretches to a miserable death, and lease the vineyard to other tenants who will give him the produce at the harvest time.

Jesus said to them, have you never read in the scriptures:

The stone that the builders rejected has become the cornerstone;
this was the Lord’s doing, and it is amazing in our eyes?

Therefore I tell you, the kingdom of God will be taken away from you and given to a people that produces the fruits of the kingdom. [The one who falls on this stone will be broken to pieces; and it will crush anyone on whom it falls (this line is omitted in some early texts).]

When the chief priests and the Pharisees heard his parables, they realized that he was speaking about them. They wanted to arrest him, but they feared the crowds, because they regarded him as a prophet.

Reflections: So, what was the tenants’ problem? Were they stupid? Certainly not; they were crafty. They knew what they wanted, and they schemed to get it. But their short-term focus made them blind to the longer-term implications that even Jesus’ audience could anticipate: they were bound to lose in the end.

          Jesus ties this parable to some lines in Psalm 118. What does it mean for builders to reject a stone? Something about it must not have met their criteria. Perhaps the color was inconsistent or displeasing; maybe it had a mineral vein, or a potential to crack or split. Perhaps an edge had been damaged. For some reason, the builders judged it wanting. The builders’ criteria clearly missed the mark, failed to perceive the most important thing that ultimately rendered that stone supremely suitable and the anchor on which the entire structure depends.

The passage is understood by Christians to be a clear allusion to Jesus—rejected by our standards, yet the gate and foundation of our life in God. Like the tenants of the vineyard, the builders did not have a full picture of the reality; they were too wrapped up in their own notions to be open to the world as God sees it. For this openness, we must continually pray. It is God’s doing, and marvelous.