19th Sunday after Pentecost
Isaiah 25:1-9; Matthew 22:1-14 This gospel reading is a tough one. Someone has said that religion is supposed to comfort the afflicted and afflict the comfortable. If that’s true this parable certainly does the second – if you really read it, these words from Jesus afflict the comfortable. All parables are meant to shake us up and make us ask hard questions about God and ourselves. This one really does that. And there is no way to make this parable easier and still do justice to it. One commentator said that if it were to be made into a movie it would be a horror film. Back in the time of Jesus, and maybe even today, being invited to a royal wedding was something that brought more honor to a person and their family more than any other kind of event. Especially if it was the wedding of the king’s son. It’s the kind of thing you would put on your calendar, circle in red, and show up no matter what else might be going on in your life or in the world. But that’s not what happened in this story.... Text: Matthew 21: 23-32; Philippians 2:1-18
"By what authority are you doing these things, and who gave you this authority?" In other words, Jesus, who put YOU in charge? So asked the religious authorities, who for all intents and purposes really were in charge, at least in human terms, It was their job to keep order, to uphold tradition. Just before our gospel passage today picks up, Jesus arrived in Jerusalem and not one day passed before this guy started making a ruckus. Flipping tables in the Temple, accusing the money changers and vendors of making his Father’s house a “den of thieves.” This bum from Nazareth, what did he know? It’s not like the marketplace below the temple was purposeless-- People needed to buy animals in order to make sacrifice, to perform their religious duties. And people needed the right currency to buy the animals, hence the money changers. It’s not like there was no design behind this system, it made sense, in human terms. This Sermon began with Jane reading the entire book of Jonah to the congregation. She continued...
This story ends with Jonah sitting outside the city of Nineveh, waiting to see what will happen. What we are not told is that Nineveh was a truly evil city. In fact, it was the capital of the territory that would completely wipe out the kingdom of Israel just a few decades after Jonah’s mission there. There is no wonder that Jonah did not want to go. And yet this story of Jonah forces us to wrestle with the goodness and grace of God. This story of Jonah helps us see that God often works with us in spite of ourselves. God even cares about us when we are as stubborn as Jonah was. It certainly was nice of God to provide a shade bush so that Jonah could be comfortable while he watched Nineveh repent and be transformed. But he was so stuck in his own pettiness that he couldn’t even enjoy it. |
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