Hopeful Preparation

Hopeful Preparation from Joseph Taber on Vimeo.

1 Thessalonians 4:13-18

13But we do not want you to be uninformed, brothers and sisters, about those who have died, so that you may not grieve as others do who have no hope. 14for since we believe that Jesus died and rose again, even so, through Jesus, God will bring with him those who have died. 15For this we declare to you by the word of the Lord, that we who are alive, who are left until the coming of the Lord, will by no means precede those who have died. 16For the Lord himself, with a cry of command, with the archangel’s call and with the sound of God’s trumpet, will descend from heaven, and the dead in Christ will rise first. 17Then we who are alive, who are left, will be caught up in the clouds together with them to meet the Lord in the air; and so we will be with the Lord forever. 18Therefore encourage one another with these words.

This is the Word of the LORD

Thanks be to God

Matthew 25:1-13

1”Then the kingdom of heaven will be like this. Ten bridesmaids took their lamps and went to meet the bridegroom. 2Five of them were foolish, and five were wise. 3When the foolish took their lamps, they took no oil with them; 4but the wise took flasks of oil with their lamps. 5As the bridegroom was delayed, all of them became drowsy and slept. 6But at midnight there was a shout, ‘Look! Here is the bridegroom! Come out to meet him.’ 7Then all those bridesmaids got up and trimmed their lamps. 8The foolish said to the wise, ‘Give us some of your oil, for our lamps are going out.’ But the wise replied, ‘No! there will not be enough for you and for us; you had better go to the dealers and buy some for yourselves.’ 10and while they went to buy it, the bridegroom came, and those who were ready went with him into the wedding banquet; and the door was shut. 11Later the other bridesmaids came also, saying, ‘Lord, lord, open to us.’ 12But he replied, ‘truly I tell you, I do not know you.’ 13Keep awake therefore, for you know neither the day nor the hour.”

This is the Word of the LORD

Thanks be to God.

The church calendar is starting to pick up speed as we lean forward into advent. We’re rushing headlong into a season of waiting, and along the way we pick up some kingdom parables and impressions of our eschatological destination. “The kingdom will be like this…” begins Jesus, introducing a parable that is unique to Matthew’s gospel. We’re looking expectably to the story, hoping for the clue about the kingdom of heaven which is to come.

The characters begin to emerge, as actors preparing themselves for the stage. “Ten bridesmaids took their lamps and went to meet the bridegroom. Five of them were foolish, and five were wise,” the foolish enter from stage left, the wise from stage right, and we know, as we watch and listen, that this distinction will matter somehow. We prepare ourselves to find grief with the foolish and to take hope with the actions of the wise.

Our whole Christian tradition is built on the intermingling of grief and hope. We rightly grieve at the foot of the cross, but the resurrection establishes a new reality in which all peoples can have hope. In the kingdom parables, Jesus gives us an impression of what that hope looks like. But for Christ, and for his church throughout the centuries, these hopeful impressions are not meaningless set pieces. The kingdom of heaven is an oncoming reality for which we must be prepared. It will jump out and surprise us when we least expect it, and its radical freedom energizes us to be the disciples Christ expects us to be.

Expecting that energizing freedom, the ten bridesmaids carry lamps, beacons of their hope. They prepare for the bridegroom and the accompanying celebration. Their lights are dim and the darkness is vast, but the are prepared and hopeful. But there’s a misstep along the way, “When the foolish took their lamps, they took no oil with them; but the wise took flasks of oil with their lamps.”

Commentators have argued about what the oil represents for centuries. Some argue that it’s good works, other argue that it’s faith, others wisdom. I think if it were essential for us to know, Christ would have told us. The foolish bridesmaids probably trusted that there would be enough oil already in the lamp, that it wouldn’t run dry before the bridegroom arrived. After all, the wedding prepared, the director had cued the bridegroom’s entrance, everything would come together as soon as he arrived!

But the players will have to carry the show longer than they thought, as the bridegroom was delayed.

The most trivial delay can still be a magnificent bother in our Veruca-Salt, Don't-Care-How-I-Want-it-Now world. As our days grow shorter and the temperature drops at night, it often takes shower water longer and longer to heat up, because the pipes are colder. So we test the lukewarm water, and crank the "hot" up just a little bit. Then we wait a moment, and test it again. It's still pretty lukewarm, so we crank it up just a little bit more. Wait another moment, still lukewarm, so we crank it up just a little bit more. That seems like about the right temperature, and then by the time we get into the shower we get a moment of perfect temperature water on our backs before it suddenly turns to a river of lava and we try and leap out from under the showerhead before we scald ourselves to death. We flip the hot water down and the cold water up and after a moment the water is so cold that icebergs start forming around the shower drain. The the process starts all over again, all because there's a delay between when we adjust the faucet handle and when the water actually changes.

We've got control over our water temperature, we can fiddle with the handles all morning if we need to. Delays outside our control are more than irritating, they can be downright terrifying. "Thank you for submitting your application, we'll get back to you at some point in the next few weeks." "We have to wait for some project funding to become available before we can do that..." "We've done what we can to get them stable, we'll have to wait until morning to know more..." In times of intense stress, the delay only intensifies things. Waiting is, as they say, the hardest part. We pass the time any way we can: small talk, reading a magazine, or taking a nap "As the bridegroom was delayed, all of them became drowsy and slept."

The wise bridesmaids are not more diligent than the foolish ones. As the night marches on with no word from the bridegroom, all ten of them fall asleep. "The wise bridesmaids are distinctive not because they were ready for the groom but because they were ready for the groom’s delay." All of the bridesmaids held lamps, ready for the groom’s arrival. The foolish ones trim their lamps alongside the wise, but their hope was immediate and their preparation short-term.

A short-term action assumes that God will show up when we expect, as though we were the director, casting whatever image we fancy in God’s role and demanding cues be met are marks be hit. We know, however, that’s not the way things really are. Even though we struggle to live by it, we know God is the both the playwright and the director, and we are enacting his hope-filled story. Preparation for the delay acknowledges God's freedom, and shows faith that God will show up even if it's not on our calendar.

While it is possible, and often healthy, to schedule time for our relationship with God, we've got to recognize that God is not bound to a minute moment when we decide we are ready. God will show up and break up our carefully constructed days and nights, inviting all who are watchful to participate in the work of the kingdom. "Being watchful means being ready at all times, whether waking or sleeping.” We can be faithful, and hopeful at all times. Even dormant faith can shine in a dark enough world. God can use those dim, flickering lamps to light up the whole stage as the theater wakes up to a  magnificent final act.

Jesus finishes his parable, and the play comes to a close, and the audience is left with their impressions, wondering at the meaning behind his words as they move back out into the world. We work to understand and enact Christ’s words of hope, delay and preparation. "It cannot be that we are all supposed to bring with us the resources necessary for the celebration: while not all of them get in, all ten [bridesmaids] bring only lamps with oil in them. The text's theological claim about anticipating the bridegroom's great banquet does not negate the grace-shaped joy of a feast in which the host brings and shares all that we will actually need.” The focus of this passage is not that we should grab on to every possible provision and hoard it for ourselves. "The point is living expectantly and hopefully. Christian hope rests on trust that the God who created the world will continue to live the world with gentle providence." As church-type-people, we have the privilege and responsibility of hopeful preparation.

Each disciple may be a bridesmaid in this allegory, called to hopeful preparation for the day of the LORD. Perhaps, in this passage, the Church is not the bridesmaids. Perhaps we are the oil merchants, tasked with equipping disciples for the journey ahead, even though we do not know how long the journey will take. The Church is a place where we can fill our lamps together with the hope all will be prepared and none will be left out when the doors are shut. The foolish bridesmaids were not present to join the procession when the bridegroom arrived, and so they missed the party. Remaining unrecognized was the judgement on their foolishness. But the wise bridesmaids are under God's judgment too. They were unwilling to share either the oil or their wisdom to take an extra flask. The wedding party, therefore, was only half the size it could have been. Maybe the incompleteness is God's judgment on them for their failings too?

As the foolish bridesmaids found out, you can't fill your lamp at the last minute. As disciples, we have to grab the extra flask of lamp-oil, we have to take the risk that we will wait a while, because there is an abundance for all who are willing to keep their lamps filled. "The wise ones in the church are those who are prepared for the delay; who hold onto the faith deep into the night."

Prepare for the future, not a future where we're on our own and have to scramble to hold on to what is ours, but a future where Christ is returned, and returns us to the messianic banquet where joy and amazement will be without end. God gives us hope so that we can act, not just for our own benefit, but so that God may be glorified and we will enjoy God forever. The stage is set for the arrival of the kingdom of heaven, as we rush headlong into the season of Advent waiting. So we maintain our hopeful preparation, so that we may act in hope when the bridegroom at last arrives.

Vineyards

Vineyards from Joseph Taber on Vimeo.

Isaiah 5:1-7 (776)

1Let me sing for my beloved

My love-song concerning his vineyard:

My beloved had a vineyard on a very fertile hill.

2He dug it and cleared it of stones,

and planted it with choice vines:

he built a watchtower in the midst of it,

and hewed a wine vat in it;

he expected it to yield grapes,

but it yield wild grapes.

3And now, inhabitants of Jerusalem

and people of Judah,

judge between me and my vineyard.

4What more was there to do for my vineyard

that I have not done in it?

When I expected it to yield grapes,

why did it yield wild grapes?

5And now I will tell you

what to do with my vineyard.

I will remove its hedge and it shall be devoured;

I will break down its wall,

and it shall be trampled down.

6I will make it a waste;

it shall not be pruned or hoed,

and it shall be overgrown with briers and thorns;

I will also command the clouds that they rain no rain upon it.

7For the vineyard of the LORD of hosts is the house of Israel

and the people of Judah are his pleasant planting;

he expected justice, but saw bloodshed;

righteousness, but heard a cry!

This is the Word of the LORD

Thanks be to God

Matthew 21:33-46 (29)

33”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. 34When the harvest time had come, he sent his slaves to the tenants to collect his produce. 35But the tenants seized his slaves and beat one, skilled another, and stoned another. 36Again he sent other slaves, more than the first; and they treated them in the same way. 37Finally he sent his son to them, saying, ‘They will respect my son.’ 38But when the tenants saw the son, they said to themselves, ‘This is the heir; come, let us kill him and get his inheritance.’ 39So they seized him, threw him out of the vineyard, and killed him. 40Now when the owner of the vineyard comes, what will he do to those tenants?” 41 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.”

42Jesus 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?’ 43Therefore I tell you, the kingdom of God will be taken away from you and given to a people that produces the fruit of the kingdom. 44The one who falls on this stone will be broken to pieces; and it will crush anyone on whom it falls.”

45When the chief priests and the Pharisees heard his parable, they realized he was speaking about them. 46They wanted to arrest him, but they feared the crowds, because they regarded him as a prophet.

This is the Word of the LORD

Thanks be to God.

Isaiah and God have a very different relationship than the discipleship we normally imagine. In a world where we often keep God at arms length by talking about the god of all heaven and earth, who spins the whirling planets, whose majesty is without end, there's something scandalous about beginning a prophetic passage with "Let me sing for my beloved." I have not found that level of divine intimacy in many of the churches in which I have worshipped.

The divided kingdoms of Israel and Judah were accustomed to the grand language of Temple worship, where God was enthroned in the heavens, and the earth was his footstool. God was always accessible for the divided kingdoms, but as also kept distant by the pomp and ritual of the temple. It was the kind of difference between shaking hands and holding hands.

God held Isaiah's hand. God wanted to hold Israel's hand, and Judah's, as he had when they wandered in the wilderness together. But the divided kingdoms kept God at a distance.

Perhaps God's covenant peoples kept God at a distance because an intimate relationship with God means living a transformed life. Reformed and always being reformed, as the saying goes.

Yet God is not satisfied with a handshake and an unchanged life. Isaiah's love-song on God's behalf portrays a vineyard owner who tirelessly and diligently does everything right. "My beloved had a vineyard on a very fertile hill. He dug it and cleared it of stones,

and planted it with choice vines: he built a watchtower in the midst of it," The land is ready, the best vines are selected, a watchtower is built to defend it from any pest that might threaten the vineyard. This is not the act of a creator who can be held at a distance, this kind of loving cultivation shows that God cares deeply about our response in faith.

God carefully collects us and prepares a place for us as a long-term investment, even hewing a wine vat which would not pay for itself for many harvests. Truly no vine could hope for better circumstances in which to grow. "However, it is not our self-interest that God is cultivating...God's love, care, and protection come with an expectation: justice and righteousness. These are the fruits God longs to see flourish in us.”

When those fruits do not flourish, things take a darker turn. Isaiah’s love-song changes voice, and we find ourselves feasting on the bitterness of wild or rotten grapes. God is deeply hurt by the failure of the divided kingdoms of Israel and Judah. “For the vineyard of the LORD of hosts is the house of Israel and the people of Judah are his pleasant planting; he expected justice, but saw bloodshed; righteousness, but heard a cry!”

For all the work God has done establishing a covenant people, guiding them from slavery to the promised land, preserving them through the centuries, one would expect unfettered faithfulness. Yet the chosen people cannot keep the covenant, and the consequences for their crimes are vivid.

”The threat of judgment may be thunderous here, but the parable also invites us to glimpse the potential for abundant fruitfulness in the lives of those who are faithful." Everything is set up for our success as servants of the living God, who redeems with a strong arm and who holds our hand throughout all our struggles. God’s reaction to Israel and Judah’s failure is not that of a distant God, but of the intimate beloved on whose behalf Isaiah sings.

God cares about us so much that God cares how we respond to the intimate intervention in our lives. God longs to see us live righteously, to Do Justice when we interact with one another. Justice and Righteousness in scripture are more than just finding what is fair or living according to some expansive ruleset.

In scripture, Justice tears down oppression and liberates both the prisoner and the jailer. Justice and righteousness reach beyond the boundaries we draw between people and show hospitality to the ones we might consider “other.” Justice and righteousness always point to God as the source of all authority and reject and subversion of God’s sovereign love. Justice and righteousness shine through loving your neighbor as yourself, as commanded in Leviticus 19:18, and through loving the LORD our God with all our heart, all our mind, and all our strength as commanded in Deuteronomy 6:5.

We all know the passage where Jesus quotes those two laws as the greatest commandments. They were nothing new, and yet the people of God then, as now, struggled to live the covenant fully. When God expected the fruit of his vineyard, he instead found violence.

“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, skilled 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.’”

"This is the heir, let us kill him and get his inheritance!" I don’t have much experience with estate planning, but I don’t imagine most people write their wills to include leaving something to the one who murders their heirs. But it's exactly how God worked at the cross. We killed the heir of heaven and earth, and through the resurrection we were also made heirs! None of the chief priests and elders of the people to whom Jesus was speaking had this radical grace in mind when they were asked to predict what happened next:

“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 fruit of the kingdom. 

Where we expect, and deserve, a miserable death for our failure to produce justice and righteousness, God instead responds with unyielding grace. There is still kingdom work to be done, and God cares about creation enough to see it done, even if it means having to find new hands with which to do it. "[The kingdom of God] refers not to the age to come but to a special relationship to God's sovereignty.” When we fail to be faithful, God’s work will still be done, we just lose the joy of having God work through us. God plants new vineyards, God hires new workers.

And yet neither of these texts are hopeless. There is judgment to be sure, but God’s judgment, like God’s justice, restores and invites us back into relationship with the Holy One. “The transfer of stewardship to a ‘people that produces the fruits of the kingdom’ is a restorative act, not a punitive act.”  God is intimately involved in creation, will not wait for us to figure it out on our own, because we’ve shown we can’t get there by ourselves. So at the same moment he is pronouncing judgment, God is already working in both of these passages to bring God’s people back into the joyful relationship which God intends for them. For the divided kingdoms of Israel and Judah, that meant prophets and catastrophe, and eventually restoration. For the people to whom Jesus was speaking in the temple when he told his parable, that meant that he would be led to the cross, and that the cross would lead to the resurrection, where the power of sin and death would be forever broken.

We believe that in Communion, by the power of the Holy Spirit we are elevated to dine with Christ at God's table. Our whole selves are nourished by Christ's real presence among us, and we are reminded of how far God went to restore us to the intimate relationship where we can share a meal with God and with one another. Every time we break bread or drink of the fruit of the vine, we proclaim Christ's saving death until he comes again.

Until then, we have the responsibility to bear the fruits of the kingdom of God: justice and righteousness. God cares deeply about us, and holds our hand throughout the whole of human history, and cares about how we respond in faith to what God has already done. We can try and hold God at arms length, like the divided kingdoms did, like the chief priests and the elder of the people did, like the church still sometimes does. But it is better to embrace the transformation God has already accomplished in us, and sing the songs of our beloved, and to bear the fruits from this table, where we are fed, out into the vineyard of all of the peoples of God.

Good People

Jonah 3:10-4:11

10When God saw what [the people of Ninevah did], how they turned from their evil ways, God changed his mind about the calamity that he had said he would bring upon them; and he did not do it.

4:1But this was very displeasing to Jonah, and he became angry. 2He prayed to the LORD and said, “ O LORD! Is not this what I said while I was still in my own country? That is why I fled to Tarshish at the beginning; for I knew that you are a gracious God and merciful, slow to anger, and abounding in steadfast love, and ready to relent from punishing. 3And now, O LORD, please take my life from me, for it is better for me to die than to live.” 4And the LORD said, “Is it right for you to be angry?” 5Then Jonah went out of the city and sat down east of the city, and made a booth for himself there. He sat under it in the shade, waiting to see what would become of the city.

6The LORD God appointed a bush, and made it come up over Jonah, to give shade over his head, to save him from his discomfort; so Jonah was very happy about the bush. 7But when dawn came up the next day, God appointed a worm that attacked the bush, so that it withered. 8When the sun rose, God prepared a sultry east wind, and the sun beat down on the head of Jonah so that he was faint and asked that he might die. he said, “It is better for me to die than to live.”

9But God said to Jonah, “Is it right for you to be angry about the bush?” and he said, “Yes, angry enough to die.” 10Then the LORD said, “You are concerned about the bush, for which you did not labor and which you did not grow; it came into being in a night and perished in a night. 11and should I not be concerned about Ninevah, that great city, in which there are more than a hundred and twenty thousand persons who do not know their right hand from there left, and many animals?”

This is the Word of the LORD

Thanks be to God

Matthew 20:1-16

1”For the kingdom of heaven is like a landowner who went out early in the morning to hire laborers for his vineyard. 2After agreeing with the laborers for the usual daily wage, he sent them into his vineyard. 3When he went out about nine o’clock, he saw others standing idle in the marketplace; 4and he ;aid to them, ‘You also go into the vineyard and I will pay you whatever is right.’ So they went. 5When he went out again about noon and about three 0’clock, he did the same. 6And about five o’clock he went out and found others standing around; and he said to them, ‘Why are you standing here idle all day? 7They said to him, ‘Because no one has hired us.’ He said to them, ‘You also go into the vineyard.’ 8when evening came, the owner of the vineyard said to his manager, ‘Call the laborers and give them their pay, beginning with the last and then going to the first.’ When those hired about five o’clock came, each of them received the usual daily wage. 10Now when the first came, they thought they would receive more; but each of them also received the usual daily wage. 11And when they received it, they grumbled against the landowner, saying, ‘These last worked only one hour, and you have made them equal to us who have borle the burden of the day and the scorching heat.’ But he replied to one of them, ‘Friend, I am doing you no wrong; did you not agree with me for the usual daily wage? 14Take what belongs to you and go; I choose to give to this last the same as I give to you. 15Am I not allowed to do what I choose with what belongs to me? Or are you envious because I am generous?’ So the last will be first, and the first will be last.”

This is the Word of the LORD

Thanks be to God.

Jonah is one of those stories that we talk about all the time when we're children, but never really revisit after that. Everybody remembers the story of the reluctant prophet who runs away from God's calling, and is swallowed by a large fish until he gets his head on straight. But that's just the first half of the story. Chapter 3 tells the story of how Jonah prophesies to Ninevah, that great city, still smelling of the inside of a fish, no doubt.

Ninevah, that great city, was the capital of Assyria, one of the most brutal empires to cross the Middle East. They were the ones who rolled through the Northern Kingdom of Israel and thoroughly destroyed it. Once Assyria finishes with Israel, there's no one left to return as a remnant, like there would be for Judah after Babylon.

The book of Jonah emerges from the remnant of Judah after they are given the opportunity to return to their homeland. Israel has already been destroyed for several generations by the time this book is written. Assyria is no longer the dominant empire in the region, but Ninevah, that great city, remains as a symbol for the enemies of Israel, wicked destroyers who are outside the covenant.

Ninevah is not just "outsiders," they are the enemy who would eradicate God's people given the chance.

And Jonah is called to prophesy to them. He doesn't run because of a lack of faith, but because he knows who God is, He tells us, "That is why I fled to Tarshish at the beginning; for I knew that you are a gracious God and merciful, slow to anger, and abounding in steadfast love, and ready to relent from punishing." Jonah knows the God on whose behalf he speaks, and he longs for the destruction of that wicked city.

Those who heard the words of this particular section of scripture had seen the redemption of their people, they had lived through the end of exile, the restoration of Judah, they knew that the wages of sin is death, and that after the cataclysmic destruction of Israel and the destruction of babylon, that grace does follow in the preservation of a remnant.

Surely as God’s favor turned back to Judah, so God’s wrath would turn against her enemies? These are not good people like us, these are awful, sinful, violent people. They are the ones who hurt us, who threatened to destroy us.

"If they are in on the love of God, then Jonah wants out."

The people of Ninevah repented. they stopped ignoring God and mourned their sinfulness at the mere possibility that God would not destroy them. Jonah must have been quite a preacher to change the mind of a whole city while he still smelled like the inside of a great fish. “When God saw what they, how they turned from their evil ways, God changed his mind about the calamity that he had said he would bring upon them; and he did not do it.”

Jonah responds to God’s radical and far-reaching grace in the same way that many of us have, time and time again. He goes off to pout. God is not doing what he wants, instead of destroying his enemies, God had shown mercy to Jonah, who repented from inside the fish. God chooses to show the same mercy to the people of Ninevah, that great city. Jonah, who thought he had God in his pocket, even though he knew that God is “a gracious God and merciful, slow to anger, and abounding in steadfast love, and ready to relent from punishing,” learns the hard way that God’s limitless grace doesn’t just belong to one reluctant prophet.

Truly, we rediscover how vast our Lord is in this minor prophet. “…the book of Jonah concerns a recurring and endlessly powerful resistance to reduce [God's] character, so large in mercy and comprehensive in compassion, to the local convenience of the insider community of Israel," or, for that matter, the Christian church. If we're going to accept God's grace, we must do so acknowledging God's freedom to give that grace to anyone, even "those people.”

The disquieting thing about Jonah, and our Matthew passage, is that if God is free to be gracious to Ninevah. The comforting thing is that if God is gracious even to Ninevah, if the vineyard owner is generous to those who worked the least, then surely God is also quick to forgive us. Even when we've worked all day, we must still rely on God's generosity, regardless of our own ability.

”For the kingdom of heaven is like a landowner who went out early in the morning to hire laborers for his vineyard." Our parable this morning is not meant to be an instruction for how to run a successful business. If one followed this parable literally and paid workers the same irrespective of how long they worked, one would find very few workers who were willing to start first thing in the morning.

Even though it’s not a realistic guide to living, this parable is my favorite one anyway. It so full of different possibilities. One can look at why the workers didn't get hired at first. Perhaps they didn't look like the kind of who would be productive. Perhaps they weren't there first thing in the morning. Perhaps there was a good reason why they got passed over.

One can look at why the landowner kept hiring new workers. Maybe he called them in to work because the harvest was so great he needed every available hand, even throughout the day, snowballing production into a record profit. Maybe he wanted to encourage the later workers to be more prepared the next day, giving a hand-up to those who needed gainful employment. Maybe those who came later in the day would be willing to work harder than those who started the day.

One cast reinterpret this parable based on the different ways to cast the various characters.

One reading would be that God is the landowner, and we are the workers, and Jesus is the overseer who pays us all with our salvation at the end of the day.

Another reading might say Christ is the landowner, and those who don't know the gospel are the workers, and the church is the overseer who is taught to serve the last first.

But Jesus begins the passage with ”For the kingdom of heaven is like a landowner who went out early in the morning to hire laborers for his vineyard." If the landowner is not God, but rather God's kingdom, that changes things. Suddenly we have a kingdom that pursues us throughout the day, giving us the chance to work in the vineyard. Even those who have started the day negotiating for a fair wage and overlooking the opportunity for joy that the work offers. As one commentator noted, ”The bargainers are working for a denarius; the latecomers are working for the landowner, for God. Both get what they're working for.” The kingdom of heaven is a place of generous joyous giving, if we're jealous it saps the joy.

But even so, the payment schedule still gives us pause. “Call the laborers and give them their pay, beginning with the last and then going to the first.” Why does the landowner give such specific instructions for making those who have worked the longest watch the others get paid? The whole conflict would have been avoided if the landowner had paid them in the order they began work. Surely God is trying to teach them something by paying them last. And wouldn't it have been just as generous to pay the people who deserve a full days wage even more?

I grew up in the church, a minister's son. I've been attending regularly my whole life! I've been serving others as long as I can remember! I won't begrudge the landowner's generosity, but I could stand to receive some of it, instead of just watching others enjoy their gracious pay. We're all good people here at this church, right? We read our bibles, tithe regularly, and feed the hungry.

But then, wrapped up in our self-righteousness, we begin to recognize the faces of those who were called at the end of the day. I remember when I told someone who asked me for money that I didn't have any cash, even though I had just broken a twenty dollar bill at the grocery store so I could tip my bartender that night. I remember the years at college when I didn't go to church because I "didn't find a church home," when really I didn't make much of an effort. Perhaps we remember that we were on vacation one week when we normally tithe, but when we got back we didn't put twice as much as usual to make up for it. Perhaps we remember that we skipped over the hard parts when we were reading the bible, and just read our favorite stories over and over. Perhaps we remember when instead of feeding the hungry, we went back for seconds just so none of our food would go to waste.

We begin to recognize the faces of those who were called at the end of the day, and where we expected to find "those people," we see ourselves. We may think of ourselves as good people, but sainthood isn't about meeting everyone's expectations, it's about trusting God's grace and allowing ourselves to be transformed by it.

At the end of the day, at least in the kingdom of heaven, we are all given our daily wage, whether we negotiated it at the beginning or receive it as a gift. The only difference is in how much work we are able to do, because there's no indication that the landowner is concerned with the harvest or his own profit. Instead he shows concern for those who have not been given the opportunity to work, continually invite people in even if they don’t measure up to the standards we set, but cannot even meet ourselves. But we are invited to work not because we are qualified or at the top of the field, we are invited to join the work of the kingdom because God is “a gracious God and merciful, slow to anger, and abounding in steadfast love, and ready to relent from punishing.”

But we’re still working on learning how to be grateful vineyard workers, especially when the way God shows generosity makes it easier to see to given to others rather than in our own lives. ”The vineyard owner claims the right to pay his workers not on the basis of their merits but on the basis of his own compassion. Why should such generosity be condemned as injustice?” The kingdom of heaven is a place where our expectations are turned on their heads, where grace is extended bother to Jonah and to Ninevah, and to those who labor at any time of the day. If we try and keep track of the numbers, the scores of debts and debtors, the equations don’t come out the way we expect. So we join Jonah in the wilderness, or the early workers in their complaint. Ultimately though, our accounting doesn’t make the difference, God’s generosity defines reality.

We rely of God's mercy whether we know it or not, and whether we like it or not.

Imperative

Imperative from Joseph Taber on Vimeo.
Matthew 16:13-20

13Now when Jesus came into the district of Caesarea Philippi, he asked his disciples, “Who do people say that the Son of Man is?” 14and they said, “Some say John the Baptist, but others Elijah, and still others Jeremiah or one of the prophets.” 15He said to them, “But who do you say that I am? 16Simon Peter answered, “You are the Messiah, the Son of the living God.” 17And Jesus answered him, “Blessed are you, Simon son of Jonah! for flesh and blood has not revealed this to you, but my Father in heaven. 18And I tell you, you are Peter, and on this rock I will build my church, and the gates of Hades will not prevail against it. 19I will give you the keys of the kingdom of heaven, and whatever you bind on earth will be bound in heavens and whatever you loose on earth will be loosed in heaven.” 20Then he sternly ordered the disciples not to tell anyone that he was the Messiah.

This is the Word of the LORD

Thanks be to God

Isaiah 51:1-6

1Listen to Me, you who pursue justice,

You who seek the LORD:

Look to the rock you were hewn from,

To the quarry you were dug from.

2Look back to Abraham your father

And to Sarah who brought you forth.

For he was only one when I called him,

But I blessed him and made him many.

3Truly the LORD has comforted Zion,

Comforted all her ruins;

He has made her wilderness like Eden,

Her desert like the Garden of the LORD.

Gladness and joy shall abide there,

Thanksgiving and the sound of music.

4Hearken to Me, My people,

And give ear to Me, O My nation,

For teaching shall go forth from Me,

My way for the light of peoples.

In a moment I will bring it;

5the triumph I grant is near,

The success I give has gone forth.

My arms shall provide for the peoples;

The coastlands shall trust in Me,

They shall look to My arm.

6Raise your eyes to the heavens,

And look upon the earth beneath:

Though the heavens should melt away like smoke,

and the earth wear out like a garment,

and its inhabitants die out as well,

My victory shall stand forever,

My triumph shall remain unbroken.

This is the Word of the LORD

Thanks be to God.

Listen! Look! Look! Hearken! Give ear! Raise your eyes! Look!

Seven times in six verses, God gives us a word that commands us to act. The Lord of heaven and earth issues an Imperial Decree, and we are expected comply.

Listen, look, look, hearken, give ear, raise your eyes, look!

We 21st century American Christians tend to shy away from talking too much about God's commands. We're much more comfortable hearing about how God invites us to join with what God is doing, we'd rather not hear as much about what God expects us. Instead, tell us again about how God loves us no matter what we do or think.

God is speaking to a people who are empty, who have spent so long trying to just get by in a world full of exile and terror. People who inherited vineyards which they did not plant, only to see the beauty of the earth melt away as they were taken from their places of comfort.

This passage is not addressed to the righteous, the delivered, the victorious. It's addressed to those who are chasing it down. “Listen to Me, you who pursue justice. “This word is for those who are desperate for hope, but haven't found it yet.

God's people are in exile, far away from the land that symbolizes the covenant, far away from the trappings of their temple worship, far away from their connection to the ancestral inheritance. They are in Babylon. Yet even in exile in Babylon, God calls them to pay attention to their roots, which are not just in Israel and Judah, or in Sinai, or even Egypt. For once, long ago, God told a man named Abram to get up and leave the city and house of his father and to go to a place where God would show him. So Abram, who would become known as Abraham, left the city of Ur, an ancient  city in the Babylonian empire. Even in exile, God reminds the people of their roots, of the covenant God has bade with them. Look at the quarry from which you were hewn. Look at the rocks from which you were formed. Listen, look, look, hearken, give ear, raise your eyes, look!

These divine commands, these orders from on high, God's Word made imperative, are not instructions to go on a spiritual journey or to enact some sort of ritual. The people to whom God is speaking cannot carry their end of the relationship, at least not yet. These seven verbs grab our attention and orient us to a God who is acting. Listen, look, look, hearken, give ear, raise your eyes, look!

We've been waiting for a long time to see God's action. We've trained ourselves to see God in the small actions, but we long to see God really roll up his sleeves and do something amazing. We remember a time when the pews were so full we had to think creatively about how to fit everyone inside the church, and many congregations built larger grander sanctuaries as well. Now we see not only available seats, but pews which lie empty, like unplanted fields gone to weeds. We remember a time when church life was the center of whole communities. Now we see communities, even communities of faith, divided by political differences and family squabbles.

Is that the rock we were hewn from? Is that the quarry from which we were dug? Are we to remain in this desert of institutional decline? No wonder God is issuing commands! It’s time for us to turn things around, to be ready to act, if we just work a little harder at what we’re doing, everything will go back to the way it was, a whole company of believers making sure that the church is the focus of society!

God's word spoken through the prophet Isaiah does not call some spiritual army to attention, it calls us to pay attention. This text does not point us to our own action, or even our own comfort. The focus of this passage, and ideally of the life of the church, is on what God is doing. Because God is about to make the wilderness like Eden, the desert like the Garden of The Lord.

Listen, look, look, hearken, give ear, raise your eyes, look!

None of these verbs are missional, or empowering, they do not invite participation in the work God is doing, they don't even require purity or the right belief. They are all observational. Listen. Look. Look. Hearken. Give ear. Raise your eyes. Look!

As God speaks these words to them, the people of God are too beaten down to participate in what God is doing. They're just too tired to respond in faith. Too many years of decline, too many years of chasing after justice, and never reaching it. God's people, in this text, need to be reminded that God is acting, that God is mighty, and that God is working for their good.

So God commands them to pay attention, and to remember to whom they belong.

We are dug from the same quarry, hewn from the same rocky ground, as our spiritual ancestors. But God can make that rocky wilderness like Eden. God transforms the desert into the Garden of The Lord. Our spiritual ancestors did not accomplish great things, or even great faith, by themselves, or grow from two old people into a nation, a childless couple into the Matriarch and Patriarch through whom all peoples bless themselves. Only God can do that. So why do we focus so much of our attention on replicating their results through our own feeble efforts, instead of trusting in the God who is leading us to a land which God will show us?

Our exile is spiritually exhausting. We’re so tired of trying to continue forward out of our own strength, which we know is not sufficient. In our anxiety, we make decisions based on what we think will make our denomination not decline as quickly. We try and hold on to our resources because we can only see the day when they run out. We forget that the church is not called to promote itself, but always to Proclaim the Lordship of Christ. We exile ourselves with our own sense of self-importance, until we find ourselves in a land where anxiety and fear abide, hand-wringing and the sound of worry.

But even in our exile, God is still at work, bringing us back to himself, to the land which God will show us. Gladness and joy shall abide there, Thanksgiving and the sound of music. Listen, look, look, hearken, give ear, raise your eyes, look, for God is acting. Christ is Lord of heaven and earth, even though that looks different, in our different world, than it looked for our ancestors. Even in exile we have hope in God,  whose “arms shall provide for the peoples; The coastlands shall trust in [God], They shall look to [God’s] arm.”

We know that God is faithful to the covenant even when we are not. We have seen this theme played out time and again throughout scripture, church history, and our own lives. What has gone before us is not to be discarded, ”Our ancestors and their history and connected to our hope; our hope is the foundation of our future. God's promises to Sarah and Abraham flow to and infuse hope in the exile.” Out of exile comes life, and beauty, and a people who are reformed, and are always being reformed. They are different, sure, and have their own particularity, but they are also connected to all the saints in every time and place. Listen. Look. Look. Hearken. Give ear. Raise your eyes. Look!

We share hope in a new minister, and a new congregation. We see fruits beginning to flourish within ourselves and one another, we're caught up in the excitement of new life, where we had only seen a dormant grind for so long. But that newness will fade into a mature and trusting Pastoral Relationship. The hope of newness is ephemeral and will fade. the hope in God’s promises to our ancestors is sure, even though we do not know the form it will take.

God says “For teaching shall go forth from Me, My way for the light of peoples. In a moment I will bring it; the triumph I grant is near,” The teaching which shall go forth from God gives us the words to answer “Who do you say that I am?” with “You are the Messiah, the Son of the living God.” Listen, look, look, hearken, give ear, raise your eyes, look! God’s imperative to us is not to grow in stature, or number, or to fit in with the culture, or be popular. God doesn’t issue a call to attention so that we will be ready to act immediately, God calls us to pay attention so that we will see who God is, and be able in all things to proclaim the Lordship of Christ. Listen. Look. Look. Hearken. Give ear. Raise your eyes. Look!

These commands remind us of God's love, they connect us to the narrative that gives the events of our lives meaning. Listen, look, look, hearken, give ear, raise your eyes, look! "Though the heavens should melt away like smoke, and the earth wear out like a garment, and its inhabitants die out as well, My victory shall stand forever, My triumph shall remain unbroken.”

So the church remains connected to the rock frown which we are hewn, to the quarry from which we were dug. We still pursue justice, but we find ourselves watching for God, exploring creation with the hope that we will find what God is already doing for us, to us, and through us. We respond in faith when we are able, and when we cannot, God commands us to Listen. Look. Look. Hearken. Give ear. Raise your eyes. Look!

God's commands remind us of the covenant, and call us to remember the wonders God has done in our sight in the past. So our obedience to God’s command is not an obligation, but a joy. God’s commands remind us of the covenant, linking our action to the reasons we act. God’s imperative empowers our declaration that Christ is Lord. QGod’s victory shall stand forever, God’s triumph shall remain unbroken,” and we listen, look, look, hearken, give ear, raise our eyes, look, and finally answer, QJesus is the Messiah, the Son of the Living God.”

Dinner Conversation

Dinner Conversation from Joseph Taber on Vimeo.

1 Corinthians 11:23-26

23 For I received from the Lord what I also handed on to you, that the Lord Jesus on the night when he was betrayed took a loaf of bread, 24and when he had given thanks, he broke it and said, ‘This is my body that is for* you. Do this in remembrance of me.’ 25In the same way he took the cup also, after supper, saying, ‘This cup is the new covenant in my blood. Do this, as often as you drink it, in remembrance of me.’ 26For as often as you eat this bread and drink the cup, you proclaim the Lord’s death until he comes.

This is the Word of the LORD

Thanks be to God

Matthew 14:13-21

13 Now when Jesus heard [that John had been executed], he withdrew from there in a boat to a deserted place by himself. But when the crowds heard it, they followed him on foot from the towns. 14When he went ashore, he saw a great crowd; and he had compassion for them and cured their sick. 15When it was evening, the disciples came to him and said, ‘This is a deserted place, and the hour is now late; send the crowds away so that they may go into the villages and buy food for themselves.’ 16Jesus said to them, ‘They need not go away; you give them something to eat.’ 17They replied, ‘We have nothing here but five loaves and two fish.’ 18And he said, ‘Bring them here to me.’ 19Then he ordered the crowds to sit down on the grass. Taking the five loaves and the two fish, he looked up to heaven, and blessed and broke the loaves, and gave them to the disciples, and the disciples gave them to the crowds. 20And all ate and were filled; and they took up what was left over of the broken pieces, twelve baskets full. 21And those who ate were about five thousand men, besides women and children.

This is the Word of the LORD

Thanks be to God

My Dad is a storyteller, many of us know him from his days as the Executive Presbyter here in Western North Carolina, others of us met him Friday night as he moved around the reception, proud papa of a teaching elder. I, of course, know him in a different way than the rest of our congregation, what with him being my Dad and all.

Dad had some wisdom that he shared, periodically, on the subject of storytelling: "All stories are true, some of them actually happened."

A human life is a collection of stories. We are the main character in most of them, but not all of our stories feature our names on the title page. We inherit stories from those who have gone before us, and pass them on to generations whom we have not yet met. "For I received from the Lord what I also handed on to you,"

Our stories define us and connect us with the ones with whom we share them. That's why we so lovingly choose children's books when we gather for a baby shower, books like The Runaway Bunny, or Goodnight Moon, or I Love You Forever, because we remember how lovingly those stories were shared with us, even before we knew why that mattered. We know that many of those stories did not happen, but that doesn't make them less true.

The stories that did happen are our Mothers reading us The Runaway Bunny and we knew that she would love us to the end of the earth, no matter what happened. The stories that did happen were our Father's telling us the stories of what happened at work that day, and making us feel loved and accepted by including us in the Dinner Conversations. The stories that did happen were our Mothers' making up a tune to sing while reading I Love You Forever, before we understood that it meant more to her than it did to us.

Our experience with those stories made their truth real to us.

But not every dinner conversation was a pleasant one, and there is more than one story in our anthology that doesn't have a happy ending. There are tragedies alongside the comedies. Those stories are true too, and their harshness shapes our lives just as much as the warmth of the happy stories does. We don't tell those stories as often, and we certainly don't tell them because they're pleasant, or happy, or polite dinner conversation.

In a few minutes, we will gather around the Lord's Table for a sacrament, but we will do so knowing that the dinner table was not a safe place for everyone. Some tables are terrifying centers of abuse, altars to trauma that removes our ability to tell our story the way it happened.

We tell the hard stories because they're true. Even we cannot face that truth straight on, we can tell the truth, but tell it slant.

Sometimes we tell stories in ways that open up old wounds, it's painful and may leave us bleeding, but it's also the only way to make room for healing.

All this happened, more or less.

Our Gospel lesson this morning tells the story of a miracle. Jesus, out of his grief over the loss of his cousin and colleague in ministry, John the Baptist, "he withdrew from there in a boat to a deserted place by himself. But when the crowds heard it, they followed him on foot from the towns."

The story of Jesus is so filled with truth, that crowds gather and walk around the outside of a lake just for a chance to have a piece of God's truth.

"When [Jesus] went ashore, he saw a great crowd; and he had compassion for them and cured their sick."

Even in his grief, Jesus is still filled with compassion for God's people, and rolls up his sleeves to minister to them.

"15When it was evening, the disciples came to him and said, ‘This is a deserted place, and the hour is now late; send the crowds away so that they may go into the villages and buy food for themselves.’"

The disciples see God doing great things, and immediately miss the point. Again. But I wonder if maybe they saw that Jesus was tired, and that he needed space to grieve, but this crowd did not see it, they only saw their own need for healing. Perhaps the disciples were trying to protect Jesus, and were showing love and care for him, at the expense of the crowds.

16Jesus said to them, ‘They need not go away; you give them something to eat.’ 

The disciples, perhaps hoping to give Jesus a chance to rest, want to just wave the crowds off to fend for themselves, Jesus’s boundless compassion looks creatively at the situation and finds a way to teach the disciples what it looks like to love God and neighbor by feeding those who are hungry.

17They replied, ‘We have nothing here but five loaves and two fish.’18And he said, ‘Bring them here to me.’

When our mission falls flat on its face, and we are left with “we have nothing,” God finds a way to include us in the healing work of God. God’s compassion includes us even when we think we have nothing to give. Because even when we have nothing, we can still share our story, our part in God’s story, our partaking of the bread of life. “The Lord’s Supper is, in the first place, the sacrament of the sharing of the divine life with humanity.”

19Then he ordered the crowds to sit down on the grass. Taking the five loaves and the two fish, he looked up to heaven, and blessed and broke the loaves, and gave them to the disciples, and the disciples gave them to the crowds. 20And all ate and were filled; and they took up what was left over of the broken pieces, twelve baskets full. 21And those who ate were about five thousand men, besides women and children.

Ah, the miracle. The part of the story where more empirically minded folk raise an eyebrow. There is some speculation as to how this miracle actually happened. One theory is the traditional magic basket approach, where the bread and fish multiplied and never ran out. The other is the stone soup version, where the crowed, inspired by Jesus's generosity in sharing what little the disciples had, revealed that they had brought a little with them, and the hearts of the whole multitude were changed such that they shared everything they had, with plenty left over.

I think either one counts as a miracle. I personally favor the traditional interpretation, that God provided abundance from nothing so that all could be fed. The more modern understanding, however, that God changed the hearts of thousands through a simple act of generosity is a profound miracle as well.

I also think that if it were essential for us to know one way or the other, the Holy Spirit would have included the pertinent details in the unique and authoritative witness we have in scripture. Such a detail would fit in well alongside the stories of God providing manna in the wilderness, or alongside the account in Numbers of each tribe's identical offering for sacrifice and for the tabernacle.

But irrespective of the details, the truth of the story is that through God's intervention, we are fed and what looked like scarcity has become abundance.

But without the stories we tell, we would never get to experience that truth. For Presbyterians, the reading and proclamation of the Word is always tied to the sacraments, because the story and the truth it contains, give us language to describe our experience of God. “The elements of bread and with mediate the spiritual presence of Jesus Christ only insofar as they are celebrated in the larger context of those narratives that identify Jesus as the Christ.”

All stories are true, some actually happened.

But the stories we tell around God’s table are not empty fantasies, they are truth-laden testimony to who God is, and to who we are as followers of Jesus Christ.

The proof is at the table, where we are invited by Christ to dine with our God throughout the power of the Holy Spirit. We are elevated by God through the sacrament to sit and share a meal with disciples in every time and place, and the elements of bread and wine awaken us to the real presence of Christ among us.

One theologian, writing about what happens at Communion, confessed that nobody really gets it, that the sacrament, by its nature, is a mystery. “Now, if anyone should ask me how this takes place, I shall not be ashamed to confess that it is a secret to lofty for either my mind to comprehend or my words to declare. And, to speak more plainly, I rather experience than understand it.”

Perhaps the feeding of the five thousand serves as a reminder that we cannot do our work apart from God. Communion reminds, reveals, and promises the God is in our midst, empowering our mission, finding ways for us is worship God, grow in faith, and show God’s love to everyone.

Thanks be to God for that.