What Are We Looking For?
Commentary
“Wisdom is vindicated by her deeds.” This week, we have the story of Abraham’s servant going “back home” to find a wife for his boss’ son juxtaposed with Jesus’ words about the criticism he and John the Baptist got for living in two diametrically opposed lifestyles. Jesus is, in effect, saying: “What do you expect? You went out to the wilderness to see John, who preached fear and the punishment sinners deserve, and wound up calling him a madman. You come to see me, and then criticize me for ministering to the outcasts, for eating and drinking like any normal person. So I ask you again: What are you looking for?”
This question is especially pertinent in today’s troubled political climate, not just here but in other countries as well. Should we let in immigrants? But our crops are already dying in the fields because we aren’t getting the migrant workers we’ve counted on (and paid poorly and provided no benefits for). In many places in Europe, immigrants are being herded into camps that provide little or no safety. In other places in Europe, immigrants are being turned away altogether. The people say, “We have little enough for ourselves. We can’t afford to take care of people who have been displaced.”
And yet what if climate change is real, and coming on fast, and people in Florida lose their homes to the rising waters? Would we turn them away? Back in the 1930s a drought hit the Midwest here at home, and those who loaded a truck with the essentials and headed west to find work, a place to live, a place to grow crops, were labeled “Okies” and despised by the residents of California, who thought they could not afford to help these refugees from the Dust Bowl.
We have some comfort, however. Paul confesses that he knows what he should do, but seems unable to do it. He knows what he should not do, but does it anyway. This is also true of us. We fail to do as we should because it will be uncomfortable or hard or cost us something. We fear the consequences of our actions, so we hold back rather than give. If we give today and tomorrow, who knows if we’ll have enough to retire on?
This is the meaning of grace. We want to do well, but we envy those with better jobs, more money, more creature comforts, and this warps our souls. We are suspicious of those standing on street corners with their cardboard signs: “Hungry. Please give.” They don’t look hungry. We fear panhandlers and the people who roam the downtown shouting at passersby that we are all doomed, but we do not want to pay more taxes to shelter those in need. We fear the storms that come just as we are planting or when the harvest is due, so we build our storm cellars -- but we also build walls meant to keep out those whom we fear.
But our redemption has already come. Jesus promises that he will stand at our side, helping us to overcome and granting us forgiveness for all those times we fail. Grace is what keeps us going, Grace. The kindness of God for all of us. Our salvation is sure, despite our lapses and failures.
Genesis 24:34-38, 42-49, 58-67
This is a lesson that reads differently today than even a generation ago. Today, as we are again confronting the hard differences of the Western and Middle Eastern cultures, we can see Rebekah wrapping her veil around her at the approach of a man she does not yet know. We can understand more clearly the differences between men and women in that long-ago time, as this man, perfectly able to carry water, asks a young woman to do this heavy work; in fact, he has placed before God the sign he wants so he will know which woman in this enclave God has picked to be the wife of his master’s son: she should volunteer to draw up enough water for his camels as well. We don’t know how many camels he has in his caravan, but each of these animals will drink up to 20 gallons at a time!
Nevertheless, carrying water was “women’s work.” When the daughters of a family reached an age where they could be trusted to go to the well and draw water, it became their responsibility. The work was hard, and could require the women to walk considerable distances, carrying a water jar on their head or shoulder. But as with any job, the load can be lightened by the attitude one takes. Traditionally the trip to the well took place at certain times of the day, and the women and girls used the time on the trip to the well and waiting their turn as a time to socialize and to share news.
Abraham’s servant knew when the women were most likely to come to the well, and he wants Isaac to have a wife who is caring and generous. The sign he asks God for is not miraculous, but it’s a good way to ask God for guidance. He will ask a normal question: “May I have a drink from your water jug?” And she will reply, without being asked to do so, “Drink, and I will draw for your camels also.” The alacrity with which she does this shows how she has been brought up:
* She comes from a family that automatically shares with others.
* She also has been brought up to trust, to feel safe. If she were fearful, she might have turned around as soon as she saw a stranger next to the spring, and returned home.
* Finally, she is strong enough to carry a water jug on her shoulder.
Even better, she is related to Abraham. We might avoid marrying within our own family, but in those days it was common to marry a cousin. (According to Genesis 11:27, Rebekah’s grandfather was Nahor, Abraham’s brother.) One reason for this is that she wouldn’t have to learn to conform to her husband’s religion -- a main concern to the editor of the Torah: their customs would be the same; they would also share each other’s expectations of husbands and wives, and how to prepare his food. (So it tastes like his mother used to make.)
So the servant gets out a nose ring and bracelets, and puts them on Rebekah. It seems a bit strange that he does this before meeting her family or arranging the marriage contract. But he is bestowing on her jewels from his master, probably to show how wealthy his master is. It could well be a sign of the marriage price his master was willing to pay, since there has been no marriage contract, and she therefore would not have to give them back if the marriage did not go through. He wants to impress her and her family.
Despite all this, the marriage is not assured. It is not just up to the father and the marriage broker to decide. Rebekah has the right to say no, especially since she will be living very far from her parents and so will not have their protection guaranteed if something goes wrong. We have no idea how long the negotiations went on. That wasn’t the point of the story, and the supposition of the one writing the story was that the hearer would have some idea of how long these things might take.
Therefore, Rebekah is called in and asked if she agrees with this plan. She immediately says yes. It must have seemed like a dream to her. She is promised in marriage to an eligible man, a man with land and camels and donkeys, flocks of sheep and herds of goats, precious metals and slaves to do the hard work. She is being offered a place in the household of a man wealthy enough to promise her a life of ease -- no more carrying of heavy water jugs for her! -- and beauty.
The blessing that the family pronounces on her is an echo of the blessing that God promised to Abraham, that his (now her) offspring will be as numerous as the stars in the sky [seeGenesis 22:17]. And this in a land before light pollution and smog clouded the skies, where the desert air prevents clouds from blocking out the light of the galaxy, where the vast number of stars that can be seen is overwhelming. It is also a celebration of her marriage, there in the heart of her family.
Rebekah’s family isn’t poor either. She brings her nurse (who would have been like a second mother to her) and her maids. This provides her the benefit of having servants who have known her and whose loyalty will be to her as she joins her mother-in-law’s household. She will be able to rely on them to help her make her household truly her own.
As they come to the end of their journey, Isaac and Rebekah catch sight of each other as the camel train arrives at the edge of Isaac’s fields. He is out walking in his field, and she is high enough on the back of a camel to see him at a distance. She asks the servant who that is in the field, and he answers that it is his master. Because she has been in the presence of her own household, she has not been covering her face -- but now, about to meet her new husband, she covers herself. This displays her modesty, but also serves to cover her dress, which would be coated with dust from the journey. She has a wait: the servant has to tell Isaac the whole story of how he found her, what her family is like, the gifts from them to Abraham’s family, and what he has observed of Rebekah on the journey.
Isaac is obviously pleased with the servant’s work. He takes Rebekah to his mother’s tent. This is appropriate, because the life of women in that time (and in fact today in most of the Middle East) was highly segregated by gender. The head of the family may be the oldest man, but the oldest woman in that compound has the power to demand how things are done in general, and has the task of running the household, which means she assigns tasks not only to her own servants but to her daughters or daughters-in-law and their servants as well. In this way she has the power to make life beautiful or odious for all the women in the compound.
As each son in the family marries, a new tent is erected for his intimate family. In this space will live the couple, their servants, and their children. The tent may be expansive if the man is well-off, or small if he has little money. In this case, Isaac and Rebekah will probably have a large room for themselves and a smaller room for her servants.
After receiving his mother’s blessing, Isaac would have escorted his bride to the tent in which she will live with her husband. Once they have been intimate, they are officially married. The author adds a small comment that we today might never notice: “she became his wife, and he loved her.” We understand that they did not love each other and then get married; it is assumed that love grows as a couple learns each other’s temperament and customary expectations. It is their work together as well as their personalities that form the bond of love.
Romans 7:15-25a
Romans is the last letter we have from Paul. In outline and subject matter, it sums up his faith. This faith is what he has discerned from God, and what he has developed in the course of his ministry. The fact that this letter is different from some of his earlier ones shows us that Paul, like us, changed as he came to know God more deeply.
In this section, Paul is bemoaning his inability to fully live his faith. He often finds that no matter what his heart tells him he falls short of his own expectations. Rather than facing this as our own failure as well, people spend much time trying to puzzle out what that sin of Paul’s might be! As though any one sin might be worse than any other. And because he says “[N]othing good dwells... in my flesh” and “I see in my members another law at war with the law of my mind,” many scholars as well as laity have speculated that it is sexual sin that Paul falls “captive to.”
Sexual sin is not the worst of all sins. Nor is murder, despite the widespread pain it causes. We assign values to the various sins that our flesh is heir to, but God does not. In the 4th chapter of Matthew, Jesus says that not one letter, not one stroke of a letter of the Law, shall pass away, and he has by no means come to abolish the Law and the prophets. “Therefore, whoever breaks one of the least of these commandments, and teaches others to do the same, will be called least in the kingdom of heaven” (v. 17). It is for this very reason that the writer of Ephesians instructs the early Christians that they [and we] should be “tenderhearted, forgiving one another, as God in Christ has forgiven [us].”
We are ashamed of those things that we do, even as pastors, that harm the Body of Christ. Congregations split into factions, making enemies of other Christians, and fight over the color of the carpeting and which department of the church should get the biggest piece of the budget. We pastors eye one another with suspicion, point the finger when our ministries fail, decide that judging a small part of the Christian body should bear the blame for our loss of members. This leads to a climate of suspicion and even hate, rather than love.
Many years ago I was appointed to a middle-sized congregation. Back in the ’50s, it had been a large congregation with over 500 members. By the time I was appointed, the roster of the church numbered just over 325. By the time I was done calling every person whom I had not met in the first six months of my stay, that number was under 300. I learned that the people there had high hopes that I might grow the congregation, because it was an aging congregation and few if any of the members had the energy to start walking the neighborhood to become acquainted with the new neighbors that had begun moving in for the past five years.
One man on the church council confronted me one day, saying that I didn’t understand the nature of a large church, that the fact that I had served only small churches in the past was preventing me from moving this church forward. It so happened that our bishop had arranged for training sessions for those of us who were in that situation, and I told this man that I would be attending these classes.
A month later I had finished the training, and had two 3-ring binders full of the materials we had been given, plus my own notes. After church that Sunday, he accosted me: “So how was the training? Did you get any good from it?”
“I sure did!” I answered, “And I want to tell you, you were so right about me being handicapped by not being trained before I started here! It was an amazing three sessions, and I have all kinds of information we need to get to work on.”
The fellow stood there for a moment, blinked, and said, “Wow, that’s very big of you, Pastor. Not many people would just admit that.”
Now, what should I have said? My sinful self might want to continue to protest that I’d been a pastor for a long time and knew what I was doing. But if Christ lives in me, I need to be honest when I learn that I need to try new ways of doing church. This is exactly the meaning of vv. 22-23. My mind knows that I can do better at serving my God and my church; I need to respond to criticism as being for my own good and the good of the congregation. But my fleshly self wants to be right without effort, without needing to change, without putting selfish desires behind me, without loving this man who says I’m not doing it right.
Paul does have a way of being very dramatic about this business of sin: “Wretched man that I am! Who will rescue me from this body of death?”
Simply put, we all want to be in good standing with God. But we all want to make our own life decisions. Way too often, that conflict means that we choose what to say and do without considering whether our choice measures up to Christ’s example.
Matthew 11:16-19, 25-30
There are few scriptures that are odder than this one. Jesus is talking about John the Baptist. This is because John has been arrested, and no one reasonably thinks he might get out of prison alive. So Jesus levels some questions at his followers:
“What did you go out into the wilderness to look at? A reed shaken by the wind? No? What then? Someone dressed in a fine suit, a silk tie around his neck? I don’t think so, because men who dress like that aren’t out in the wilderness baptizing people. Men like that are found in banks and law offices.” He then goes on to say that if they went to see a prophet, they surely got what they wanted. And more: “?if you are willing to accept it, he is Elijah who is to come.”
The Jews looked forward to the coming of Messiah, and they had been told that Elijah would come back ahead of the Messiah to make a path that would smooth the journey of the Messiah (which in Greek is Christ). So many were hoping, when John came along, that he might be that prophet. And when Jesus came to John for baptism, any who were watching might have thought they were seeing the scripture fulfilled. Jesus was the Messiah! Herod certainly thought so; he was afraid of John and Jesus both, and John’s arrest was only the beginning of what was to come.
Jesus points to the crowd’s hopes and says, “This is the one about whom it is written, ‘See, I am sending my messenger ahead of you who will prepare your way before you.’ ”
The only problem is that the common understanding of this prophecy was that the messenger was the Messiah. And the one whose way has been prepared is God. So, if Jesus is saying that John is “the one about whom it is written,” he is saying that John was the Messiah, and that he himself is God. He emphasizes this when he says that John was “more than a prophet -- he is Elijah.”
Matthew emphasizes this by quoting Jesus as saying, “Let anyone with ears listen!” He uses the same phrase in 13:9 and 13:43. In every case, he is talking about the Kingdom of Heaven coming to earth. He really wants us to understand that God is in Christ!
There is a judgment in Jesus’ words as well: since John the Baptist has been arrested, “the kingdom of heaven has suffered violence, and the violent take it by force.” How can it be, we often ask, that the people of God suffer so much violence? Christians in many parts of the Middle East know that they can be killed at any moment, because it is illegal to be anything other than a follower of Islam. Christians here in our own country have been subjected to violence because of the color of their skin. Jewish synagogues have been marked with the swastika (again), and their sanctuaries looted. In one of the suburbs of my own city, a Sikh temple was invaded and ten people were shot, six of whom died. (The shooter thought they were related to Islam, which they are not, and was a white supremacist. These issues get very complex.)
As for Jesus, he is the Son of Man (v. 19), a title that Matthew uses 29 times in his gospel. In fact, Luke uses it 26 times, and it was so associated with Jesus that the title is applied to the figure that appears in glory in the opening of the Revelation of John.
Jesus points out the hypocrisy of those who are gathered, hoping for a miracle to free them from the twin tyrannies they live with -- the Roman government and the Jewish theocracy. What are they looking for? John came dressed as the scriptures say Elijah was dressed -- in “clothing of camel’s hair with a leather belt around his waist, and his food was locusts and wild honey” (Matthew 3:3). He was dismissed by the authorities as “having a demon” (in other words, he was crazy). But Jesus came eating and drinking, and was called “a glutton and a drunkard, a friend of tax collectors and sinners!” We humans have ways of writing off those who say things we can’t tolerate.
Jesus ends with a proverb: “Wisdom is vindicated by her deeds.” Today we use the saying “Pretty (handsome) is as pretty (handsome) does.” You know a person by their deeds, not their words. And it is the case that people do tend to believe the beautiful (handsome) people and turn away from those who are not lovely.
This is one of those times when Jesus is clearly having a bad day. He knows which way the wind blows, and knows that if they decapitated John, even though Herod was convinced that he was a powerful prophet, they will have no compunction about killing Jesus. He is telling his disciples and the crowds who come to listen that they will see no let-up, no cessation of violence. Messiah stands in the square, telling them what is coming is not what they had hoped for. There will be no angels on horses pounding down the streets, slaying the Roman soldiers and those who collected taxes for Rome. They need to be prepared for their hopes to be slain.
“How do you know a real prophet from a false one?” a student asked in a seminary class.
“You can’t. Not until the prophet and the things prophesied are in the past. But you know, the words they say have to match the way they live. The false prophets are just as likely to have their own ‘TV ministry,’ are just as attractive, just as persuasive -- in fact, more so -- as the true prophet of God. The trick is, does what they say match what you already know of God?” Are they loving? Gracious? Kind? Benevolent? Accepting of sinners? If not -- watch out! “Wisdom is vindicated by her deeds.”
1 This explains why the woman at the well in Samaria was able to talk with Jesus as he sat there. She was coming to the well at noon, rather than at the time as the other women in her village, a sure sign that she was an outcast. Jesus uses his ability to discern these things to strike up a conversation that leads to conversion (John 4).
This question is especially pertinent in today’s troubled political climate, not just here but in other countries as well. Should we let in immigrants? But our crops are already dying in the fields because we aren’t getting the migrant workers we’ve counted on (and paid poorly and provided no benefits for). In many places in Europe, immigrants are being herded into camps that provide little or no safety. In other places in Europe, immigrants are being turned away altogether. The people say, “We have little enough for ourselves. We can’t afford to take care of people who have been displaced.”
And yet what if climate change is real, and coming on fast, and people in Florida lose their homes to the rising waters? Would we turn them away? Back in the 1930s a drought hit the Midwest here at home, and those who loaded a truck with the essentials and headed west to find work, a place to live, a place to grow crops, were labeled “Okies” and despised by the residents of California, who thought they could not afford to help these refugees from the Dust Bowl.
We have some comfort, however. Paul confesses that he knows what he should do, but seems unable to do it. He knows what he should not do, but does it anyway. This is also true of us. We fail to do as we should because it will be uncomfortable or hard or cost us something. We fear the consequences of our actions, so we hold back rather than give. If we give today and tomorrow, who knows if we’ll have enough to retire on?
This is the meaning of grace. We want to do well, but we envy those with better jobs, more money, more creature comforts, and this warps our souls. We are suspicious of those standing on street corners with their cardboard signs: “Hungry. Please give.” They don’t look hungry. We fear panhandlers and the people who roam the downtown shouting at passersby that we are all doomed, but we do not want to pay more taxes to shelter those in need. We fear the storms that come just as we are planting or when the harvest is due, so we build our storm cellars -- but we also build walls meant to keep out those whom we fear.
But our redemption has already come. Jesus promises that he will stand at our side, helping us to overcome and granting us forgiveness for all those times we fail. Grace is what keeps us going, Grace. The kindness of God for all of us. Our salvation is sure, despite our lapses and failures.
Genesis 24:34-38, 42-49, 58-67
This is a lesson that reads differently today than even a generation ago. Today, as we are again confronting the hard differences of the Western and Middle Eastern cultures, we can see Rebekah wrapping her veil around her at the approach of a man she does not yet know. We can understand more clearly the differences between men and women in that long-ago time, as this man, perfectly able to carry water, asks a young woman to do this heavy work; in fact, he has placed before God the sign he wants so he will know which woman in this enclave God has picked to be the wife of his master’s son: she should volunteer to draw up enough water for his camels as well. We don’t know how many camels he has in his caravan, but each of these animals will drink up to 20 gallons at a time!
Nevertheless, carrying water was “women’s work.” When the daughters of a family reached an age where they could be trusted to go to the well and draw water, it became their responsibility. The work was hard, and could require the women to walk considerable distances, carrying a water jar on their head or shoulder. But as with any job, the load can be lightened by the attitude one takes. Traditionally the trip to the well took place at certain times of the day, and the women and girls used the time on the trip to the well and waiting their turn as a time to socialize and to share news.
Abraham’s servant knew when the women were most likely to come to the well, and he wants Isaac to have a wife who is caring and generous. The sign he asks God for is not miraculous, but it’s a good way to ask God for guidance. He will ask a normal question: “May I have a drink from your water jug?” And she will reply, without being asked to do so, “Drink, and I will draw for your camels also.” The alacrity with which she does this shows how she has been brought up:
* She comes from a family that automatically shares with others.
* She also has been brought up to trust, to feel safe. If she were fearful, she might have turned around as soon as she saw a stranger next to the spring, and returned home.
* Finally, she is strong enough to carry a water jug on her shoulder.
Even better, she is related to Abraham. We might avoid marrying within our own family, but in those days it was common to marry a cousin. (According to Genesis 11:27, Rebekah’s grandfather was Nahor, Abraham’s brother.) One reason for this is that she wouldn’t have to learn to conform to her husband’s religion -- a main concern to the editor of the Torah: their customs would be the same; they would also share each other’s expectations of husbands and wives, and how to prepare his food. (So it tastes like his mother used to make.)
So the servant gets out a nose ring and bracelets, and puts them on Rebekah. It seems a bit strange that he does this before meeting her family or arranging the marriage contract. But he is bestowing on her jewels from his master, probably to show how wealthy his master is. It could well be a sign of the marriage price his master was willing to pay, since there has been no marriage contract, and she therefore would not have to give them back if the marriage did not go through. He wants to impress her and her family.
Despite all this, the marriage is not assured. It is not just up to the father and the marriage broker to decide. Rebekah has the right to say no, especially since she will be living very far from her parents and so will not have their protection guaranteed if something goes wrong. We have no idea how long the negotiations went on. That wasn’t the point of the story, and the supposition of the one writing the story was that the hearer would have some idea of how long these things might take.
Therefore, Rebekah is called in and asked if she agrees with this plan. She immediately says yes. It must have seemed like a dream to her. She is promised in marriage to an eligible man, a man with land and camels and donkeys, flocks of sheep and herds of goats, precious metals and slaves to do the hard work. She is being offered a place in the household of a man wealthy enough to promise her a life of ease -- no more carrying of heavy water jugs for her! -- and beauty.
The blessing that the family pronounces on her is an echo of the blessing that God promised to Abraham, that his (now her) offspring will be as numerous as the stars in the sky [seeGenesis 22:17]. And this in a land before light pollution and smog clouded the skies, where the desert air prevents clouds from blocking out the light of the galaxy, where the vast number of stars that can be seen is overwhelming. It is also a celebration of her marriage, there in the heart of her family.
Rebekah’s family isn’t poor either. She brings her nurse (who would have been like a second mother to her) and her maids. This provides her the benefit of having servants who have known her and whose loyalty will be to her as she joins her mother-in-law’s household. She will be able to rely on them to help her make her household truly her own.
As they come to the end of their journey, Isaac and Rebekah catch sight of each other as the camel train arrives at the edge of Isaac’s fields. He is out walking in his field, and she is high enough on the back of a camel to see him at a distance. She asks the servant who that is in the field, and he answers that it is his master. Because she has been in the presence of her own household, she has not been covering her face -- but now, about to meet her new husband, she covers herself. This displays her modesty, but also serves to cover her dress, which would be coated with dust from the journey. She has a wait: the servant has to tell Isaac the whole story of how he found her, what her family is like, the gifts from them to Abraham’s family, and what he has observed of Rebekah on the journey.
Isaac is obviously pleased with the servant’s work. He takes Rebekah to his mother’s tent. This is appropriate, because the life of women in that time (and in fact today in most of the Middle East) was highly segregated by gender. The head of the family may be the oldest man, but the oldest woman in that compound has the power to demand how things are done in general, and has the task of running the household, which means she assigns tasks not only to her own servants but to her daughters or daughters-in-law and their servants as well. In this way she has the power to make life beautiful or odious for all the women in the compound.
As each son in the family marries, a new tent is erected for his intimate family. In this space will live the couple, their servants, and their children. The tent may be expansive if the man is well-off, or small if he has little money. In this case, Isaac and Rebekah will probably have a large room for themselves and a smaller room for her servants.
After receiving his mother’s blessing, Isaac would have escorted his bride to the tent in which she will live with her husband. Once they have been intimate, they are officially married. The author adds a small comment that we today might never notice: “she became his wife, and he loved her.” We understand that they did not love each other and then get married; it is assumed that love grows as a couple learns each other’s temperament and customary expectations. It is their work together as well as their personalities that form the bond of love.
Romans 7:15-25a
Romans is the last letter we have from Paul. In outline and subject matter, it sums up his faith. This faith is what he has discerned from God, and what he has developed in the course of his ministry. The fact that this letter is different from some of his earlier ones shows us that Paul, like us, changed as he came to know God more deeply.
In this section, Paul is bemoaning his inability to fully live his faith. He often finds that no matter what his heart tells him he falls short of his own expectations. Rather than facing this as our own failure as well, people spend much time trying to puzzle out what that sin of Paul’s might be! As though any one sin might be worse than any other. And because he says “[N]othing good dwells... in my flesh” and “I see in my members another law at war with the law of my mind,” many scholars as well as laity have speculated that it is sexual sin that Paul falls “captive to.”
Sexual sin is not the worst of all sins. Nor is murder, despite the widespread pain it causes. We assign values to the various sins that our flesh is heir to, but God does not. In the 4th chapter of Matthew, Jesus says that not one letter, not one stroke of a letter of the Law, shall pass away, and he has by no means come to abolish the Law and the prophets. “Therefore, whoever breaks one of the least of these commandments, and teaches others to do the same, will be called least in the kingdom of heaven” (v. 17). It is for this very reason that the writer of Ephesians instructs the early Christians that they [and we] should be “tenderhearted, forgiving one another, as God in Christ has forgiven [us].”
We are ashamed of those things that we do, even as pastors, that harm the Body of Christ. Congregations split into factions, making enemies of other Christians, and fight over the color of the carpeting and which department of the church should get the biggest piece of the budget. We pastors eye one another with suspicion, point the finger when our ministries fail, decide that judging a small part of the Christian body should bear the blame for our loss of members. This leads to a climate of suspicion and even hate, rather than love.
Many years ago I was appointed to a middle-sized congregation. Back in the ’50s, it had been a large congregation with over 500 members. By the time I was appointed, the roster of the church numbered just over 325. By the time I was done calling every person whom I had not met in the first six months of my stay, that number was under 300. I learned that the people there had high hopes that I might grow the congregation, because it was an aging congregation and few if any of the members had the energy to start walking the neighborhood to become acquainted with the new neighbors that had begun moving in for the past five years.
One man on the church council confronted me one day, saying that I didn’t understand the nature of a large church, that the fact that I had served only small churches in the past was preventing me from moving this church forward. It so happened that our bishop had arranged for training sessions for those of us who were in that situation, and I told this man that I would be attending these classes.
A month later I had finished the training, and had two 3-ring binders full of the materials we had been given, plus my own notes. After church that Sunday, he accosted me: “So how was the training? Did you get any good from it?”
“I sure did!” I answered, “And I want to tell you, you were so right about me being handicapped by not being trained before I started here! It was an amazing three sessions, and I have all kinds of information we need to get to work on.”
The fellow stood there for a moment, blinked, and said, “Wow, that’s very big of you, Pastor. Not many people would just admit that.”
Now, what should I have said? My sinful self might want to continue to protest that I’d been a pastor for a long time and knew what I was doing. But if Christ lives in me, I need to be honest when I learn that I need to try new ways of doing church. This is exactly the meaning of vv. 22-23. My mind knows that I can do better at serving my God and my church; I need to respond to criticism as being for my own good and the good of the congregation. But my fleshly self wants to be right without effort, without needing to change, without putting selfish desires behind me, without loving this man who says I’m not doing it right.
Paul does have a way of being very dramatic about this business of sin: “Wretched man that I am! Who will rescue me from this body of death?”
Simply put, we all want to be in good standing with God. But we all want to make our own life decisions. Way too often, that conflict means that we choose what to say and do without considering whether our choice measures up to Christ’s example.
Matthew 11:16-19, 25-30
There are few scriptures that are odder than this one. Jesus is talking about John the Baptist. This is because John has been arrested, and no one reasonably thinks he might get out of prison alive. So Jesus levels some questions at his followers:
“What did you go out into the wilderness to look at? A reed shaken by the wind? No? What then? Someone dressed in a fine suit, a silk tie around his neck? I don’t think so, because men who dress like that aren’t out in the wilderness baptizing people. Men like that are found in banks and law offices.” He then goes on to say that if they went to see a prophet, they surely got what they wanted. And more: “?if you are willing to accept it, he is Elijah who is to come.”
The Jews looked forward to the coming of Messiah, and they had been told that Elijah would come back ahead of the Messiah to make a path that would smooth the journey of the Messiah (which in Greek is Christ). So many were hoping, when John came along, that he might be that prophet. And when Jesus came to John for baptism, any who were watching might have thought they were seeing the scripture fulfilled. Jesus was the Messiah! Herod certainly thought so; he was afraid of John and Jesus both, and John’s arrest was only the beginning of what was to come.
Jesus points to the crowd’s hopes and says, “This is the one about whom it is written, ‘See, I am sending my messenger ahead of you who will prepare your way before you.’ ”
The only problem is that the common understanding of this prophecy was that the messenger was the Messiah. And the one whose way has been prepared is God. So, if Jesus is saying that John is “the one about whom it is written,” he is saying that John was the Messiah, and that he himself is God. He emphasizes this when he says that John was “more than a prophet -- he is Elijah.”
Matthew emphasizes this by quoting Jesus as saying, “Let anyone with ears listen!” He uses the same phrase in 13:9 and 13:43. In every case, he is talking about the Kingdom of Heaven coming to earth. He really wants us to understand that God is in Christ!
There is a judgment in Jesus’ words as well: since John the Baptist has been arrested, “the kingdom of heaven has suffered violence, and the violent take it by force.” How can it be, we often ask, that the people of God suffer so much violence? Christians in many parts of the Middle East know that they can be killed at any moment, because it is illegal to be anything other than a follower of Islam. Christians here in our own country have been subjected to violence because of the color of their skin. Jewish synagogues have been marked with the swastika (again), and their sanctuaries looted. In one of the suburbs of my own city, a Sikh temple was invaded and ten people were shot, six of whom died. (The shooter thought they were related to Islam, which they are not, and was a white supremacist. These issues get very complex.)
As for Jesus, he is the Son of Man (v. 19), a title that Matthew uses 29 times in his gospel. In fact, Luke uses it 26 times, and it was so associated with Jesus that the title is applied to the figure that appears in glory in the opening of the Revelation of John.
Jesus points out the hypocrisy of those who are gathered, hoping for a miracle to free them from the twin tyrannies they live with -- the Roman government and the Jewish theocracy. What are they looking for? John came dressed as the scriptures say Elijah was dressed -- in “clothing of camel’s hair with a leather belt around his waist, and his food was locusts and wild honey” (Matthew 3:3). He was dismissed by the authorities as “having a demon” (in other words, he was crazy). But Jesus came eating and drinking, and was called “a glutton and a drunkard, a friend of tax collectors and sinners!” We humans have ways of writing off those who say things we can’t tolerate.
Jesus ends with a proverb: “Wisdom is vindicated by her deeds.” Today we use the saying “Pretty (handsome) is as pretty (handsome) does.” You know a person by their deeds, not their words. And it is the case that people do tend to believe the beautiful (handsome) people and turn away from those who are not lovely.
This is one of those times when Jesus is clearly having a bad day. He knows which way the wind blows, and knows that if they decapitated John, even though Herod was convinced that he was a powerful prophet, they will have no compunction about killing Jesus. He is telling his disciples and the crowds who come to listen that they will see no let-up, no cessation of violence. Messiah stands in the square, telling them what is coming is not what they had hoped for. There will be no angels on horses pounding down the streets, slaying the Roman soldiers and those who collected taxes for Rome. They need to be prepared for their hopes to be slain.
“How do you know a real prophet from a false one?” a student asked in a seminary class.
“You can’t. Not until the prophet and the things prophesied are in the past. But you know, the words they say have to match the way they live. The false prophets are just as likely to have their own ‘TV ministry,’ are just as attractive, just as persuasive -- in fact, more so -- as the true prophet of God. The trick is, does what they say match what you already know of God?” Are they loving? Gracious? Kind? Benevolent? Accepting of sinners? If not -- watch out! “Wisdom is vindicated by her deeds.”
1 This explains why the woman at the well in Samaria was able to talk with Jesus as he sat there. She was coming to the well at noon, rather than at the time as the other women in her village, a sure sign that she was an outcast. Jesus uses his ability to discern these things to strike up a conversation that leads to conversion (John 4).
