Sermon October 12, 2008

Pentecost/Proper 23

Isaiah 25: 1-9, Psalm 23, Philippians 4: 4-13, Matthew 22: 1-14

The passage from today's gospel is set in what we call Holy Week - the last week of Jesus' life. Jesus is teaching and healing in the Temple precincts. The Jewish authorities are worried,. What they are afraid of is that Jesus might provoke a riot, and that would lead to violent Roman intervention, and that would be very bad for them. And so, in the face of this perceived threat they ask Jesus two questions that seek to under to undermine him: "'By what authority are you doing these things, and who gave you this authority?" (Matt. 21:23b). In response, Jesus utters the parable we have as today's gospel.

So what do you think? Is the traditional interpretation of this parable correct? "What interpretation?" you ask? That this is an allegory - that the King is really God.

If that's a correct interpretation then we have a nasty, brutish, murderous, oppressive God who is selfish, evil, and has an explosive temper. The king doesn't only kill those who refuse his invitation - he destroys their city. The second group show up, no doubt, because they've just seen what happens to those who ignore the king's "invitation". What would you do?

And then it gets worse. The new guests - no doubt out of fear - have donned the wedding clothes that the host was always required to provide. But one guest refused to put on these clothes. He just wouldn't play the nasty games the king enjoyed. And so this guest was cast into the black dark of the pit. Condemned to a horrible death.

Now I ask you in all seriousness - does this sound like any sort of picture that Jesus presents elsewhere of God? It doesn't fit the context of Matthew's gospel - Jesus telling the Jewish Authorities where he gets his authority from.

So the answer to that question about this being Jesus' God has to be a resounding "no!" Yet all around the country today there are preachers trying to explain how it is that in this parable the King is actually God.

One of the great failings of the last 30 or so years of Christian preaching is a failure to deal with the difficult texts in an honest way - a way that takes seriously the fruits of modern biblical criticism.

One of the first things that we should always do with any biblical text is ask one, very important question - one I already started asking: "What is the context?" What is the context for a story?

So! What is the context for this parable?

Jesus listeners would know of a king who was "nasty, brutish, murderous, oppressive...who [was] selfish, evil, and ha[d] an explosive temper": Herod the Great.

And if we were to check-in with one of the primo sources of First Century context - the Jewish historian Josephus - we'd find that he describes events very similar to the ones in the parable.

Herod wasn't, strictly speaking, Jewish. He was descended from Edolmites and many Jews considered him half-Jewish at best. So he needed legitimacy. The best way was through a wedding - he married the daughter of the king he overthrew, who also happened to be the Chief Priest at the Temple.

It's also true that the idea of a wedding was, for many Jews, metaphorical - they saw Herod wanting to "marry" himself to them by becoming their king. They refused this "invitation" so Herod imposed his will by force - he brought his supporters the Romans, storming Jerusalem. . The streets, Josephus tells us, ran with blood. Bodies were piled up in the alleys and byways. As the parable says of the King: "He sent his troops, destroyed those [people], and burned their city."

And there was also - in the real events of Herod's forced ascension - the casting out of someone into the "outer darkness" - a euphemism for death - and his execution - and that someone was the previous King, Antigonus. Murdered by the Romans at the behest of the new Jewish leader.

So who, in this parable, is the guest/victim who refuses the robes of the King? The action of rejecting the robes offered by the king is obviously highly symbolic - a rejection of all that the king stood for.

And the actions are intentional, done with foresight - not accidental - knowing that the consequence would be death.

For Jesus, the intent seems clear - he wanted his audience to remember their Prophets - our Prophets - and Isaiah in particular. Because there's a great deal in the content of this parable and of the actions of the disrobed guest that echo a figure out of the book of Isaiah. The familiar title of that figure is the Suffering Servant. We hear references to this Suffering Servant very frequently in Lent and Holy Week, because he's understood as synonymous with Jesus.

So you can see that this parable is certainly not about God, but about Herod, and about the way that those in power look with disfavor - to say the least! - on those who proclaim back to them their evil ways.

This is the gift that modern biblical criticism gives to us - a way of understanding Jesus and what he said that is much more real, accessible, and, frankly, accurate, than has been the case for at least the first eighteen hundred years of Christian history.

So why did Jesus tell this parable? Remember the context for the parable? A confrontation with "the Jewish authorities" - meaning those who had gotten just a little too close to Herod and to the Romans - who were viewed by many as collaborators. They had asked Jesus about his teaching and healing: "By what authority do you teach in this way?"

Jesus' answer was, in essence, the authority of the suffering servant.

"I stand with the Prophets and share in their authority" is what Jesus is saying to these institutional leaders. "I am willing to suffer your violence to do so."

"Jesus' answer, that his way of confronting them - of "suffering their violence" must have been disturbing to them and they ask the question that naturally follows: "Who gave you this authority?" The answer is one of the great insights and one of the great ironies of the gospel. Jesus' answer to them is, "every leader like you has been giving this authority throughout time to those whom you oppress who you cast out - every prophet who is persecuted is granted the authority to speak out against injustice by the oppressors who have oppressed her or him.

"And you are now continuing in that sad line, giving me this authority."

Jesus knew that this stand would be dangerous - mortally dangerous. As Paul reminds us, he was willing to make that sacrifice.

That vision of sacrificial living is an invitation to us to consider what such a response would look like for ourselves. How might we live in ways that reflect the sacrificial living of Jesus?

Jesus' words are also an invitation who in our culture the oppressors are and to speak out against their oppression, because it is that oppression that grants the authority to speak out, to challenge it. Who, in our contemporary society are powerless, who are being taken advantage of by those who wield power for selfish ends?

Such are the blessings of modern biblical criticism - and the final gift to us is to receive Jesus' parable back in a way that is both thought-provoking and accessible.       Amen.