Can't I leave, just for a second?
Commentary
While Moses is up on Mount Sinai, his brother Aaron builds a golden calf. Paul is jailed in Rome, so he hears from a distance that there is conflict and not faithfulness among the Christians in Philippi. Jesus tells a story about a master who prepares a great wedding feast but when he sends out for his people to come join him in celebration they all make excuses and let him down. Moses, Paul, and the master in the parable must have wondered if they have to keep tabs on others all the time. Can’t they step away, even if for just a second?
Exodus 32:1-14
We might think our society has a short attention span, but certainly the rebellion of the people while Moses is up on Mount Sinai in God’s presence reveals a basic impatience with the working out of God’s will. The people had been slaves for centuries and free people for a relatively short period of time. They have followed a visible sign of God’s presence, a pillar of smoke by day and a pillar of fire by night. Most of us are content if we have witnessed one miracle, but these people have seen more wonders in the span of months than God’s people have seen over the course of centuries.
Even so, once Moses is gone for a short time the people worry that God has somehow abandoned them and demand Aaron create a visible sign of a god. He complies.
The willing contribution of the treasure with which they were blessed by the Egyptians as they departed demonstrates that where our treasure is, there our heart will be also. The disbelief of this betrayal is remembered in the Word of God as an extraordinary act. It has extraordinary consequences.
Nevertheless, Moses answers God’s decision to destroy the people and make of Moses a new Noah whose family will be the sole channel of the blessing of Abraham going forward by insisting that this will be a great mistake. It will allow the Egyptians to say God had liberated the people so he could kill them in the desert. Does not God already know this? Is God so angry that God is unthinking? I’m not sure we can get inside that question or answer, but it is clear here, and is in other places, that God invites dialogue with hard questions. Moses reminds God of the history that is shared through Abraham, Isaac, and Israel, and in standing up for the people he demonstrates he is a worthy leader.
Philippians 4:1-9
In some ways Paul’s ministry in Philippi was one of his most successful. But in his absence it seems like it’s all going to fall apart. Can’t he step away for a second?
The house church founded with Lydia as its leader came as a result of a vision in which the apostle saw a man from Macedonia asking for his help. Paul didn’t find a man (or men). There weren’t ten Jewish men necessary for a quorum. He found women at the side of the river, praying to God. Did the jailer, so grateful when Paul and Silas refused to leave captivity because it would cost a life, and his family form the core of another house church? Which church did Euodia and Syntyche belong to? The same one? Rival house churches? Whatever was the case, their rivalry has caused dissension among Philippian Christians. Paul calls them back to the joy which they first felt when life in Jesus suddenly began to have meaning and purpose.
Matthew 22:1-14
I have mentioned before that there is an element of humor to the parables of Jesus, and that we often miss this element because we’ve heard the joke too many times or are too far separated from that society’s viewpoint to get the point. There is a very dark humor in this grim parable. Tenant farmers were all too aware of the rights of the one who actually owned the land, and knew that though it was their labor that produced the fruit of the field, they were not going to get the full benefit of their back-breaking labor.
Many such individuals might have heard Jesus recite this parable, and they would have smiled ruefully at this rebellion by tenant farmers against their master! Beating, killing, and stoning the master’s servants would have led to an immediate brutal response.
So the response of this master, continuing to send servants and finally his own son to these rebels might have seemed like weakness or senility. If they didn’t respect his earlier messengers, why would they respect the owner’s son?
The parable, of course, is pointing to the way the religious and political authorities over the centuries treated the gift of their faith as something they owned, even though the revelation was a gift from God! Prophets were rejected, beaten, imprisoned, and killed. So a patient God at last sends the Son of God to the people -- and as Jesus tells them, he will be killed... and ultimately any of God’s people, whether centuries ago or today, who reject God’s messengers will themselves be rejected. We may not literally crucify Jesus or stone prophets, but we do reject the hard parts of the gospel that don’t suit our affluence or comfort.
The master in the parable must have wondered if he had to ride herd on his tenant farmers. Couldn’t he leave them alone for just a second without them getting strange ideas? He left his tenant farmers in charge and they betrayed his trust.
God has made us the heart and hands of Christ in a suffering world. God may not always feel present to us. Does that mean we will betray God’s trust as well?
This section of scripture closes with the religious authorities recognizing that Jesus is talking about them. Is he talking about us too?
Exodus 32:1-14
We might think our society has a short attention span, but certainly the rebellion of the people while Moses is up on Mount Sinai in God’s presence reveals a basic impatience with the working out of God’s will. The people had been slaves for centuries and free people for a relatively short period of time. They have followed a visible sign of God’s presence, a pillar of smoke by day and a pillar of fire by night. Most of us are content if we have witnessed one miracle, but these people have seen more wonders in the span of months than God’s people have seen over the course of centuries.
Even so, once Moses is gone for a short time the people worry that God has somehow abandoned them and demand Aaron create a visible sign of a god. He complies.
The willing contribution of the treasure with which they were blessed by the Egyptians as they departed demonstrates that where our treasure is, there our heart will be also. The disbelief of this betrayal is remembered in the Word of God as an extraordinary act. It has extraordinary consequences.
Nevertheless, Moses answers God’s decision to destroy the people and make of Moses a new Noah whose family will be the sole channel of the blessing of Abraham going forward by insisting that this will be a great mistake. It will allow the Egyptians to say God had liberated the people so he could kill them in the desert. Does not God already know this? Is God so angry that God is unthinking? I’m not sure we can get inside that question or answer, but it is clear here, and is in other places, that God invites dialogue with hard questions. Moses reminds God of the history that is shared through Abraham, Isaac, and Israel, and in standing up for the people he demonstrates he is a worthy leader.
Philippians 4:1-9
In some ways Paul’s ministry in Philippi was one of his most successful. But in his absence it seems like it’s all going to fall apart. Can’t he step away for a second?
The house church founded with Lydia as its leader came as a result of a vision in which the apostle saw a man from Macedonia asking for his help. Paul didn’t find a man (or men). There weren’t ten Jewish men necessary for a quorum. He found women at the side of the river, praying to God. Did the jailer, so grateful when Paul and Silas refused to leave captivity because it would cost a life, and his family form the core of another house church? Which church did Euodia and Syntyche belong to? The same one? Rival house churches? Whatever was the case, their rivalry has caused dissension among Philippian Christians. Paul calls them back to the joy which they first felt when life in Jesus suddenly began to have meaning and purpose.
Matthew 22:1-14
I have mentioned before that there is an element of humor to the parables of Jesus, and that we often miss this element because we’ve heard the joke too many times or are too far separated from that society’s viewpoint to get the point. There is a very dark humor in this grim parable. Tenant farmers were all too aware of the rights of the one who actually owned the land, and knew that though it was their labor that produced the fruit of the field, they were not going to get the full benefit of their back-breaking labor.
Many such individuals might have heard Jesus recite this parable, and they would have smiled ruefully at this rebellion by tenant farmers against their master! Beating, killing, and stoning the master’s servants would have led to an immediate brutal response.
So the response of this master, continuing to send servants and finally his own son to these rebels might have seemed like weakness or senility. If they didn’t respect his earlier messengers, why would they respect the owner’s son?
The parable, of course, is pointing to the way the religious and political authorities over the centuries treated the gift of their faith as something they owned, even though the revelation was a gift from God! Prophets were rejected, beaten, imprisoned, and killed. So a patient God at last sends the Son of God to the people -- and as Jesus tells them, he will be killed... and ultimately any of God’s people, whether centuries ago or today, who reject God’s messengers will themselves be rejected. We may not literally crucify Jesus or stone prophets, but we do reject the hard parts of the gospel that don’t suit our affluence or comfort.
The master in the parable must have wondered if he had to ride herd on his tenant farmers. Couldn’t he leave them alone for just a second without them getting strange ideas? He left his tenant farmers in charge and they betrayed his trust.
God has made us the heart and hands of Christ in a suffering world. God may not always feel present to us. Does that mean we will betray God’s trust as well?
This section of scripture closes with the religious authorities recognizing that Jesus is talking about them. Is he talking about us too?
