Getting what we (don't) deserve
Commentary
Object:
God is not just by our human ways of accounting. Undeserving people receive blessings, often ahead of deserving ones. If we consider ourselves deserving, this is bad news. But if we recognize our own failings and the amazing graciousness of God, this is wonderful news indeed. In God's economy there is enough for everyone, and those who need grace the most are most likely to receive it first.
Exodus 16:2-15
I still remember the light bulb that came on for me in college as I read Eric Williams' classic history of the slave trade, Capitalism and Slavery. In it, Williams made a passing remark about how farming techniques on cotton plantations in the Americas necessarily ruined the land because slave owners did not want slaves to think about what they were doing. Any education around more sophisticated farming practices to control erosion, for example, would have invited the slaves to do what their masters dreaded most: to think for themselves. Part of maintaining slavery, Williams claimed, was keeping the slaves as mindless and uneducated as possible. Thinking about conserving the soil might lead to thinking about improving other things, such as their own lots in life. For the slave owners, environmental degradation was preferable to a slave revolt.
In our reading from Exodus today, we witness the Israelites' first weeks in the wilderness after escaping through the Red Sea. Freedom, they are finding, is hard work. Where they were fed in Egypt (however well or poorly), here in the wilderness they have to feed themselves. If Williams' thesis has any truth to it, these newly freed slaves were not a people used to fending for themselves. For generations, the Egyptians had done their best to make sure of that. (While oppressed peoples often accumulate substantial wisdom about surviving and navigating within their systems of oppression, this wisdom does not necessarily translate into wilderness survival skills.) And so, not too surprisingly when you think about their lot, the Israelites began to complain. They knew how to be slaves; they were just beginning to learn what it was to be free.
At the time they began complaining, they were a month out of Egypt (Exodus 16:1), so any food supplies they brought along were likely exhausted. As were the people! Scholars offer all sorts of explanations for what the manna God rained from heaven actually was: a resin, insect secretions, a type of fungus, and more (Wikipedia offers an interesting list), but to me these speculations are less interesting than the courage, creativity, and initiative God called out of the Israelites in blessing them with this new, unknown food. God, being God, could have provided steaming stew pots full of delectable, familiar food for the Israelites to eat. Instead, God gave them something new and not even immediately recognizable as food that they had to go out and collect. Every day but one, they had to collect the perishable manna. They had to catch the quail and prepare them to be eaten. They had to think, they had to observe, they had to try new things, they had to work for themselves.
I read the story of Exodus as a story of the transformation of a people from slave to free. It takes an entire generation. Those who were born in slavery did not make it to the Promised Land; it is their children, born in the wilderness, who God deemed ready to enter the land and create a new society in a new place. The journey out of slavery and oppression is a long one, with hard-won knowledge and God's sheer grace inextricably intertwined along the way. In connecting with modern listeners, an invitation to recall a personal "wilderness time" and how God often feeds us in new and sometimes initially unrecognizable ways and calls new skills out of us could provide fruit for reflection.
Philippians 1:21-30
Today we begin the first of four consecutive Sunday readings from Paul's letter to the church in Philippi, after wrapping up twelve Sundays of readings from his letter to the Romans. Though we do hear occasional readings from Philippians elsewhere in the lectionary cycle (Advent 2 and 3 and Lent 2 and 5 of Year C, and each year on Palm Sunday), this block of four readings is the longest sustained attention Philippians receives in the three-year cycle of the Revised Common Lectionary. It is worth noting the transition in epistle readings from Paul's theological treatise and appeal for missionary support to the as-yet-unvisited Roman church to this new letter, sent from prison to the beloved church in Philippi that Paul helped to found.
Philippians is, in part, a thank-you letter from Paul to the church in Philippi. Hearing of his imprisonment (scholars are uncertain as to where exactly he was imprisoned at the time of this letter; possibilities include Ephesus, Caesarea, and Rome), the Philippians sent one of their members, Ephaphroditus, with gifts to minister to Paul. While on this visit, Ephaphroditus became ill and almost died (Philippians 2:25-27), and now that he is recovered, Paul is sending him back to Philippi with this letter that Paul and Timothy are writing. In the verses we read today, Paul assures the Philippians of his spiritual well-being through the trials of imprisonment. Whether he lives or dies, Paul writes, he is content, even joyful, in the spread of the gospel. He urges the Philippians to share this joy, even in the face of trials they now face. On his visit Ephaphroditus has no doubt brought news from Philippi as well as gifts, and Paul responds to reports of dissension within the community (Philippians 2:3-4; 4:2) and of opponents and false teachers outside it (Philippians 1:28; 3:2). Faithful followers of Christ should expect struggle and suffering, he writes (Philippians 1:29-30), but the joy of knowing Christ reigns supreme.
Matthew 20:1-16
Today's parable begins at the start of a new chapter in Matthew, but that very first word, "For," cues us that Jesus is telling this parable in response to something or someone that has come before. Looking back in chapter 19 (which we have skipped in the lectionary sequence, after finishing at the end of chapter 18 last week), we find that Jesus is speaking to the disciples. Jesus has just had his encounter with the rich young man, who went away grieving after Jesus told him that to inherit eternal life the last thing he needed to do was to go sell his possessions, give his money to the poor, and come follow Jesus (Matthew 19:16-22). After hearing how hard it is for the rich to enter heaven (easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle), Peter pipes up, "Look we have left everything and followed you. What then will we have?" (Matthew 19:27). In response, Jesus makes an elaborate promise to the disciples: "...at the renewal of all things, when the Son of Man is seated on the throne of his glory, you who have followed me will also sit on twelve thrones, judging the twelve tribes of Israel. And everyone who has left houses or brothers or sisters or father or mother or children or fields for my name's sake, will receive a hundredfold, and will inherit eternal life" (Matthew 19:28-29). But then comes the qualifier: "But many who are first will be last, and the last will be first" (Matthew 19:30). Today's parable elaborates on this theme of reversal, which is repeated in the final verse of the parable (20:16), and we can read this parable as a cautionary tale for the disciples against spiritual pride. They, who were the first to follow Jesus, should not expect any greater reward than the last to follow him. Indeed, chapter 20 ends with Jesus healing two blind men who immediately follow him (20:34), and in between this parable and the healing comes the request of the mother of the sons of Zebedee for her sons to sit in glory on Jesus' right and left when he comes into his kingdom, a request that Jesus challenges with his teaching on servanthood (Matthew 20:20-28). In all of this, Jesus is preparing his disciples for his upcoming trial and death. Chapter 21 recounts the events of Palm Sunday, which means that chapter 20 contains Matthew's final accounts of Jesus' interactions with his disciples before they entered the crucible of their last week together in Jerusalem.
Application
Our readings from both Exodus and Matthew lend themselves to imaginative storytelling, fleshing out the feelings and experiences of the people in the story. In Exodus, one could tell about the excitement and fear of leaving Egypt, the trials of being in the wilderness, the frustration and hunger and not-knowing where they were going. And then the excitement of discovery in finding the manna ("What is it?" they said to one another -- Exodus 16:15) and in learning to trust that it would be there again each day. More contemporary stories of leaving the familiar for an unknown future and discovering God's grace along the way could work here too. Though summer travels are an entirely different kind of travel and wilderness experience from escapes from slavery, parishioners could be urged to notice how God blesses them when they venture out of their comfort zones and into new places, literally and metaphorically. The Israelites did a lot of growing up in the wilderness -- how might God be calling us to greater maturity as well?
An imaginative step to take with Jesus' parable in Matthew could be to wonder about the stories of the workers hired at dawn, nine, noon, three, and five. If the landowner acted as most employers do, he would have hired the strongest and most able-bodied laborers he could find each time he came to the marketplace. The ones left unhired would have been increasingly feeble in body, mind, and spirit as the day progressed. Perhaps by five o'clock, it was only the lame, the blind, and the insane left in the town square, and yet it was these last hires the landowner paid before all the others. As one who was passed over time after time whenever our elementary school gym class lined up to choose teams for kickball, I sympathize with those who were passed over again and again. This parable can draw us into reflecting on the difficulty of being unemployed, of waiting idly in the marketplace, passing the day waiting and hoping rather than being engaged in productive work. I volunteer with the homeless in downtown Boston and regularly witness the difficulty some people can have in becoming productive members of society. Who will hire the addict, the felon, the non-English speaker, the immigrant without papers, the schizophrenic, the traumatized, the unwashed, or the disabled? Imagine God coming first to these people at the extreme back of the line in our society and saying, "Here, receive your pay. You are valued. You are worthy. You belong." It would be life-changing. And so while Jesus told this story as a cautionary tale to his disciples, we can both hear it that way and be invited into the generous spirit of the landowner who recognizes and honors all people. Paul's urging in Philippians to joy in the life of faith stands against the "who gets what" human accounting in Jesus' parable and among his disciples in Matthew 19 and 20.
Exodus 16:2-15
I still remember the light bulb that came on for me in college as I read Eric Williams' classic history of the slave trade, Capitalism and Slavery. In it, Williams made a passing remark about how farming techniques on cotton plantations in the Americas necessarily ruined the land because slave owners did not want slaves to think about what they were doing. Any education around more sophisticated farming practices to control erosion, for example, would have invited the slaves to do what their masters dreaded most: to think for themselves. Part of maintaining slavery, Williams claimed, was keeping the slaves as mindless and uneducated as possible. Thinking about conserving the soil might lead to thinking about improving other things, such as their own lots in life. For the slave owners, environmental degradation was preferable to a slave revolt.
In our reading from Exodus today, we witness the Israelites' first weeks in the wilderness after escaping through the Red Sea. Freedom, they are finding, is hard work. Where they were fed in Egypt (however well or poorly), here in the wilderness they have to feed themselves. If Williams' thesis has any truth to it, these newly freed slaves were not a people used to fending for themselves. For generations, the Egyptians had done their best to make sure of that. (While oppressed peoples often accumulate substantial wisdom about surviving and navigating within their systems of oppression, this wisdom does not necessarily translate into wilderness survival skills.) And so, not too surprisingly when you think about their lot, the Israelites began to complain. They knew how to be slaves; they were just beginning to learn what it was to be free.
At the time they began complaining, they were a month out of Egypt (Exodus 16:1), so any food supplies they brought along were likely exhausted. As were the people! Scholars offer all sorts of explanations for what the manna God rained from heaven actually was: a resin, insect secretions, a type of fungus, and more (Wikipedia offers an interesting list), but to me these speculations are less interesting than the courage, creativity, and initiative God called out of the Israelites in blessing them with this new, unknown food. God, being God, could have provided steaming stew pots full of delectable, familiar food for the Israelites to eat. Instead, God gave them something new and not even immediately recognizable as food that they had to go out and collect. Every day but one, they had to collect the perishable manna. They had to catch the quail and prepare them to be eaten. They had to think, they had to observe, they had to try new things, they had to work for themselves.
I read the story of Exodus as a story of the transformation of a people from slave to free. It takes an entire generation. Those who were born in slavery did not make it to the Promised Land; it is their children, born in the wilderness, who God deemed ready to enter the land and create a new society in a new place. The journey out of slavery and oppression is a long one, with hard-won knowledge and God's sheer grace inextricably intertwined along the way. In connecting with modern listeners, an invitation to recall a personal "wilderness time" and how God often feeds us in new and sometimes initially unrecognizable ways and calls new skills out of us could provide fruit for reflection.
Philippians 1:21-30
Today we begin the first of four consecutive Sunday readings from Paul's letter to the church in Philippi, after wrapping up twelve Sundays of readings from his letter to the Romans. Though we do hear occasional readings from Philippians elsewhere in the lectionary cycle (Advent 2 and 3 and Lent 2 and 5 of Year C, and each year on Palm Sunday), this block of four readings is the longest sustained attention Philippians receives in the three-year cycle of the Revised Common Lectionary. It is worth noting the transition in epistle readings from Paul's theological treatise and appeal for missionary support to the as-yet-unvisited Roman church to this new letter, sent from prison to the beloved church in Philippi that Paul helped to found.
Philippians is, in part, a thank-you letter from Paul to the church in Philippi. Hearing of his imprisonment (scholars are uncertain as to where exactly he was imprisoned at the time of this letter; possibilities include Ephesus, Caesarea, and Rome), the Philippians sent one of their members, Ephaphroditus, with gifts to minister to Paul. While on this visit, Ephaphroditus became ill and almost died (Philippians 2:25-27), and now that he is recovered, Paul is sending him back to Philippi with this letter that Paul and Timothy are writing. In the verses we read today, Paul assures the Philippians of his spiritual well-being through the trials of imprisonment. Whether he lives or dies, Paul writes, he is content, even joyful, in the spread of the gospel. He urges the Philippians to share this joy, even in the face of trials they now face. On his visit Ephaphroditus has no doubt brought news from Philippi as well as gifts, and Paul responds to reports of dissension within the community (Philippians 2:3-4; 4:2) and of opponents and false teachers outside it (Philippians 1:28; 3:2). Faithful followers of Christ should expect struggle and suffering, he writes (Philippians 1:29-30), but the joy of knowing Christ reigns supreme.
Matthew 20:1-16
Today's parable begins at the start of a new chapter in Matthew, but that very first word, "For," cues us that Jesus is telling this parable in response to something or someone that has come before. Looking back in chapter 19 (which we have skipped in the lectionary sequence, after finishing at the end of chapter 18 last week), we find that Jesus is speaking to the disciples. Jesus has just had his encounter with the rich young man, who went away grieving after Jesus told him that to inherit eternal life the last thing he needed to do was to go sell his possessions, give his money to the poor, and come follow Jesus (Matthew 19:16-22). After hearing how hard it is for the rich to enter heaven (easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle), Peter pipes up, "Look we have left everything and followed you. What then will we have?" (Matthew 19:27). In response, Jesus makes an elaborate promise to the disciples: "...at the renewal of all things, when the Son of Man is seated on the throne of his glory, you who have followed me will also sit on twelve thrones, judging the twelve tribes of Israel. And everyone who has left houses or brothers or sisters or father or mother or children or fields for my name's sake, will receive a hundredfold, and will inherit eternal life" (Matthew 19:28-29). But then comes the qualifier: "But many who are first will be last, and the last will be first" (Matthew 19:30). Today's parable elaborates on this theme of reversal, which is repeated in the final verse of the parable (20:16), and we can read this parable as a cautionary tale for the disciples against spiritual pride. They, who were the first to follow Jesus, should not expect any greater reward than the last to follow him. Indeed, chapter 20 ends with Jesus healing two blind men who immediately follow him (20:34), and in between this parable and the healing comes the request of the mother of the sons of Zebedee for her sons to sit in glory on Jesus' right and left when he comes into his kingdom, a request that Jesus challenges with his teaching on servanthood (Matthew 20:20-28). In all of this, Jesus is preparing his disciples for his upcoming trial and death. Chapter 21 recounts the events of Palm Sunday, which means that chapter 20 contains Matthew's final accounts of Jesus' interactions with his disciples before they entered the crucible of their last week together in Jerusalem.
Application
Our readings from both Exodus and Matthew lend themselves to imaginative storytelling, fleshing out the feelings and experiences of the people in the story. In Exodus, one could tell about the excitement and fear of leaving Egypt, the trials of being in the wilderness, the frustration and hunger and not-knowing where they were going. And then the excitement of discovery in finding the manna ("What is it?" they said to one another -- Exodus 16:15) and in learning to trust that it would be there again each day. More contemporary stories of leaving the familiar for an unknown future and discovering God's grace along the way could work here too. Though summer travels are an entirely different kind of travel and wilderness experience from escapes from slavery, parishioners could be urged to notice how God blesses them when they venture out of their comfort zones and into new places, literally and metaphorically. The Israelites did a lot of growing up in the wilderness -- how might God be calling us to greater maturity as well?
An imaginative step to take with Jesus' parable in Matthew could be to wonder about the stories of the workers hired at dawn, nine, noon, three, and five. If the landowner acted as most employers do, he would have hired the strongest and most able-bodied laborers he could find each time he came to the marketplace. The ones left unhired would have been increasingly feeble in body, mind, and spirit as the day progressed. Perhaps by five o'clock, it was only the lame, the blind, and the insane left in the town square, and yet it was these last hires the landowner paid before all the others. As one who was passed over time after time whenever our elementary school gym class lined up to choose teams for kickball, I sympathize with those who were passed over again and again. This parable can draw us into reflecting on the difficulty of being unemployed, of waiting idly in the marketplace, passing the day waiting and hoping rather than being engaged in productive work. I volunteer with the homeless in downtown Boston and regularly witness the difficulty some people can have in becoming productive members of society. Who will hire the addict, the felon, the non-English speaker, the immigrant without papers, the schizophrenic, the traumatized, the unwashed, or the disabled? Imagine God coming first to these people at the extreme back of the line in our society and saying, "Here, receive your pay. You are valued. You are worthy. You belong." It would be life-changing. And so while Jesus told this story as a cautionary tale to his disciples, we can both hear it that way and be invited into the generous spirit of the landowner who recognizes and honors all people. Paul's urging in Philippians to joy in the life of faith stands against the "who gets what" human accounting in Jesus' parable and among his disciples in Matthew 19 and 20.
