Redemption

Proper 15C: Learning a New Song

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Vineyard
Indian Valley Vineyards, San Miguel, CA

FIRST LESSON:  Isaiah 5: 1-7

Read the passage from Isaiah

This passage is one of the best-known oracles of the eighth century prophet and summons its Judean audience to judge the legal complaint of a would-be vintner who lavishes care upon his vineyard but only harvests bitter and useless grapes.  It begins with a song and the writer takes up the role of a minstrel.  It sets the stage for what we think is going to be a wonderful feel-good love song that that brings visions of beauty and love and goodwill, a rich ritual celebration, because this is normal for Biblical literature.

But that is not the song we hear; because, unlike most of the Hebrew love poetry, this song quickly loses its beauty and sensuality and gives way to a sort of judicial oracle.  The “Song of the Vineyard” becomes a parable of judgment against the Hebrew people for their continued disobedience of God.  The words of this song remind us that God did not merely create humanity and then set down Creation with everything that was needed for our enjoyment.  The passage tells us that God expects something from us.  God invites us to a new vision of the world around us.  That is the song that we are about to hear.

Remember that this part of Isaiah is generally assumed to be set in the 8th century, probably sometimes between the death of King Uzziah of Judah and the final fall of Judah in 701 BCE.  During this time, Judah became a vassal of Assyria and fell into practices that were not in accordance with what we would call a right relationship with God, practicing social oppression and allowing social injustices to pervade their society in what the prophet saw as an out and out rejection of God.

The parable begins with a portrayal of a vineyard nestled on a lush and fertile hill.   The image of the fertile soil depicts an image of growing, ongoing life.  There is nothing stagnant about God’s gift of Creation.  According to the passage, the owner has “dug it and cleared it of stones.”  This implies that God has worked for this—this is not just some “haphazard” act of Creation.  God has planted this lush, green vineyard with choice vines, those deep red vines, capable of producing the best and sweetest of fruits and the finest wines.

The song continues as the owner builds a watchtower in the vineyard, which housed a wine vat.  Think about it.  This image of the watchtower is one of a permanent, immovable point that is higher than everything surrounding it.  The whole vineyard can see this watchtower and from this tower, then, it is possible to view the entire vineyard.  But it is more than a place of mere observation.  It includes a wine vat, or winepress.  This watchtower, then, is the place to which the harvest is brought, peeled, and aged.  It is the place where the harvest is converted to a finely aged wine.  It is the central point, the place where all come to be “aged”, changed into God’s people.  For the Old Testament Hebrews, this was the temple, the center of society.  It was for them that highest holy place where all came to worship God and to be formed into right relationship with their Creator.

God had done everything necessary and expected it to yield the choicest of fruits.  But something went wrong and the harvest was one of wild, sour grapes which, though edible, are not fit for the making of fine wines.  This is probably the key to the passage, for it is here that it is evident that the vineyard is useless without the harvest—it is just land; it is here that we are reminded that God’s Creation is meant for our response.  God expects something of us.

And then the song changes key.  And now we begin to get a little uncomfortable.  “And now, inhabitants of Jerusalem and people of Judah…”  “And now inhabitants of the vineyard that God has created…”  It is at this point that it becomes apparent that the parable is no longer just a nice little entertaining story but is rather an indictment and denouncement of the injustices that had overtaken this society.  You know, for me, this sudden change in person and structure of the passage almost implies that those hearing it just weren’t getting it.  They had gotten so wrapped up in the story that they hadn’t yet realized that it was about them.

And then at the end for those who are apparently really slow on the uptake, the prophet explains it all: the vineyard is indeed Israel and its people are the Lord’s “pleasant planting”.    The implication is that the inhabitants and laborers of the vineyard are no longer even listening to God.  They have treated others badly, even being guilty of the act of oppression or the passive act of closing their eyes or turning their backs while social oppression happens around them.  They have allowed the vineyard to be swallowed up and overtaken by their own greed, self-centeredness, and perhaps even fear.  They have taken what God has provided but have not responded to God’s call to action in faith.  So what began as a glorious love song is now waiting for a harmonious chord once again from the people of God.

 

  • What is your response to this passage?
  • Where do we see ourselves in this passage?
  • What more was there to do that God has not done?
  • Why has it turned out like this?
  • Why is it hard for us to listen to condemnation like this?

 

 

NEW TESTAMENT:  Hebrews 11: 29-12:2

Read the passage from Hebrews

This week’s Lectionary passage continues with our so-called “roll call” of the faithful.  Think of it as our family photo album, as the writer of Hebrews (we don’t really know who that is) brings into our memories the snapshots of the faithful that came before us.  Remember that Hebrews was probably written to a small band of new Christians who were suffering persecution and feeling isolated.  So as we look at this remarkable family the writer of Hebrews sketches, we discover two portraits of faith. One portrait is full of images of triumph: conquering enemies, obtaining promises, shutting the mouths of lions, even gaining victory over death. But the other portrait is filled with images of suffering: public mocking, imprisonment, beating, stoning, homelessness, violence, and death. Our lives are always a mixture of successes and failures, of ups and downs.  But the writer of Hebrews mixes the categories because our lot in life is not a measure of our faithfulness.

The passage becomes a word of encouragement for struggling Christians. If we are struggling, and someone tells us that the true mark of faithfulness is suffering, we might despair. Must our suffering continue forever? If we are struggling and someone tells us that the true mark of faithfulness is triumph and victory, what hope is there for us? But the mixing of suffering and triumph gives us a word of hope: faithfulness shines both in suffering and in triumph, both in sorrow and in joy.  Faith trusts God and God’s promises even when it doesn’t make much sense.  We are in good company.  We are never alone.

We are reminded that there is work to do, a race to run, so to speak.  Think of it as a marathon—sometimes invigorating, sometimes grueling, sometimes crowded, sometimes lonely, but always fixed on what is to come.   So we are exhorted to lay aside those things that might trip us up or weigh us down.  And before us, as laid out by the writer of Hebrews is Jesus, the pioneer and perfecter of our faith.  Pioneer, here, is the Greek word archegos, which means author, beginner, instigator.  In the context of a race, the archegos is the team captain, the trailblazer. The writer also depicts Jesus as the perfecter—the one who fills in what is lacking in our faithfulness or our work.  He takes our incomplete faith and makes it whole.  And, for us Christians, there is also the awareness that Jesus, too, has traveled this road.

This passage is read a lot in conjunction with funerals.  You can see why.  But it is also a reminder of our connection through Christ to all those past, present, and future and the fact that we are expected to actually do something, to actually participate in the life we’ve been given, to join in this long list of saints and become part of them.  In remembrance, we find our calling to go forward and be who God calls us to be.

Some of you may remember the movie “Dead Poets Society.”  The movie stars the amazingly talented Robin Williams.  Williams plays John Keating, a high school English teacher at an all-boys private academy, who is committed to helping his students take advantage of life’s opportunities.

There is a compelling scene in the movie when Keating leads his class out into the foyer of the building where old photographs of graduating classes from decades past cover the walls.  As the boys study the portraits of the classes who had graduated generations before them, Keating remarks that the men in those pictures were just like them, full of hope and ambition.  Then Keating asks his class, “Did they wait till it was too late to realize their full potential?”  

Then he tells the class that if they lean in close they can hear a message from the men in these pictures.  So they lean in and Keating whispers, “Carpe Diem.  Carpe Diem.  Seize the day, boys.  Make your lives extraordinary.” (From “Postcard from Heaven”, a sermon by Rev. Dr. Charles Reeb, August 15, 2010, available at http://day1.org/2111-postcard_from_heaven, accessed 11 August, 2010.)

 

  • What meaning does this passage hold for you?
  • What does comfort does this give you?
  • What discomfort does this give you?
  • We Protestants don’t have a lot of “saints” or “heroes” that we’ve publicly recognized. We try to be a bit more inclusive.  So who are the “saints” in your faith story?  Who are your heroes?  Why are they on that list?
  • What would that look like to make your life extraordinary?

 

 

GOSPEL:  Luke 12:49-56

Read the passage from the Gospel According to Luke

Needless to say, this is a hard passage.  We’d rather read of unity and harmony and Jesus instead says that apparently we’re just going to have to live with divisions and disharmony.  Here, Jesus is on his way to Jerusalem towards his demise.  So it is apparent here that Jesus is weighing two types of peace—one secular, the other sacred.  The truth is, Jesus did NOT come to bring peace to those in power or to bring comfort to the comfortable.  Jesus came to “comfort the afflicted and afflict the comfortable”, to loosely quote a journalist of 100 years ago or so.  Remember that Jesus had in mind a completely new vision, not a “peaceful” earth such that we know.

This is hard for us.  We tend to want an empathetic God, a God who is nice to everyone.  But how in the world, then, would the earth truly get redeemed?  Jesus is combating forms of authority and power that do not fit in with that vision of a wholly-redeemed earth.  The passage begins with the words, “I came to bring fire to the earth.”  That does not sound good.  It sounds much more like confrontation and conflict.  So how can this be good news?  Our answer depends on the way we view the world and the way we view God.  If the world was exactly the way it should be, then this passage would make no sense.  But if the world is marred by oppression and social injustices and killing and war, what would that say about a God who would just let that be?  Jesus is not coming to disturb and bring havoc to a “nice” world; he came to redeem the one we have.

This is a call to fragmentation for the sake of ultimate wholeness.  It is a call to tear down in order to build up.  It is a call, once again, to “die to self”, to let go of what we know and what we have created and what walls we have constructed, and put our faith wholly in the wholly-redeeming God that we know.  It is a call to give your life for the mission of Christ in the world.

 

  • What meaning does this passage hold for you?
  • What makes this so difficult for us to hear?
  • What does “redemption” mean to you?
  • What does “peace” mean to you?

 

 

Some Quotes for Further Reflection:

We all desperately want peace…that is why “Shalom” is such an oft-repeated word.  For, even as a simple greeting, it embodies deep yearning and solemn promise.  So the ancient sage Hillel insisted that it is not enough to simply want peace, to hope for peace, even to pray for peace; he taught us to “love peace and actively pursue peace.”  (Wayne Dosick, in Dancing with God)

If the poor, the women, and the dispossessed sat at the tables where theological decisions are made, there would be a different set of sins. (Joan Chittister, Called to Question)

Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere. We are caught in an inescapable network of mutuality tied in a single garment of destiny.  (Martin Luther King, Jr., 20th century)

 

Closing

…The world has become so strange, and our place in it so tenuous, where gray seems clearer than the white purity of our hopes, or the darkness of our deathly passions.  There is so little agreement among us, perhaps so little truth among us, so little, good Lord, that we scarcely know how to pray, or for what to pray.  We do know, however, to whom to pray!

We pray to you, Creator God, who wills the world good; We pray to you Redeemer God, who makes all things new.  We pray to you, stirring Spirit, healer of the nations.  We pray for guidance, And before that, we pray in repentance, for too much wanting the world on our own terms.  We pray for your powerful mercy, to put the world—and us—in a new way, a way after Jesus who gave himself, a way after Jesus who confounded the authorities and who lived more excellently.

Whelm us by your newness, by peace on your terms—the newness you have promised, of which we have seen glimpses in your Son who is our Lord.  Amen. (Walter Brueggemann, from Prayers for a Privileged People, p. 65-66)                      

 

Proper 27B: Redeemed

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Ruth & Naomi (He Qi, 1994)
Ruth & Naomi (He Qi, 1994)

OLD TESTAMENT: Ruth 3: 1-5, 4: 13-17

Read the passage from the Book of Ruth

This is part of what is essentially the conclusion of the story of Ruth and her mother-in-law Naomi. Leading up to this, we should note that it is the famine in Bethlehem that drives Naomi and her husband and their family away looking for food. While there, Naomi loses both her husband and her two sons, leaving the three wives to fend for themselves in a world that was anything but kind to women. Naomi’s other daughter-in-law returns to her own family but Ruth chooses to stay with Naomi. Eventually, they hear that they can return to Judah, which they do. But when they get there, there is a need to find food and make a living, so Ruth goes out into the fields to get the gleanings, eventually coming to a field that is owned by a wealthy relative of Naomi’s, Boaz.

“Gleaning” is a technical term in Israel. By some laws, found again in Deuteronomy, this time in 24:21 (the levirate marriage law that drove Naomi’s Bethlehem road fantasy was also found in that book), reaping a field in Israel always had to take account of the poor and disadvantaged in the land. Hired hands were to harvest the field of the owner, but any grain that they missed in the first pass through the field must be left in the field for the strangers, the orphans, the foreigners, and the widows. It was a meager and difficult way to survive, but at least it offered a tiny meal for those who had nothing.

The reading today picks up with Naomi telling Ruth of her plan to make the most of this opportunity. The plan involves the deception of Boaz. Ruth is to lie down next to Boaz when he has eaten and become drunk after the winnowing. To ‘uncover the feet’ generally has sexual connotations and the plan seems to be one in which Boaz is to be made to believe that he has taken sexual advantage of Ruth. At the same time the story does not indicate that anything in fact happened between the Ruth and Boaz. All that has to be achieved is to make Boaz think something has. Boaz, being an upright man and knowing Ruth’s reputation will ‘do the right thing’ by her, which means marry her even though such is not legally demanded of him. But one obstacle needs to be dealt with first. There is one, who remains unnamed in the story, who is closer in kinship to Naomi and Ruth than Boaz (perhaps a cousin or something), and who, according to law, needs to be given the first option of marriage.

In a way the whole story has focused around the issue of family heritage. The rest of Chapter 3 tells of the execution of Naomi’s scheme, of Boaz’s response and, in Ruth 4, of dealing with the unnamed relative, who in the end is not willing to take up his kinship responsibility for Ruth. In the second half of today’s reading Ruth marries Boaz and bears a son to him. The focus then shifts back to Naomi and her grandson. The women bless the Lord, who it is clear has been the silent mover behind the scene for both good and ill. They speak of one who will be ‘a restorer of life and a nourisher in one’s old age. It is unclear whether the women speak of the Lord or Boaz or the baby boy. Indeed, this ambiguity may well be deliberate. We see from the women naming the child and the small genealogical note in v. 17, that the child will be the grandfather of David, who in some traditions becomes the ancestor of a messiah to come. The sense of ‘a restorer of life’ is not only in terms of the immediate story, i.e. one who secures the future for Naomi and Ruth, but also of one who restores the future life of the nation.

Overall, the sense of mutual commitment between Naomi and Ruth is ultimately the source and mark of divine blessing. Only once in the entire story is the word “love” used and it is used to describe the relationship between these two strong and determined women. This is the kind of love that molds and drives the universe. If you look at the first chapter of Matthew, you will see the line of succession that is believed to end with Jesus, that includes “Boaz the father of Obed by Ruth, and Obed the father of Jesse, and Jesse the father of King David…”

In the final analysis, the biblical women Ruth and Naomi are simply metaphors, models of all the women of the world who push and prod and guide and give support to the rest of us through all the trying moments of life, however momentous, however mundane.

Each of us can look back on the women who were Naomis for us—older women because of whom our lives were changed.  Each of us remembers with concern—with pride—the young Ruths in our lives who poised to take one step and then, despite our best advice, took what became for both our sakes an even better one.

The Ruths and Naomis of the human estate make the world go round.  Not one of us can get through the phases of our separate flowerings without their promptings.  Without them growth is static, the worst happens, all of life’s inevitables look impossible.  The Ruths and Naomis of the world take the measure of what we think we cannot surmount alone and show us that it is vincible…

In the Book of Ruth the whole world is new again.  Relationships have been righted.  The outcastes have been taken in.  The lowly have been raised up.  A new generation of men—represented by a boy-child—comes to inherit a cosmos where women are its co-creators.  In Ruth, we get a glimpse into God’s world and find that it runs just the opposite of ours.

The implications of the Ruth story for women today pale whatever assumptions, cemented by generations of custom, may still cloud their lives in any institution, in every part of the world.  It is the spiritual Magna Carta of women.  Ruth lives on in Hebrew Scripture to remind us that origin and destiny are not the same thing.  Naomi lives on to call generation after generation of women to begin again, whatever our ages, to make life for ourselves, to refuse to wait for someone else to swoop down to makes us happy, to fear nothing, and risk anything that develops the dream in our own hearts, to learn to believe in ourselves as women, to find ourselves in one another and in that way to become of more value to the world around us than we have ever been before, to see ourselves as carriers of the Word of God still to be said, still to be heard…

The Book of Ruth is about redemption, indeed, but it is as much about the redemption of Boaz and the nation, about the family and the culture, about the next generation of men and the generation of women, about the righteousness of religion and the salvation of religiosity, about us and the disjointed world we take for granted, as it is about the redemption of Ruth and Naomi.  It is a book about women helping women to break the isolation of powerlessness that affects every other man, woman, and child alive.

It is a book to be written into every woman’s—and man’s—spiritual life.  And the book is incomplete until every woman writes the rest of it herself. (Excerpt from The Story of Ruth: Twelve Moments in Every Women’s Life, by Joan Chittister, p. ix, 88-89, 90)

  1. What is your response to this passage?
  2. What does this story say to you about God and about our relationships with each other?
  3. Is there anything that is bothersome in this story for you?
  4. Where do you find yourself in this story?

 

 

NEW TESTAMENT: Hebrews 9: 24-28

Read the passage from Hebrews

In this passage, the author depicts that Christ has done whatever and all things necessary so that we may know that we are forgiven and look confidently toward salvation. Keep in mind that, just as we are, the first century Christians were trying to make sense out of what had happened to Jesus. People began to hail Christ’s death not as a defeat but as a victory that released life for others. In other words, “He died for us.” This was not meant, as some modern interpretations would suggest, to be an understanding that God somehow schemed up this violence in order to satisfy rules about payback for our sins but rather the notion of Jesus intentionally taking the suffering unto himself.

The writing in Hebrews is, to say the least, complicated. It was complicated even when it was written. It represented a total shift in how people viewed the access to the Divine. Since the writer’s intended audience consisted of “the Hebrews,” or Israelites of a time after Christ, the arguments would have been quite profoundly powerful, because the listeners were well versed in the old ways that the writer compares unfavorably with Christ’s way. (This is why Hebrews is often interpreted as being a bit “anti-Semitic”. I don’t think that’s what the writer intended. It’s just the way some seemingly well-meaning Christians take it. Perhaps instead, the writer was exhorting his or her readers to take what they know, to take what was important for them in their religious and spiritual life, and go farther with it, go toward the Encounter with the Divine to which it points.)

So being part of the redeemed body of Christ today means we can experience eternal reality in its fullest, richest, clearest, most profound way even now, without anything else really happening. We have been set free from worrying about whether or not we relate to God and whether or not God has a place for us in the ongoing Creation. We are set free to live in the presence of Christ. We are, though, engaged in constant and intentional spiritual waiting for what God will do next. Part of being Christian is being called to a wonderful sense of hopeful expectation. Hebrews challenges our somewhat narrow focus of what Christ and being with Christ holds and calls us to something new, perhaps calls even us to go a bit farther toward a true encounter with the Divine.

 

  1. How does this passage speak to you?
  2. What does that sense of “hopeful expectation” mean for you?
  3. Do you think we really grasp the idea that what Christ has done is once and for all? How does that play into various Christian understandings today?
  4. What does this say about our images of God?

GOSPEL: Mark 12: 38-44

Read the passage from The Gospel According to Mark

Once again, the writer of The Gospel According to Mark is making a statement against the corruption for which judgment will come for the old system.  It is in effect a warning against the way that we often allow the sacred and the holy to become corrupted and instead turn toward our way of doing things rather than God’s.  Interestingly, in this passage, the hero is not Jesus but the woman.  The scribes exploit and grab from their seat of wealth, but this woman gives everything from her poverty.  Comparatively, those well-versed in the ways of the faith are spiritually poor and this poor, probably uneducated woman is rich beyond all measure.

This woman would have been seen as pathetic, probably a beggar, the poorest of the poor.  The Greek is ptoche, which would mean “extremely poor”.  It hits us in the face in several ways.  First, those clergy and elevated laity, being greeted with respect, getting the best seats in the house, so to speak, are presented not only as bad leaders but as out and out hypocrites.  After all, what do these things of honor mean for our discipleship?  And then the woman…while those respected leaders carefully count out their tithes, proud of their giving patterns, she gives everything she has.  She walks home to nothing.  The blessing comes in the realization not that we cannot have nice things or reap respect but in an awareness that everything that we have, everything that we are, is of God.  It is not a test of how much money we have in the bank, but what that money means for us.  The question is on what do we depend?

Where previously we connected dependence with oppression and depression, Jesus shows us that our dependence on God leads to joy and thanksgiving. If God is running the universe and ruling my life, I no longer have to save myself, prove myself or justify myself. I’m the work of God’s hands. I rest and work in those hands and I shall die in those hands. To be free of those hands would be death to me, because in them is life abundant.

  1. What meaning does this passage hold for you?
  2. What is your personal reaction to this passage?
  3. How does this speak to our society and our way of thinking about money, about leadership, and about one’s place in society?
  4. How do we look upon poverty in this day? What does that say about us as a society and as Christians?
  5. What would it mean to give not out of our abundance but out of our need?
  6. What does this say about gratitude?

 

 

Some Quotes for Further Reflection:

 

Gratitude is the intention to count-your-blessing every day, every minute, while avoiding, whenever possible, the belief that you need or deserve different circumstances. (Timothy Miller)

The problem is that contemporary Westerners have a very fragile sense of their identity, much less an identity that can rest in union with God.  Objectively, of course, we are already in union with God. (Richard Rohr)

Change your ways, give yourself a fresh coat of paint, convert yourself.  Do all this and you’ll find the cross before it finds you. (Thomas a’ Kempis)

 

 

Closing

 

You are the giver of all good things. All good things are sent from heaven above, rain and sun, day and night, justice and righteousness, bread to the eater and seed to the sower, peace to the old, energy to the young, joy to the babes.

 

We are takers, who take from you, day by day, daily bread, taking all we need as you supply, taking in gratitude and wonder and joy. And then taking more, taking more than we need, taking more than you give us, taking from our sisters and brothers, taking from the poor and the weak, taking because we are frightened, and so greedy, taking because we are anxious, and so fearful, taking because we are driven, and so uncaring.

 

Give us peace beyond our fear, and so end our greed. Give us well-being beyond our anxiety, and so end our fear. Give us abundance beyond our drivenness, and so end our uncaring. Turn our taking into giving…since we are in your giving image: Make us giving like you, giving gladly and not taking, giving in abundance, not taking, giving in joy, not taking, giving as he gave himself up for us all, giving, never taking. Amen.

 

(“We are Takers”, from Awed to Heaven, Rooted in Earth: Prayers of Walter Brueggemann, Searcy, p. 33)