Pentecost 20 – 22 October 2017 – Year A

Grace and peace to you from God our Father and our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ. Amen

The text for this meditation is written in the 22^nd Chapter of the Gospel according to St Matthew: Verses 15 – 33:

¹⁵ Then the Pharisees went and plotted how to entangle him in his words. ¹⁶ And they sent their disciples to him, along with the Herodians, saying, “Teacher, we know that you are true and teach the way of God truthfully, and you do not care about anyone’s opinion, for you are not swayed by appearances. ¹⁷ Tell us, then, what you think. Is it lawful to pay taxes to Caesar, or not?” ¹⁸ But Jesus, aware of their malice, said, “Why put me to the test, you hypocrites? ¹⁹ Show me the coin for the tax.” And they brought him a denarius. ²⁰ And Jesus said to them, “Whose likeness and inscription is this?” ²¹ They said, “Caesar’s.” Then he said to them, “Therefore render to Caesar the things that are Caesar’s, and to God the things that are God’s.” ²² When they heard it, they marvelled. And they left him and went away.

²³ The same day Sadducees came to him, who say that there is no resurrection, and they asked him a question, ²⁴ saying, “Teacher, Moses said, ‘If a man dies having no children, his brother must marry the widow and raise up offspring for his brother.’ ²⁵ Now there were seven brothers among us. The first married and died, and having no offspring left his wife to his brother. ²⁶ So too the second and third, down to the seventh. ²⁷ After them all, the woman died. ²⁸ In the resurrection, therefore, of the seven, whose wife will she be? For they all had her.” 

²⁹ But Jesus answered them, “You are wrong, because you know neither the Scriptures nor the power of God. ³⁰ For in the resurrection they neither marry nor are given in marriage, but are like angels in heaven. ³¹ And as for the resurrection of the dead, have you not read what was said to you by God: ³² ‘I am the God of Abraham, and the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob’? He is not God of the dead, but of the living.” ³³ And when the crowd heard it, they were astonished at his teaching.

I can still hear the words of a very learned Doctor of Theology and Seminary lecturer.  ‘Anytime you are doing any form of communication, three things are very important; context, context, and context.  This is true when you are listening to a speech.  This is true when you are reading a book.  This is especially true when you are working with the Bible’.

In order to understand how bizarre the situation is in today’s Gospel, we need to look at the cultural context of the Gospel.  The Gospel we just heard tells us that some disciples of the Pharisees and some Herodians came to Jesus.  Since it is most unlikely than any of us have ever met any Herodians or Pharisees, we probably do not understand how strange this is.

One of the many things that you can say about the Pharisees is that they were extremely nationalistic.  They believed that Jerusalem should be ruled by Jews and not by gentiles.  After all, the law of Moses states, ^{[Deuteronomy 17:15]} “One from among your brothers you shall set as king over you. You may not put a foreigner over you, who is not your brother.”  Therefore they hated the Roman occupation.  They were realistic enough to understand that Rome had a lot of power.  So, they weren’t stupid enough to be terrorists against Rome.  On the other hand, if someone presented a reasonable plan to get Rome out of Israel, they would help wherever they could.

The Herodians were just the opposite.  As you might guess by their name, they supported Herod.  Herod was a puppet king of the Roman Empire.  The Romans had put his father in power and they kept him in power after his father died.  The Herod family was NOT Jewish.  So, if you were a Herodian, you were a fan of Herod, and, since Herod was a puppet of Rome, you were a fan of the Roman occupation.

Ordinarily, the Pharisees and the Herodians would be at each other’s throats … if not literally, at least figuratively.  The fact that these two groups worked together to attack Jesus tells you something about how much they hated Jesus.

They had a plan.  The idea was to put Jesus between a rock and a hard place.  They asked Jesus a question that was designed to get Him into trouble: “Is it lawful to pay taxes to Caesar, or not?”  If he answered yes, then the people who hated the Roman occupation would hate Him too.  If He answered no, then the Herodians would report Him to the Romans and get Him arrested.  If He did not answer, then the crowd would label Him as a coward.  The Herodians and the Pharisees thought they had Jesus in a no win situation.

Of course, it is not so easy to trap Jesus in His words.  Jesus saw the fallacy in their plan.  There weren’t just two possible answers to their question.  There was a third answer: “Therefore render to Caesar the things that are Caesar’s, and to God the things that are God’s.”

The Gospels record many interactions like this between Jesus and His opponents.  The opponents come up with some sort of plan to trip Jesus up in His words.  They hope to embarrass Jesus in some way and diminish his influence among the people.  Then Jesus very neatly finds the flaw in their plan and embarrasses them.  Plans to trap Jesus in words always backfired.

We are tempted to believe that Jesus won all these debates because He was such an excellent debater.  We are tempted to believe that it was His superior skill and knowledge that won all these debates.  While Jesus was the perfect human being and was flawless in his thinking, that was not His main advantage.  His main advantage was that He knew the truth and He never wavered from it.  Making a case based on truth gives anyone a tremendous advantage over those who depend on lies.

The opponents in today’s Gospel engaged in a logical fallacy called the false dilemma.  This is a logical fallacy that falsely offers only two possible alternatives even though a broad range of possible alternatives are really available.  The opponents offered two possibilities: either you pay your taxes or you don’t.  Jesus simply exposed their faulty reasoning by showing that there actually were other answers.  We can pay our taxes, give our offerings, and care for our families.  God is gracious enough to give us the resources to do all three and maybe even have a little left over for recreation.  The opponents tried to trap Jesus using a dilemma that did not exist.

The enemy often presents us with false dilemmas.  One that involves our very salvation is the dilemma between self-righteousness and despair.  It goes something like this.  By the way, please remember that this is a fallacy.

As we read the Bible, we see that God gives us a lot to do.  Do we do what God says and go to heaven, OR are we failing and on the road to hell?  This false dilemma often becomes a reality for us weak and sinful human beings.  We become blind to the fact that there is another way.  Good people go to heaven.  Bad people go to hell.  Are we good or bad?  How good do we have to be in order to be good enough?  This is the false dilemma of the law.

I can deny the truth of my sin and insist that I am one of the good people that go to heaven.  This is self-righteousness and directly contradicts John’s epistle: ^{[1 John 1:8, 10]} “If we say we have no sin, we deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in us … If we say we have not sinned, we make [God] a liar, and his word is not in us.”  To even say that I hope I am good enough to go to heaven is the most arrogant of all pride and a sin in itself.  If I go this way, I am lying to myself and calling God a liar.

My other choice according to this false dilemma is the utter honesty of recognising my sin and believing I have no hope.  This is despair.  Here too, there is a strange sort of pride … the belief that my sin is more powerful than God.  My sin is so terrible that there is nothing that God or anyone else can do.  In the case of Judas, the pride of his despair was so great that he took justice into his own hands and murdered himself.

What a comfort and relief it is to learn that the two choices offered by the law are a false dilemma.  Just as Jesus provided a third answer to the Pharisees and Herodians, He provides a third answer to the false dilemma of the delusion of the law.  In the middle of John’s condemnation of our sin, we hear, ^{[1 John 1:9]} “If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness.”  Here is the way that God forgives our sin and cleanses our unrighteousness.  God has given us a third answer in Jesus Christ.

Jesus is the one who did the work that makes this third answer possible.  Jesus actually did what God gave Him to do.  He kept God’s law perfectly.  Then He went to the cross and endured the punishment we deserve for failing to do what God commands.  In this way, He provided the third answer … the third answer that avoids both self-righteousness and despair.  We are no longer responsible for our own salvation.  Jesus has taken that responsibility for us.  He is the one who earned forgiveness for us.  He is the one who offers to cleanse us of all your sin.

Jesus demonstrated the benefits of His third answer by rising from the dead and ascending to the Father.  Those who trust Jesus will also receive this blessing.  God will raise them to immortality on the Last Day and join body and soul once again.  On that day there will be a new heaven and a new earth for the first heaven and earth will have passed away.  Then our Lord ^{[Revelation 21:4]} will wipe away every tear from their eyes, and death shall be no more, neither shall there be mourning, nor crying, nor pain anymore, for the former things have passed away.

The Pharisees and the Herodians in today’s Gospel tried to make Jesus irrelevant by asking a trick question.  When that didn’t work, they gave up on subtlety.  They decided that the only way to remove Jesus from the scene was to remove Him from this life – to kill Him.  During the next few days they carried out their plan and arranged to have Jesus crucified.  When Jesus was dead, the powers of sin, death, and the devil thought they had won.  They didn’t understand that the death and resurrection of Jesus is His greatest victory.

It is by this victory that we receive forgiveness, life, and salvation.  It is by this victory that even though we die, we shall rise again.  His resurrection is the assurance that the work He did on the cross is the ultimate victory … the assurance that self-righteousness and despair are a false dilemma.  In Jesus Christ there is another way … a way that leads to life everlasting.  Amen

The Love and peace of our Great Triune God that is beyond all human understanding, keep your hearts and minds in Christ Jesus. Amen

Pentecost 19 – 15 October 2017 – Year A

Grace to you from God our Father and our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ. Amen

The text for this meditation is written in the 22^nd Chapter of the Gospel according to St Matthew: Verses 1 - 14:

And again Jesus spoke to them in parables, saying, ² “The kingdom of heaven may be compared to a king who gave a wedding feast for his son, ³ and sent his servants to call those who were invited to the wedding feast, but they would not come. ⁴ Again he sent other servants, saying, ‘Tell those who are invited, “See, I have prepared my dinner, my oxen and my fat calves have been slaughtered, and everything is ready. Come to the wedding feast.” ’ ⁵ But they paid no attention and went off, one to his farm, another to his business, ⁶ while the rest seized his servants, treated them shamefully, and killed them. ⁷ The king was angry, and he sent his troops and destroyed those murderers and burned their city. ⁸ Then he said to his servants, ‘The wedding feast is ready, but those invited were not worthy. ⁹ Go therefore to the main roads and invite to the wedding feast as many as you find.’ ¹⁰ And those servants went out into the roads and gathered all whom they found, both bad and good. So the wedding hall was filled with guests.

¹¹ “But when the king came in to look at the guests, he saw there a man who had no wedding garment. ¹² And he said to him, ‘Friend, how did you get in here without a wedding garment?’ And he was speechless. ¹³ Then the king said to the attendants, ‘Bind him hand and foot and cast him into the outer darkness. In that place there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth.’ ¹⁴ For many are called, but few are chosen.”

In order to understand the parable in today’s Gospel, it is very helpful to understand the context of the culture of the day … especially the context of royal wedding customs.  I  Jesus’ parable, the wedding feast in the parable is the king’s feast given in honor of the wedding of the prince.  The king has all the resources of the kingdom at his disposal … the best food … the best entertainment.  The king might even have his best architects and builders build a whole new building just for the feast.  The feast lasted many days and so the servants of the king prepared the best lodging for the wedding guests.  Money is no object.

One of the things a king would do for wedding guests is provide a fashion spa for the guests when they arrived.  The king understood that travel was hard work in those days.  People would arrive exhausted and dirty.  The difficulty of travel might even make them a little grumpy.  The king provided facilities for refreshment … manicures … pedicures … fashion designers and expert tailors … everything a guest needed to look and feel their best when they entered the banquet hall.  The king wanted everyone and everything to be perfect in order to honour the wedding of his son, the prince.  This is one aspect of the culture of the parable that will help us understand it.

The other thing about the culture of that day has more to do with the simple fact that they did not have the same attitude about time that we do.  We have digital wrist watches that can tell us the exact time.  We have mobile phones and all other kinds of instant communication.  At the time of the parable, even writing was expensive.  Most communication was done orally, face-to-face.  If you were important, like a king, you had servants do the communicating, but the communication was still a personal, oral communication. 

This meant that there were always two invitations to a party.  The first invitation was to inform everyone that plans were under way.  This is the invitation that had the RSVP.  Those who could attend would reply that they were coming.  The second invitation informed the guests that everything was ready for them to come to the party.  The people who received this second invitation had already promised to come.  It was an incredible insult to excuse yourself after you had already promised to attend.  Turning down the second invitation of the king was treason.  Mistreating the servants who brought the second invitation was an act of war.

Jesus used these customs to illustrate His teaching about who enters the Kingdom of Heaven and who does not.  This parable demonstrates the overwhelming generosity of God the Father and His justice.  It also demonstrates the cruel insanity of those who reject the gift of salvation.  The king is God the Father.  The wedding feast is eternal life.  The servants are God’s prophets, apostles, and pastors.  Those who were invited and refused are the rank unbelievers.  The travellers on the highways who were both bad and good are those ordinary people with no claim to entitlement, but who are at the wedding solely by the grace and mercy of God.  The guest who was not dressed properly is a hypocrite.  His name is on the church membership roll but he rejects the gifts of God.

So, what does this parable say to us today?  Why is it important for us to hear this parable?  It is very easy for us to look through the pages of the Old Testament and see the many ways that people rejected the prophets.  We hear how the people put the prophets in prison, drove them out of their homes, and put them to death, and we rightly condemn such activity.  We hear that of the original twelve apostles, only John died of old age.  All the others died martyrs’ deaths.  We wonder at such cruelty and once again, condemn it.  It is very easy to point a finger of condemnation at people who lived long ago and far away, but what about you and me.  What does Jesus say to us today?

Jesus used the man who refused the wedding clothes to warn you and me today.  Regularly each week we gather in the wedding hall of the king.  How are we dressed?

Imagine what this man had to do to get into the wedding hall without the right clothes.  When he arrived, the servants of the king came to him and offered to clean him up and heal his wounds.  They offered him clothing that was just the right style for the feast.  They wanted to give him everything he needed to fully enjoy the wedding banquet of the king.  The servants offered it all and he refused.  He insisted on doing things his way instead of the king’s way.  He insisted on wearing his clothes instead of the king’s clothes.  He entered the wedding hall, but rejected the gifts of the king.

Trained and Ordained Priests and Pastors in the mainstream denominational Christian Church on earth are the servants of God.  When they open up God’s Word, they offer the best of heavenly style.  It is called the righteousness of Christ.  It is a very expensive style.  Jesus had to buy this style with His holy, precious blood, and His innocent suffering and death.  The heavenly style is the righteousness that Jesus earned for us with His suffering and death on the cross.  The righteousness of Jesus Christ is the only style that is elegant enough for eternal life.  It is the only style that the true servants of God can offer to you. 

As a servant of Christ, the priest’s / pastor’s role is to remove the filthy fashion of sin and clothe us in the heavenly style … the robes of Christ’s righteousness.  To put that in modern context; within the Worship service we humble ourselves before God and confess that we are sinners in what we have done and in what we have failed to do. In response to this, the Priests / Pastor by virtue of their office of the servant of God’s Word, cleanses us of our sin with Christ’s forgiveness and clothes us with the robe of righteousness in the pronouncement of the Holy Absolution.

On receiving absolution, we can rejoice together at this great gift from our king by using the words of Isaiah the prophet. ^{[Isaiah 61:10]} “I will greatly rejoice in the Lord; my soul shall exult in my God, for he has clothed me with the garments of salvation; he has covered me with the robe of righteousness, as a bridegroom decks himself like a priest with a beautiful headdress, and as a bride adorns herself with her jewels.” 

Sadly, Jesus teaches that there are those who reject the style of heaven.  Jesus says that there will always be some in the banquet hall of heaven who insist on wearing their own clothes … their clothes of arrogance, narcissism, self-righteousness, adultery, hatred, and so forth.  The old sinful nature insists that he is good enough.  He has no sin.  He does not need the heavenly style of the righteousness of Christ.  His style is just fine.  “Besides,” the old sinful nature will say, “A loving god doesn’t really send people to hell.”

Jesus tells it differently.  The party crasher may have been able to fool the servants, but the servants are not the ultimate judge.  We must all stand before almighty God.  There is but one verdict for those who trust themselves and refuse the clothing of the righteousness of Christ.  The king said to the attendants, “Bind him hand and foot and cast him into the outer darkness. In that place there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth.” 

Those who reject Christ, reject salvation.  Those who in any way depend on their own efforts for even the smallest fraction of their salvation will meet the king and He will order them out of the wedding hall.

It is a different story for those found in the road.  The Holy Spirit works through His servants to bring them to the wedding hall and wash away all their sins.  Through His servants He covers them with the righteousness of Christ … the righteousness earned on the cross.  The day will come when they, like Christ, will rise from the dead and enter into the wedding feast of the Lamb.  There they will receive the fulfilment of ^{Isaiah 25: 7-8} :On this mountain the Lord of hosts will make for all peoples a feast of rich food, a feast of well-aged wine, of rich food full of marrow, of aged wine well refined.  And he will swallow up on this mountain the covering that is cast over all peoples, the veil that is spread over all nations.  He will swallow up death forever; and the Lord God will wipe away tears from all faces, and the reproach of his people he will take away from all the earth, for the Lord has spoken.  They will rejoice at the eternal wedding feast of the Lamb.  Amen

The love and peace of our Great Triune God that is beyond all human understanding, keep your hearts and minds in Christ Jesus. Amen