The Right God and All the Neighbors We Love

Sermon for Oct. 25, 2020, Pentecost 21A

Video is here

Matthew 22:34-40

When the Pharisees heard that he had silenced the Sadducees, they gathered together,  and one of them, a lawyer, asked him a question to test him.  “Teacher, which commandment in the law is the greatest?”  He said to him, “‘You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your mind.’  This is the greatest and first commandment.  And a second is like it: ‘You shall love your neighbor as yourself.’ On these two commandments hang all the law and the prophets.”

Most Christians love it that Jesus summed up all 613 laws of the Hebrew Bible with the dual commands to love God and neighbor. 

The fact that Jewish scholars of Jesus’ day, like Hillel, came to the same conclusion is not surprising because the prophets of Israel had prepared the ground for that conclusion. They had long pointed out the absurdity of offering God adoration (love), through sacrifice and ceremony, while at the same time neglecting justice to the widow, the orphan, and the immigrant. 

The love of God, shown by religious veneration, is not legitimate, if the love of neighbor, in the forms of doing justice and acting compassionately, is neglected. 

Micah famously asks if he should come before God with thousands of sacrifices, and concludes no: God has shown us, mortals, what is good and what God requires: to “do justice, love compassion, and walk humbly with God” (Micah 6).  

You might think that the simplicity of the dual commands to love God and neighbor were self-evident and obvious, and hence, uncontroversial. But, as they say, the devil is in the details. 

Two issues make these simple commands anything but simple for us today. They are the loaded questions: 

Who is the God we are expected to “love”? 

And, similarly, Who is my neighbor to whom I am so obligated?  

Who is the God We Must Love?

Let us take the God question first. Some scholars who study moral reasoning say that we, in the industrialized Western world, are likely to think about morality, what is good or bad, using primarily two criteria: what is fair, and what is caring, or, to put it negatively, what does not cause harm. 

Other moral criteria, like sanctity (or purity) loyalty, and authority still play a role in telling us what is good, but they are subordinate to the criteria of fairness and not harming. This focus on these two criteria is a modern and primarily Western phenomenon. (See The Righteous Mind, Jonathan Haidt)

Let me give an illustration. In former times, the moral criterion “authority” was far more important to people than it is to us today. If an authority figure, for example, the Bible says it or the Pope says it, or my Father says it, then it is right and good, and I am required to obey.  

But we in the modern West have concluded that authorities can get it wrong. The Bible, we believe, is our wisdom tradition, which we take seriously, but we understand it as a human product with obviously cultural perspectives, for example about owning slaves and the subordinate role of women in church and society. 

Similarly, some Popes, over the years, have been excellent but others have been horrible. Tyrants in power can do enormous evil. So, authority does not have the last word.  

But, by contrast to the criterion of authority, fairness is important across the board. So is not causing harm. 

When we become aware that a group of people have been treated unfairly or have been harmed, or both, we immediately conclude that we need to fix it somehow. 

The Goodness(?) of “God”

The reason I bring this up is because this perspective of ours has created a problem in the way we understand God. In the past, when we put a lot of emphasis on authority, if God did something, we assumed that it must be right and good. 

Now, please understand that when I say “if God did something” I mean if there is a story in the Bible in which God is described as doing something. 

So if, in the story, God sent the plagues against the Egyptians, that was good. If God knocked down the walls of Jericho, then it was good.  

But now, that way of looking at it does not work for us. The last plague on the Egyptians was the slaughter of all their firstborn. 

How in the world could that be called good? Was it fair to those infants or their grieving mothers and fathers? Was it right to cause all that harm? No, we conclude. The ends do not justify the means. 

And after the walls of Jericho fell, was it right that God commanded the slaughter of, as it says in the story, 

“both men and women, young and old, oxen, sheep, and donkeys”? (Joshua 6). 

We would call that genocide; ethnic cleansing.  

So, because our perspective on the moral importance of fairness and not harming is so important, we conclude that those stories about what God did or commanded to be done cannot be true. Our view of God has changed. As Christians, we have come to the conclusion that God must be at least as good and caring as Jesus was.  

This is a big reason why the very idea of hell is so repulsive to me and many of us. The concept of eternal conscious torment seems unfair and harmful in the extreme. God is not like that. God is love. 

Here is the point: when we hear that the greatest commandment is to love God, we must try to conceive of a God that is lovable. We conclude that although God is ultimately a mystery beyond human comprehension, the metaphors we use must be like Jesus’ metaphors for God: loving parent, good shepherd, welcoming father-of-prodigal-sons-and-daughters.  That is the kind of God we can love.

So, how do we love God? By sacrifice and ceremony? No; According to the prophets and Jesus, who, remember, never went to the temple as an adult, except in opposition to it, we show love to God best by fulfilling the second command: by loving our neighbor.  

The Neighbor Question

So, the only remaining question is, if we love God by loving our neighbor, who does that include? “Who is my neighbor” as the young ruler asked Jesus? To whom am I morally obligated? 

This is a serious question, because here too, we have had to part company with the perspectives of the past. Every normal, healthy person understands their own extended family to be their neighbors who deserver their care. 

Most people are happy to include all the people in their own ethnic group as their neighbors. 

The majority of people include everyone in their own nation as their neighbors. They will contribute to the common purse and rush to the defense of the people in their own nation. Is that where it stops?

Jesus was famous for challenging the understanding of neighbor as a bounded set. He pushed the category, for Jews, to include Samaritans as neighbors — as he did when he told the parable we call the “Good Samaritan,” in response to that question, “Who is my neighbor?” 

He also pushed the boundary of neighbor all the way to Roman soldiers and Canaanite women and children. In fact, it is hard to find any boundary on Jesus’ capacity to care for the well being of other humans. We progressive Christians talk about this a lot. We are often reminded of our need to be inclusive of “the other.”   

Going Further

Today, we realize that we must go beyond former generations in at least two ways. We now understand that the neighbors we are morally obligated to care for include the people who will be living on this planet after we are gone. Our children and grandchildren will inherit what we leave to them, including a climate in crisis. 

There is real, measurable harm done because of our behavior on this planet, and if we do not change it will get worse for our descendants. NASA scientists tell us, for example, that 

“parts of the western United States and Mexico, Brazil, and East Africa now face wildfire seasons that are more than a month longer than they were 35 years ago.”

https://climate.nasa.gov/news/2315/study-fire-seasons-getting-longer-more-frequent/

People are losing their homes. Businesses are going up in flames. Some people die trying to escape; some die trying to control the fires. Great harm is being done. We are watching it happening right now in Colorado, California, Oregon, Washington, Idaho, Arizona, and other states, and the trend lines indicate it is only getting worse. 

Our neighbors are our descendants who will have to live on the planet in the conditions we helped to create. I believe we are morally obligated to do all that we can to address the climate crisis for their sake.  

The other way in which we are becoming aware that the definition of neighbor needs to be expanded is the entire animal kingdom. Now we know that animals have emotions. Any pet owner can verify this. We know that animals can experience joy, and that animals can suffer. 

We are dependent on animals for our existence, as we all know. It is in our self-interest to care for them. Even more so, we know that we can cause harm to animals by the way we treat them. 

Almost everyone opposes animal fighting contests and all overt cruelty to animals. But should we limit our concern to obvious abuse? Awareness of animal emotions leads us to consider our moral obligations to all animals. How should we treat them if they too, are our neighbors? 

If it is ever right to slaughter them, the methods should be as humane as possible. In the meantime, how they are raised matters; how they are housed, fed, and treated matters. If this is a new consideration for you, sit with it for a while and give it some thought.  

Conclusion

Jesus told us that the greatest commandment is,  

“You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your mind.’  …And a second is like it: ‘You shall love your neighbor as yourself.”  

The dual commands to love God and neighbor, in the end, is liberating. We are invited to love a God of love, who loves us and who loves the entire creation. 

We are invited to know that our true selves are who we are in God; we are the beloved community. We have also been given the priceless treasure of neighbors all over the world, and in every corner of our community both human and animal (as if that is even a meaningful distinction, biologically). 

And we are not alone. The Spirit is present with us and in us, in every moment, luring us to the next right thing, coaxing us towards goodness, empowering us to make the right choices for the benefit of our human and animal neighbors, in this generation and in the ones to come.  

This is what we must never loose sight of.  This is the “main thing” for people trying to follow Jesus.  And, as has been said, “The main thing, is to keep the main thing, the main thing.” 

The Invitation and the Refuseniks

Sermon for Oct. 11, 2020, Pentecost 19A

Matthew 22:1-14

Once more Jesus spoke to them in parables, saying: “The kingdom of heaven may be compared to a king who gave a wedding banquet for his son. He sent his slaves to call those who had been invited to the wedding banquet, but they would not come. Again he sent other slaves, saying, ‘Tell those who have been invited: Look, I have prepared my dinner, my oxen and my fat calves have been slaughtered, and everything is ready; come to the wedding banquet.’ But they made light of it and went away, one to his farm, another to his business, while the rest seized his slaves, maltreated them, and killed them. The king was enraged. He sent his troops, destroyed those murderers, and burned their city. Then he said to his slaves, ‘The wedding is ready, but those invited were not worthy. Go therefore into the main streets, and invite everyone you find to the wedding banquet.’ Those slaves went out into the streets and gathered all whom they found, both good and bad; so the wedding hall was filled with guests.

“But when the king came in to see the guests, he noticed a man there who was not wearing a wedding robe, and he said to him, ‘Friend, how did you get in here without a wedding robe?’ And he was speechless. Then the king said to the attendants, ‘Bind him hand and foot, and throw him into the outer darkness, where there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth.’ For many are called, but few are chosen.”

A local peasant farmer, in 1945, found thirteen leather-bound books, hand-copied on pages made of papyrus. They had been buried in a sealed jar in a graveyard in the desert, located near tombs from the Sixth Dynasty of Egypt, on the banks of the Nile River, at a place now called Nag Hammadi. 

Among the books found there was a partial translation of Plato’s Republic and a document that we call The Gospel of Thomas. 

The Gospel of Thomas is in the ancient Coptic language, but appears to be a translation, perhaps originally from Greek. After the Coptic version was found, three Greek papyrus fragments were discovered.  

So what is the Gospel of Thomas, and why should it matter? The Gospel of Thomas is a collection of 114 sayings attributed to Jesus, almost two-thirds of which resemble those found in the canonical gospels. 

These sayings are sometimes set in dialogues or parables, but there is no storyline, no narrative. There are no stories of Jesus’ birth or death or any others. It is a collection of Jesus’ sayings only. 

So, in that sense alone, it is quite different from our canonical gospels. But many scholars believe that the Gospel of Thomas was written independent of the canonical gospels, maybe even before them, and represents another source of Jesus’ sayings. 

Scholars also believe, that some of the sayings contain evidence that they reflect the interests and issues of the community of Christians who preserved them. 

But that is not unique to the Gospel of Thomas. All of our gospels contain both memories of the historical Jesus and expansions on that memory which reflect the concerns of the communities that produced them. 

That combination of memory and expansion is evident in Matthew’s version of the parable of the dinner invitation we just read. There is a version of this story in Luke also, and another in the Gospel of Thomas. Comparing them is fascinating! 

I would like to suggest, following many scholars, that the Thomas version is the most original, Luke’s is second most historical, and Matthew’s is third. Development from Thomas to Luke and then to Matthew is easily discernible.  

What I want to do today is briefly look at that development, and how it reflects the issues of Matthew’s community, as distinct from the historical Jesus, and then take a look into the most original story.  

Comparing the Versions

First, in the Thomas version, the invitation is not from a king, but from a head of household, inviting guests to a dinner party, not a wedding banquet. So, it is set in simpler domestic circumstances. 

Second, after the invitations were declined, the master of the house instructs his servants to go out and invite whoever is found off the streets into the banquet. In Thomas and Luke, that is the end of the master’s reactions. 

But in Matthew, the inviter is a king who gets angry at this offense to his honor. He has his army go out and burn down the entire city. 

Then, Matthew adds the scene in the banquet which was being enjoyed by the guests who were invited impromptu, in which one does not have a wedding garment. The king has him bound hand and foot and thrown out into darkness where there is weeping and gnashing of teeth. 

So the original story in Thomas, and the next most original in Luke have no anger nor judgment. No one gets killed, and no one gets thrown out into what sounds like hell.  

The question is, does Matthew’s version sound like the Jesus we know? The answer is mixed. In one sense, it sounds like Jesus when the invitation to the banquet is extended to the nobodies, the poor, the riff-raff, the marginalized. Jesus was famous for welcoming the lost and the least. 

In all of the versions, that is what the host does: he welcomes the marginalized. There is a great lesson there, that we in the Presbyterian Church have taken to heart. We are an inclusive, welcoming, affirming community. All are welcome at our table.  

But, is the angry, vengeful, even murderous King in Matthew’s version the way Jesus taught us to think of God? Jesus called God his “heavenly abba” – papa. 

He told parables like the prodigal son who, when he returned to his senses and came back home to his papa did not get punished or even scolded; he was absolutely forgiven. They threw a party for him. 

That was how Jesus taught us to see God; not as the judge, but as the loving parent who is more like a good shepherd than a king.  

Explaining Matthew’s Modifications

So what is going on that Matthew took a story of a dinner party and transformed it as he did? The answer is found in the historical setting of Matthew’s church community.  

At the time of Matthew’ gospel, as the author has become traditionally called (although we have no idea of his actual name) what had already happened? The Jewish revolt of 66 AD had happened. 

The Roman army’s crushing of that revolt had happened. Jerusalem had been sacked and burned, including the temple and the palace. Ancient historian Joseph said hundreds of thousands were killed.  

So Matthew has taken a story of a dinner party where the guests who originally were invited refused to come, and has turned it into an allegory of recent history. In this allegory, the consequences of their refusal are brutal. 

In Matthew, the King is God, the invitation is first given to the chosen people of Israel. Most of them refuse to believe Jesus is Messiah (the wedding banquet is a metaphor for the banquet of Messiah from the Hebrew Bible) and the destruction of Jerusalem was God’s judgment on them for their rejection of Jesus.  

Was Matthew Right?

That explains it, but was Matthew right? Was the Roman army sack of Jerusalem really God’s judgment on them for not accepting Jesus as Messiah? Is that how it works? Does God do that?

Our answer, in my opinion, is the answer the historical Jesus would give. The idea that God punishes the bad guys and rewards the good is called the doctrine of retribution. Good behavior is blessed by God, bad behavior is cursed. 

This is one of the dominant perspectives of the Hebrew Bible, not the only one, but the dominant one. As they tell the story of their own history, the Israelites tell the story of the rise of the monarchy, but then its fall into exile; they tell it as a story of getting what they deserved from God; retribution for their unfaithful behavior: specifically their injustice towards the poor and their religious idolatry.  

Jesus Rejected Retribution

But this is exactly where Jesus made one of his most striking innovations. He came to reject the doctrine of retribution. He specifically said, as even Matthew quotes him saying, that God, 

“makes his sun rise on the evil and on the good, and sends rain on the righteous and on the unrighteous.”  

(5:45).

Luke adds another quote from Jesus in which he says that God 

“is kind to the ungrateful and the wicked.” (6:35). 

(6:35). 

Jesus told the parable of the wheat growing up with the weeds, making the point that judgment of evildoers is not our job and we shouldn’t do it.  

So, I believe Matthew’s church community was trying to do something good, but missed the point. The good thing they were trying to do was to ask, “What in the world is God doing?” 

The mistake was that they went to the Hebrew Bible for an outline of how God supposedly acts, instead of listening closely enough to Jesus. The irony is that Matthew’s gospel has Jesus saying that God “sends rain on the righteous and on the unrighteous” but then later forgets that point. 

Remember, one of Jesus’ central teachings is about the crucial importance of forgiveness, even to the point of forgiveness of enemies, which is the opposite of what the king in Matthew’s parable does. 

Why Tell a Dinner-Invitation Parable?

So, let us get back to the parable itself. It is about an invitation to a dinner. Why would Jesus tell that parable? And why would it include the unlikely idea that all the invited guests refused the invitation? 

Of course, we get it, that the unlikely story sets up the conditions for extending the invitations to the marginalized. That is an important point all by itself. But I want us to think about Jesus’ idea to tell a parable about a dinner party and people not coming. I think there is more to learn here.

A dinner party is a good thing. Free food and beverages. Why that setting? Because that’s a great analogy for receiving the message, the “good news” of the kingdom of God, Jesus’ main theme. 

When we receive the message that the kingdom of God is, as Jesus said, “at hand,” “among us” and “within us,” what happens? We begin to live as if God were king. 

We consider ourselves citizens of God’s kingdom, or God’s empire, as some call it, or God’s kin-dom, playing off the word kin, since we are family. 

When we receive that message as children, in other words, innocently, sincerely, then we are blessed. It is nourishing like banquet food. It is satisfying to our souls. To know that we are beloved by God is a soul-feast to us.  

Receiving the kingdom also has the capacity to transform our communities. As we start looking at each other as equals, as children of God, we become compassionate and responsive to human need. 

We become agents of care for people in need. We become advocates for the marginalized. We become engaged in helping people of our generation and future generations, so we become people who are passionate about the climate crisis we are in. 

There are so many good, positive, beautiful ways in which the invitation to the kingdom is like an invitation to a great dinner party.

Why Refuse a Free Dinner Party?

So, then the question becomes, why is the parable not just about an inclusive invitation, but also about the large-scale refusal of it? Why would anyone not want to come to the banquet? Why would anyone reject the kingdom of God as a present reality?  

I do not really know; I can only speculate. The reasons given for refusing the banquet in Matthew’s version are concisely summarized; after being invited Matthew says, they “went away, one to his farm, another to his business.” That does not tell us much. 

We might get some more clues from Luke’s version. There, in more detail, we are told, 

“The first said to him, ‘I have bought a piece of land, and I must go out and see it; please accept my regrets.’ Another said, ‘I have bought five yoke of oxen, and I am going to try them out; please accept my regrets.’ Another said, ‘I have just been married, and therefore I cannot come.’. (Luke 14). 

All the excuses seem flimsy, on the surface. All of them seem self-preoccupied. The first two of them involve economic concerns: purchases of land or oxen. The third is about the personal issue of a recent marriage, which seems inexplicably lame as an excuse. Still, we may find clues here.

Although the offer of a dinner party, or a banquet, seems to be unquestionably good, it is also true that there are some costs involved. 

Coming to this kind of a feast may mean you will have to sit down next to someone who is not your kind, not in your social circle, not of your race or your class, maybe someone who is not gender-conforming or straight. 

It may be uncomfortable to share a meal with someone you are holding a grudge against. If the cost of the meal ticket is offering forgiveness, maybe, for some, that is too high a price to pay, so they refuse the banquet.  

What about those economic concerns? Maybe the invited guests are doing things with their money that they know they will have to change if they embrace the idea that God is king. 

It may cost them to care for the “least of these brothers of mine,” as Jesus called them in Matthew. 

It may be expensive to change energy sources to protect the planet. 

It may cost money to feed, house, and educate everyone, and to provide adequate health care for them.  

Maybe they resent the very idea that some of their money might be used to pay for care for undocumented people, even if the cheap price of the chicken on their plates depends on their cheap labor.  

God’s Generous Invitation Remains

The original parable, unlike Matthew’s version, does not end on a sad note of judgment, but a happy note of inclusion, so let us end there too. 

God’s offer is generous. God, who is Love, invites all of us, not to breadcrumbs and room-temperature water, but to a lavish banquet of rich food and heavenly beverages. The invitation is unlimited. No one is excluded. 

The offer of a relationship with a loving God, a community of supportive, accepting people, and a common mission to extend compassion and mercy to the world is what this is about. 

Let us rejoice that the historical Jesus has given us this beautiful understanding of ourselves, of each other, and of God, and this beautiful call to mission.