Rev Hugh Perry
Readings
Exodus 20: 1-4, 7-9, 12-20
Writing of today’s reading Maurice Andrew notes that contemporary New Zealanders still see the Decalogue as manageable and concise without apprehending the intricate creative framework that surrounds the law’. His most telling comment about contemporary Kiwis suggests people who keep saying, ‘I was poor, but I did this all by myself, and you can too’ are not liberated. Even as atheists they are worshiping other gods because they are ignoring the real basis of all life in the world. [1]
That statement recognises our interconnectedness through creation. We are a communal species and that is recognised in a statement by the father of the man who, from time to time, has been the richest man in the world.
Bill Gates Senior maintains ‘Society has an enormous claim upon the fortunes of the wealthy. This is grounded not only in most religious traditions, but also in an honest accounting of society’s substantial investment in creating the fertile ground for wealth-creation’. [2]
Matthew 21:33-46
This second parable in chapter 21 repeats the condemnation of the religious elite that was evident in the previous vineyard parable.
This parable suggests that if those who are ‘the proper religious authority’ do not fulfil God’s call others will be called to the tasks God wishes to accomplish in that time and place.
According to Carter the first century setting of this parable announces judgement on the unfaithful leaders and interprets the defeat of Jerusalem by Rome in 70 C.E. as punishment of them. The vineyard, Israel, is not destroyed but is given new tenants to care for it.
Francis Wright Beare suggests a different perspective by seeing the parable as Matthew records it looking back on the death of Jesus and understanding the parable in terms of the early church and its continuing conflict with Judaism.
The parable also reflects Matthew’s sub-theme of Jesus as a new Moses forming a new people of God.
The Judaism of the time is therefore being rejected and Matthew’s community are the new tenants of the vineyard.
Sermon
Tom Scot talks of meeting his Irish Whakapapa in chapter 2 of his autobiography Drawn Out and includes a cartoon of an Irish pub. In amongst the diverse and unconnected speech balloons there is someone on the edge of the picture telling Scott:
‘The swines came loot’n and burn’n our crops and cottages. I’d like to tear their black hearts out of their chests with my bare hands!’ Scott replies with suitable shock ‘My God-when did that happen? To which the man with his pint of Guinness replies ‘O about 400 years ago!’[3]
That is an example of the sort of tribal law that occurs in many societies, from primitive humanity whose details are lost in the mists of time to criminal gangs disputing territory and the right to distribute mind altering drugs.
Altercations break out for one reason or another. Trespass on hunting ground or a raid by a tribe to compensate for the failure of their own crops. As Tom Scott’s cartoon illustrates memory of lives lost in such skirmishes are remembered from generation to generation until an opportunity to redress the balance presents itself. Often the subsequent revengeful rampage oversteps the mark and, grudges and the quest for revenge, is carried to the next generation.
So as wilderness wanderers draw near to becoming a people, we have a story about their adoption of a set of rules that seeks to codify acceptable behaver and avoid intergenerational vendettas.
Most significant about this story is the insistence that, in suitable smoke and lightening, God gave the rules to Moses. These are not rules written out by a sage meditating in a mountain, a wise king with the wisdom of a Solomon or even a duly constituted parliament. These are statements brought to the notice of humanity by a being that is greater and more loving than humanity and are held as sacred and beyond human amendment.
These rules are usually referred to as the ten commandments and some nations have them on display in their law courts.
However, it is more helpful to refer to them as the Decalogue, which means ten words.
Then the Decalogue can be understood as the ten words that expound the benefits of recognising and worshiping the one God who is creator of the universe and parent of all humanity.
In such understanding it is not a code of rules but an acknowledgment of the benefits of framing our ethics and empathy outside of ourselves and beyond human amendment, debate or self-interest.
Because of our acknowledgement and worship of a loving and creative entity beyond humanity people don’t worship other gods, particularly gods of their own making. If people recognise that there is only one God then worshiping an idol of human construction is daft.
In recognising God as creator of everything all people are family and are loyal to each other and do not normally rip each other off, murder or mistreat their family members.
The Decalogue is a positive statement about a world that recognises and worships the one true God.
However, when people set out to express the meaning of the Decalogue in prohibitive regulations, it took parts of Exodus, the entire books of Leviticus and Numbers and still needed continual amendments and updates, much like our own laws and statutes.
The political tension in our society is between those who see the task of government as creating the fertile ground for wealth-creation and those who believe that government has a responsibility for the welfare of its most vulnerable citizens.
That tension is alive and well in most Western democracies and it could certainly be argued that one of the prophetic roles of the church is to mediate those opposing views.
The problem is that what we call a tension between left and right also exists within the church. Therefore, the prophetic voice is often silenced in the interest of preserving the ecclesiastical organisation.
In such circumstances Jesus’ words speak as loudly to the contemporary church as they did to the chief priests and the scribes that today’s parable was addressed to.
Therefore I tell you, the kingdom of God will be taken away from you and given to a people that produces the fruits of the kingdom. (Matthew 21:43)
It is important to understand that the kingdom of God is not the church. But it is the church’s task to follow Jesus’ example and proclaim the reality that the kingdom of God is at hand. It is the church’s task to encourage people to live, not by just obeying the Ten Commandments, but by living a life so connected with God that the Decalogue becomes a proclamation of the benefits of such a life, rather than a list of prohibitions.
Like the chief priests and the elders, it is the church’s task to encourage people to live a life that creates a community that encourages talented people to prosper but also allows those less fortunate to find fulfilment.
When questioned about the most important law Jesus responded by saying: ‘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 neighbour as yourself. (Matthew 22:37-38)
Reading the story of Jesus’ ministry in the gospels we could easily gain the impression that, from his point of view, loving God with all your heart and all your soul involved loving your neighbour as yourself. Jesus’ example is that we love God by loving our neighbour and neighbour means the total family of all humanity.
The task of both religious leaders and religious people is to encourage others to live that way and Jesus’ issue with the chief priests and the elders was that they were not fulfilling that role. Today’s parable makes that clear.
The parable is set in a time when the community was organised through a political system called feudalism. Understanding the context when Jesus told the parable helps us peal back the layers of the parable and see how the first audience would have heard the story.
If we read the story of Saul and David, we are given a good explanation of the way feudalism began. As people moved from a nomadic lifestyle to settled agriculture, they were continually raided at harvest time by other groups who hadn’t fully made that transition. Some groups had even specialised in raiding the crops of others rather that growing their own. What Saul provided as king was the authority to bring loosely related tribes together as a defensive force when needed. David added to that arrangement by maintaining a standing army which was not only always ready to defend the farmers but could take the fight to the raiding nations and discourage them from further attacks.
Such protection is not cheap, and the original arrangement was that surplus crops were given to the evolving warrior class as protection money. As generations passed the warrior class became the ruling class and saw themselves as owners of the land rather than security contractors. The original farming families then became tenants. Fiefdoms amalgamated into nations by negotiation and force of arms. Some even became multinational empires. Those who ruled such empires quickly began to see themselves as more important than the people who just milked cows. Therefore, they demanded multimillion dollar salaries and make huge prophets but were not able to pay the farmers more because the world price of milk dropped. Possibly because the customers were anticipating buying holiday home in Queenstown.
Meanwhile back in Palestine the farmers and the dispossessed unsuccessfully revolted against Rome and both Temple and Jerusalem were destroyed.
That revolution was brewing when Jesus told these two parables against the middle management of the occupying Roman Empire, the chief priests, and the elders.
So, part of the sting for the listening chief priests and elders would have been the hint of a peasant revolt. The parable also suggests that their loyalty was to Rome rather than God’s people they were supposedly serving.
The suggestion that ‘the kingdom of God will be taken away from them and given to a people that produce the fruits of the kingdom (Matthew 21:43) clearly hints that those who grow the grapes deserve the fruits of their labour rather than the absentee landlord.
However, the original structure of the parable can only be speculation and Matthew wrote from a community that was part of the evolution of the church and order within that community is part of Matthew’s agenda.
Therefore, rather than the Roman emperor, the absentee landlord becomes God and the murdered son becomes Jesus. The crime or sin becomes religious rather than socio-political. The religious leaders are more focused on retaining the religious organisation and their own positions within it. That indeed is a deadly sin of both church and church leaders throughout history.
This parable reminds us that many of the divisions within the universal church began when the Spirit took the metaphorical vineyard away from the church of a particular time and place and gave it to those inspired believers who became a people who love God by loving all people.
Reform movements that recognise that the ten words of the Decalogue spell out the benefit of visiting our highest ideals in the God of all creation. Divinely inspired ethical understanding that takes humanity away from intergenerational cycles of revenge, where peace can only occur through an equilibrium of terror. A tension in which each, gang, tribe or international alliance, maintains a balance of power through the potential mass destruction.
Our challenge as a church and as individuals is to live a life that clearly shows that the Decalogue is a declaration of the freedom available within the divine realm of love and care for others.
The fruits of the kingdom are not formed by legal codes but by living as loving sisters and brothers within the family of all humanity.
[1] Maurice Andrew The Old Testament in Aotearoa New Zealand (Wellington: DEFT 1999)pp.108-114
[2] Jim Wallis, God’s Politics: Why the American Right Gets it Wrong and the Left Doesn’t Get It (Oxford: Lion Hudson plc 2005)p.268
[3] Tom Scot Drawn Out (Auckland, Allen & Unwin 2017) p.9.