Foreigners...! (2)

¹¹ Now on his way to Jerusalem, Jesus travelled along the border between Samaria and Galilee. ¹² As he was going into a village, ten men who had leprosy met him. They stood at a distance ¹³ and called out in a loud voice, “Jesus, Master, have pity on us!”

¹⁴ When he saw them, he said, “Go, show yourselves to the priests.” And as they went, they were cleansed.

¹⁵ One of them, when he saw he was healed, came back, praising God in a loud voice. ¹⁶ He threw himself at Jesus’ feet and thanked him—and he was a Samaritan.

¹⁷ Jesus asked, “Were not all ten cleansed? Where are the other nine? ¹⁸ Has no one returned to give praise to God except this foreigner?” ¹⁹ Then he said to him, “Rise and go; your faith has made you well.” Luke 17:11-19

We saw last time how Jesus responded to the ten lepers whom he “cleansed” of their disease, and how disappointed he was that only one of them turned to give him thanks - and “he was a Samaritan”, not a member of the chosen people of Israel. We drew the obvious point: Jesus is for anybody and everybody who humbly cries out to him. And we also felt (I hope) the sharpness of the challenge: that we should cleanse our hearts of any hint of prejudice or hatred (easier said than done, I think, if we are ruthlessly honest with ourselves).

But there was more also to think about…

First, the importance of gratitude.

This is what the tenth man demonstrated in an extravagant way. “Praising God in a loud voice”, he “threw himself at Jesus’ feet…” And this is what gave Jesus such pleasure to see, even though the person in question was a mere “foreigner”.

Somebody scored a goal for my team the other day, his first ever for the club. He launched himself into a succession of mid-air cartwheels (and could have ended up with a broken neck, I thought). But you couldn’t help smiling as you watched.

Well, our childlike trust in God will not necessarily take that form, but even it doesn’t, it can and should form the inner essence of our very personalities: not carping or grumbling or complaining, but quietly content with the lot he has given us. Here is a prayer of the poet George Herbert (1593-1633): “Thou hast given so much to me… Give me one thing more – a grateful heart”. May God hear our loud ”Amens”.

An old children’s song went: “Count your blessings,/ Name them one by one./ Count your blessings,/ See what God has done./ Count your blessings,/ Name them one by one./ And it will surprise you what the Lord has done.” (There is no law forbidding adults from singing children’s songs, so feel free…)

Being always thankful may sometimes seem to be asking too much, and I certainly don’t mean to make light of the really bad times when we feel close to despair. But by God’s grace hopefully we can shape our personalities over time into a basically positive mould.

A second issue raised by this story is the age-old puzzle of healing.

These ten men were “cleansed” of their leprosy pretty well immediately, such was their implicit confidence in Jesus’ command to “go and show yourselves to the priests”. Strictly, they don’t in fact ask for healing, just that he will “have pity on us”. And he doesn’t tell them he will; it just happens in their act of faith and obedience: it was “as they went” that they were cleansed.

Which leaves us wondering, “Why is healing such a rare event in most of our lives? Have we got the method wrong? Or would just a small  increase in faith make a difference? No. And no again. There is no “correct” method, and there is no “required” level of faith. Jesus tells us that faith as tiny as a mustard-seed can move mountains; but he also chastises his disciples for their lack of it.

Every healing is unique. In the Bible itself it comes in different forms; we seem to be told that if we have faith it will happen (no ifs, no buts: for example James 5:15-16), but we also know the plain reality of our experience – and there are verses like 2 Timothy 4:20, about Paul’s colleague Trophimus, who was “left ill in Miletus”. (We feel like asking, “Er, why, Paul?”)

One thing we can say with certainty is that the New Testament never tells us that the gift of healing, and miracle-working in general, is withdrawn completely from the church. This means that we should have no qualms about crying out to God for his healing grace if it’s in our hearts to do so. We may feel it right to accompany such prayer with the laying on of hands or anointing with oil or the use of tongues – but as I said earlier, there is no fixed method or magic formula.

Over my time as a Christian and as a pastor I have got involved in many long and sometimes heated discussions about miracles, including healing. But I have concluded that it is too serious and, often, too emotional, a topic to be reduced to the level of arid intellectual debate. It touches us at a deep and personal level. So – dare I put it this way? – why not give it a try if the circumstances call for it? No, there is no guarantee (whatever some Christians may say). But there is always hope. We never know what God might see fit to do; and is he not our loving Father in heaven?

Father, please help me to develop a personality moulded by gratitude for every good gift I have received from your hand; and also the faith to believe in your power to heal. Amen. 

Foreigners...!

¹¹ Now on his way to Jerusalem, Jesus travelled along the border between Samaria and Galilee. ¹² As he was going into a village, ten men who had leprosy met him. They stood at a distance ¹³ and called out in a loud voice, “Jesus, Master, have pity on us!”

¹⁴ When he saw them, he said, “Go, show yourselves to the priests.” And as they went, they were cleansed.

¹⁵ One of them, when he saw he was healed, came back, praising God in a loud voice. ¹⁶ He threw himself at Jesus’ feet and thanked him—and he was a Samaritan.

¹⁷ Jesus asked, “Were not all ten cleansed? Where are the other nine? ¹⁸ Has no one returned to give praise to God except this foreigner?” ¹⁹ Then he said to him, “Rise and go; your faith has made you well.” Luke 17:11-19

Who was the Good Samaritan?

Oh, that’s easy! He was the man Jesus told a story about, the one who showed sacrificial kindness and generosity to a victim of an attack who had been left half dead on the road from Jerusalem to Jericho. It’s in Luke 10:25-37.

Quite right. It’s a beautiful story; but it has a very sharp point too, because Jesus told it in order to answer an “expert in the law” who challenged him to define the word “neighbour”. In the story two Jewish religious leaders had already seen the man lying in the road – and had chosen to “pass by on the other side”, in effect to ignore him. But this Samaritan came along and did – with interest – what they had failed to do. The expert in the law got the point: in effect, “we Israelites should treat our enemies – yes, even the Samaritans - as neighbours”. But he couldn’t bring himself even to use the word “Samaritan”.

Very good. That’s the story everyone knows.  But wait a minute: in Luke 17:11-19, the passage above, we read of another man who could also be described as a “good Samaritan”, though in a very different way. This time the story is an account of something that actually happened, with Jesus the main actor in the drama.

Leprosy was a terrible affliction. It not only ate away at the flesh, but also cut people off from their communities, for they were forced to live apart to avoid the spread of the disease.

On this occasion Jesus was in territory close to Samaria when a pathetic group of ten men with leprosy, correctly keeping their distance (can you see them?), shouted to him: “Jesus, master, have pity on us!” And that’s exactly what he did: without any ado he told them to “Go and show yourselves to the priests” (only the priests were authorised to declare a leper “clean” from the disease). To obey that command took real faith - but the miracle happened: “as they went, they were cleansed”.

But now comes the point: of the ten men, just one thought to turn to Jesus to give thanks, “praising God in a loud voice” and “throwing himself at Jesus’ feet”; the other nine presumably went straight to the priests and so disappear from the story.

And Jesus is disappointed: “Where are the other nine? Has no-one returned to give praise to God except this foreigner?”

Ah! A foreigner. I don’t know if Israelites and Samaritans were likely to have a markedly different appearance, but Jesus obviously saw that there was something different about this man, and Luke the writer spells it out for us in plain words.

All right, this is a very different kind of goodness from that of the hero of Jesus’ story in chapter ten. But Jesus was obviously glad to praise this man and to commend his faith, foreigner or not, and Luke was moved by the Spirit to include the story in his Gospel. So there are clearly things for us to learn…

First, and right up to date in our modern world, we must rid ourselves of any hint of racial prejudice or discrimination.

In John 4 we read about Jesus’ conversation with “the woman at the well”. In talking with her he broke at least three taboos. First, the very fact that she was a woman; it would be frowned on for a man and woman to be seen talking together in public. Second, she was a Samaritan and “Jews do not associate with Samaritans” (verse 9). By all accounts that’s putting it mildly, for Jews and Samaritans were long-standing enemies; “hatred” might be a more appropriate term to describe their relations. And third, she was a particular type of woman, for it emerges later that she has had five husbands “and the man you now have is not your husband” (verse 18). In the culture of the time this would be very shocking.

But Jesus obviously didn’t care. He needed water, and she was the only person around who could provide it. He obviously felt no shame or embarrassment in talking with her, and as far as he was concerned, if anyone else did – well, tough.

Our world is awash with various hatreds and prejudices. Hasn’t it always been that way? Well, yes indeed. But today it seems to be particularly prevalent. There’s racial prejudice, religious prejudice, colour prejudice, gender prejudice, class prejudice, to name only a few. And in many cases the word “hatred” is no exaggeration.

Sadly, the church has been guilty of this sin in various periods of history, and we should be ashamed, even when our prejudices are unconscious. Jesus didn’t touch the men in the story of the ten lepers – they didn’t come close enough - but we know from Matthew 8:2-4 that he would have been quite willing to do so.

Do you and I have some nasty prejudice(s?) to repent of, even if it’s just (just!?) a matter of looking down our noses at someone we consider to be beneath us? In whatever ways, do we in effect take after James and John who helpfully (?) tried to sort out some unco-operative Samaritans in Luke 9:51-54: “Lord, do you want us to call down fire from heaven to destroy them?”. A handy solution, no doubt, but Jesus leaves them in no doubt about his answer to that question.

The curse of prejudice is perhaps the main lesson of this story. But there are certainly others, so I’ll have to return to it next time. Please join me again…

Father, thank you for the compassion that dwelt in the heart of Jesus for all people – and which overflowed from it. Please give me just such a heart! Amen.

Can hatred and holiness co-exist? (2)

 

Appoint someone evil to oppose my enemy;
    let an accuser stand at his right hand.
⁷ When he is tried, let him be found guilty,
    and may his prayers condemn him.
⁸ May his days be few;
    may another take his place of leadership.
⁹ May his children be fatherless
    and his wife a widow.
¹⁰ May his children be wandering beggars;
    may they be driven from their ruined homes.
¹¹ May a creditor seize all he has;
    may strangers plunder the fruits of his labour.
¹² May no one extend kindness to him
    or take pity on his fatherless children.
¹³ May his descendants be cut off,
    their names blotted out from the next generation.
¹⁴ May the iniquity of his fathers be remembered before the Lord;
    may the sin of his mother never be blotted out.
¹⁵ May their sins always remain before the Lord,
    that he may blot out their name from the earth. Psalm 109:6-15

Last time we looked at Psalm 109 as an example of one of those Bible passages which, if we are completely honest, we would probably prefer were not there. Taken as it stands it seems full of venom and hatred for the writer’s enemies, a direct contrast with the words of Jesus about loving your enemy and praying for, not against, them.

The question arises, What is this psalm (not to mention various other parts of the Bible) doing there? Would you pray such a prayer against someone who has injured you? Can you imagine Jesus praying it? What value or use are these passages for us today?

Last time I suggested a number of things in general about reading the Bible, the first of which is to take it as much as possible at face value – always making allowance, of course, for the many different types of literature we are dealing with and the alien cultural background. Some respected Bible translations (the NRSV, for example) try to solve the puzzle of Psalm 109 by inserting the two little words “They say” before verse 6, thus suggesting that the following shocking words are spoken by the psalmist’s enemies rather than by himself. It certainly turns the psalm on its head! For what little I know it is a possible amendment and possibly a justified one, but it strikes me as rather a desperate ploy, a bit of a wriggling out of the plain meaning.

No, we need to look these words fairly and squarely in the face, however uncomfortable they make us.

We might be tempted to say, “Ah, but the man who wrote this psalm lived before Jesus. He had never read the New Testament or heard the Sermon on the Mount, so what can we expect?”

That is obviously true enough. But as a devout Jew (“a man of prayer”, verse 4), had he never been taught parts of the Law of Moses such as Exodus 23:4-5: “If you come across your enemy’s ox or donkey wandering off, be sure to return it. If you see the donkey of someone who hates you fallen down under its load, do not leave it there; be sure you help them with it”. Had he never been taught Proverbs 25:21: “If your enemy is hungry, give him food to eat; if he is thirsty, give him water to drink”? Jesus in the Sermon on the Mount wasn’t introducing a new law of love to replace a law of hate; no, he was reminding the people of something they should have known perfectly well already but had chosen to ignore.

For me personally, the most challenging, if rather disturbing, use of this psalm can only be this: it is a frighteningly honest probing of the human heart. Putting it another way: this could be me speaking. It reveals myself to me…

Oh, don’t worry, I have been far too well brought up to hate anyone with such a naked hatred (no credit to me there, of course, and I like to think I don’t have any enemies anyway), but I don’t have any illusions either about the darkness that lurks in the depths of my own heart. Do you?

I know what it is to be jealous, to be unjustly angry, to look down on somebody. I always feel a grim smile coming on when I think of David’s wife Michal looking furtively out of her window, seeing him dancing exuberantly “before the Lord” at the recovery of the ark of the covenant, and “despising him in her heart” (1 Chronicles 15:29). Have I never despised someone in my heart, perhaps while smiling sweetly? Don’t I know what it means to be petty, or spiteful, or selfish or just plain nasty? What about you?

Perhaps this is just me; but I suspect not. Most of us learn to live outwardly respectable, “decent” lives; but the key word there is “outwardly”. If we return for a moment to the Sermon on the Mount (Matthew 5:21-42), didn’t Jesus warn us that hatred and anger are tantamount to murder? that lust is tantamount to adultery? These sinful poisons are what fester invisibly in our inmost beings - and isn’t it our hearts that God knows and “searches” (Psalm 7:9)?

If nothing else, the writer of Psalm 109 (a “man of prayer”, remember) helps us to take this truth seriously, even if that wasn’t his intention. No doubt there are other things we can learn from his inner toxicity. There are many parts of the Bible, after all, which are to be learned from – of course – but not imitated.

But perhaps that’s enough to be going on with for the time being.

Father, we know that hatred and holiness cannot co-exist, and that we are called to have pure, forgiving hearts. As we read this psalm, help us to face the wickedness that dwells secretly within us and to hunger after the purity of Jesus himself. Amen.

Can hatred and holiness co-exist?

Appoint someone evil to oppose my enemy;

    let an accuser stand at his right hand.
⁷ When he is tried, let him be found guilty,
    and may his prayers condemn him.
⁸ May his days be few;
    may another take his place of leadership.
⁹ May his children be fatherless
    and his wife a widow.
¹⁰ May his children be wandering beggars;
    may they be driven from their ruined homes.
¹¹ May a creditor seize all he has;
    may strangers plunder the fruits of his labour.
¹² May no one extend kindness to him
    or take pity on his fatherless children.
¹³ May his descendants be cut off,
    their names blotted out from the next generation.
¹⁴ May the iniquity of his fathers be remembered before the Lord;
    may the sin of his mother never be blotted out.
¹⁵ May their sins always remain before the Lord,
    that he may blot out their name from the earth. Psalm 109:6-15

Some churches start the reading of scripture with the words, “Hear the word of the Lord” and perhaps finish it with the solemn pronouncement, “This is the word of God”. If you believe, as I do, that the Bible is indeed the inspired word of God, you may very well feel that that’s not a bad practice (unless, of course, it has become a mere formula). But there are passages where (let’s be honest) you may find yourself hoping that the congregation aren’t listening too hard!

Psalm 109 is one such. At face value it’s just full of hatred, a full-blown cry to  God for vengeance on the psalmist’s enemies. He seems to be giving expression to precisely the opposite of what Jesus teaches in Matthew 5:44: “But I tell you, love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you…” I’ve picked out verses 6 to 15, perhaps the most vicious-seeming section, but the rest is not much better. I encourage you to take a minute or two to absorb the feel of the whole psalm and to get the full force of the writer’s vitriol. This is the word of the Lord? You can’t, surely, be serious!

Yet… it is – it’s as much part of God’s word as John 3:16, or as Jesus’ cry from the cross, “Father, forgive them – they don’t know what they’re doing”. So, if we want to take our Bibles seriously, we need to look full in the face of these disturbing passages (and there are, of course, plenty of others: try Psalm 137:9, for example) and grapple with them as honestly as we can. I am, of course, no expert, but having done a bit of a trawl of various commentaries I would tentatively make the following suggestions, applicable to the whole Bible, not just this particular psalm…

First, we must resist the temptation to turn a blind eye.

We have a natural human tendency to avoid things we know we are going to dislike or find difficult. Be honest, when did you last read Zechariah or Song of Songs or Jude? But these passages are there, and they aren’t going to go away. If God has caused them to be part of his word, then it’s for a reason, and so, treading very carefully and humbly, it’s for us to make what sense we can. Better to end up unsure if we have got it right (who in the world has got it all right!) than not to try at all.

Second, always opt for the most natural meaning that suggests itself.

All sorts of strange and fanciful interpretations have been suggested, especially of course for books such as Revelation or Daniel – interpretations that offer perhaps an over-confident understanding of how the world is going to end. Get hold of a good Bible commentary – or, better still, two or three - recommended by a trusted pastor or friend. But be open to the possibility that even these trusted commentaries may not be right in every last detail.

Regarding Psalms in particular, some respected Christians understand them as “the song book of Jesus” and see him in it whether he is there or not. Certainly, it seems agreed among many modern scholars that Psalm 109 is basically crying to God ultimately for nothing more than the Old Testament idea of just retribution upon the people who have behaved so badly. Well, perhaps so. But, even if that’s right, it still sounds pretty nasty and I for one confess that I find it very hard to imagine Jesus singing or praying it.

Third, be open to the possibility that the interpretation favoured by your particular “camp” could be mistaken.

Sadly, as Christians we all end up getting grouped into camps – perhaps more traditionally known as “denominations” or “movements”. Some of us, for example, are convinced that adult believers’ baptism is the only form justified by scripture. That’s fine, of course, but let us also be happy to recognise that others who take a different view are brothers and sisters in Christ (quite likely more Christlike than we are!).

Fourth, read the Bible always in context.

The Bible is a big book – or, more correctly, a big collection of books. It’s written in languages that most of us cannot read, so, whether we like it or not, we have to depend on experts who know infinitely more than we do (this is one of the reasons we need those commentaries I mentioned). It uses all sorts of types of speech – metaphors, similes, poetry, stories, parables, hyperbole (that’s obvious exaggeration designed to heighten the impact of what is being said). So not every statement is intended to be taken literally (otherwise wouldn’t we expect to see many more blind or disabled people in church, as per the words of Jesus in Matthew 5:29-30)

I hope these comments are helpful. But we’ve hardly as yet touched on Psalm 109 itself! So I shall have to return to this theme next time. I hope you will join me.

Father, we thank you for the word you have given us in the Bible. Thank you especially for those times it delights us with the truth of your great forgiving love for all people, demonstrated supremely in the death and resurrection of Jesus. But other times it troubles us by spelling out unwelcome truths, or puzzles us with things we find hard to understand. Help us to read it humbly and with open minds, always conscious that we could be mistaken in our understanding. Amen.

When the going is hard

We do not want you to be uninformed, brothers and sisters, about the troubles we experienced in the province of Asia. We were under great pressure, far beyond our ability to endure, so that we despaired of life itself. 2 Corinthians 1:8.

I can do all things through him who gives me strength. Philippians 4:13

Do you see any contradiction between these two verses? On the face of it, surely yes - one is about hopelessness and despair from someone who, looking back, is even surprised that he has survived at all; the other is a declaration, bursting with confidence and optimism, that nothing is beyond his God-given strength.

The seemingly contradictory thing is that the same man, the apostle Paul, wrote both verses – though at different points in his life. We are used to thinking of Paul as one of the great giants of faith, so the Philippians verse sounds very natural - “Well, of course, that’s Paul, isn’t it?” – whereas 2 Corinthians 1:8 may come as a bit of a shock – “Hey, that’s not like Paul at all!”

If such a great follower of Jesus can experience such diametrically opposed shifts of mood, surely there are things the rest of us can learn? I think so, anyway.

First, very simply, such unwelcome things can and do happen. Or, as my children used to say with a shrug of the shoulders after something had gone wrong at school, “stuff happens”.

We often say that “the Christian life isn’t easy”, but do we really mean it, or is it just a platitude we trot out to acknowledge that, as people say, “life has its ups and downs”? Jesus, after all, told his followers that they must “take up your cross and follow me”. That’s serious, isn’t it? And it’s a reality we need to seriously digest. Have we done so?

On the positive side it means that we needn’t feel ashamed, surprised or guilty if we find ourselves struggling. There’s no need to develop a mentality, even subconsciously, that “if I’m a Christian I should be immune to  such things”.

Perhaps Paul’s crisis was quite short-lived, but whether that was the case or not, it was certainly of serious intensity: “far beyond our ability to endure, so that we despaired of life itself”. The words “Paul” and “despair” don’t exactly sit naturally together in the minds of most of us, do they! All I can say is that, if a giant of the faith such as Paul can write such a thing, let’s be careful not to dismiss the possibility of something similar in our own lives - yes, even under the eye of our loving heavenly Father.

Second, if this is right, let’s resist any temptation to play the hero when things get hard.

One of the most impressive characteristics of Paul was his openness about how much he needed the support of others: his true humility, in fact. He frequently asks those who read his letters to pray for him; he has no illusions about his dependence on his loyal friends and companions.

Some of us, I suspect, while we say all the right things about how weak and needy we are, don’t really mean it; deep down we like to think we are self-sufficient.

This may be the case especially if we are in some form of Christian leadership. Yes, those we lead will expect – and rightly expect - from us competence, faith and energy, but they know – or should know, and need to learn it if they don’t! – that we are not spiritual supermen or women. “Burnout” may not be a sin; but at the same time it’s no great advertisement for the Christian life. Jesus, we are told, advised his disciples to “come with me by yourselves to a quiet place and get some rest” (Mark 6:31), a command we are foolish to ignore.

What can we say about the Philippians verse – “I can do all things through him who gives me strength”?

In essence, Paul is simply saying that he has no doubt about his God-given strength when it comes to God-given service.

That word “God-given” is important. Preachers sometimes hold out unrealistic hopes and stir up unrealistic expectations of miracles pretty well every day of our lives. This can end up making Christians look foolish and out of touch with reality – rather as if we are Popeye swallowing a helping of spinach and suddenly displaying a whole new energy.

There’s a bit of me that hesitates to sound that warning – I would hate to be guilty of dowsing true, sincere faith, even faith that might be such as to “move mountains”. But, whether preachers or not, we need to look reality right in the eye. If such a miraculous thing is to happen (as God grant it may), let it be a surprise even to ourselves, thus confirming that the strength really is from God and God alone.

So…. At first sight Paul might indeed seem to be contradicting himself in these two passages. But his full story gives the lie to that: rather, he had learned from hard experience that living a life of Spirt-led service can turn out in practice to be complex and puzzling. Which, of course[CS1] , is why, later, in 2 Corinthians 12:10, he can toss out another wonderful paradox: ”… it’s precisely when I’m truly weak that I am in fact strong”.

Is that a truth we can put to the test and prove this very day, even in the ordinary circumstances of our ordinary lives?

Father, we do sometimes find following you hard, though we know that in comparison with many our way is actually quite easy. Grow in us, we pray, the kind of faith Paul had, so that like him we may learn the secret of being content in any and every situation. Amen.

---

 [CS1]

Lord, it's not fair!

²⁵ “Meanwhile, the older son was in the field. When he came near the house, he heard music and dancing. ²⁶ So he called one of the servants and asked him what was going on. ²⁷ ‘Your brother has come,’ he replied, ‘and your father has killed the fattened calf because he has him back safe and sound.’

²⁸ “The older brother became angry and refused to go in. So his father went out and pleaded with him. ²⁹ But he answered his father, ‘Look! All these years I’ve been slaving for you and never disobeyed your orders. Yet you never gave me even a young goat so I could celebrate with my friends. ³⁰ But when this son of yours who has squandered your property with prostitutes comes home, you kill the fattened calf for him!’

³¹ “‘My son,’ the father said, ‘you are always with me, and everything I have is yours. ³² But we had to celebrate and be glad, because this brother of yours was dead and is alive again; he was lost and is found.’” Luke 15:25-35

 

 “When evening came, the owner of the vineyard said to his foreman, ‘Call the workers and pay them their wages, beginning with the last ones hired and going on to the first.’

⁹ “The workers who were hired about five in the afternoon came and each received a denarius. ¹⁰ So when those came who were hired first, they expected to receive more. But each one of them also received a denarius. ¹¹ When they received it, they began to grumble against the landowner. ¹² ‘These who were hired last worked only one hour,’ they said, ‘and you have made them equal to us who have borne the burden of the work and the heat of the day.’

¹³ “But he answered one of them, ‘I am not being unfair to you, friend. Didn’t you agree to work for a denarius? ¹⁴ Take your pay and go. I want to give the one who was hired last the same as I gave you. ¹⁵ Don’t I have the right to do what I want with my own money? Or are you envious because I am generous?’

¹⁶ “So the last will be first, and the first will be last.” Matthew 20:8-16

 

 

Any preacher is bound to enjoy preaching about the prodigal son (Luke 15) – the beautiful story of how he went away from his father and ruined his life; but then, having completely messed up, how he had a change of heart and came back home, hoping against hope that his father might take pity on him and take him back as a servant – only to receive an extravagant welcome as his father, throwing dignity to the winds, came running to fling his arms around him.

The father, of course, represents God; the son represents sinful humanity in general, but especially, at that time, the wayward people of Israel.

But there is another character in the story who it’s easy to overlook. The older brother, who has been completely loyal to the father throughout his life, resents the welcome given to his wayward brother, and tells his father so in very clear terms: “Here you are throwing a big party for this prodigal son of yours [note that cruel ‘son of yours’, not ‘brother of mine’]… well, what about me? I’ve been a model son. Don’t I deserve even better?” The father gives him a little lecture – albeit a loving lecture – obviously sad that the older son is not rejoicing like him: “I have always loved you, and always will; so come on, come and join the party!”

It’s easy to write the older son off as just a rather crabbed, sour-faced, mean-spirited individual. Whether or not he did indeed soften his attitude, put a smile on his face, and join the celebrations Jesus doesn’t say, nor does it particularly matter. We might sadly shake our heads and say, “Oh well, he’s the only loser in the end! Perhaps he mended his attitude with the passing of time; let’s hope so”.

But I remember the first time somebody came to me at the end of a sermon and said, “Actually, I can’t help feeling that the older son had a point. Was he really so unreasonable to feel aggrieved at the father who seemed unappreciative  of his faithful son”.

The standard answer to that (surely also the correct answer) is that it misses the whole point of the story. Jesus is wanting to get across the fact that there is no way anyone can earn or deserve God the Father’s love. The lost son is welcomed back not because he has made amends (he hasn’t), but because, quite simply, the father loves him. The great Bible word for this is “grace”, which means God’s undeserved favour. Not even the very best and most upright of people can merit God’s forgiveness: certainly not me; not you.

There are people who think of their standing with God as like a credit/debit balance. They seem to think “Well, I just hope that when I stand before God on judgment-day my good deeds will outweigh the bad”. But no! That just isn’t possible. A price has to be paid, and none of us can pay it. So we can only thank our loving heavenly Father that he has done so himself, through the cross of Jesus his Son.

Song-writer Graham Kendrick captures it perfectly: The price is paid./ Come let us enter in/ To all that Jesus died to make our own./ For every sin/ More than enough he gave/ And bought our freedom/ From each guilty stain.

Exactly the same truth is taught in Matthew 20:1-16, the parable of the workers in the vineyard - this time not in the warm context of family life, but of what we might call in today’s parlance, “industrial relations”.

A rich farmer is keen to get his grape harvest in in the short period the weather allows. He heads off to the market-place, which in effect functions as the labour exchange, and hires some of the men waiting there. He agrees to pay them a certain price for the day’s work, starting at 6 in the morning. The experts tell us that the other hours mentioned equate to 9, midday, 3 and 5 in the evening.

There are two very surprising features to the events.

First, the farmer keeps coming back at the different intervals, right up to 5 o’clock, when the day was starting to draw to an end. That was how keen he was to get his harvest in. And it speaks of how keen God is to demonstrate his love to his people; it must have got pretty wearisome to keep coming back to try and hire an ever-diminishing group of workers.

But even more surprising is that when it came to handing out the pay, everybody got the same amount, those who started at 6 in the morning, and those who started just an hour or so before evening fell.

Here, of course, is where we see the comparison with the older son in the other story. Like him, the early starters in the vineyard felt hard done by: “Those who were hired last worked only one hour… and you have made them equal to us who have borne the burden of the work and the heat of the day”. How can that be fair?

How indeed? But as with the prodigal son, it’s not a matter of fairness and unfairness: it’s a matter of kindness and generosity: a matter, in fact, of God’s grace.

The message for those of us who are Christians today? Never begrudge God a moment of your time, however many late-comers may seem to have come, jumped the queue and “got a better deal”. There is no deal! However hard your service may have been; however many sacrifices you may feel you have made; however much you may feel you have suffered for Jesus’ sake… it’s all to do with love, and nothing can bear comparison with that love.

Father, in the light of this fallen world it’s easy to understand the grievance of the prodigal’s older son, and of the early starters in the vineyard. But thank you that salvation isn’t a business deal. Please help me to keep firm hold of the pure unadulterated love which sent Jesus to the cross, and to rest and rejoice in it alone. Amen.

Christian, think only the best!

Once when they [Elkanah and Hannah] had finished eating and drinking in Shiloh, Hannah stood up. Now Eli the priest was sitting on his chair by the doorpost of the Lord’s house. ¹⁰ In her deep anguish Hannah prayed to the Lord, weeping bitterly. ¹¹ And she made a vow, saying, “Lord Almighty, if you will only look on your servant’s misery and remember me, and not forget your servant but give her a son, then I will give him to the Lord for all the days of his life, and no razor will ever be used on his head.”

¹² As she kept on praying to the Lord, Eli observed her mouth. ¹³ Hannah was praying in her heart, and her lips were moving but her voice was not heard. Eli thought she was drunk ¹⁴ and said to her, “How long are you going to stay drunk? Put away your wine.”

¹⁵ “Not so, my lord,” Hannah replied, “I am a woman who is deeply troubled. I have not been drinking wine or beer; I was pouring out my soul to the Lord. ¹⁶ Do not take your servant for a wicked woman; I have been praying here out of my great anguish and grief.”

¹⁷ Eli answered, “Go in peace, and may the God of Israel grant you what you have asked of him.”

¹⁸ She said, “May your servant find favour in your eyes.” Then she went her way and ate something, and her face was no longer downcast.

In my lifetime as a minister I have had plenty of reason to feel embarrassed and even ashamed. People I have let down, for example… situations I have misjudged… So I find it hard not to feel some sympathy for Eli the priest of God at Shiloh in those far off days of the Old Testament judges.

People often made a practice of going every year to Shiloh to worship God, and sometimes they would combine this with partying, and things would get out of hand. Eli would (quite rightly) have seen it as his responsibility to try and keep order, and this would no doubt be trying, and would tend to make him cynical. But that was no excuse for what happened one day…

A man called Elkanah has come to Shiloh with his two wives Peninnah and Hannah. (This kind of marriage arrangement was permissible under Israelite law, though far from ideal.) Hannah is childless, and a deeply unhappy woman, though she receives a lot of sympathy and understanding from Elkanah, who seems to be a basically good man.

She decides to go into the house of God to pray, and this is where Eli gets things badly wrong: watching her at prayer he sees her lips moving and her tears flowing, but all under her breath, and he jumps to the conclusion that, no doubt like many other people he has had to deal with, she was drunk. He rebukes her harshly: “How long are you going to stay drunk? Put away your wine”.

Hannah respectfully puts him right, and, to be fair to Eli, he accepts the rebuke and pronounces a blessing over her. And what had seemed a long-standing impossibility becomes a reality; a baby boy, Samuel, is born. In due course he was to became one of the giants of Israel’s history.

It’s a heart-warming story, viewed from the perspective of Elkanah and Hannah. But what about Eli? We read in chapter two that his sons Hophni and Phineas were “worthless men”, as one translation puts it, who “had no regard for the Lord”. This must have been a cause of great bitterness to Eli who, as the book unfolds, comes across as well-meaning but weak. (I wonder what had happened to his wife?) You can see why, as a pastor, I am inclined to come at the story from Eli’s perspective as well as Hannah’s. Some very obvious lessons stand out…

First, don’t jump to conclusions, especially about people you don’t know. Putting it another way, don’t be quick to pass judgment.

One of the personal incidents I had in mind at the start of this blog, where in fact I ended up making an apology (in fact, what I might call a full five-star grovel), arose from my listening to somebody who had a grudge against somebody else: a malicious gossip, in short. Foolishly, I swallowed it whole, only discovering later that it was totally untrue. (What made it all the more humiliating was that the person I had to apologise to was someone I didn’t really get on with too well: having to swallow one’s pride is never a pleasant experience, though no doubt “good for one’s soul”!)

Jesus tells us pretty bluntly: “Do not judge, or you too will be judged… with the measure you use, it will be measured to you” (Matthew 7:1-2). Paul asks the Christians in Rome: “Why do you judge your brother or sister? Or why do you treat them with contempt?” Why indeed! Have we ourselves got everything right? Oh, what fools we can be!

There are of course times when we have to exercise wisdom in our dealings with people, and we must be open to the possibility that they are indeed in the wrong, and need correcting. But let it be done with true humility and a prayerful spirit, and after proper investigation.

Second: always think the best of the other person, not the worst - unless you have a very good reason otherwise.

You may be an exception to this rule, so please forgive me if it doesn’t apply to you, but I suspect that for most of us one of the results of the fall is that we have developed a tendency to look down on others.

Perhaps we are, deep down, pretty insecure within ourselves, and it makes us feel a little better about ourselves if we can look at others with contempt. Or it may be something as sinful as plain racial prejudice: their skin colour is different from ours. Perhaps, though they call themselves Christians, their denominational loyalty or some other “theological” issue means that they are rather “unsound” (unlike us, of course). Or perhaps they strike us as just not very impressive, whether physically or personality-wise. They may have a habit or other mannerism that we secretly disapprove of – the way they dress or do their hair, even something as basic as the accent they have or their upbringing. Perhaps we just take a dislike to them for no particular reason.

Oh what fools we can be! How arrogant, how self-assured! Isn’t it one of the supreme glories of our faith that we worship as Saviour, Lord and King a man who was accused (yes, accused!) of mixing with tax-collectors and sinners, the very lowest of the low, with prostitutes and outcasts.

How then dare we, even in our most secret hearts, look down any fellow human being, however lowly and contemptible in our eyes? God, have mercy upon us.

Father, please give me Spirit-led wisdom to know when someone is false or bad, and to respond appropriately and humbly; but otherwise to always think the best rather than the worst of them. Amen.

---

 [CS1]