God is alive and beyond our control: but the Good News is God is working for the healing of all things and needs you and me.

Pr. Joseph G. Crippen
The Twenty-first Sunday after Pentecost, Lect. 29 A
Texts: Isaiah 45:1-7; 1 Thessalonians 1:1-10; Matthew 22:15-22

Beloved in Christ, grace to you, and peace in the name of the Father, and of the + Son, and of the Holy Spirit. Amen

Is God doing anything in this world? How would you know if you saw it?

Israelites in Babylonian exile saw God’s hand in a foreign general, Cyrus of Persia, who destroyed Babylon’s power and made an edict that they could return home, to Judah, and rebuild. Isaiah says God-Who-Is, the one, true God, anointed Cyrus Messiah to save Israel. Israel trusted God enough to have the imagination to see God working in ways beyond their comprehension.

The Pharisees seem to lack the imagination of their ancestors. They defended God’s law, and were good at it. And this rabbi from Nazareth played a little too fast and loose with it. He challenged their authority, questioned their interpretation, didn’t clear things with them before saying them. In these last days of his life, they tested him again and again. Even though, as we’ll see next week, the center of his teaching, summing of all God’s law into love of God and love of neighbor, was taken straight from the Torah itself.

The question behind this is, do you get to decide where and how God is working?

Maybe some ancient Israelites had doubts about calling a foreign emperor Messiah. But they saw what happened and concluded God was behind it. The Pharisees can’t see Jesus as from God because he’s outside their control.

That’s the real issue. It’s not about choosing Caesar or God, Cyrus or Jesus. The question is do you get to control God? But surely a God whom you can control is no god at all.

Today Paul praises the Thessalonians’ trust in a living God, not in idols.

“In every place,” Paul says, “your trust in God has become known, how you turned to God from idols, to serve a living and true God.” We can control idols because we make them. In ancient times, idols were made in human images, animal images; today they’re reflections of our wants, our desires. Reflections of us.

But we can’t make a true God. It is the very truth that we do not control God that tells us we’re connected to the true God. If we create our gods, there’s nothing we don’t know about them, nothing we can’t explain or control. And there’s nothing real about them.

The true God creates us, comes to us from the outside, and we can’t always know what God is doing. And we can never control what God is doing.

But that makes life in a painful world challenging.

There’s no shortage of people who know for sure what God is doing in international affairs and politics, sure their view of God’s law and ways should be forced on everyone, sure they know who’s with God and who isn’t. People of most faiths can often act as if they’re in charge of God. And need to control things to make sure their view of God prevails. So they feel comfortable.

But when we live with the humble certainty that we’re not in charge, and we look at the wars in the Middle East, in Ukraine, in Sudan, at the oppression and violence that shape our world, at the paranoid politics that infect the spirit of our nation, at the violent rhetoric that just keeps on a crescendo, and we know we don’t have all the answers, we do wonder: what are you going to do, God? Do you care? Is there a plan?

And in the imagination of the ancient Israelites, we find an path. They trusted God was working in the world, and had promised restoration. And they trusted God worked through people to do that restoration. Even unexpected people. Even through God’s people themselves.

What if we follow their lead?

Theologian Tom Wright has said, “Because of the cross, being a Christian, or being a church, does not mean claiming that we’ve got it all together. It means claiming that God’s got it all together; and that we are merely, as Paul says, those who are overwhelmed by [God’s] love.” [1]

If we trust God’s got it all together, and we don’t, we can trust God’s promise, that God is working to bring hope and life to this world. Even to the most devastating of places and scenarios. That every act of grace and kindness, every step away from the usual human violence and hatred and retaliation and revenge, is inspired by and led by God. That can be our hope and prayer.

And if God can use a Persian emperor to bring about restoration, God also can use you. That’s central to Jesus’ hope. He called people to follow, to become like him, to be shaped by love of God and neighbor, because God needs as many hands as possible to bring about the healing that is needed.

And yes, we feel we aren’t up to the task. We feel helpless here, in our place. We don’t elect every leader in Congress, we don’t have the ability to shape foreign crises personally. We can’t even fix our own city. We despair that it seems we lack the ability to help in anything that really matters.

But Jesus seems to think you’re critical to all this. That you, with a changed, new heart, filled with God’s Spirit, will make a difference that will tip the scales. That your love of neighbor, your careful voting, your engagement with your neighborhood, your prayer and supplication, your ability to hold in tension seemingly contrasting truths and find hope, all this makes a difference. You make a difference, Jesus thinks. Even if you can’t see it.

Like Paul’s Thessalonians.

Their trust in a living God whom they can’t limit or control, instead of whatever idols they’ve had, made them into people of grace and hope and healing that became known all over the region. They had no ability to control the Roman emperor, or probably even affect much beyond their own towns and villages. And yet Paul says the word got out: these people are living as Christ in the world and making a difference.

And since you are loved by God in Christ, since you are made in the image of God – that’s the image printed on you, not Caesar’s – when you give to God what is God’s, you give yourself, and you, too, will change the world. And even if you can’t see it, God can.

In the name of the Father, and of the + Son, and of the Holy Spirit. Amen

[1] N. T. Wright, For All God’s Worth, p. 20; Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing Co., Grand Rapids, MI; © 2007.

The feast of the Triune God is a feast of welcome and restoration of the whole creation, starting now and continuing into the life to come, and you’re invited. Period.

Pr. Joseph G. Crippen
The Twentieth Sunday after Pentecost, Lect. 28 A
Texts: Isaiah 25:1-9; Psalm 23; Matthew 22:1-14

Beloved in Christ, grace to you, and peace in the name of the Father, and of the + Son, and of the Holy Spirit. Amen

There’s only one question for you today: are you coming to God’s party?

It’s going to be glorious. David says the cups will overflow and the feast will be spread between enemies, it’s a reconciliation feast. Jesus says the feast celebrates the joining of the Son of God with the creation, and all can come. Isaiah says God’s feast starts here but continues beyond death, destroying death in the process, and it is for all peoples, a feast of rich food and well-aged wines. It sounds wonderful.

And you’ve got the invitation in your hands, embossed with the royal seal: “child of God, beloved of God, come to my party, eat and be filled with my goodness.”

So, are you coming or not?

You realize, don’t you, that we don’t have to read this whole parable, with all the destruction, right? You can stop early. If the invitees had come, there just would have been a party, a feast, a celebration. No one has to miss this feast, not in Isaiah or Psalm 23 or Jesus’ parable.

But, maybe you think it’s cheating to stop the parable early, when the meal’s ready, and all are told to come.

That’s fair. We should look at the painful parts of this parable.

The first invitees ignore the invitation, abuse and kill the people who came to get them. Their city is burned to the ground with everyone in it. One guy who comes in the second sweep rejects the robe provided for him and gets bound hand and foot, tossed into the outer darkness, where there’s weeping and gnashing of teeth. Many are called, but few are chosen, you say. That’s how the parable really ends.

Fine. Let’s consider that. Matthew says all these parables we’re hearing in these weeks were told by Jesus in the first days of Holy Week. And we can’t pretend these late parables aren’t filled with strong warnings of punishment by Jesus for those who don’t comply.

There are a couple possibilities. Jesus is under intense stress as he approaches Good Friday. He’s running out of time to teach, and knows he’s going to suffer horribly. At least half his disciples – the male half, since the women seem to acquit themselves much better – keep missing his point and misunderstanding his mission. Maybe he’s frightened they’ll never get it, so he fills his parables this week with threats to get their attention.

Or maybe he meant every word. Maybe Jesus really meant you don’t get second chances. You turn from God’s invite, and that’s it. You’re outside God’s grace and love. It’s a horrible thought, but it’s possible.

But if I can’t stop reading the parable early, you can’t stop reading early either.

If I have to read all the way to “many are called and few are chosen,” I insist you read all the way to the end of chapter 28, the end of Matthew. (While you’re at it, check out the other three Gospels in full, too.) You’ll going to see an entirely different picture. There may be mystery over why Jesus said these harsh things, but there’s absolutely no mystery about what Jesus actually did.

Because whatever Jesus meant to say with his threatening words in Holy Week, he does none of it when he rises from the dead. He does the opposite.

The king burns the city who rejected the wedding, and kills everyone? The Risen Christ sends his disciples back into the city to proclaim the Good News of the resurrection, even to those who rejected it before, in hopes that now they’ll come to the party. He insists they start with Jerusalem.

The king takes a guy and throws him into the outer darkness? Jesus, God-with-us, on Friday will allow himself to be bound hand and foot and thrown into that very outer darkness, where there is weeping and gnashing of teeth. And will bring back everyone from the darkness into resurrection life.

And “many are called, but few are chosen?” The Risen Christ sends the Holy Spirit at Pentecost and pours God’s grace and power over anyone who wants it, and then sends out those Spirit-filled ones to try and get to every person on earth. Christ chooses everyone.

There is something so simple and joy-filled about all of these late parables of Jesus.

But we obsess over the judgment parts. It’s as if we need to insist that the awful punishments threatened by the Son of God still apply, still must be accounted for, or else we despair about how God’s love in our human flesh would make such threats.

But why focus on those parts? Every single parable here starts with invitation and joy and can stop right there. If you just focus on that invitation and joy. If you hear Jesus’ loving voice saying, “come to me.” You’ll find a joy glorious to behold.

So – are you coming to God’s party or not?

It’s a party for here and for now. God’s clear about that. God intends the abundance of creation to be shared with all God’s children on earth, with all having enough to eat and drink, all sheltered, all whole, all happy. We’ve got more instructions than we need from God’s Word as to how we can help that feast happen here in this life. But if you don’t want to be at a feast with everyone, if you’re worried that if everyone’s cup runs over, yours might go dry, maybe it’s not your thing.

It’s a party for everyone, “good folks and bad folks,” Jesus says. David says your enemies are invited to God’s feast, too. Maybe that’s the dealbreaker. You only want to feast with God with your people.

Why reject Isaiah, though? Isaiah says the party’s going to keep going after you and I and everyone dies. Eventually, the party favor everyone gets is that no one ever has to leave the party. Death is now a blip, and the feast just keeps going. In even more raucous joy and celebration. For all people, Isaiah says.

In a moment, we’re going to have a feast.

It’s not exactly the same as these we’re hearing of. We sometimes call it a “foretaste of the feast to come,” a sign of what God’s feast will look like not only in the world to come, but if God’s way is done, in this world as well.

Because you and everyone are welcome to come and eat God’s very being, to be blessed by God’s undying love for you, to be forgiven and healed and made whole. Anyone here who wants to come to the feast can come. This feast reveals what God’s greater feast is meant to be, even on this earth. So we never turn people away.

Maybe this time, as you eat and drink, you can imagine the overfilled cups and groaning tables of the feast God intends for all on this planet, now and forever, and say, “yes, I really want to come to that party. And I want to help make sure everyone else is there, too.” Because Good News: the invitation has always been there for you. And for all.

In the name of the Father, and of the + Son, and of the Holy Spirit. Amen