Chosen

Our Adult Christian Education class is viewing a series on the Old Testament from a professor at Vanderbilt University. Today's lesson covered the stories of Cain & Abel and Noah. The professor made the point that aspects of these stories (as well as the Creation story) are to be found in other Middle Eastern and Greek mythologies. The purveyors of the OT stories must have had many more details at their disposal for the stories to be part of their meaningful legend.

The class facilitator, herself a teacher of theology, emphasized the importance of understanding that the OT stories did not stand alone. They were a variation on a whole cloth narrative (cf Hmong story quilts) common to  the peoples of the Middle East. She quoted a favorite writer (whose name I did not get) that there is only one story in mankind - the story of our identity. The OT variations are entwined in and informed by their early Middle Eastern milieu, but still climaxed in the identity story of Israel.

That made me think of the OT pericope for the day from Exodus 33. In it, Moses dickered with God to define the terms of his chosen-ness and the Israelites' chosen-ness. "You have said we have found favor in your sight, but now show us Your way so we can find favor in your sight." That could be read as a pious request to learn just how to obey YHWH. Or it could be read as an attempt to put himself and the Israelites on even footing with God. "We'll both be each other's favorites - then it will be an equal partnership. We won't owe you any more than you owe us." That sounds cynical, but it is not unlike the bargains we often attempt with God ourselves. Moses' further arguments sound more along the lines of resolving an identity crisis than of swearing fealty and obeisance.

God says in Exodus "My presence will go with you" and Moses replies "If your presence will NOT go, then do not move us from this place... in this way, we will be distinct." Moses goes so far as to negotiate witnessing God's glory itself. God accommodates Him. "You can see my back, but not my face." God even described himself in bodily terms, as though He was in the image of man, and not the other way around.

Finally, Moses was confident that he was the chosen leader of a chosen people. But the operation looks more like a messy birthing than a ceremonial anointing. Tearing a chosen people for the One God out of the fabric of Middle Eastern polytheism and mythologies was an arduous process. That is the story of the OT.

The New Testament reverses that story, resulting in an almost equally messy patchwork called the Church. With the Church there is no more chosen leader or chosen race. The narrative tradition and cult practices of the longstanding chosen people must be liberalized to accommodate other stories. The peoples of the Middle East (Jerusalem, Judea, Samaria...) are linked together again, along with uttermost parts of the earth in a new story known as the Gospel. In the Gospel there is no Jew, Greek, male, female, slave nor freeman. The Gospel is the final story of the identity of a people of God comprised of those in the image of God learning to bear witness to the glory of God for all time.

The Question

Synchronicity is the apparent alignment of meaningful events in one's life: a serendipitous juxtaposition. I experience this most Sundays as I read the selection of biblical texts that comprise the service of worship. The Old Testament reading, the Psalms, the New Testament reading and the +Gospel+.

Last week's OT reading was the 10 commandments. The Psalm was a song of restoration. The NT reading was Paul's declaration that, though he could boast his credentials as the Ideal Jew, he boasted, instead, in righteousness through faith in Christ, wanting to know Him and the power of His resurrection.

The +Gospel+ from Matthew was the account of Jesus telling religious leaders the story of the landowner to who sent a series of servants, and finally his son to collect what was due him from his tenants. The tenants abused and killed the messengers and son. Jesus asked the leaders "Now when the owner of the vineyard comes, what will he do to those tenants?". The leaders' response was that he would put them to a wretched death and lease the vineyard to more cooperative, deserving tenants.

Jesus replies to them with an enigmatic reference to the stone the builders rejected becoming the chief cornerstone, revealing an amazing work of God. Then he tells them that the kingdom of God will be taken away from the leaders and given to others, followed by another strange statement that those who fall on the stone will be broken to pieces and those on whom the stone falls will be crushed.

Typical Jesus.

Always nailing people with a good pointed story. Always going in a different direction than you expect. Always throwing in an inexplicable reference to some obtuse passage.

The landowner story seems clear enough. God is the landlord who planted the vineyard and owns everything. He sends prophets and finally his son to collect what is due. The Jews, the original lessees, kill them all and are undeserving, so God turns them away and gives the kingdom to the Gentiles. Yea, our side wins. More evidence against "Christ-killers" and from Matthew, no less. The +Gospel+, like history, is always written by the "winners".

Jesus was the "stone the builders rejected", and if you stumble over that fact, he will come falling on you like an avalanche and bury your sorry self. So you better not pout, you better not cry.

Typical Jesus.

Or, typical way we read Jesus. Typical way we analyze the stories for allegories, assign roles to people or people groups we know or don't like, affirm ourselves as God's BFFs and embrace the good news for us. It always sucks not to be us.

I have always been bothered by the reference to the cornerstone in Jesus' reply. Not that I don't recognize Jesus himself as the cornerstone of my righteousness. Yes. Absolutely. But that reference after this particular story is a non sequitor. The story images are of vineyards, grapes and business. The cornerstone image is of architecture and environmental hazards. How does that relate to the story if the point of the story is about who wins and who loses in the race to be God's best friends.

Last Sunday, reading this story after the stark enumeration of the commandments, the psalmist's cry to God for preservation and restoration and Paul's repudiation of the law as the way to righteousness, my attention moved from the story to Jesus' question.

"What will the owner of the vineyard do to the tenants?"

The leaders gave Jesus the same answer that we - a primarily Gentile church - give Him today.

"Why, of course, they will receive their just desserts!!"

It is always good to know the right answer. Except for when you don't.

Jesus distracted us with a story when his question was aimed at our hearts. Typical Jesus.

Soaking in the OT, NT and Psalms before coming to this +Gospel+ passage, I became aware that Jesus didn't have to ask those leaders what would happen next in his story unless he wanted to. Or, unless he wanted reveal what was in their hearts. What was in their hearts was allegiance to the Law - the notion that righteousness means obeying the Law and justice means well-deserved consequences when you don't. That is what is in our hearts when we finish Jesus' story with the landowner's retribution. That is the cornerstone of our ethics, morality and justice.

The cornerstone of the +Gospel+ is different. It is one we often stumble over. And reject. When we fall on it it breaks us. It crushes our self-righteousness.

The +Gospel+ is the story where the landowner sends his son, knowing full well what will happen to him. The +Gospel+ is the story where the landowner watches His Son die at the hands of cruel men. The +Gospel+ is the story where the son, in death's agony, appeals to his father for mercy for his unknowing tormentors. The +Gospel+ is the story that ends with the landowner raising his son from the dead to show the hateful, greedy, undeserving, self-righteous tenants how powerful his forgiveness can be.

The +Gospel+ is the story where a servant is forgiven a huge debt in its entirety. We stumble over the +Gospel+ every time when we, like that servant, are determined to exact payment for a paltry debt from another servant. The kingdom is taken away from us not because we, the world to whom it was offered, killed the son. The kingdom is taken away from us when we, like the ungrateful servant, insist on an accounting of debt to the Law instead of an accounting of God's mercy.

Jesus did not tell the leaders that the kingdom would be taken from them because they were Jews and that is how the story was supposed to end. The kingdom will be taken away from anyone who is ready to take it away from someone else. It will be given, as Jesus said, to those who produce the fruit of the kingdom: those who exhibit the merciful love, forgiveness, grace that flows into their lives by being engrafted into Christ.

That mercy, like the plot twist to Jesus' story where the landowner raises the son from the dead, is "the stone the builders rejected" that "has become the cornerstone". That grace truly is "the Lord's doing" and "amazing before our eyes".

Jesus tells a story and asks how it ends. He doesn't want to know how well we know the commandments and can judge by them. He wants to know how well we know God.

Typical Jesus.