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Becoming Martha
In today’s gospel I think poor Martha is sometimes made to be the foil of the story. We easily remember the ending. Mary has chosen “the better part” and poor Martha is left worried and anxious about many things. In our minds, Mary becomes the model disciple while Martha becomes the woman who just doesn’t quite get it. I think Martha needs to be reconsidered.
“A woman whose name was Martha welcomed him.” (Lk 10:38). Jesus arrives, and Martha opens the door inviting Him in. Before Mary can sit at the feet of Jesus, someone has to welcome Jesus into the house. And there is something wonderfully faithful about that.
Luke is very intentional about the order of things (cf. Luke 1:3). Immediately before today’s gospel Jesus told the parable of the Good Samaritan. The Samaritan sees the wounded man, stops, cares for him, takes him to an inn and pays for his care. Jesus concludes the parable with the admonition: “Go and do likewise.” (Lk 10:37). Turn the page and we find Martha “doing.” Lots of people think today’s gospel is somehow telling us that service is somehow inferior to prayer. He has just told us to serve, so something else must be going on.
The text tells us that Martha was “burdened with much serving.” The word in Greek has the sense of being pulled away, distracted. And therein likely lies the problem. She has become so busy serving Jesus that she is being pulled away from Jesus.
That’s a danger religious people understand very well. We can spend enormous amounts of time doing things for God: a ministry in the parish, teaching faith formation, festival volunteering – the list is endless. And add to that all the enormous amount of time doing things for your family. We priests are not immune from such busyness. We can spend the whole day working for Jesus but very little time with Jesus. It is easy to let all these good things distract us from the reason we are doing them.
Eventually Martha reaches the breaking point. She comes to Jesus and says: “Lord, do you not care that my sister has left me by myself to do the serving? Tell her to help me.” (Lk 10:40) You have to love Martha’s honesty. She doesn’t break out in a prayer or calculate her words. She tells Jesus exactly what she thinks: Mary is the problem. But then Jesus becomes part of the problem: “Lord, do you not care?”
That question may be more familiar to us than we would like to admit. I think everyone of us can remember a time when we felt overwhelmed and we wondered if God cares. Jesus did not admonish Jesus for asking, nor does he admonish us. He simply says: “Martha, Martha…” He sees what all that doing has done to her: “You are anxious and worried about many things.”
Martha wanted Jesus to change Mary, but Jesus’ response is akin to saying: “Before we talk about her, let’s talk about what is happening inside you.” And notice that Jesus doesn’t tell Martha to stop serving. He calls her back to the center: “There is need of only one thing.” What is that “one thing”? Is it to imitate Mary, in a way become Mary?
Let us pause for a moment and consider the next time we encounter Mary – when her brother Lazarus dies. “When Martha heard that Jesus was coming, she went to meet him; but Mary sat at home.” (Jn 11:20) Martha gets up and goes to Jesus. She’s still Martha: active and direct and still unafraid to tell Jesus exactly what she thinks: “Lord, if you had been here, my brother would not have died.” But something is different. During their conversation, Martha says: “I have come to believe that you are the Messiah, the Son of God, the one who is coming into the world.” (Jn 11:27) That is one of the great professions of faith in John’s Gospel.
The woman we remember for being distracted by many things has come to recognize the one thing necessary. Or better, the one Person necessary. Martha didn’t need to become Mary. Martha needed to become a deeper Martha.
And perhaps that is what Jesus wants for us. He isn’t necessarily asking us to abandon our responsibilities. Meals still need to be prepared, children cared for, work to be completed, people who need our help, and a parish that still needs volunteers. The Good Samaritan still has to stop beside the road and Jesus forever says, “Go and do likewise.”
Let us do what is ours to do, the good things God has given us to do. But don’t become so busy doing things for Jesus that we lose sight of Jesus.
Martha opened the door and welcomed him into her house. Somewhere along the way, she became distracted by everything that needed to be done. And Jesus gently called her back. Perhaps today he is doing the same for us. Amid all the things that seem so urgent, all the things demanding our attention, all the things we think absolutely must get done, we need to hear the echo: there is need of only one thing.”
Don’t lose sight of the One you welcomed into the house in the first place.
Image credit: “Christ at the home of Martha and Mary” | Charles de La Fosse | Private collection in a castle in Lorraine (France); Galerie Didier Chéreau, Paris | PD-US
Matthew’s Version
This coming Sunday is the 28th Sunday of Ordinary Time. Among the various sources of Christian tradition, this parable of the wedding banquet has been preserved in three distinct versions. The simplest rendering of the parable can be found in the non-canonical Gospel of Thomas. In this version, the parable consists of a series of refusals to a dinner. Each of the guests who begged off did so for reasons of business or commerce. Consequently the host sent servants into the streets to bring back whomever they could find. Luke’s version of the parable (Luke 14:16-24), also preserves the reversal motif and bears evidence of the evangelist’s conviction that the poor, outcasts, those otherwise marginalized from society will find a welcome in the kingdom.
However, when Matthew’s rendering of this parable is compared to these other sources, there are several obvious differences. The main portion (vv. 1-10) of the parable is offered as an allegorical presentation of salvation history. The host has become a king (God) who was preparing a wedding banquet (symbol of kingdom) for his son (Jesus). The two groups of servants were probably representative of the Hebrew prophets and the Christian apostles, whereas the invited guests who repeatedly refused the king’s invitation and brutalized the servants were intended to portray Israel. People from the byroads represented the gentiles to whom the gospel was also to be extended.
In verse seven, the parable takes a strange twist; the city of the guests is destroyed. Starting a war while the meal is prepared and on the table strains even the wide range of flexibility allowed to parables. Add to that the mention of the burning of the murderers’ city – especially in the light of the Lucan tradition of the story and we begin to suspect something added from Matthew’s community – or something Luke thought to omit Most scholars believe that the Matthean community and evangelist were referencing the destruction of Jerusalem which occurred in 70 C.E. at the hands of Titus and the Roman army. Matthew projected this event back into this parable of Jesus. By so doing he was simply updating the history of salvation as it had unfolded by the time his gospel reached its final form in the mid-80s C.E.
Matthew makes this story the climax of the progression of this three-parable set: The first of the triad, the parable of the two sons (21:28–32), focuses on the (more than a) prophet John; the second, the parable of the lord’s vineyard given to others (21:33–46), pictures the whole prophetic line climaxing in Jesus, the Son who is killed. This third parable is understood from Matthew’s own post-Easter perspective, facing the parousia and final judgment. This final parable thus follows the perspective in picturing the history of salvation from the original calling of Israel to the last judgment, and places Jesus and the church in the succession of Israel’s prophets, persecuted and rejected by Israel.
The parable has the same audience as the preceding one except that now he specifically includes the Pharisees. Matthew’s insertion of “again” (palin, or “once more”) connects the parable to the preceding one as well, as do all the points we noted above. This means that the Matthean meaning cannot be derived from the parable alone, but only from the narrative structure of which it is now an integral part.
Image Credit: Parable of the Great Banquet by Brunswick Monogrammist (circa 1525) National Museum, Warsaw | Public Domain
Heavenly Warning
Given that last week we celebrated the Feast of the Archangels and of Guardian Angels, it is with curiosity that I notice in today’s first reading to the Galatians St. Paul writes: “But even we or an angel from heaven should preach to you a gospel other than the one that we preached to you, let that one be accursed!” It made me wonder what he had in mind.
In reading different commentaries, it seems that most scholars don’t think Paul has a specific angelic appearance or rival claim in mind. In Jewish tradition, angels were regarded as messengers of God. Paul himself elsewhere refers to the Law as having been mediated through angels (Gal 3:19). Given people understand angels as messengers from God, Paul is likely employing a rhetorical argument: even the highest conceivable authority cannot overturn the gospel once it has been received. And so, Paul is amazed that the Galatians are “so quickly deserting” the gospel (Gal 1:6).
We know from Galatians that other teachers had come among Paul’s Gentile converts insisting on circumcision and observance of the Mosaic Law in order to belong fully to God’s people. This is not a matter of church discipline; it strikes at the heart of the gospel itself. Paul is clear: Gentiles do not become Christians by first becoming Jews. Justification comes through faith in Christ and salvation is God’s gift of grace.
Paul is saying, in effect, “You have heard the real McCoy.” In fact, he immediately corrects even the suggestion that there might be competing gospels: there is no “other gospel” at all. There is the Gospel and there are distortions of it. Paul’s point is that the truth of the gospel is not validated by the status of the messenger; the messenger is judged by fidelity to the gospel. Even a heavenly messenger must be rejected if the message contradicts the apostolic gospel. Not another missionary, not an angel and remarkably, not even Paul himself has authority to change the Gospel. Think about his claim: even his own visionary credentials are subordinate to the gospel already proclaimed.
Paul’s principle also resonates with the Church’s later discernment of claims to private revelation. An authentic private revelation cannot contradict, correct, or add something essential to the apostolic faith already handed down. Even an approved apparition adds nothing to the Deposit of Faith; at most, it helps the Church live more fully what has already been revealed in Christ.
As people of faith, then, we stand humbly before the Gospel and the apostolic faith handed down to us. Paul reminds us that no messenger stands above that Gospel: not another preacher, not an apostle, not even an angel from heaven. The Gospel is not judged by the authority of the messenger; the messenger is judged by fidelity to the Gospel.
Image credit: ChatGPT – Dalle3 AI generated using the text of the post.
The Wedding Banquet of the King
This coming Sunday is the 28th Sunday of Ordinary Time, Lectionary Cycle A. This Sunday our text is the third of three parables: (the two sons 21:28-32; the tenants in the vineyard 21:33-46; and now the wedding banquet 22:1-14). All three have images of father and son(s). The first two also have the image of a vineyard. The last two have the sending of servants, the murder of servants, and the punishment of the murderers. In each case, there is a distinction between those who do the will of the father/landlord/king and those who don’t. Scott (Hear Then the Parable) talks about all three parables starting with the first one:
The parable is the first of three that challenge the legitimacy of the Jewish leadership. They all expose Matthew’s ideology of the true Israel demonstrating the claims of the Pharisees to be false and those of the church true. The parables of the two sons, the wicked tenants, and the king who gave a marriage feast exhibit a progression from John the Baptist to the rejection of Jesus and punishment of those who rejected him through the final judgment, when those without a wedding garment will be cast out. [p. 81]
Luke’s version of the parable (Luke 14:16-24), also preserves the reversal motif and bears evidence of the evangelist’s conviction that the poor, outcasts, those otherwise marginalized from society will find a welcome in the kingdom. However, when Matthew’s rendering of this parable is compared to these other sources, there are several obvious differences. The main portion (vv. 1-10) of the parable is offered as an allegorical presentation of salvation history. The host has become a king (God) who was preparing a wedding banquet (symbol of kingdom) for his son (Jesus). The two groups of servants were probably representative of the Hebrew prophets and the Christian apostles, whereas the invited guests who repeatedly refused the king’s invitation and brutalized the servants were intended to portray Israel. People from the byroads represented the gentiles to whom the gospel was also to be extended.
The contribution of the Matthean church can also be detected in the incident regarding the guest who was ejected from the feast (vv. 11-13). Aware that God’s invitation to salvation was extended to all of humankind, good and bad alike, the early Christians were also aware that not everyone who received an invitation would remain as a guest. The improperly dressed guest represented those who had not cooperated with or appropriated the invitations that God had offered. As a result of his/her unresponsiveness, the improperly dressed guest forfeited a place at the banquet. It was then a reminder to the Matthean church that the divine invitations to love are a daily invitation. Thus one must possess a willingness to be daily transformed by God’s grace and according to God’s will. To do otherwise is to refuse the invite to the “wedding feast” or to appear improperly attired. Either open the road to an eternity of insatiable hunger and unquenchable thirst.
Image Credit: Parable of the Great Banquet by Brunswick Monogrammist (circa 1525) National Museum, Warsaw | Public Domain
A Final Thought
This coming Sunday is the 27th Sunday in Ordinary Time. The old tenants lost their place because they failed to produce the required fruit, and it is the distinguishing mark of the new “nation” that it will produce it. The point is not developed here, but this qualification potentially carries a warning also to the new “nation.” If it in turn fails to produce the fruit, it cannot presume on its privileged position. The next parable will contain a sobering final scene to just that effect (22:11–13).
Reflection (from Eugene Boring, The Gospel of Matthew, 415)
Who is represented by the “you” from whom the kingdom is taken? Who is the “nation” to whom it is given? In the context, the addressees are clearly the chief priests and Pharisees… the Jewish leadership, not the people as a whole. Thus some scholars… have contended that Matthew here and elsewhere claims only that God will replace the present false leadership with faithful leaders. This requires understanding “nation” (ἔθνος ethnos, which is also the word for “Gentile”) in an unusual sense, a new group of leaders for Israel. The more natural way is to understand ethnos as “nation” or “people,” so that (as in 1 Pet 2:9) those to whom the kingdom is given are the renewed people of God, the church of Jews and Gentiles, who are called by God in place of unfaithful Israel. Many Christians throughout history have been too willing to understand the text this way, which has fueled the fires of anti-Judaism and anti-Semitism. Many Christians today are hesitant to understand the text in any way that encourages a false understanding of supersessionism, that God has rejected Israel and replaced it with the church (Jewish and Gentile) as the people of God. Neither past mistakes nor present Christian sensitivity to Jewish-Christian relations should inhibit our allowing Matthew to mean whatever he meant. If he believed God had now rejected the Jews as the elect people of God and replaced them with the church composed of people called from all nations, including Jews, historical honesty should accept this. Historical exegesis may document this as Matthew’s view, even if his situational-conditioned perspective must not be allowed to dominate our own, which must be informed not only by this text but by other canonical perspectives as well, such as that of Paul, another Jew who had become a Christian and who saw a larger plan of God that embraced both Israel and church (Romans 9–11).
This text does not speak explicitly, however, of Israel’s being rejected, but of the “kingdom of God” being taken from “you”; in Matthew’s view, the saving activity of God continues in that community where taking up the “yoke of the kingdom” means adherence to the Torah as fulfilled in the teaching of Jesus (cf. 5:17–48; 28:20). Matthew, like the modern reader, here struggles with a difficult problem, one that he perhaps had as much difficulty in resolving with systematic clarity and consistency, as does his modern reader. Even if the objective meaning remains not entirely clear, contemporary readers can still legitimately ask whether they have set up other phony sovereignties in place of the one God, and thus might be addressed in the “you” from whom the kingdom is taken
Image credit The Parable of the Wicked Tenants, Maarten Van Valckenborch, c. 1585, Kunsthistorisches Museum | Public Domain PD-US
Guardian Angels
Today is the Memorial of the Guardian Angels. I think the majority of us grew up with images, holy cards, and picture books of an angle every and always hovering over our shoulder, standing watch, guarding and ready to act at a moment’s notice to protect from the wiles and ways of the devil. So… are guardian angels just a tale the children are told, a metaphor for the continual care of God, or something to help us sleep better at night safe from nightmares.
The Catechism of the Catholic Church ( para. 336) teaches that each person has a guardian angel assigned to them by God. These angels are spiritual beings who protect and guide us throughout our lives. They help us to grow in holiness and lead us closer to God. Specifically, the Catechism states that “from its beginning until death, human life is surrounded by their watchful care and intercession”. This means that our guardian angels are always with us, watching over us and helping us in our journey of faith. Additionally, the Catechism emphasizes that we can petition our guardian angels for help and guidance, encouraging a personal relationship with them (CCC 336). This acknowledgment of angels, including guardian angels, is rooted in Scripture and tradition, affirming their role as intermediaries between God and humanity.
The most direct biblical text is Jesus’ statement: “See that you do not despise one of these little ones; for I tell you that in heaven their angels always behold the face of my Father who is in heaven. (Matthew 18:10) The expression “their angels” was understood by many Church Fathers as referring to angels entrusted with the care of particular persons.
Other important passages include “For he will give his angels charge of you to guard you in all your ways.” (Psalm 91:11-12) In Acts 12:15 when Peter, miraculously freed from prison, knocks at the door, the disciples say: “It is his angel.” (emphasis added). Might this suggest that first-century Jewish Christians were already familiar with the notion of a personal angel associated with an individual? Additionally, Hebrews 1:14 offers: “Are they not all ministering spirits sent forth to serve, for the sake of those who are to obtain salvation?”
The idea did not emerge in a vacuum. In Second Temple Judaism there was already a developed belief that angels were assigned protective roles. Nations were thought to have angelic patrons (Daniel 10). Individuals were believed by some Jewish traditions to have angelic protectors. The Book of Tobit provides a dramatic example of angelic guidance through the angel Raphael, who accompanies and protects Tobias (Tobit 5-12). While Raphael was not Tobias’ “guardian angel” in the later technical sense, the book strongly illustrates God’s care through angelic mediation.
The early Church Fathers generally accepted the existence of guardian angels. St. Basil the Great wrote: “Beside each believer stands an angel as protector and shepherd leading him to life.” St. Jerome, commenting on Matthew 18:10, remarked: “How great the dignity of souls, since each one has from birth an angel commissioned to guard it.” The debate among the Fathers was usually over the nature and extent of angelic guardianship, not over its existence. By the end of the patristic period, belief in guardian angels was widespread and largely uncontroversial.
St. Thomas Aquinas gave the classic theological explanation, arguing that God’s providence governs creation through secondary causes. Angels, as higher intelligences, participate in God’s care for humanity. In the Summa Theologiae (I, q.113), Aquinas concludes that each person is assigned a guardian angel because of humanity’s vulnerability in the journey toward salvation.
In the past I have been asked what is the Fraciscan perspective on guardian angels. Simply put, we stand with the Church’s teaching and traditions. A different question that could have been asked was about St. Francis’ perspective. To be clear, I know of no place in his writings where he mentions guardian angels, but St. Francis frequently viewed angels less as spiritual “bodyguards” and more as fellow creatures participating in the praise of God. In the Earlier Rule (para. 23), Francis joins “all the angels in heaven” with the whole creation in blessing the Lord. Based on that one might say that the Franciscan emphasis tends to be relational and ecclesial: guardian angels are signs that God does not guide us in isolation but within a network of relationships extending even into the heavenly realm.
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Give and Take
This coming Sunday is the 27th Sunday in Ordinary Time. The climax of the “Lord’s Vineyard” parable comes with the unexpected involvement of the landowner’s son following the servants. If the servants are the OT prophets, it is interesting to note that in Hebrews 1:1–2 “a son” as God’s last word follows prophets. Within the framework of the story the sending of the son is clearly a last resort, short of the owner returning himself (as he will eventually do in v. 40). When the son goes as his father’s messenger he goes with all his father’s authority, and so deserves “respect” and obedience. To reject the son’s demand is therefore the climax of rebellion. But to kill him is to add injury to insult. As a bid for independence and an attempt to gain possession for themselves it was hardly likely to succeed in a society under the rule of law, and it reads more as a spontaneous and ill-conceived impulse than as a calculated policy. But a parable does not have to fit into real life, and the points at which it becomes improbable are usually meant to draw attention.
The leaders of Jerusalem, I would suspect, understand the “son” to be a reference to Jesus and draw a conclusion of treasonous rebellion against the leaders of the Temple, as well as Roman rule. However, the Christian reader cannot fail to understand Jesus as the Son of God and the heir of the vineyard of Israel. For the Christian reader, Jesus’ death becomes Israel’s culminating act of rebellion, and may well reflect on how futile it was to try to escape from under God’s rule. To kill the son is an act of defiance to the father that will bring a cry for justice..
As mentioned above this expression might point to new people of God arising out of Jesus’ ministry and characterized by faith in him. We previously saw such a motif outlined in 8:11–12 and in the rabble of tax-collectors and prostitutes who “go ahead of” the chief priests and elders into the kingdom of God (vv. 31–32). The term ethnos, “nation,” calls for some such understanding, takes us beyond a change of leadership to a reconstitution of the people of God whom the current leaders have represented.
But on the other hand the singular ethnos does not carry the specific connotations of its articular plural, ta ethnē, “the Gentiles.” We may rightly conclude from 8:11–12 that this new “nation” will contain many Gentiles, but we saw also at that point that this is not to the exclusion of Jews as such but only of those whose lack of faith has debarred them from the kingdom of heaven. The vineyard, which is Israel, is not itself destroyed, but rather given a new lease of life, embodied now in a new “nation.” This “nation” is neither Israel nor the Gentiles, but a new entity, drawn from both, which is characterized not by ethnic origin but by faith in Jesus.
Some see an echo of Dan 7:27: “Then the kingship and dominion and majesty of all the kingdoms under the heavens shall be given to the people of the holy ones of the Most High, Whose kingship shall be an everlasting kingship, whom all dominions shall serve and obey.” If so, there is a poignant force in the transfer of this image to a different “people” which is not now simply Israel as Daniel had known it but which fulfills the role of the vineyard that is Israel.
What is lost by the current leadership and gained by the new “nation” is “the kingdom of God” represented by the personal authority of the landowner. The quotation in v. 42 has spoken directly of what “the Lord” has done in vindicating his Son. Israel, they have assumed, is where God rules, but they have rejected his will and so will find themselves outside his domain. At the same time, God will rule over a reconstituted “Israel” which acknowledges his sovereignty.
Image credit The Parable of the Wicked Tenants, Maarten Van Valckenborch, c. 1585, Kunsthistorisches Museum | Public Domain PD-US
Not how, but Who
The first reading today continues our journey into the Book of Job arriving at chapter 19. Here is a concise summary of what has transpired up to this point in the narrative: In the first two chapters, we meet Job, a wealthy, blameless, and God-fearing man about whom “the Satan” asserts that Job only serves God because he is blessed. Satan argues Job will curse God if he loses everything and so God allows Satan to test Job. Within moments, Job loses all his wealth, his livestock, and his ten children. But he does not curse God. In Chapter 3 Job laments his existence. He wishes he had died at birth or never existed at all, wondering why God allows light and life to continue for people who are in absolute misery. This is the central theme that this Wisdom literature explores throughout the remainder of the text.
From this point forward, Job is visited by friends. Eliphaz relied on personal experience and a spiritual vision, arguing that no human is innocent before God. Bildad appealed to ancient tradition, asserting that ungodly people always face swift ruin. Zophar spoke most bluntly, claiming that Job probably deserved an even harsher punishment than what he received. All are coming from the idea of retributive justice, the idea that God always rewards good behavior and punishes evil in this life. (Note: other canonical books of Wisdom will take issue with this premise, but that is for another day…)
Job feels it is all helpless because no human can argue or go to court with God. Job laments that there is no arbiter or mediator to lay a hand on both parties and bridge the gap between a holy God and suffering humanity. This brings us to our first reading:
“Oh, would that my words were written down! Would that they were inscribed in a record: That with an iron chisel and with lead they were cut in the rock forever! But as for me, I know that my Vindicator lives, and that he will at last stand forth upon the dust; Whom I myself shall see: my own eyes, not another’s, shall behold him, And from my flesh I shall see God; my inmost being is consumed with longing.” (Job 19:23-27)
Clearly, Job is indicating what he is about to say is of great importance and needs to be recorded for generations to come. And yet, the meaning of this passage is obscure because the original text has been poorly preserved and the ancient versions do not agree among themselves. Job asserts three times that he shall see a future vindicator, but he leaves the time and manner of this vindication undefined.
What does Job mean by “Vindicator”? The Hebrew is goʾali, “my goʾel.” The word has much richer connotations than simply “redeemer.” A goʾel is a kinsman-redeemer, someone who acts on behalf of a family member whose rights, property, freedom, or justice need defending. The same linguistic root is used to describe God as Israel’s redeemer, especially in Isaiah. Some commentators offer that this points to an early belief in resurrection based on the Vulgate translation, but Job is not necessarily saying, in the original historical sense, “I know that Jesus Christ will someday raise me bodily from the dead.” He is saying something more immediate and, given his circumstances, quite remarkable: someone will ultimately take my side. Someone will vindicate me. Someone will establish that what is being said about me is not the final truth.
Job’s friends have effectively constructed a theological case against him: God is just; you are suffering terribly; therefore you must have done something to deserve this. Job knows that isn’t true. But he cannot prove it. So he appeals beyond his friends and in some respects beyond his own present experience of God to a future Vindicator.
Why carved in stone? Because everything around him presently argues against what he is about to say. His children are dead, his property is gone, his body is afflicted and friends believe he is guilty. His experience is beyond his understanding and there is nothing in sight that things will be put right. And that is precisely the moment when he says: “But as for me, I know that my Vindicator lives.” This is not a case in which it is all resolved and Job then has the assurance that God is faithful. He says it before anything has worked out. It is a lesson for us.
We usually find it fairly easy to recognize God’s faithfulness looking backward. After the illness has passed, the crisis over, prayers answered, and we made it through. Then we are assured and can say, “God was with me.” Job is doing something much harder. He declares his confidence while he is still sitting in the ashes without a clue how his story ends. He has no idea what vindication will look like or when it will arrive. But he knows one thing: my Vindicator lives.
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The Coming Change
This coming Sunday is the 27th Sunday in Ordinary Time. The traditional interpretation holds that the parable is a symbolic account of the history of Israel, whose leadership (tenants of v.34) has rejected God’s earlier prophetic messengers (cf. Jer 7:25–27 seen in servants of vv.34-35). In v.37 the parable leaves Israel’s past and intuits the events of the Passion and Crucifixion that lay in the days to come. Indeed, the leaders of Jerusalem will seize Jesus and crucify him outside Jerusalem (cf. v.39). Where the traditional interpretation begins to waver starts in v.43 taking on a different direction from its OT parallel in Is 5:1-7:
Now, I will let you know what I mean to do with my vineyard: take away its hedge, give it to grazing, break through its wall, let it be trampled! Yes, I will make it a ruin: it shall not be pruned or hoed, but overgrown with thorns and briers; I will command the clouds not to send rain upon it. (Is 5)
Where the owner seems to abandon the vineyard in the OT telling, here in the Gospel according to Matthew, we are told of a very different outcome: “Therefore, I say to you, the kingdom of God will be taken away from you and given to a people that will produce its fruit.” (v.43) In a scene reminiscent of the encounter of the prophet Nathan and King David, Jesus confirms what the Jerusalem leaders have already offered: “lease his vineyard to other tenants who will give him the produce at the proper times” (v.41)
What does this imply? The whole parable might then be interpreted as a prediction of imminent régime change in Jerusalem. But if the tenants are the Jerusalem leadership, the new tenants are a “people.” In the Greek text, the word used is ethnos, “nation.” When a “nation” replaces the chief priests and elders there may well be something more radical implied, just as the withering of the fig tree symbolized the destruction of the temple, not merely its reorganization, and that same destruction (“deserted,” 23:38; “not one stone on another,” 24:2) is the conclusion to which the present confrontation is heading. More on this later.
A further clue to what sort of new régime may be expected is provided by the quotation from Ps 118:22: “‘The stone that the builders rejected has become the cornerstone; by the Lord has this been done, and it is wonderful in our eyes’?” Psalm 118:22–23, quoted exactly according to the LXX version, is part of the climax to the Hallel psalm which has already featured in Jesus’ royal ride to the city (v. 9, alluding to vv. 25 and 26). The speaker is probably the king, speaking on behalf of the nation, and the vindication of the rejected stone represents Israel’s triumph over the enemies who despised her. Thus the text does not in itself require a messianic application, but we have seen in 2:15 and 4:1–11 how naturally it comes to Matthew (and presumably to the wider Christian tradition within which this parable was handed on) to present Jesus as the personal embodiment of Israel, the “son of God.”
After the tenants’ rejection of the son in the parable the builders’ rejection of the stone is not hard to interpret. If the same stone that is rejected will become the cornerstone, then the son who is rejected may also be expected to be vindicated and to replace the present leadership. The addition of this quotation points us beyond the death of Jesus to his resurrection, which is “wonderful in our eyes.” The new “nation” of v. 43 may be understood as the people who follow the risen Jesus, just as the “something greater than the temple” in 12:6 appears to point beyond Jesus himself to a whole new régime focused on him.
Image credit The Parable of the Wicked Tenants, Maarten Van Valckenborch, c. 1585, Kunsthistorisches Museum | Public Domain PD-US
Eyes Front
“Eyes front” was something heard quite often during my naval career. As a plebe at the US Naval Academy the expression was “keep your eyes in the boat” an expression that originates from traditional maritime and rowing culture, where a coxswain or crew leader would instruct rowers or whaler crews to focus on their own oarsmanship. It was a reminder that you are part of a team and have a specific role that requires your full attention and commitment. While serving in the nuclear control room of submarines, it was a simple admonishment for the control room operators to keep their eyes on their panel and indications. I am reminded of all that when I read the gospel verse, “No one who sets a hand to the plow and looks to what was left behind is fit for the kingdom of God.” (Lk 9:62)
Perhaps to your ears Jesus’ words sound harsh. But imagine trying to plow a field while constantly turning around. With the light plows of the ancient world, the farmer needed considerable attention to keep the furrow straight. There was no GPS, no machinery holding the line. The plowman had to guide the animal, control the plow and keep his eyes directed toward where he was going. If he continually turned around, the furrow wandered. The work of the plowman was always in front of him. And maybe that is what Jesus is reminding us about.
All of us have something behind us. Things we wish we had done differently. People we miss. Hurts we haven’t completely forgotten. Opportunities we lost. Wonderful times we wish we could recover. Perhaps even versions of ourselves we wish we could become again. Jesus doesn’t tell us to pretend those things never happened. They are part of you and who you have become. We all have a past but the spiritual question is: “Is something in my past keeping me from seeing where Christ is leading me now?”
So often in the Sacrament of Confession people are burdened with regret. Sometimes we keep looking backward at a sin God has already forgiven, as though our failure gets the final word rather than God’s mercy. For others, resentment is the burden, allowing something someone did years ago to determine who they are today.
But it is not all a burden. It could even be nostalgia. Sometimes we become so attached to the way God worked in our lives yesterday that we fail to notice what God is doing today. Following Jesus doesn’t have a retirement age. We can easily think in terms of what has already been accomplished: I raised the family. I served the parish. I had my career. I did my part. All of that ground has been plowed.
Perhaps the furrow is shorter than it once was. Perhaps we cannot do what we once did. But there is still someone to love, to forgive, to encourage, to pray for and more. Some part of ourselves we still need to surrender to God.
Your past can be a source of wisdom, strength, and more, but your past cannot be where you are headed.
And so we put our hand to the plow and thank God for the ground already traveled. We learn from the crooked furrows and are grateful for the straight ones. But we keep our eyes on Christ. Whatever lies behind us is just that behind us. The Kingdom of God is always in front of us.
But if we’re still here, there is still some field in front of us.
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