The Lectionary and Scripture Interpretation for Ordinary Time
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Ezekiel 18:25-28
See book background here.
Today’s readings continue to hound us on the topic of sin within the community.
The first 24 chapters of the book of Ezekiel are oracles of judgment. The last half of the book takes a much more hopeful tone but today’s reading comes from the earlier, more judgmental chapters.
Chp 18 deals with individual responsibility and reward, a topic which Ezekiel addresses in a number of instances. Ezekiel disputes the notion that the Babylonian captivity was punishment for the sins of past generations. Instead he preaches that it was brought about by individual actions of the current generation.
This has immense ramifications: if you’re stuck in exile and you believe it’s because of someone else’s sins, then it might be difficult to believe that God can forgive and change the situation. But if you believe you’re in exile because of your own personal actions, then you may have some agency to effect change. Ezekiel’s message is that exile doesn’t mean they’re unredeemable – there is hope.
Verses 19-20 emphasize that each individual should take responsibility for their own actions. In fact, verses 21-24 promise that a person who repents can be saved just as a righteous person who sins can be condemned. Even a person’s own past actions don’t necessarily determine their ultimate fate if they change their course of action. Verses 25-28 come back to the idea that the Israelites are being punished for the sins of past generations and reiterate personal responsibility.
We generally think of Israel as a very corporate society and that’s true. But throughout the Old Testament we get glimpses of today’s emphasis on personal responsibility.
We might subtitle this section “The sin of a righteous person and the repenting of a sinner.”
Verse 25 reminds us of last week’s readings on the mystery of God’s ways and how those ways can sometimes feel unfair to us. The temptation for the people was to say “It’s not fair! I deserve the fruit of my parent’s righteousness no matter what kind of person I am. And the children of sinners deserve their lot!” Easy to say, perhaps, when you feel yourself the righteous person!
Last Sunday’s gospel gave us this picture of a God who rewards lavishly. Isn’t that unfair?! Sometimes God’s timelines are not our timelines. Isn’t that unfair? But God seems to redirect the question and focus on the ways of the people – those are the ways that are unfair.
Verse 26 poses a question: If I live my whole life “right” and righteous and then decide to commit some serious sin but immediately die and then suffer the punishment for that sin – is God unjust in punishing me? Isn’t that unfair?
But verses 27-28 propose the corollary: someone who lives a wicked life and turns around right at the end and gets the reward for that. How is that fair?
Much like last week, we get a picture here of a God whose ways are unfathomable sometimes to us. We want strict justice, especially when it comes to other people. But instead we get a God who seems to pick and choose between extreme justice and extreme mercy. And God says who are we to say that’s not fair?!
In a way, these verses can be comforting! We are never defined by the worst thing we’ve ever done. There is always an opportunity to change. Likewise, we should not rest on the best thing we’ve ever done. There is always the potential for falling. We must all be converted over and over again.
In what ways is your life defined by the worst thing you’ve ever done?
In what ways is your life defined by the best thing you’ve ever done?
Where do you feel like God is not being fair with you?
Matthew 21:28-32
During Ordinary Time, I’ll cover the Old Testament and then the Gospel readings as a pair so that we can better see the connections.
Chps 19-22 are “Authority and Invitation.” They parallels chps 8-9 with the same theme. Chps 8-9 were concentrated in stories of healings which showed Jesus’ power and authority. These chapters, though, are going to show authority through a different lens. There’s stories there about authority and an invitation to come into the kingdom but be prepared to have your notions adjusted as to what the kingdom is.
Last week we read the parable of the vineyard, or of the landowner. It gave us a picture of a God who is almost recklessly abundant to some and (it feels like) not so much to others. It showed a picture of grace that was generous but perhaps not so fair in our accounting system.
Today we get another parable about the kingdom and this one was intended to challenge the notions of the audience about who would enter that kingdom.
In the verses before this passage, Jesus gets into it with the chief priests and elders. He’s just gone on a rampage in the temple and so these guys come up and ask him “By what authority are you doing these things and who gave you this authority?” (v23). Jesus has a brilliant comeback for that, countering with a question about John the Baptist’s authority – was it human or divine? Jesus traps them and they can’t answer either way.
And then Jesus turns around and gives them this parable.
This is yet another parable unique to Matthew, but it strongly reminds us of the prodigal father parable in Luke. Today’s story may have been the original nucleus of Luke’s parable.
You probably know the basic story: the father asks two sons to go work in the vineyard. One says yes sir but doesn’t do it. The other says nope but then he changes his mind and goes anyway.
It’s important to remember that this is a Middle Eastern culture, based on shame and honor which motivates all behavior. Notice Jesus doesn’t ask the audience which son brought the father more honor. They would have answered, in that culture, it was the son who said yes sir that brought the honor. Saying yes was to honor the father. It didn’t matter what the son did after that. Disobedience does not necessarily bring dishonor. In that culture it didn’t matter as much what you did as what you said. Your words can be an outright lie and still have honor. It’s incomprehensible to us but that’s the way it worked back then and still does in many areas of the world.
So he didn’t ask them that question. Rather he asks about the behavior – what did they do? Which son did what the father wanted? Which one was obedient?
That answer was also obvious but the twist for the original audience is that the dishonorable son – the one who shamed his father by saying no – actually gets commended here.
Remember this parable is given in response to the chief priests and elders who question Jesus’ authority. And in so doing, they challenge his honor. Jesus responds by telling them their notion of what’s honorable is not important in the kingdom, but rather obedience to the father, a message which Paul will echo.
Tax collectors and prostitutes initially said no but then they did the will of the father by accepting Jesus’ message. And, in kingdom terms, that brings them honor.
The chief priests and elders said yes to John the Baptist but they didn’t do the will of the father in changing their life and accepting the kingdom. In kingdom terms, that has brought them shame.
This parable recalls Matthew 7:21 Not everyone who says to me, ‘Lord, Lord,’ will enter the kingdom of heaven, but only the one who does the will of my Father who is in heaven.
What if we show up every Sunday at Mass and encounter bread and wine that are changed but we are not? Does this not make us like the son who said yes but did not do his father’s will? If we say Amen to the eucharist, is that not saying yes to God? But do our lives reflect that yes?
“It is not enough to recall principles, to state intentions, to point to crying injustices and utter prophetic denunciations; these words will lack real weight unless they are accompanied for each individual by a livelier awareness of personal responsibility and by effective action.”
Pope Paul VI, Octagesimo Adveniens, 1971: 48 (apostolic letter on the social teaching of the church. “The 80th anniversary of Rerum Novarum”).
Are there times when you’ve said yes to God but your actions haven’t really reflected that?
How do you feel about people who seem to reject the institutional church but live sacrificial lives that would shame most Christians?
Old Testament / Gospel Connection
How are the Old Testament and Gospel readings connected? Each week I will offer my views on this but I encourage you to first read the passages and look for your own connections!
Is God fair? Both the Old Testament and Gospel readings seem to grapple with this question.
Philippians 2:1-11
See background on this book here.
Today’s passage is a rich summary of Paul’s teaching.
Verses 1-4 are one sentence in Greek. We get the benefit in this translation of breaking that up a bit, but it’s a complex thought.
Verse 1 has a Trinitairan sound to our ears: Father (God is love), Christ the son, and Spirit. Paul is going to talk about unity and he starts by rooting our unity in the unity of God’s very self. Paul will harp on unity a lot in this letter so it’s a good guess that the community has a problem with it! He wants them to be united and that’s going to make Paul’s joy complete. Just as it makes God joyful.
He asks them to be of the “same mind.” Paul uses this word 23 times in his letters, 10 of which occur in Philippians. The Greek word is one that means the way we think, the way we understand things. And the way that our thoughts influence our actions. To be “like-minded” includes both thinking and acting.
He also asked them to be “united in heart.” The Greek word here is “one-souled.” United in soul. Sharing the same identity because they are in Christ. Sharing the same life principles. This is what enables us to be like minded, because we are like-souled.
He also says “Thinking [the] one thing”, having one focus. This is the same root word as like-minded.
So Paul says if all these things are true – if you function out of God the Father, the Son and the spirit who function out of compassion and mercy – then be united.
Verse 3 tells us if you’re united to God and each other in this way, then certain actions are bound to follow.
He begins with selfishness or selfish ambition as it’s sometimes translated. The root word refers to the work done by a day laborer: work done only for hire. There is no investment in the overall enterprise. We are sons and daughters, wholly invested in the success of the kingdom. So our actions should flow out of someone who is invested in the overall picture, not just in making a few bucks for the day.
And then “vainglory,” a word from the King James that translators just can’t let go! It means an empty glory. it’s those who think highly of themselves with no foundation in fact; appearance without reality. Someone who worries more about the optics of the social media feed and less about the life underneath.
Instead of acting like people who live on the surface and only for the short term, Paul tells them to act humbly. Remember his audience is made up of Roman citizens by and large. And they’ve very proud of their heritage and status. The only reference they would have for someone who was humble would be a slave. And they are not slaves. But Paul is telling them to act like slaves.
And then Paul gives two examples of how to live out this humility in a united community. First he says to regard others as more important than yourselves. One commentary put it this way: “To count others superior is not to practice doormat-ism or insincere self-denigration. It is to understand one’s own proper place in relation to Christ and, therefore, in relation to others.” This is a healthy humility that realizes who I am and who others are and who we all are in Christ.
The second way to live out this humility is to be concerned about things that affect others as well as things that affect yourself. Paul tells us to “consider”: to look at or to contemplate. Not just to see in passing but to really, deeply see someone else’s circumstances.
How could we ever live up to all of this? Only by imitating a supreme example of someone who has lived it. Which brings us to verses 5-11.
Biblical commentator Charles Barclay had this to say about this passage: “the diversity of opinion prevailing among interpreters is enough to fill the student with despair and to afflict him with intellectual paralysis.” I read somewhere that this is the most commented on passage in the New Testament.
One of the things I always try to do in talking about Scripture is to note the genre. This is so critically important. If you read the first chapters of Genesis as an historical, factually accurate account of a single event, rather than as myth, then you end up in some pretty interesting interpretations.
And this is not a new phenomenon. If you go back to around 300 AD, you would encounter a priest named Arius. Fr. Arius read this passage but he forgot to look up the genre. Arius read it as though it was a work of systematic theology rather than poetry. He took as literal things that were meant to be taken as poetic. Largely based on this passage, he taught that Jesus was not God. You have Arius to thank for every week tripping over the words “consubstantial with the Father” in the Nicene Creed.
The prevailing opinion today is that we must read this passage as a hymn for public worship, not systematic theology. It’s a song. It’s poetry.
It’s generally accepted that Paul was not the original author of it. It has a different tone, vocabulary, and rhythm.
Remember that this letter was written in the late 50s or early 60s but this was already a pre-existing hymn. We don’t know if Paul is quoting the whole thing here, but from the way he often quotes the Old Testament, it’s a good guess that there’s more to it and that the audience was already very familiar with it. So it must have been floating around for a while. It’s reminiscent of Hebrew poetry. This suggests the hymn developed very early in the oral tradition when most Christians were Jewish.
It’s impossible to hit the highlights and do this passage justice but I’ll mention just a few things.
The word “form” in verse 6 is what got Arius into trouble. This is the Greek word morphe – outward appearance. This is poetic license for describing Jesus before his Incarnation. He was in the form of God. By the time of the gospel of John, about 50 years later, the author will explicitly state that Jesus is God. But Paul is not dealing with the question of who Jesus is in this passage – he’s dealing with the question of how the community achieves unity.
Verse 6 also uses a word not used elsewhere in the Bible and also rare extra-biblically: the word “grasped.” It means seized and clung to. Robbery. Exploited for one’s own selfish advantage. Purely selfish ends. It means that Christ did not use his divine status for selfish ends.
In verse 7 he took the form of a slave, being found human in appearance – all these are poetic words rather than theological language to talk about Jesus’ incarnation.
In verse 8 Paul probably added “even death on a cross.” Such a death was scandalous, crucifixion being reserved for only the lowest of society. But Christ was obedient in all things.
In this letter Paul is addressing a pastoral crisis: there is a danger of deepening division and he exhorts them to unity. Jesus is the model of this. The central event in the drama of salvation is an act of humble self-emptying. Our unity comes through renunciation of the natural, selfish state and the taking on of the divine state.
What would it look like in our world if we tried to live as “one-minded” and “one-souled”?
A common theological motif is “unity in diversity.” Is it possible to be united, one-minded and one-souled, but still retain our diverse opinions and approaches?
How do you model Jesus?
Scripture texts in this work are taken from the New American Bible, revised edition © 2010, 1991, 1986, 1970 Confraternity of Christian Doctrine, Washington, D.C. and are used by permission of the copyright owner. All Rights Reserved. No part of the New American Bible may be reproduced in any form without permission in writing from the copyright owner.
© 2023 Kelly Sollinger