25th Sunday of Ordinary Time Year A - Hearts Burning Within

The Lectionary and Scripture Interpretation for Ordinary Time

Isaiah 55:6-9

Isaiah I: shape up or else; exile is coming 1-39
Isaiah II: Book of Consolation, comfort in captivity 40-55 Deutero Isaiah (suffering servant songs)
Isaiah III: going home 56-66 Trito Isaiah; struggle for a new temple and new leadership

55:1-11 is an important passage that gets a lot of screen time as far as Old Testament passages go. We read this section as one of the Easter Vigil readings and also on four Sundays during Ordinary Time. It’s an important passage for the lectionary and also for the book of Isaiah.

This is the conclusion to the Book of Comfort and contains all the major themes found in chapters 40-55:

New exodus
The way
Call to eat/pasture
Word of the lord
King
Heaven and earth
Dispute with Israel
Forgiveness
Participation of all the nations

Today we hear a call to repentance as well as an invitation to the eschatological banquet – the end of time when God establishes God’s reign on earth.

Verse 6 encourages the people to seek God. In the past, they were told to seek the Lord in the Temple but that is no longer an option – the Temple is gone and they are in exile. Now there is an acknowledgement of being able to see the Lord who is near and may be found everywhere. This is an expansion of the vision of what it means to be a Jew and follower of YHWH.

Verse 7 is a call to repentance. They are told to “forsake their way.” This is not about a sin here or there but rather a way of life, a pattern of sin, ingrained and readily practiced. There is a turning away from the old ways and patterns and a turning towards God; turning away from evil towards good. This is the same idea as the Greek word metanoia which is used frequently in the gospels.

The verbs in verse 7 are imperative. It’s less something to think about doing and more of an order!

Verses 8-9 talk about a God who is transcendent and hidden – a God that we can never really understand. This God mystifies and perplexes. We can’t even begin to grasp why God does what God does. We can only sit with the mystery and try to cooperate with what we see God doing.

Ponder a time when God’s actions utterly confounded you.

In what ways do you know that God is near and purposefully seek God?

Matthew 20:1-16A

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.

Last week we finished up chapter 18 which was directed towards internal community relationships. This week we enter a new section in chapters 19-22 “Authority and Invitation.” These chapters parallel chapters 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:

The story about the blessing of children “Let the children come to me… for the kingdom of heaven belongs to such as these.” The lowest and weakest have the authority.
The request of James and John to sit at Jesus’ right hand in the coming kingdom – Jesus has to correct their notion of power and authority.
The triumphal entry into Jerusalem riding a donkey, coming to die.

The chapters contain other stories about authority as well as an invitation to come into the kingdom, but to be prepared to have your notions adjusted as to what the kingdom is.

This brings us to today’s parable.

19:16-30 is the passage just before this one and, in it, Jesus talks about how hard it is for the rich to enter the kingdom of God. The disciples ask in v25 “who then can be saved?” And Jesus says it might be impossible for us but everything is possible for God.

Peter, bless his heart, pipes up and reminds Jesus that the disciples have left everything to follow him! Jesus’ response is that what you give up to follow him pales in comparison to what is coming. And then Jesus tells this parable that is connected by the theme of what we get in return.

The parable is unique to Matthew and is usually titled something like “the parable of the vineyard” but really, the central character is the landowner. We could sum it up by saying: the manner in which God chooses and forms and leads the people he calls his own is often disconcerting for people.

Before reading this parable, you might read Isaiah 5 which describes Israel as a vineyard. Jesus’ audience would have been familiar with this imagery and that would have been their context for listening to the story.

Verse 1 sets the scene: the kingdom of heaven is like a landowner who went to hire laborers. Remember, the left side of this equation (the kingdom of heaven) is equal to the entire right side of the equation (the landowner, the vineyard, the hiring process, the laborers, the response).

In verse 2 he offers them a denarius which was the usual daily wage. It was a subsistence wage but it was the going rate.

The landowner goes out a few hours later and finds some people milling about. This time he says in verse 4 that he will pay them “what is just.” The landowner does this two additional times.

He goes out again around 5p and, almost accusingly, says “why do you stand here idle all day?!” By that time of day, the people standing there still looking for work would have been those whom no one else wanted. They were the leftovers, the rejects. Maybe they were lazy and didn’t show up earlier. Maybe they were hired and then rejected. Maybe some obligation or difficulty prevented them from coming earlier. Whatever the reason, it really can’t be good. These are not the cream of the crop workers. And they probably don’t expect to be paid all that much. But the landowner tells them to go get to work.

In verse 8, the landowner follows the Torah as described in Leviticus 19:13 “Do not hold back the wages of a hired worker overnight.” These workers earn just enough to buy food for the day so if they don’t get paid, they don’t eat.

Verse 8 also gives us the “twist” in the parable: why on earth would the landowner pay them beginning with the last and ending with the first? He deliberately pays the last first so that the first laborers know what the others received. Why??

Verse 9 describes the guys who worked maybe an hour or two, the rejects. Here we see the utter generosity of the master – he gives lavishly to those whom no one else will hire, those who are unwanted by others.

The other groups are watching this with great interest and by the time the foreman gets to the first group, you can imagine how inflated their expectations have become, right?! They are victims of rising expectations, hence their discontent. But, of course, they also get the usual daily wage.

Verse 11 is another twist: in that culture a subordinate would not dare grumble against someone they relied on for future employment.

Verse 12 is interesting and shows how their expectations have been adjusted. Think about it: they agreed to a wage knowing full well they would bear the day’s burden and heat. Now they’re complaining about that very thing.

Verse 14 gives the classic definition of justice – to be rendered each his own due.

So they’re upset because the master is generous. But here’s some things we know: Grace is not fair; it is generous. Justice and grace do not always fit so well together. The reign of God runs on grace, not justice.

This would be a good time to flip back to the Isaiah reading.

Verse 16 speaks of a reversals – a theme highlighted in Luke’ gospel but not as much in Matthew. Who are the first? They are the ones hired late who do not negotiate a wage. They rely on the justice of the employer to keep them alive. They are graced with a generosity far beyond measure.

The landowner needs more and more workers to get the harvest in on time which indicates the end of the harvest. This gives it an eschatological tone – the end of time, the final judgment, at which time there is a settling of accounts and distribution of rewards.

Luke has the parable we often call the Prodigal Son which is better titled the Prodigal Father. This parable perhaps is better titled the Prodigal Employer.

This parable reminds us that what God gives is not an expression of what has been earned but rather it is an expression of God’s own free generosity. Perhaps rather than use Paul to talk about justification, we might should be using this parable.

In its original setting as spoken by Jesus, this parable very likely referred to the pious Jews who felt cheated because Jesus was welcoming Jewish sinners and tax collectors to the dinner table.

Fast forward to Matthew’s community decades later, one that is primarily Jewish. This parable could be directed at them as they look at the Gentiles coming in. Either interpretation is set up in the first verse where the parable is set in a vineyard which customarily represents Israel.

Matthew adapts it because good Christian Jews resent the fact that the newcomers, Gentiles, were given equal status in the Christian community despite thousands of years of Jewish covenantal history.

Are there any examples from your own experience when you saw the immense generosity of God poured on someone who might not have been worthy of it? How did that make you feel?

Who are the people in the church today who seem to be “last” that might just end up being “first?”

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!

The Isaiah reading presents an image of a God who mystifies and perplexes us. The Gospel reading presents an image of a God who mystifies and perplexes us. Both readings remind us that the way we do things is not the way God does things or thinks about things.

Philippians 1:20C-24, 27A

Last week we finished up the letter to the Romans. Today we start four weeks in the book of Philippians. I encourage you to take time to read the book as a whole.

Philippi was a Roman colony where military veterans were given land once they completed their service. The story of this community’s founding is recounted in Acts 16. It was founded by Paul and Silas on their second missionary journey, around 50-52AD. The first convert was a woman named Lydia. While preaching there, Paul cast a demon out of a slave girl who could predict the future. Her owners had Paul and Silas arrested and imprisoned for the loss of their income. This is followed by the story of a miraculous jail break.

This is an undisputed letter, meaning that it’s universally accepted that Paul wrote it. It’s also certain that he wrote it from prison but what’s not certain is which prison. Most scholars think it was from Ephesus.

Because of the uncertainty over where Paul was when he wrote it, it’s difficult to date it. It’s usually dated anywhere from 56AD to 63AD.

The overall purpose of the letter was to thank the Philippian community for their continuing support of Paul and also to encourage them to unity. A key theme running throughout is that of joy. This is not a facile joy in the absence of suffering and difficulty, but rather a deep joy that can spring forth out of a prison cell (1:7,13), the suffering church (1:29-30) and the possibility of martyrdom.

This letter gives us one of the most approachable pictures of Paul. In this letter, it’s the opponents (3:2) that draw his ire rather than the Christian community.

Verses 1-2 will reference “overseers and ministers,” episkopos and diakonos. Both terms were commonly used in the secular culture of the day for administration and oversight. They don’t mean the same here as what will eventually mark church leadership but they do give a view of the early development of Christian church leadership as initially modeled on the surrounding culture.

In verses 12-26, Paul will talk about the progress of the gospel and his own example. He sees his imprisonment as a good thing that helps advance the spread of the gospel. He also talks about motives for ministry: how some people have what seem like questionable motives but perhaps it doesn’t matter if the gospel is preached in the end.

Verse 18 begins a section on Paul’s dilemma over remaining “in the flesh” or even in prison and wanting to be completely consumed by God but also wanting to be back with the Philippian community in person. In verse 19 he says his confidence comes from both the Holy Spirit and the community’s support through prayer.

Paul has confidence that things are going to work out okay. What he’s not quite so sure about is whether that will be done by his life or his death. In verse 21 he says “To live is Christ and to die is gain.”

Why is dying a gain? He is not talking about escaping bodily existence but rather that death intensifies union with Christ. In the body, Paul is (as are we all) limited in the degree to which he can be united with Christ. Death removes that barrier.

For Paul, eternal life has already begun – it’s not something he’s waiting for to happen. Whether he experiences that eternal life here in the flesh in a limited sort of way or at death in the spirit – it’s all eternal life in his view.

At the giving of communion in the Episcopal church, the wording that can be used is “The body of Christ keep you in eternal life.” This is a beautifully rendered reminder that Paul’s way of looking at things can and should be our own.

In verse 22 Paul says “I do not know which I shall choose.” This is a rhetorical device of feigned perplexity. Paul knows he doesn’t really have a choice as he will live until God chooses for him not to live.

In verse 23 he says that it is “far better” to be with Christ. Paul would prefer this but his personal preferences no longer motivate his actions. This is in direct contrast to the selfish, falsely motivated preachers he mentioned in v17.

V25-26 end this section about Paul’s dilemma on a high note: “when I come to you again.” Paul is convinced that everything will work out and that he will see his beloved community again. We know from Acts 20 that Paul does indeed visit them once more.

How is your life magnifying Christ’s presence in the world?

Can you identify in any way with Paul’s dilemma?

Questions to ponder

What do these readings say about how to live day in and day out as Christians?