Be Careful Who You Follow!          A Sermon based on Matthew 23. 1-12.
Preached at First Presbyterian Church, Clarks Summit, Pa on November 5, 2023.

David Brooks began his column in The New York Times the other day with these words: “We’re living in a brutalizing time: Scenes of mass savagery pervade the media. Americans have become vicious toward one another amid our disagreements. Everywhere I go, people are coping with an avalanche of negative emotions: shock, pain, contempt, anxiety, fear.”[i]

            At such a time as this, reading the twenty-third chapter of the Gospel of Matthew is fraught with danger. The reading you just heard comprise the first twelve of thirty-six or thirty-nine verses in which Jesus addresses his disciples and the crowds and points out the faults and foibles of some, but not all the scribes and Pharisees.

            For much of two millennia these verses have been interpreted by some, and thankfully not all, as a basis for anti-Semitism.  So let’s pause here to remember first and foremost, that Jesus was a Jew and Matthew was a Jew, and that their criticisms of the Scribes and the Phari-sees were intramural struggles, in house disagreements about how the words of Scripture were put into practice.  We must guard against allowing a passage like this to fuel anti-Semitism, particularly in the highly charged climate of our brutalizing time.

            Greg Carey, a New Testament professor provides some context as we make our way through today’s reading.  He writes: “Jesus almost surely did engage in controversy with the scribes, Pharisees, and other authorities, but this particular speech also reflects Matthew’s distinctive point of view…  Almost all interpreters believe Matthew’s Gospel emerged during a formative and conflicted moment in the emergence of rabbinic Judaism. With Jerusalem and its temple decimated, Jews began the process of imagining what it would mean to follow God without a central temple for pilgrimage and sacrifice.  During this period authoritative teachers of the Torah (the law of Moses) emerged.”[ii] 

            We do a disservice to the scribes and Pharisees if we give into the temptation to dismiss them all as mistaken at best, or worse yet, as evil.  One commentator offers a timely, timeless reminder when she writes: “While Jesus critiqued aspects of the behavior of some Jewish leaders, he also ate in their homes, talked with them about their teaching and his, and honored Jewish traditions and the authority of the Torah.”[iii]

For most of the fall, as Bill Carter led us through Paul’s Letter to the Philippians, our Affir-mation of Faith has been the words through which Paul, the Apostle, urged followers to “let the same mind be in you that was in Christ Jesus.  We’ll recite that ancient hymn again today. Living it is not easy, but if we let it, it becomes the needle on the heart’s compass set on the true north of  Christ.

            The true north of Christ is embedded in the law of Moses, which Jesus said on the mountain he came “not to abolish, but to fulfill.”[iv]  That law he condensed into two commandments: “Love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your mind…and love your neighbor as yourself.”

            Those are easy words to say, but hard words to live.  So easily we forget what we’ve been taught. Hence, we must constantly relearn the key lessons Jesus teaches.  So we turn our atten-tion to that day in the temple, a couple of days before he would take a towel and a basin to wash his disciples’ feet.

            Jesus was in the temple for the third time in the week we call Holy.  The Palm Sunday donkey ride and his table-turning arrival in the temple were behind him.  Each day had been full of memorable moments like the cursing of a fruitless fig tree.  Chief priests and Israel’s elders, scribes and Sadducees, Pharisees and Herodians, had all lined up to ask questions designed to provide evidence for the arrest warrant they were preparing for Jesus. In between the debates, he told a story about two sons asked to work in their father’s field, neither of whom matched their words with their deeds.

Having been silenced with answers to trick questions about paying the emperor a tax to fund Israel’s own oppression, and a farcical tale about one woman widowed by seven brothers, his critics slipped away. Then Jesus turned his attention to teaching his disciples, with the crowds listening in. He said, “The scribes and the Pharisees sit on Moses’ seat; therefore, do whatever they teach and follow it  (Mt. 23. 2)

            The first thing Jesus told his listeners that day was to listen to the scribes and the Pharisees and to learn what they had to teach.  By the time Matthew was writing his Gospel, the Jerusalem temple was in ruins, and the Pharisees and the Scribes were the best and the brightest. They were committed to help the Jewish people hold on to their identity by living according to the words written in the Torah and lifted up by the Prophets.

            One commentator fills in some gaps for us, writing, “Moses’ seat represents the Jewish leadership, tradition (and) law.  Matthew uses Jesus’ teaching as a rhetorical device to find common ground here.  There is validity to the Pharisees’ teachings, so heed them. The Torah is relevant to our life, so read it.”[v]

            But wait, there’s more.  The honor and praise Jesus gives the scribes and Pharisees is followed with a stern word of caution: “but do not do as they do, for they do not practice what they preach” (v. 3).

            What Jesus singles out in today’s passage is one of those very human tendencies, which if we’re honest, we can all admit to exhibiting from time to time: the tendency to say one thing and do another.  The Scribes and the Pharisees have the best teaching going.  They go back to the basics expounded from the beginning. But pay attention, because they don’t always do what they say. So be careful not to follow their example instead of their words. At issue is the correlation between the words of life we cherish and the deeds we do.  You’ve heard it in the popular phrase: walking the talk. If you talk the talk you’ve got walk the talk!

Every week, and for some, every day, those who follow Jesus Christ pray, “forgive us…as we forgive.” Whether the word attached speak of debts, trespasses, or sins, putting those words into practice is no easy task.  People like the grieving families of those Amish students downstate a few years ago, let us know that practicing what we pray and preach is possible.  Jacqueline Lewis points us to the mother from Minnesota who demonstrated “radical forgiveness. “She made prison visits to the sixteen-year-old boy who murdered her twenty-year old son. She got to know him, forgave him, and arranged for him to live next door after he was released from prison.  She said “Yes, he murdered my son, but the forgive-ness is for me.”[vi]          

            Theology professor, Gregory Love brings us back into our reading from Matthew, when he sums things up this way:  “After insisting on respect for (these) teachers of the law, Jesus gives a harsh criticism: they do not practice what they teach, so do not follow them as models.  A person’s conduct must cohere with her or his proclaimed values and loyalties.”[vii]

            Jesus seizes some other very human proclivities as he warns about following those who have allowed beliefs and practice to diverge.  Ever notice how some folks are oh so good at telling you what needs to be done, but never get around to doing it themselves?  Have you suffered under the eye of someone who insists that you complete a task according to their precise instructions, yet never lift a finger to help get it done?  Reminds me of the time Doug Simcoe and I were painting a white picket fence for Mrs. Hall, a very much faded former silent film star. When we attempted to tie back the sticker bushes so we could paint without getting stuck, she stormed out of the house and insisted we reach through the bushes with our brushes… but don’t get any white paint on the bushes!

            You see, the kinds of things Jesus points out about the Pharisees and scribes are universally human.  Another of the foibles he points out is how they have lost sight of the reasons for doing some of the things they promoted.  They’re doing some of things the Scriptures directed them to do, but for the wrong reasons. Professor Love explains: “The scribes and the Pharisees pray three times a day,  and wear the required small boxes containing portions of the Torah and the blue-and-white tassels on the four corners of their prayer shawls.  While both were meant to remind the praying person of God’s law, they were being worn in such a manner as to draw public attention to their superior piety.”[i]

Have you been part of an organization where the past presidents expect to be seated at one of the tables up front at the annual banquet?  Have you run up against the arrogance of entitlement which ex-pects the seas of a crowd to part for them whenever they make their grand  entrance.  Reminds me of a pastor’s wife who swooped into the Pastor’s reserved parking spot at 10:55 and into her saved seat as the Prelude concluded so everyone could note her arrival as the chimes struck eleventh hour.

            Jill Duffield, former editor of The Presbyterian Outlook wrote: “Daily interactions with others matter. How we walk the talk and move around this life profoundly impacts, for good or for ill, our witness. Are we aware of this reality? (Are we) Conscious of the fact that when our neighbors see us pulling out of the driveway for worship every Sunday morning and then read our nasty emails…on Monday morning, the dichotomy colors their view not only of us, but of Christians and maybe even Jesus.”[ii]

            Theology Professor, Sammy Alfaro points out that “…Jesus’ words to the disciples remind us of this powerful truth: “excellence in character will always be a far greater indicator of true leadership than charisma or competency alone.”[iii]

            Alfaro also sees the words of Jesus in Matthew 23 as “reminiscent of the prophet Micah’s condemnation of Israel’s wayward leadership, (who) led God’s people astray; neglected to uphold justice, and took bribes.” He goes on to say “Jesus’ own accusations of the scribes and Pharisees place him in the tradition of the prophets who were sent by God to correct leadership.”[iv]

            In these brutalizing times, when so many voices are quick to point out all that is wrong with those with whom they disagree, it is helpful to note that prophetic speech is not spoken merely to condemn, but to correct.  Our words should do the same. When Jesus walked in the footsteps of the prophets and called out the inconsistency between belief and practice his purpose went far beyond merely pointing out what was wrong.  The goal of his words was to lead people back to the Way that celebrates Truth and leads to Life.

            One of the lessons I learned from my father came in response to complaints about teachers who didn’t teach and leaders who didn’t lead.  He told me that you can learn something from anyone: you can learn how to be from those who are good examples, and you can learn how not to be from those who are not. Another lesson, shared by a retired minister who lived in the first village where I was pastor, was this: “Even a broken watch is right twice a day.”

As Jesus pointed out both strengths and the weaknesses of the scribes and Pharisees, he was offering the disciples and the crowds an opportunity to learn.  “Finally,” Professor Alfaro writes, “Jesus reveals the main lesson his disciples needed to learn from the negative example set forth by the scribes and Pharisees: “The greatest among you will be your servant.”

            The road back from being “vicious toward one another in our disagreements,” is to choose to follow the example of the One teacher, Jesus.  We have the opportunity to dig our way out of the “avalanche of negative emotions,” by embracing the words found after Paul said finally for the second time in the Letter to the Philippians.  He in his own way pushed for moving beyond sound teaching to live authentically and faithfully.

            “Finally, beloved,
                whatever is true, whatever is honorable,
                whatever is just, whatever is pure,
                whatever is pleasing, whatever is commendable,
                if there is any excellence, and if there is anything worthy of praise,
                think about these things.

                Keep on doing the things you have learned and received and heard and seen in me,
                and the God of peace will be with you.”
                                                                                                            (Philippians 4. 8-9)

[i] David Brooks, “How to Stay Sane in Brutalizing Times,” The New York Times, Electronic edition, Nov. 2, 2023
[ii] Greg Carey, workingpreacher.com, November 2, 2014
[iii] Amy Moiso, Connections – A Lectionary Commentary for Preaching and Worship, Year A, Volume 3, (Louisville, KY: Westminster John Knox Press, 2020, p. 456
[iv] Matthew 5. 17
[v] Jacqueline J. Lewis, Feasting on the Gospels, Matthew, Vol. 2, Chapters 14-28, (Louisville, KY: Westminster John Knox Press, 2013), p. 213
[vi] ibid., p. 215
[vii] Gregory Anderson Love, , Feasting on the Gospels, Matthew, Vol. 2, Chapters 14-28, (Louisville, KY: Westminster John Knox Press, 2013), p. 212
[viii] ibid., p. 214
[ix] Jill Duffield, “Leading and following – Looking into the Lectionary for Nov. 5, The Presbyterian Outlook, blog, presoutlook@pres-outlook.org, Mon, Oct. 30, 2017, p. 2
[x] Sammy G. Alfaro, Connections – A Lectionary Commentary for Preaching and Worship, Year A, Volume 3, (Louisville, KY: Westminster John Knox Press, 2020, p. 454
[xi] ibid.

 

On Saturday, October 28, 2023, it was my honor to return to participate in the 200th Anniversary Service of the Unadilla Presbyterian Church in Unadilla, New York, where I served as Pastor from August of 1978 through December 1984. I was asked to share some memories in the format I had used in sermons now and then. Standing at the lectern with an old telephone gifted to me by a former parishioner from the East Guilford Presbyterian Church, the congregation hears one side of the conversation between two angels.

“I Thank God Everytime I Remember You…”  Unadilla 200^th Anniversary

[Ring, Ring!  Pick up telephone.]          

Hello—Thanksgiving Department—Thanks for calling! Angel 1^st Class Butterball speaking.       

            [pause to listen]

Well, hello Perkins!  It has been a long time

            [pause]

Yes, I was Angel 4^th Class the first time you called. Can you believe that was 45 years ago?                 So to what do I owe the pleasure of hearing the voice of my favorite harp-plucker in the Communications department?  

[pause]

I see, the Unadilla Presbyterian Church is celebrating its 200^th Anniversary and they asked Thyren to share three minutes of memories. Like that could ever happen!  His six plus years only amount to three percent of the church’s history, but he couldn’t finish one of his stories in three minutes.

            [pause]

Let me get this right. You’re asking me to help organize his memories so he doesn’t blather on too long.  Once again you have presented me with a challenge. But you know, The Unadilla Presbyterian Church is often among his last thoughts at night and his first in the morning.         

[pause]

What’s that about? Well, once upon a time when the basement below the choir loft was being cleaned out, he came away with some pieces of old pine pews, and, long story short, he made of them a headboard for their king-size bed. 

[pause]

Yes, he likes to say “church people slept in those pews for a hundred years, now it’s my turn!” 

            [pause]

Follow that up with some of the personal memories he’s thankful for. 

[pause]                                                                                                                                         Yes, the surprise of a full refrigerator and stocked kitchen cabinets on the day he and Jan pulled the U-Haul truck into town. Building a cradle with Jim Ludwig’s tools and patient guidance; bringing two baby girls home from The Hospital* to sleep in it.  A hot summer afternoon stacking hay bales with the Chambers brothers. Shooting the breeze and feeding the grain in Dave Johnson’s milking parlor.  Afternoons sailing across Buckhorn Lake on a Sailfish. Plowing snow in Alton Clark’s rattletrap International Scout with the doors flying open on every pass.  Better stop there.

            [pause]

Yes, move on to his gratitude tied to ministry. All the firsts: first wedding, first baptism, first funeral, first confirmation class, first fundraising supper, first computer, first encounters with someone needing food or shelter or a Salvation Army bus ticket. First criticism: The scolding note from a church lady offended by the sermon title, “Keep it Light and Salty.”

[pause] 

That’s right, you can’t please everybody!

 Perkins, be sure he tells some of the memories he cherishes: Sitting with Ezra Judd and listening to stories from his time in the trenches in France during World War I.  Heating up a can of soup for an elderly widower who was not feeling well before taking him to The Hospital. Listening to Nancy Jones remind Sunday School teachers “we are teaching children, not curriculum.” Howard Russell singing “Thy will be done, Lord.”

 [pause]

Yes, Perkins, he has often said what a blessing it was to be in Unadilla and East Guilford, and how much he learned as a young pastor.  In addition to the lessons taught by the congregation, he benefited from the insights of two retired pastors who lived in town, colleagues in the Presbytery, and two local funeral directors also named Jim.

            [pause]

Yes, he appreciated the church’s patience with sermons presented as an athletic coach, or all three characters of the Prodigal Son story, or an angel on the telephone of all things. 

[pause] 

Good idea, Perkins…end with the Apostle Paul’s opening words to the Philippians:

            “I thank my God every time I remember you…”  And I do!

*The hospital in Sidney, New York was literally named The Hospital!

 

Who Gets What? A Sermon based on Matthew 22. 15-22.
                                Preached on October 22, 2023 at Covenant Presbyterian Church, Scranton, PA

    Words.
    Words carefully chosen.
    Words skillfully crafted for a purpose.
    Words prefaced by sly words meant to flatter, disarm, and disguise the purpose of the skillfully crafted, carefully chosen words.
    Words, spoken with malicious intent, words not in the least believed at all by those who spoke them, words which conveyed “the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth,” so help them God.

        “Teacher, we know that you are sincere,
          and teach the way of God in accordance with truth,
          and show deference to know one;
          for you do not regard people with partiality.”

            Truer words have never been spoken, as the saying goes!  Though they did not believe any of those words, they hit the nail on the head, captured the essence of Jesus in a nutshell; distilled in four short phrases all that was so compelling about the words of this un-credentialed rabbi from Galilee.  And though they didn’t know it, those very words comprised the problem they had with Jesus. They could use them in the opening argument when they presented their case against Jesus few nights later.

            He was sincere in what he thought and spoke. People noticed and remarked how his teaching was offered without constant quoting of others. That called the words and actions of other teachers into question.  Even so, he taught the way of God in accordance with the truth, and in doing so had, on occasion, pointed out that the Pharisees and the Scribes were selective in choosing which ways of God they would enforce and which they could ignore.

            If that weren’t enough to get him into hot water with the establishment, the third line of bogus praise was what really caused discontent among the religious leaders: he showed deference to no one. He wasn’t awed by the pedigrees of priests descended from priests.  He wasn’t intimidated by the diplomas on the wall of the Pharisee’s offices. He didn’t take a back seat to those who had earned the three doctor’s stripes on their sleeves.

            To top it all off, he did not regard people with partiality.  He wasn’t careful about the company he kept. He was known to travel with people of questionable reputations.  He sat at table with sinners and tax collectors, one of the latter was even numbered among his inner circle. The great physician didn’t spend his time doing wellness checks for the healthy, he made house calls and touched those who needed to be healed.

            So if you wonder why Jesus was on to their tricks, it is just this simple: their flood of flattery leading to their trick question was a thinly veiled rough draft of the indictment they were secretly preparing for his one and only appearance at night court.  That, and the make-up of the strange coalition that showed up in the temple of all places to try and trick him into saying something he would regret.

            As one commentator put it:  “Politically, about the only thing Pharisees and Herodians have in common is that they don’t like Jesus.  So they hold their noses, put aside their many differences for a moment, and come together to pose a question that they hope will put Jesus between a rock and a hard place.”[i]

            This is truly one of those moments when “the enemy of my enemy is my friend.”  To get a handle on the absurdity of these questioners standing as one to discredit the one questioned, picture the Grand Dragon of the Ku Klux Klan and the President of the NAACP stepping up to the microphone together at a town hall meeting to ask a candidate about racial profiling by law enforcement.  “For the record, is it lawful to pull over an individual for driving while black?” No matter what the candidate says, the constituents of one or the other of the persons posing the question will be dissatisfied.

            On a less serious note, to get a handle on how difficult a question Jesus was being asked,  imagine two people dressed in the garb of their favorite sports teams putting a question to a candidate for governor: “Tell us, dear candidate, which team truly represents the people of our fair commonwealth: the Phillies or the Pirates?  The Steelers or the Eagles? And don’t tell me you grew up in New York, or we’ll ask about the Yankees and the Mets!  (We won’t bother about the Giants and the Jets because they both share a stadium in New Jersey!)

            So here come two representatives of opposing views on the payment of taxes to Rome.  They slither up together to ask Jesus a question about those taxes: “Tell us, what you think. Is it lawful to pay taxes to the emperor, or not?”

            Lutheran Scholar, David Lose provides some background on the question and why it was such a hoot that Herodians and Pharisees would have cooked it up together:

            “Jews in first century paid numerous taxes, temple taxes; land taxes, customs taxes just to name three. The tax in question was a particular—and particularly onerous—one. It was the imperial tax paid as a tribute to Rome to support the Roman occupation of Israel.  That is right: first century Jews were required to pay their oppressors a denarius a year to support their own oppression!”[ii]

            The Herodians and the Pharisees had diametrically opposed views about the payment of this tax.  A preaching professor from Colgate Rochester Divinity School introduces us to the two sides posing the seemingly unanswerable question. “As their name suggests, the Herodians were allied with Herod Antipas, who had been named king of the Jews by Rome.  Not surprisingly, they supported paying the tax to Caesar.  The Pharisees, who were committed to every detail of the Jewish Law, opposed paying the tax to Caesar. Their opposition was less based on the fact of the oppression and more on the special coin that had to be used to pay this particular tax.”[iii] 

            That coin, pictured on our bulletin cover this morning, played a pivotal role in the marvelous answer Jesus gave to their Machiavellian question.  Jesus begins his answer by putting them on notice.  He knows that they are up to no good.  He calls them hypocrites, and then he proves his point by asking them to produce the coin used to pay Caesar for the privilege of being under the thumb of theEmperor’s forces.

            We’ll flip that coin in a moment, but before we do let’s listen to David Hare provide insight as to why there is no simple “yes” or “no” answer to the question.  He writes: “It should be noted that the question, while profoundly political, is phrased in religious terms: ‘Is it permitted…’  The question,” he notes, “can be paraphrased: ‘Does it accord with Torah (the law) to pay taxes to Caesar or not?’ One facet of the legal question involves God’s ownership of the land of Israel: ‘The land shall not be sold in perpetuity, for the land is mine,’”[iv] (God declared way back in the Book of Leviticus!) That makes Caesar a trespasser, which leads Professor Hare to ferret out what is beneath the question from the standpoint of the Pharisees: “Since Caesar is a usurper is it not an act of disobedience to God to pay a tax to this pagan ruler?”[v]

            The dilemma Jesus faced was this:  If he said that Jewish law prohibited paying taxes to Caesar, all his opponents would have to do is drop a dime, call the Hot Line and report Jesus as a dangerous man riling up the people against the Romans. If he said that it that paying the tax was permitted, he would risk losing the support of the crowds, for whom the tax was, in Professor Hare’s words: “not only an economic burden but  also a hated symbol of lost freedom.”[vi]

            Now we’re ready for the coin toss.  At Jesus’ request, one of them produces the silver coin that represented an average day’s wage for a laborer.  Just by carrying the coin, and pulling it out in the temple precincts the hypocrites are exposed.  Their duplicity is all the more on display when Jesus asks about the picture and the words printed on the silver coin: “Whose head is this, and whose title?”

            They answer: “the Emperor’s”

            Heads: The likeness on the coin was the emperor on the throne back in Rome. Tails: Words to identify the picture on the other side. In this case it read: “Tiberius Caesar, Son of the Divine Augustus, Pontifex Maximus.” One, two, skip to my Lou…you’ve broken two of the ten commandments, the first two, the one that speaks of having no other gods before Israel’s God, and the other that prohibits graven images. Those who attempted to ensnare Jesus in their trap find themselves entrapped.

            Meanwhile, Jesus goes free.  He speaks and they are stunned: “Give therefore to the emperor the things that are the emperor’s, and to God the things that are God’s.” I’m with Professor Hare, who suggests that Jesus might have heightened the impact of the answer by pausing for effect between the two halves of his answer.

            “Give therefore to the emperor the things that are the emperor’s…” See the Herodians about to break into a happy dance and cheer, as it appears he has validated their collaboration with the enemy.  Witness the ear to ear gotcha grins on the faces of the Pharisees as they calculate how far Jesus will drop in the polls, thereby eroding his popularity with the people. But wait, there’s more!  Having baited the hook for those who tried to reel him in, Jesus adds the second half of his answer:

            “…and to God the things that are God’s.”

            Gotcha!  Betcha thought you had me!

            As we’ll say in today’s affirmation of faith using the words of the Psalmist, it is pretty clear what the Scripture’s include in the list of “the things that are God’s!

“The earth is the Lord’s and all that is in it,

the world, and those who live in it!”  (Psalm 24.1)

Doesn’t leave much out; doesn’t leave much doubt; Caesar can have his silver coins.  Truth be told, they’re God’s too, but we won’t sweat the small stuff, because all stuff from the contents of your kitchen junk drawer to the stocks and bonds in your portfolio to the gifts and talents that make you a unique child of God in your own right, belong to God.  It is the same truth Paul the apostle wrote of in the letter to the Romans, which are often read beside an open grave:

“If we live, we live unto the Lord;

And if we die, we die unto the Lord.

Whether we live therefore or die,

We are the Lord’s”[vii]

            The words of Jesus to those who attempted to catch him in their political/theological trap have been interpreted by some to bolster the argument for the separation of church and state.  That is not what is going on in this passage.  Douglas Hare explains why not:

            “Although there is strict parallelism between the two halves, (of the answer Jesus gave) they are by no means of equal significance, because Caesar’s role is so vastly inferior to God’s.  That is, Jesus is not saying, “There is a secular realm and there is a religious realm, and equal respect must be paid to each.” The second half (of Jesus’s answer) practically annuls the first by preempting it. In Jewish religious thought, foreign kings had power over Israel only by permission from God. Tax may be paid to Caesar because it is God’s will that Caesar rules. When God chooses to liberate his people, Caesar’s power will avail him nothing.” [viii]

            What the words of Jesus are not saying may leave us scratching our heads. They take time to sink in. The impact of what he was saying on the way we live our lives is much clearer.  As Professor Susan Eastman informs us: “Some early interpreters looked to the image of the coin, and answered that coins—bearing Caesar’s image--belongs to Caesar; and human beings—bearing God’s image—belong to God.”[ix]

            Presbyterian Pastor Richard Spalding picks the coin up off the turf after the toss and announces what it means for the game of life:

            Jesus “is not sketching parallel responsibilities, but a radical antithesis. Caesar can stamp his picture and pedigree far and wide, but he cannot come near the true commerce that animates us.  So Caesar will get many or most of the coins—and be flattered by how well his likeness is rendered in the medium of cold, hard cash; but the coin of the realm of our flesh and blood is the image of  God. What is rendered to God is whatever bears the divine image.  Every life is marked with that inscription, an icon of the One who is its source and destination.”[x]

            That One who is both the giver of our lives and “our hearts true home when all our years have sped,”[xi] The  God to whom we give what belongs to God,” as Spalding points out, “is the God described by the prophet Isaiah in the midst of the looming shadow of an earlier empire, for a people just as much at a loss to grasp the full magnitude of God’s care:

“Can a woman forget her nursing child?...

Even these may forget, yet I will not forget you.

See, I have inscribed you on the palms of my hands.”[xii]

            When Jesus directs that we “give God the things that are God’s” it is a transaction that is based in relationship, a relationship grounded in love, a relationship in which the One in whose image we are made has promised guidance to make our way through the wilderness.  For the Israelites out there in the desert it was a cloud by day and a pillarof fire by night.  For followers of Jesus today, it is the gift of the Holy Spirit, providing the power and the direction “if thou but trust in God to guide thee.”[xiii]

            Discerning that guidance and allowing the Spirit’s power to move us along is not always easy.  Spalding elaborates on that as well:                                                                                                                          “All of us have fine lines to walk in negotiating the various kinds of commerce that fill our days. Most of us are collaborators some of the time, subversives some of the time. There is comfort, perhaps, in Jesus’ refusal to make the conundrum of daily rendering into an easy question. The answers are simple only for those who regard Caesar as God, or as the devil.  Meanwhile, we bear God’s image—as the palm of God’s hand bears ours.”[xiv]

          Words.
          Words carefully chosen.
          Words skillfully crafted for a purpose.

            Words carefully chosen and skillfully crafted by the One who backed them up with forgiveness. Words visible in a life given in love for others so we might know who we are, to whom we belong, and the purpose of our lives, to “give to God the things that are God’s.”

“Love so amazing, so divine,

Demands my soul, my life, my all.”[xv]

Amen!

[i] Lance Pape, “Commentary on Matthew 22. 15-22, 20th Sunday after Pentecost, Year A, workingpreacher.com, 2014
[ii] David J. Lose, Feasting on the Gospels, Matthew, Vol. 2, Chapters 14-28, (Louisville, KY: Westminster John Knox Press, 2013), p. 189
[iii] Marvin A. McMickle, Feasting on the Word, Year A, Vol. 4, (Louisville, KY: Westminster John Knox Press, 2011), p. 189, 191
[iv] David R.A. Hare, Matthew – Interpretation – A Bible Commentary for Teaching and Preaching, (Louisville, John Knox Press, 1993), p. 253
[v] ibid.
[vi] ibid
[vii] Romans 14.8
[viii] ibid., Hare, p. 254
[ix] Susan Grove Eastman, , Feasting on the Word, Year A, Vol. 4, (Louisville, KY: Westminster John Knox Press, 2011), p. 193
[x]Richard E. Spalding, Feasting on the Word, Year A, Vol. 4, (Louisville, KY: Westminster John Knox Press, 2011), p. 190
[xi] Hugh Thomson Kerr, God of Our Life, The Presbyterian Hymnal, (Louisville, KY: Westminster John Knox Press, 1990), Hymn #275
[xii] Isaiah 49. 15-16
[xiii] Georg Neumark, If Thou But Trust in God to Guide Thee, The Presbyterian Hymnal, (Louisville, KY: Westminster John Knox Press, 1990), Hymn #282
[xiv] ibid., Spalding, p. 192

[xv] Isaac Watts, When I Survey the Wondrous Cross, The Presbyterian Hymnal, (Louisville, KY: Westminster John Knox Press, 1990), Hymn #100, 101

 When God is Too Good - A Sermon based on Jonah 3.10-4.11 and Matthew 20. 1-16.      preached at First Presbyterian Church, Clark Summit, PA on Sunday, September 24, 2023

       During a TED Radio Hour talk, Dr. Frans de Waal, a psychologist and primatologist showed clips of several experiments demonstrating that animals are capable of empathy, cooperation, and fairness. In one, a pair of monkeys sat in side-by-side cages. Their task was to hand a scientist a rock in order to receive a treat. Monkey #1 hands over its rock and receives a cucumber.  Monkey #2 gives its rock and receives a much preferred grape.  Anticipating a better treat, monkey #1 hands over another rock but receives another cucumber. It promptly throws it out of the cage and violently shakes the door in protest. It was grumbling for a grape![i]  Whether we’re talking about being handed one denarii after working all day in a vineyard, or receiving a cucumber in exchange for a rock, fairness is a big deal!

            That slighted monkey and the workers at the back of the line in the parable have some-thing in common with the older brother in the Parable of the Prodigal Son. They share outrage at what they perceive to be unfairness, a condition that leads to resentment.

            Noting “how easily we can relate to the grumbling of the laborers who assumed…they would be paid more,” one observer points out that “such dangerous assumptions can pop up in our closest relationships, our work settings, our congregations, and our national thinking.”[ii] “There is a saying,” she adds, ‘Assumptions are planned resentments,’ warning, “Whenever we assume anything, we set ourselves up for possible disappointment or even worse, we set the other person up as the object of object of our disappointment, anger or resentment.”[iii]

            The assumption of the grumbling laborers is made possible by the added unfairness of making those who worked the longest wait the longest to receive their wages. The scene calls to mind not only the assumptions we make based on seniority, but also our inability to appreciate the blessings that have come our way.

            In our Call to Worship today we have already spoken words that pop up in scripture no less than ten times.  Most of the time, they let us know God will not be as hard on us as we deserve.  One version of this phrase appears in the Book of Joel.  Surprisingly, Joel’s creedal words show up in the Book of Jonah on the lips of the king of Nineveh when he responds to the reluctant prophet’s call for repentance. Quoting Joel, the king decreed:

Return to the Lord, your God,

for he is gracious and merciful,

slow to anger, and abounding in steadfast love,

and relents from punishing.

Who knows whether he will not turn and relent

and leave a blessing behind him?”[iv]

            Psalm 100 paints the picture of our gracious and merciful God using some other words that are familiar:

“The Lord is good; his steadfast love endures forever,

and his faithfulness to all generations.”[v]

            That was the problem as far as Jonah was concerned: God is good and gracious and merciful. That too, was the rub that chafed at the workers in the vineyard who had been at it since sun up when at sundown the last were paid first and treated as equals.

            It is one thing for God to be gracious and merciful to me.  It is another if God is merciful and gracious to somebody else. When I have given God a reason to be angry, that slowness is greatly appre-ciated; when someone else does something worthy of divine wrath the delay is unbearable. When I am the undeserved beneficiary of God’s steadfast, covenantal love, it is cause for celebration.  When some-one else is the recipient of amazing grace, the sound is not always so sweet!

            Just ask the laborers in the vineyard…or Jonah. But here is the kicker: both the full day laborers, and Jonah himself, in their indignation over God’s goodness, fail to recognize, appreciate, or express gratitude for having been recipients of the same benevolence they grouse about.  All of the laborers, from the first to the last, had received the means to purchase their “daily bread.”  Jonah had been saved from drowning. He was heard when he uttered a cry for help, and given a second chance to do what God called him to do.

           How very human of them not to notice!
           How very gracious of God to persist in loving them anyway!
           How very challenging to us as we continue to learn to recognize, celebrate, and share the blessings bestowed on us and others by the One who is gracious and merciful, slow to anger, and abounding in steadfast love.

            From beginning to end, the story of Jonah is told with wit and humor. The cast of char-acters defy stereotypes: There’s a prophet who says “hell no, I won’t go.”  There are seasoned, salty sailors, who hit their knees to pray in the face of a storm while the man of God sleeps below deck. The residents of a foreign city listen to the half-hearted proclamation of an alien who shows up in their streets pro-claiming impending doom. There’s a king who takes note of what his people are doing and follows their lead and then leads their following by humbling himself before the Lord. There are even creatures put to work by God: a fish that swallows and spits-up on command; a plant that sprouts up overnight; a worm whose hunger contributes to the lesson God is trying to teach.

            Last, but not least, we are drawn into the picture as those who are asked along with Jonah the questions God put to him.  “Is it right for you to be angry?” and “Should I not be concerned about Nineveh?”

            Add the two questions Jesus poses on the lips of the vineyard owner in the parable: “Am I not allowed to do what I choose with what belongs to me?  Or are you envious because I am generous?”[vi]

            Put all those questions together and a larger question looms: “Are we, or are we not, willing to let God be God?” The Book of Jonah ends without the final question being answered by the sad, sun-burned servant of God.  The parable of the workers also leaves the questions about letting God do God as God pleases, unanswered.

            Most people are familiar with the first part of the Jonah story which we didn’t read today. Here is how Frederick Buechner summarized it:

            “Within a few minutes of swallowing the prophet Jo-nah, the whale suffered a severe attack of acid indigestion and it’s not hard to see why.  Jonah had a disposition that was enough to curdle milk.”

            Buechner continues: “When God ordered him to go to Nineveh and tell them there to shape up and get saved, the expression on Jonah’s face was that of a man who had just gotten a whiff of septic-tank trouble.  In the first place, the Ninevites were foreigners…  In the second place… nothing would have pleased him more than to see them get what they had coming to them.”[vii]

            You know the next part. Instead of heading to Nineveh, Jonah books passage on the Medi-terranean Cruise Line, and while the others waved good-bye from the rail, he went down below deck and took a nap.  Soon a storm sent by God descends. It’s a category seven storm. Normally brave sailors cry out to the various gods they worship.  The captain, having done a headcount realizes that Jonah is missing. He goes below, finds him sleeping and urges him to get upstairs and send an S-O-S to God.

            The sailors resort to superstition casting lots to reveal which of them is responsible for the weather’s fury.  Jonah is singled out.  After he explains who he is, where he is supposed to be and what he was told to do, the others are really scared. But when he suggests throwing him over-board, they refuse because they, more than he, now fear the God who “made the sea and the dry land.”  

            Despite their reluctance and their double efforts to row the boat ashore where they hoped to sing “alleluia!”—the storm grew worse.  Finally, after praying, asking Jonah’s God not to hold his impend-ing death against them, they toss him over the rail. The storm ceased. The sailors took notice, offered a sacrifice to Jonah’s God. Even when he wasn’t trying to, Jonah was re-sponsible for turning hearts to God.

            Meanwhile, Jonah, “sinking deep in sin far from the peaceful shore,”[viii] gets swallowed by a large fish, who put up with its pesky passenger for three days before spewing him onto the beach. In belly of the beast, Jonah, had plenty of time to reconsider how he might respond, should God be foolish enough to ask again that he go to Nineveh and urge them to turn from their evil ways.

            Jonah is given a second chance. This time he heads in the right direction.  Nineveh is a big city, three days walk across.  Jonah slowly goes a third of the way, and makes one unenthusiastic declaration: “Forty days more, and Nineveh will be over-thrown.”

            The people of Nineveh heard what he had to say.  They took him seriously. They proclaimed a fast, and everyone, the movers and shakers and the everyday people, put on garments of mourning.

            James Limburg spotlights how remarkable this grass roots groundswell of repentance was. Not only did they believe God, announce a fast, and humble themselves before God, they “did something to clean up the terrorism and violence in their city.  This was not the action of just a few, but involved everyone, including the animals!”[ix] Noting how the king follows the lead of his people, he said:        “The king’s behavior is exemplary. He humbles himself by divesting himself of his symbols of author-ity… and by putting on sackcloth and sitting in ashes. He calls for an all-inclusive fast extending even to the animals and admonishes all to turn from their evil and violent ways.”[x]

            Limburg goes on to describe how “the king realizes that conducting a fast does not guarantee that the Lord will act favorably.”[xi] All he can do is rely on a quote from the prophet, Joel, and ask, “Who knows?” hoping God will relent and change his mind. (3.9)  “…The king did not pre-sume to control God.  His is no mechanistic religion, expecting that repentance automatically guarantees rescue.  The king is humble before God and concerned for his people.”[xii]

That leads me to add this: Like the captain of the ship earlier, Nineveh’s king shows himself to be a worthy shepherd of the flock entrusted to his care. Wouldn’t it be nice if leaders in our time did the same!

            Seeing the Ninevites respond in appropriate ways pleased God. Jonah, however, was ticked off. He let loose a barrage aimed directly at God, explaining why he took that boat ride the first time he was sent to Nineveh.  Three nights in the belly of the fish may have convinced Jonah to do as he was told, but that did not mean he agreed with the mission.

            In one of the greatest “I told you so” tirades of all time, Jonah fires off a Tweet to God: “Is not this what I said while I was still in my own country?  That is why I fled to Tarshish at the beginning; for I knew that you are a gracious God and merciful, slow to anger, and abounding in steadfast love, and ready to relent from punishing. And now, O Lord, please take my life from me, for it is better for me to die than to live.” (4.2-5)

            God sends a short and sweet response containing a simple question for Jonah to contem-plate: “Is it right for you to be angry?”

            After all, Jonah was the beneficiary of God’s grace and mercy. One of the very human things about Jonah is the way his stubborn insistence that the Ninevites get what was coming to them blinds him to the ways God had not punished him for his failure to do what God asked.

            Todd Hobbie counts up all that Jonah seems to have missed.  He writes: “It never seemed to cross Jonah’s mind that, though he had directly disobeyed God’s command, God had pursued him with persistent love.  At least the Ninevites had ignorance of God as an excuse. Unlike Jonah, they repented, as soon as the message he brought from God was clear.

            “It never seemed to cross Jonah’s mind that if God were unforgiving, God would have let him drown in the storm.  It never seemed to cross his mind that the pagans on the ship, in their attempts to save him from harm at all costs, were much more like God than he was.”

            Finally, Hobbie concludes: “It never seemed to cross Jonah’s mind that even the fish was more obedient to God than he was. At least the fish, when commanded by God to vomit up Jonah, did what it was told.”[xiii]

            “Is it right for you to be angry?” God asked Jonah. The prophet persisted in thinking he was right.  Phyllis Trible notes that “The divine questions put to Jonah asks about the value or benefit of anger…The text does not engage in ‘should’ talk. Jonah is not told that he should be or should not be angry. Instead, he is invited to reflect on the meaning or value of anger.”[xiv]

            Tribble adds: “A reader may hear in the divine questions the implied answer that anger is not good for Jonah, but the answer does not forbid Jonah to be angry. The responsibility for the emotion and its consequences resides with Jonah. When he defiantly holds fast to anger, insisting it is good for him ‘unto death,’ he mouths profound truth. Anger leads to destruction. If it is repressed or suppressed, it ‘burns’ the one who contains it; if it is expressed, it ‘burns those to whom it is directed.  Although anger is an inevitable part of the human condition, the divine questioning offers the opportunity to work it through and to work through it.”[xv]

            The final scene of the Book of Jonah lifts up that opportunity for Jonah to do that work. Like a petulant child he stormed off when God asked about his anger. With the sudden appearance of a Castor Oil plant to offer him shade which pleases him no end…and the plant’s just as sudden demise thanks to a very hungry worm, God reveals the volatility of both joy and anger.  God used what Jonah feels to help him understand what God felt about the people of Nineveh and all their animals.

            Whether Jonah got it or not is never revealed. Whether we get it or not is what matters.  When God appears to be too good, forgiving those we deem unforgiveable or disbursing blessings to those we don’t think have earned them, we have the same choice: fan the flames of our anger, or celebrate God’s grace and mercy to us and to all.

[i] www.npr.org/2014/08/15/338936897/do-animals-have-morals
[ii] Charlotte Dudley Cleghorn, Feasting on the Word, Year A, Vol. 4, (Louisville, KY: Westminster John Knox Press, 2011), p. 94
[iii] ibid.
[iv] Joel 2. 13
[v] Psalm 100. 5
[vi] Mt. 20. 15-16
[vii] Frederick Buechner, Beyond Words, Daily Readings in the ABC’s of Faith, (New York, HarperOne, 2004) p. 196-7
[viii] James Rowe, Howard E. Smith, Hymn: “Love Lifted Me,” verse 1
[ix] James Limburg, Hosea-Micah – Interpretation – A Bible Commentary for Teaching and Preaching, (Atlanta, GA: John Knox Press, 1988), p. 151
[x] ibid., p. 150
[xi] ibid.
[xii] ibid., p. 151-2
[xiii] Todd M. Hobbie,. Feasting on the Word, Year A, Vol. 4, (Louisville, KY: Westminster John Knox Press, 2011), p 76
[xiv] Phyllis Trible, The New Interpreter’s Bible, Vol. VII, (Nashville, TN: Abingdon Press, 1996), p. 524
[xv] ibid.