| Sunday 2nd June 2002 — Luke
12:13–21
For a week ago there were International Church days in Hanko. Our guest
speaker was Dr. Martin Goldsmith from England. He is a scholar and a man
of practice in the questions of missions. He has enormous amount of contacts
with Christians everywhere — even in places where you would not expect
to find any Christians at all! Just for an example, he told that he had
been in the week before our Church days in Algeria, in a town where 60
% of the population are Christians.
Dr. Goldsmith challenged us to think how Christian our continent really
is. He saw the present situation rather pessimistic. In many countries
younger generations of original population do not know even the basics
of the Christianity. Numbers of people involved in the work of churches
are low. You can see it indeed here in Turku, if you look at the figures
of attending the services and taking part in other activities of the parishes.
Dr. Goldsmith also told how there are in different countries tendencies
to rediscover old culture and religion, let’s say to rediscover what was
there for ten or fifteen centuries. In some countries it means a rediscovery
of Christian inheritance. The town with 60 % of Christians in its population
in Algeria is one with a large majority of original north African people
who were Christians before Arabs conquered the country in the 7th and 8th
century. And in Uzbekistan objects telling about the Christian period in
the history of the country before the Muslim one are not presented in museums
because they would show to people that the pre-Sovjetic history had
not only been Islamic, but Christian before it. But the tendencies to rediscover
lead also to quite another direction, especially in Europe: to the pagan
religions of pre-Christian era. That happens in Britain, that happens in
Scandinavia, that happens in Russia, that happens in Finland, too.
I was not totally satisfied with Dr. Goldsmith’s analysis, how interesting
it ever was. He seemed not to recognize true Christian faith in the Orthodox
and Catholic churches. And I asked myself: how can I know who among the
almost 90 % of Finns belonging to some Christian church or community are
true Christians, living Christians, who are believers. Certainly not all,
but also certainly more than that 1 % of regular church goers.
But what has brought so many inhabitants of the Christian continent
of Europe out of the Christian faith? I think we can find an answer in
the Bible, in the gospel we heard.
It is very easy to live and to think like the rich man of the parable:
we have everything and we will get more — let’s take the life easy, let’s
enjoy ourselves. It is easy to think so, because the last decades have
been decades of economical and so of material well being and up going,
even though there have been depressions every now and then. And when you
have more or less everything you need for this life it is so easy for you
to forget God totally. You do not need him when you have everything — or
you do not realize that you need Him.
The material well being connected with materialistic ideology or thinking
is a powerful weapon of the one who wants us to forget God. We can see
that in the example of Eastern Germany, that for 40 years was known as
German Democratic Republic. For almost 60 years the official ideologies
were materialistic and anti-Christian ones. That is: from the take over
of the Nazis in 1932 until the opening of the Berlin Wall in 1989; first
the Nazi-ideology, then the ideology of the “real existing socialism on
German ground” as it was called. Even though East Germany was a poor country
in comparison to West Germany and to any Western European country in the
end of 1980's, it was at that a rich, or actually the rich country among
the socialist countries. People had what they needed for this life. And
the result: the number of people belonging to the churches is much lower
than anywhere in Germany.
We have riches of this world and that is why we are in danger to become
like the rich man of the parable. Perhaps it is helpful for us to remember
what God said to him, how God called him: You fool!
In order not to be nor become fool we have to guard ourselves from every
kind of greed, as our Saviour reminds us. Our true life is in Him, not
in our riches. And that is fact not concerning only us but all the people,
all men and women. But there are so many who do not know that, who have
not heard that ever or who do not remember having heard it.
And I come to a point where I agree with Dr. Goldsmith: our continent
needs evangelisation, too. The need of Christian mission is not only in
countries far away, but also here, also in this country, also in this city.
There are so many who need a renewal of their lives through the Spirit
of God. There are many of them outside the life of the Church of Christ,
and there are the people of God who regularly seeks for the renewal participating
in the life of the Church of Christ.
Let us pray:
Lord of all power and might,
the author and giver of all good things:
graft in our hearts the love of your name,
increase in us true religion,
nourish us with all goodness,
and of your great mercy keep us in the same;
through Jesus Christ your Son our Lord.
Amen. |
| Sunday 9th June 2002
— Luke 19:1–10
In today’s gospel we meet Zaccheus. The gospel tells many things about
him. He was a chief tax collector in the oldest town of the world, in Jericho.
And because of his profession he was a wealthy man. Because of his profession
he did not belong to those who were admired by the people, and there were
reasons for that. Firstly: he collected taxes. That does not make a man
or a woman very popular, does it? And secondly, and that was the more serious
reason for his own people, he was considered as a collaborator. He worked
for the occupiers. With the money he collected the Romans were able to
have their legions all over the known world, also in his country. He had
sold, if not his soul at least his time and life, if not to Devil, to the
most powerful pagan power of his age. The third reason was that he took
from people not only the taxes he had to transfer further but much more.
Well, the system was like that: he had offered to pay the Romans a certain
sum every year, and for that he got the permission to collect taxes in
his town. So it was no wonder that he was labelled as “sinner”.
And there is something more we know about him: he was a short man.
That is why I feel I have something in common with him.
But there is something interesting the gospel does not tell: why did
he want to see who Jesus was. We know that he wanted to see who Jesus was,
but we do not know why. Perhaps he was somehow unsatisfied with his life,
perhaps he wanted to have a change in his life. It is possible that he
tried to get healed by Jesus in a crisis of his life. It is possible, but
we don’t know it. We know that he was very eager to see Jesus: the crowd
covered his sight and so he climbed a tree. But why? Perhaps he was just
very curious.
In many other occasions gospels tell why people came to Jesus and wanted
to see him or meet him. And usually they wanted to get something from him,
very often they wanted that he would heal them or someone close to them.
Ten men who had leprosy and whom he healed when they had asked him to have
pity on them. Or Jairus who asked im to heal his daughter.
But here: there is no reason mentioned why Zaccheus wanted to see Jesus.
The more I think of this not telling why Zaccheus wanted to see Jesus,
the more I see a message, a meaning in it: Perhaps the gospel tells so
something more about God’s call and God’s election. It is not up
to any human indicator. God does not look whether someone is rich or powerful
or wise or of high social standing. He does not even look which reasons
have brought someone to His Word when He chooses to call and to elect him
or her. For God it is of no importance whether it has been a need
for healing or need of pity or need of change of life or just curiosity
that has brought a man or a woman to His Word. If He wants to He can then
speak to that one and He can change his or her life totally. Just as the
Word of God in human flesh changed the life of the chief tax collector
of Jericho.
There is no way whatsoever to earn to be elected and called by God.
He has the free will to let His mercy and grace effect in those He chooses.
Of course it would be so nice for us, human as we are, if we could something
for our salvation.
But the salvation in Our Lord Jesus Christ is so different than anything
from this world. We see that in what happened to Zaccheus. He had worked
hard for many years to become wealthy, perhaps even rich. His work might
not have been always very fair and just. Because of his work he had
not earned very much respect in the eyes of his fellow inhabitants of Jericho,
but he was a wealthy man with a high standing in the town: he was
among the top civil servants of the town. He must have valued wealth a
lot. And then he goes one day, perhaps out of curiosity to see some rabbi
going through the town. And his life changes totally. Salvation comes into
his house and he is ready to give half of his possessions away and
to pay back those he had cheated and not only pay back but pay back four
times as much. What once had been so important for him was no of minimal
value. He had got something much better and much more valuable instead:
salvation. The people called him sinner, but he was from then on a saved
sinner, just as God wanted him to be. Just as God wants us to be saved
and redeemed sinners.
So we may the Apostle’s thoughts and thank God, who
purposely chose what the world considers nonsense in order to shame
the wise,
and who chose what the world considers weak in order to shame the powerful.
We thank God who chose what the world looks down on and despises and
thinks is nothing, in order to destroy what the world thinks is important.
We thank God who has brought you into union with Christ Jesus, and
who has made Christ to be our wisdom. By him we are put right with
God; we become God's holy people and are set free.
We thank God for His word and His Word in flesh, who Man came to seek
and to save the lost. |
| Sunday 30th June 2002
— Matthew 16:13–19
I like to use Bible as much as possible in the confirmation school.
So, when it is time for my pupils to learn what and how the Church of Christ
is and how it can be recognized I let them read a passage in the Acts.
It is not the epistle of Pentecost they read but the end of the same chapter
of the Acts describing the life of the first Believers in Jerusalem almost
two thousand years ago. It tells that they devoted themselves to the apostles’
teaching and to the fellowship, to the braking bread and to prayer.
When the confirmation school pupils have read that we draw a table with
four columns: the facts about the life or the signs of the first believers
are written in the first column; their forms in the Church we have are
in the second column; the third and the fourth column tell which of the
signs you can are for individuals and which need a community. The first
thing for the first column is very often “the apostles’ teaching”.
The apostles’ teaching. Whose teaching? Who were they? This Sunday is
in the Lutheran Church in Finland the Apostles’ Day. The name brings us
to the twelve men whom Lord Jesus called. We know several things of them.
They were called by a around wandering rabbi from Nazareth and because
of that call they left their works and families. And when their Master
had died in a most shameful way on the cross and when He had resurrected,
He called them again — to be His witnesses to the ends of the earth. And
very soon after that they were filled with the Holy Spirit.
Those apostles we remember today in our Church but also apostles called
later, like St. Paul from whom we have the main part of the apostles’ teaching
in the New Testament. Or St. Henry, the apostle of Finland who left his
home country England for 850 years ago, were then appointed to be the bishop
of Uppsala and then, in 1155 came to Finland and connected this country
with the Western Church. Or Martti Rautanen, the apostle of the Ovambos,
who in late 19th century brought the good news to the tribes of the Ovambos
in the Northern Namibia.
But let us go back to the apostles’ teaching. In what form can we find
it in the church of our days? The first believers had among them apostles
who were able to tell them of the life and meaning of Christ Jesus and
of the plans and the will of God. But since 19 centuries none of them is
alive and telling of those things. How can we then still heave the apostles’
teaching and what is its content? Or is it at all present? I think it must
be. “Apostolicity” is one of the signs of the Church, of the Christian
community that goes beyond the boarders men have made and even beyond the
borders of this reality we live in.
We have three sources for the apostles’ teaching. First of all, the
New Testament, the collection of largely known writings inspired by God
and recognized as having apostolic authority. Secondly, we have the Christian
doctrine in its various forms, but anyhow the doctrine, drawn from the
origins of the New Testament with the help of the Holy Spirit, has
answered and answers different cultural, religious, political and sociological
challenges the Church has faced during the two millenniums of its history.
And thirdly, we have the history and the traditions of God’s people on
earth.
Today’s gospel tells us some essential signs of the apostolicity — or
of the Christian faith, if you want it so. There is the affirmation of
faith in Christ, the Son of the living God. There is the action of God
in that affirmation. There is the self-revelation of God. There is the
forgiveness of sins.
These are somehow also criteria for Christian faith. It is faith in
Christ Jesus in whom God became one of us and in whom God revealed his
love towards us. There is no other basis for faith than Christ whom God
gave to save us. But it is not possible to believe in Him if God Himself
does not give His Holy Spirit and through His activity give faith. You
cannot make yourself to believe but you can pray for it.
And we can and we should pray for forgiveness of our sins that separate
us from God and from our neighbours. It was for forgiveness sake God came
into human flesh. He wanted to reconnect us with Him by wishing away our
sins. And He did it: in human flesh He died and so took on Him the punishment
of our sins, That happened for almost two thousand years ago, but the apostles
sent the message of it further and the message have been passed through
the centuries until our days.
So we have got the message of the apostles: God has forgiven our sins
through His Son, our Lord Jesus Christ!
Let us affirm our Christian faith. |
| Sunday 7th July 2002 — Mark
10:17–27 // Nousiainen & Turku
It is much harder for a rich person to enter the Kingdom of God than
for a camel to go through the eye of a needle.
Why is it so difficult for a rich person to enter the Kingdom of God?
Why is it so difficult that it is easier for a camel to go through the
eye of a needle?
In recent times we have heard in news names like Enron, WorldCom, Xerox.
What they have in common is that their accounts have deliberately been
falsified. And for what reason? Someone has wanted to get some financial
advance which would not have been possible by honest means. Or, to give
an answer with one word: greed.
It the cases I mentioned are by far not the only ones. When we think
of crimes committed we very often find somewhere greed, greed of money
and possessions or greed of power in a society or in a company or in a
human relationship, don’t we? And almost always they are not just crimes
or wrong doings but acts of sin, testifying how we are apart from God.
Or perhaps we are then very close to our god. God in the meaning Dr.
Martin Luther explains in his Large Catechism: one’s god is what he or
she relies on — very often mammon, that is money and possession, or then
power. And the explanation is for the first commandment: “I am the Lord
your God. Worship no god but me.” And when we read the commandment further
in Exodus we face God’s promise connected to this commandment: “I show
my love to thousands of generations of those who love me and obey my laws.”
Now we have come closer to an answer to the question why it is so difficult
for a rich person to enter the Kingdom of God. The context of our first
reading today gives some hints more. There Samuel goes to the first king
of Israel, Saul, and tells him that God rejects Saul as king. Earlier the
Lord had sent Saul to destroy the Amalekites. But Saul and his men did
not destroy everything: they spared everything that was good. So Saul violated
the Lord’s commandment. And so the Lord sent His prophet to announce His
rejection to Saul because this had not obeyed the Lord’s word. The greed
had possessed Saul and so he rather wanted to have more in this world
than to obey the Lord.
And I think that is why it is easier for a camel to go through the eye
of a needle than for a rich person to enter the Kingdom of God. If you
have something this world values you are tempted to try to get more of
it and you are in the same time tempted to neglect the will of God. We
heard this in the example of the rich young man of today’s gospel. He had
obeyed the commandments all his life long, but when God on earth, Jesus
Christ told him to give up his possessions and to follow him, he went away
sad, because he had great wealth. He was not able to obey the very particular
and personal commandment God gave him.
Regarding my age and education I am not a rich person, I think. I am
happy if I have in the last week of a month some Euro on my bank account.
But I know how difficult it is to give up something — in my case it is
books and papers: last week I carried some 30 boxes of books and documents
from one storage into another. Fortunately it has only been my wife telling
me to give them away, not God. Not yet God, perhaps. If He told me, would
I then obey His very particular and personal commandment? It would be very
hard, if at all possible with my own power.
But fortunately there are good news indeed in today’s gospel: Jesus
says: “With man this is impossible, but not with God; all things are possible
with God.” With God it is possible for a rich person to enter the Kingdom
of God. With God it is possible to be saved. With God it is possible to
obey God’s commandments in general and even the most particular and personal
commandments God gives. With God it is possible to resist greed of money
and power. With God it is possible to love one’s neighbours. With God it
is possible to changes the values of one’s life.
So, it is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than
for a person to enter the Kingdom of God without the work of God in and
for him or her.
Let us pray.
Jesus, our Saviour.
We thank you for your obedience which made us free to love one another
without conditions and prejudices.
Give us the confidence that with God we are even able to obey God and
that with you we are able to enter the Kingdom of God.
Amen.
|
| Sunday 14th July 2002
— Mark 9:2–8 — Transfiguration of Our Lord
Today we heard the story of the transfiguration of Our Lord from the
oldest gospel. Mark wrote his gospel around 70 AD somewhere in the Roman
Empire, and he wrote it for Christians with gentile background. When
you read it you notice in the first half of it how Jesus seems to want
to keep his divine mission and his divine person hidden. When he drove
out evil spirits and demons who knew who he was he told them to be quiet
and he would not let them spoke of him. And those he healed he asked not
to tell anyone he had healed them but only to do what the Law requires.
But in the middle of the gospel Jesus asks his disciples who they think
he is, and Peter answers: “You are the Christ”. And six days later he takes
his closest disciples, Peter, James and John with him and goes with them
up a high mountain — that was what we heard in the gospel. And there God
reveals that the man of Nazareth is His son, is indeed the Christ, the
Messiah. There God reveals himself in the human flesh.
Peter, James and John experienced something Moses had experienced many,
many centuries ago, and John experienced again, in Patmos: God revealed
himself to them. As Moses was about to start his mission to lead his people
from Egypt, God revealed himself and told His name: I am. And later God
revealed himself to John as the Ever Living who has power over Death.
When God revealed himself on the Mountain of Transfiguration the three
disciples saw their hope be fulfilled. They knew signs of the time of fulfilment
of God’s promises: there would be a prophet with the authority of Moses
and an Elijah announcing the coming of the end-time. They knew that people
had thought John the Baptist to be Elijah sent back from the heaven or
the Prophet. They knew that he had denied to be either of them, or the
Messiah. But during the years with their rabbi from Nazareth they had seen
in him and in his actions as well Moses as Elijah — and the Messiah, too.
And now they saw Moses and Elijah with their rabbi and they heard God’s
voice telling them that their rabbi was the Messiah, the Christ, as they
already had recognized him.
Their hope seemed to be fulfilled. It was so nice to be there. So nice
that they wanted to stay there, build shelters for Jesus and Moses and
Elijah. But, just as God’s self revelation was not the fulfilment for Moses
but the start of a very demanding task set his people free from the slavery,
the moment on the Mount of Transfiguration was the start of the demanding
way for Jesus: he started there his way to Jerusalem, to crucifixion, to
death. He started the way that set all people free from slavery, from the
slavery of sin and from the power of death.
We cannot know why God acts like he does but sometimes it is worth of
trying to find reasons. So: Why the transfiguration? Did Jesus need it?
I don’t think so. I find that he could have fulfilled his mission also
without that moment. But I think that the disciples needed it. They had
already recognized the Messiah, the Christ in Jesus but they did not yet
understand what it means for Jesus and for them. When Jesus had spoken
about his death, they, through Peter’s mouth, rebuked him. To suffer and
to die was for them not the way of the Christ, even though Jesus had also
said that he would rise again. No.
On the Mount of Transfiguration the closest disciples got two things:
they were firmed in their faith that Jesus is the Christ and God told them
to listen to him. That means: they should let him go his way, the way to
suffer and death — and to resurrection.
But not only the disciples needed the moment on the Mount of Transfiguration.
We need it, too. We need moments in which God reveals Himself for us more
clearly than usual. We need encouragement to listen to and to follow Our
Lord. We need to be reminded that we should not stay in the wonderful moments
of our life and of our faith, but we ought to use the renewed confidence
and the renewed faith in the everyday life and, if needed, in the very
difficult life after those moments. Our life is not just for us and our
faith is not just for us but God, the Transfigured Lord invites us to share
our life and our faith with other people. He invites us to share in joy
and suffer, in life and in death. And he invites us to share resurrection
and the life everlasting.
Let us pray.
Father in heaven,
whose Son Jesus Christ was wonderfully transfigured
before chosen witnesses upon the holy mountain,
and spoke of the exodus he would accomplish at Jerusalem:
give us strength so to hear his voice and bear our cross
that in the world to come we may see him as he is;
who is alive and reigns with you,
in the unity of the Holy Spirit,
one God, now and for ever. |
| Sunday 28th July 2002 — Mt
25:14–30
The three servants got enormous amounts of money from their master as
this was about to start a long trip. A talent was equivalent of 5000 to
10 000 daily incomes of an ordinary worker. Two of them took enormous risks
as they invested what they had got. They must have known that they would
never be able to pay back with their work. What the one had got was equivalent
of more than 70 years’ income, the other had got equivalent of 30 years’
income. But they did not take the safe way to deposit the sums in a bank
but took the risk to loose some of them — or to win.
What the third did would have stood in a court: according to rabbin
law one who hides in the ground what has been trusted to him is not responsible
if it disappears because that is seen as the safest deposit possible. So
the third servant has secured himself: he knows that would be able to give
to his master back what he had got. But that was not good enough for the
master.
This parable tells about the Kingdom of Heaven and its Master and His
servants. So it tells also about us. But what does it tell? At least it
tells that we have got form God enormous riches which we should use. What
we have is not for us but through us for the mankind and for the world.
And it does not include material wealth only but all our talents.
For 25 years ago it was the hundredth anniversary of the birth of the
Nobel author Hermann Hesse and I read several of his novels. Among them
was “Narziss und Goldmund”, a story of a pupil and a teacher in a monastery
school in the Middle Ages somewhere in the continental Europe. As
I read it I wrote down one passage and carried it in my wallet some twenty
years before I somehow lost it. The passage is a discussion in which the
pupil asks the teacher what the goal and meaning of the life is. The teacher
answers that the meaning and the goal is to find the best and the largest
possible effectivity for the gifts and the talents of a person.
I think Hermann Hesse has managed in explaining something of today’s
gospel in that passage of his novel. The twenty years I had the text in
wallet and still now it has been different from documents and credit cards
I carry with me: it touches my life and I can reflect my life with
it.
In various crucial moments of my life I have tried to use that passage
as a guideline for my decisions. And I found myself be more talented for
theology and work in the church than for meteorology. And I found that
my talents are more needed in the work among the Finns living in Germany
than in an ordinary parish here in Turku. And so on and so forth. And still,
when I read this gospel, I start to think whether I am a good and faithful
servant of my Master, of our Master.
But I also understand that the requirement to use one’s talents means
also that we are asked to use our faith. Faith is one of the talents our
Master has given us. And we heard how he treated the servant how only wanted
to save his talent: the Master called him “useless servant” and threw him
away. Faith in God, the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit, is a very
valuable gift because it actualizes God’s life-giving deeds for us. But
we have to share, to invest our faith, too. Our God is not passive but
he acts in his creation; so should faith in Him not be passive, not be
like hidden in the ground, but living and active so that it can earn
and bring fruits. And that is not possible if we only focus on our personal
salvation. A living faith focuses on outspreading of salvation also through
us and through our faith in God.
Let us pray.
Holy God,
yours is everything we have,
life, property, tasks
Help us to be faithful servants
We pray this through Christ Jesus, our Lord.
Amen
|
| Sunday 4th August 2002
— Lk 4:23–30
The gospel we heard starts in the middle of a scene. Jesus has come
into the Sabbath service of the synagogue of his home town Nazareth, as
it was his habit, and he has read a passage of Prophet Isaiah. And he has
not only read it but he started to explain it.
It was a moment of expectations. The congregation knew that since generations
the prophetic text had carried along hope of God’s new action in his people.
And they knew that something had happened to Jesus ben Joseph, to Jesus
the son of Joseph the carpenter, in those six weeks he had fastened after
having been baptized by John the Baptist. “The news about him spread
throughout all that territory. He taught in the synagogues and was
praised by everyone,” says the gospel just before this scene in the synagogue
of Nazareth. The congregation waited for the fulfilment of its hope. All
the people in the synagogue had their eyes fixed on the carpenter son.
And then, in the middle of the synagogue congregation of the little
town of Nazareth, fell the first words of the public mission of the Christ,
still unknown: “Today ... this text has come true.” What did he say, asked
the men in the synagogue in their minds. Did he really tell that our hope
has been fulfilled? He did, but how was it possible? We know him as the
son of the carpenter Joseph. He is one of us.
And as Jesus let them understand that he had not expected to become
recognized in his home town, the crowd became furious. People knew that
the examples Jesus told were true, that in some stories of their Bible
the people of God is rejected and some gentiles gain God’s merciful acts.
But they belonged to God’s people waiting for the fulfilment of God’s promises
and their hope!
How should they then understand what Jesus said. He told that a prophecy
of liberation and salvation of the holy people has been fulfilled and then
he connected examples of rejection of the same people with the fulfilment.
He at least seemed to say that they might not belong to liberated and saved
people, that the guarantee of salvation through their birth might not be
valid one.
Jesus indicated that he had not come for his own people only but also
for gentiles. His work and his message are not only for one people but
for men and women from all nations, all languages, all cultures. For us
that is good news but not for his audience in the synagogue in Nazareth:
those of them who understood the message understood also that they had
lost the ground of their hope and their faith. Already in the very beginning
of his public activity Jesus let them know that there is no chosen people
any more, not any more in an ethnical meaning of “people”.
Good news for us. But this story gives us a warning and a challenge,
too, I think. We aren’t saved through our religious heritage either.
We can’t say before God: Look, I live in a country in which your Church
has been present for almost 850 years, where there were great revival for
hundred, hundred fifty years ago. The warning is that membership in a certain
ethnical or religious group is no guarantee of redemption and salvation.
There is no other guarantee than Christ Jesus and his work for us. And
the guarantee is present in the faith in God, the Father and the Son and
the Holy Spirit.
The challenge of today’s gospel is that we would hear God’s voice whenever
He addresses us and listen to Him and let Him transform our lives so that
they please Him. It is so easy to listen to God when He says what we want
or hope Him to say. But we heard how difficult it was for the congregation
in Nazareth as God’s Word was totally different from what the congregation
expected. In such situations it is difficult for us, too. But if we want
to obey God’s will to love Him and our neighbours we have to receive also
His messages that are unpleasant and unfavourable for us. And we must not
forget that a living relationship with God is the solid ground for our
hope and our faith. It may cause changes in our lives but just then we
are and we remain members of God’s new people, chosen from all nations,
all languages and all cultures.
Let us pray.
Come, o Holy Spirit, and open our ears, our minds and our hearts to
listen, to understand and to follow God’s Word whenever He comes to us.
This we pray through the same Word of Living God, Jesus Christ. Amen.
|
| Sunday 11th August 2002 —
Matthew 21:28–32
Jesus stands in the Temple and discusses with the chief priests and
elders of the nation who want to know by what authority he acts like he
does. They are men who know where their authority comes from: they have
the Law, Torah, the Prophets, and the centuries old tradition giving them
authority. They are familiar with the Holy Scriptures, so they certainly
know what God wants from them. They know how important it is to minister
the offers in the right way, how important it is to study the Scriptures
day and night, and to keep a suitable distance between themselves and unclean
people, like tax collectors and prostitutes and other sinners. A big concern
for them is to remain clean by keeping all the rules of the Scriptures
in the forms the tradition dictates. They know that they are the leading
class of the people of God. They are those who have filled and fill God’s
commandments, aren’t they?
And then Jesus makes them listen to a parable coming from everyday life
indeed. A father asking his sons to go and to work in his vineyard; the
first says he is not going to go, but he goes and works anyway, and the
second promises to go but does not go Whoever has teenaged boys in
family or who still can remember how his own behaviour in his teens recognizes
the situation of today’s parable as a very real and familiar one. And perhaps
that is true also for girls, but because of my limited experience I can
only speak of boys now.
And as man has not changed in recent millenniums, the parable
must have sounded familiar to those chief priests and elders of the nation.
Perhaps some of them had experienced exactly the same in their families.
They had no difficulty at all to say that the first son had done what the
father had wished: although he first had said he would not go he went and
worked. He said he would not do what the father wished but he did it, not
in words but in actions.
But to accept what Jesus then said was certainly not as easy for them
as it was to see that the first son did the right thing. Jesus let them
hear that tax collectors and prostitutes are entering the kingdom of God
ahead of them. Ahead of them, who saw themselves as the leaders of the
people of God. They should be the first to enter the kingdom of God, shouldn’t
they? And if they were not, what was then wrong with them? Did Jesus compare
them with the second son who showed obedience in words but not in deeds?
I think Jesus indeed compared them with the second son. The chief priests
and elders of the nation observed the rules and commandments of the Law,
but the observation of the rules shadowed God?s will for them. They obeyed
the letters of the Law but not its spirit. Instead of loving God with above
all they loved God’s Law, and instead of loving their neighbours as themselves
they loved fulfilling the rules of the Law and of the tradition.
On the other side were then tax collectors and prostitutes who knew
that they are not able to fulfil the requirements of purity and worship
the Law and the tradition prescribes but who in their everyday life perhaps
really loved their neighbours in their deeds and actions and who searched
for God’s mercy. They were not able to articulate their knowledge of right
and wrong, good and bad, just and unjust, but they were able to do, to
act.
Let us pray
Grant us, o Lord,
that we obey you holy will in words and in deeds.
Come, o Holy Spirit,
and make us love God above all
and our neighbours as ourselves,
Come, o Holy Spirit,
give us and keep in us faith in God,
and lead us into His kingdom.
Amen. |