Parables VI

The Parable of the Lost The Sheep

Matt. 18:10-14

Matthew chapter 18. Jesus is talking to the disciples about caring for “These little ones who believe in me.“ Whoever these “little ones” were they were not to be despised or cast out. Matthew seems to be concerned about keeping the community together. Jesus wants them all included, all are important. Therefore, the parable of the Lost Sheep (Matt. 18:10-14) fits in perfectly here. Who are the little ones or the lambs of our Christian communities? Maybe they are those we tend to exclude, ignore or think are not important.

Luke’s version

Luke 15:1-7

Luke chapter 15 Jesus is addressing not to his followers, but the Pharisees and Scribes who were grumbling against him saying, “He welcome sinners and eats with them.” Such behavior by Jesus was in direct violation of religious rules and social norms. The Abba of Jesus does not exclude but includes all. The Good Shepherd searches for those who are “lost”. The sheep are the people of Israel, Gods flock. The lamb represents those the Pharisees reject in order to maintain their religious purity.

Luke’s version of the Lost Shepherd is in a poetic style. It was probably closer to the original words of Jesus than the shorter form in Matthew. Those who heard the parable would think of a peasant village adjacent to pasture land. The flock would be the collective flock of the village under the care of more than one shepherd. The flock were led out to pasture during the day and returned to the village at night. When it was time to head home, the lambs would be counted. A shepherd would seek a missing lamb while the others were led home. The people of the village would be concerned for the safely of the shepherd and worried about the loss of a one of the lambs. Therefore, there would be a lot of rejoicing when the shepherd returned with the lost lamb on his shoulder. The shepherd rejoiced when he found the lamb, even though he would need to lug it home on his shoulders.

John 10 The Good Shepherd

There is no lost lamb story in John 10, but the narrative in chapter 9 shows Jesus as seeking the man cast out by the Pharisees. Jesus was a good shepherd who found and restored him.

Then in the tenth chapter there are several images or parables that describe the ministry of Jesus in terms of sheep and shepherds. He is “the gate” to the sheep fold(1-10) and also the “Good Shepherd. (11-18)

Perhaps the “hired hands”, “thieves” and “strangers”, represented the religious leaders who had not and were not caring for God people.

“I am the “good shepherd”. The good shepherd lays down his life for the sheep”. (Jn 10:10,11)

The sheep recognize the voice of the good shepherd and follow him for the shepherd knows them each by name.

John 10:16 “I have other sheep that do not belong to this fold”. Certainly, this suggests the universal extension of God’s inclusive love and the promise of the eventual unity of all in Christ. (See Phil. 2:9-11)

It is possible that the sheepfold Jesus meant was the large area with a gate where the sheep were kept prior to their sacrifice. In that case, Jesus (vs.2) is “the shepherd who enters by the gate.” He is then sacrificed, crucified, lays down his life for them and, when resurrected, leads them out into green pastures and the abundant life.

By the time John wrote this gospel, the temple had been totally destroyed by the Romans in 70 CE. There would be no more sacrifice of lambs in the temple, but people and groups of people have continued to be sacrificed by many societies. Sometimes the sacrifices have been to maintain the purity of religion or race. Some are called to sacrifice for the purposes of governments. That is another story that has been well hidden according to Rene Girard. (For a history of sacrifice in America read, Pahl’s book, Empire of Sacrifice:the religious origins of American Violence. Some of my comments regarding the parables are based on Kenneth Baily’s, book, Through Peasant Eyes. Jerry

Parables V

The writers of the Gospels were all inspired to write the story of Jesus of Nazareth. The risen Lord had transformed lives. They wanted to pass on the “good news” and we are still learning just how good that news is.

In the telling of the story, they recorded the parables that Jesus told, but they did so in their own ways in order to fit the purpose and theme of their “gospels”.

Matthew collects the teaching of Jesus in chapters 5-7 in what we call the Sermon on the Mount.

Luke introduces the teachings of Jesus (chap. 7-19) as Jesus journeyed on the way to Jerusalem. Luke was writing as the “good news” was spreading into the Greco Roman world.

In Luke 10:25-29 the parable of the Good Samaritan is introduced by a question. A lawyer (The Message calls him a “religious scholar”) asks Jesus, “Who is my neighbor? This seems like a reasonable question. Don’t we all have circles that define those for whom we feel greater of less responsibility? In the familiar parable of the Good Samaritan Jesus deals with this problem by turning the question around.

Jesus asked, “Which of these was a neighbor to the man…”:Lk 10:36

The priest and the religious man probably had good reasons to pass by the wounded man. Contact with this wounded man might have made them ritually unclean and unable to perform their temple duties. Think of a priest, preacher or teacher who need to be about their work. We can always find good sounding religious reasons to avoid what we do not want to do.

The Samaritan was moved with pity (NRSV) or his heart went out him (TM) In Greek this is the word that is used of Jesus when it is said that he was “moved with compassion”. The Samaritan is acting like Jesus! There are no predefined limits to our neighborly compassion as followers of Jesus. Only the Holy Spirit defines for us our responses when faced with human need. There are no outcasts. (Sue Wright, another local Girardian theologian, has a website called No Outcasts. Check it out. You’ll like it.)

Jesus was always breaking down barriers and bringing unity to the divisions of the world. He broke the religious rules that separated people into categories of good and bad, clean and unclean. He subverted or upset the established order. He died to bring peace to a divided and violent world by revealing the innocence of the victim and by forgiving all of us.

We have been given a new start and here we are today, still learning what it means to be “in Christ”. As imperfect as we are, we are still those who are “trusted with the message of reconciliation”(2 Cor. 5:17-20) We are to love and forgive and speak of God’s marvelous, gracious love for all not just the few. 

Jerry

Parables IV

 I am so very grateful to Jerry Shave for doing these summaries of our Friday Bible Studies. As you will surely pick up he is no mean biblical scholar himself. Of course as the picky theologian that I am I will occasionally post a point in the comments, but you can certainly disregard them and be well served by Jerry alone! It's the grace of God that counts, and all here is grace! Tony Bartlett

The Sermon on the Mount Mt. 5-7 seems to be all about non-violence and trusting God. In Mt chap 25 there is a separation of sheep and goats in judgment with the goats suffering torture. Is there a way we can understand this in keeping with our understanding of the loving God (Abba) that Jesus reveals?

Matt. 7:21-27 Jesus warns his followers that prophesying, casting out demons and doing many deed of power does not mean that they will enter into the reign of God. Remember, Matthew’s kingdom of heaven is a kingdom or reign of God on earth and not some heavenly place after death. Jesus doesn’t punish them, but he says, “God away from me, you evil doers.” Our proposed interpretation is this. They may be doing these things, but their method is by power and not by the methods of peaceful transformation of Jesus. In other words, their actions may be effective but their methods wrong. Jesus does not want their methods associated with the new Way he is introducing.

Matt. 7:24-27 The house built on a rock stands; the one built on sand falls. The “house” would have been a recognizable metaphor that can stand for all human constructs, i.e. empires, nations, economic systems, institutions, churches and our lives. All will fall or collapse, if built on violence and power rather than love and forgiveness. When we look at the big picture, history seems to bear this out. “Unless the Lord builds the house, they labor in vain who build it.” Psa, 121:1

The familiar parable of the vine and the branches is in John 15:1-7. If we consider, that vines have tendrils not branches, the union of believers and the Master seems even more intimate. The word for prunes also means cleans. To be thrown into the fire and burned need not be interpreted as thrown into a final “hell”. Hell was not a Hebrew idea and there is no word for hell in the Bible. Maybe, the idea is of a purifying burning. (See I Cor. 3:13ff. The Bible has a lot of references to fire used to cleanse or purify.)

In Matt:25-46 the “goats” “go away” which suggests a choice and as opposed to being sent. As we noted last week, “eternal” is not a timeless eternity, but a long, long time.

Matt 18:23-35 The unforgiving servant in vs. 26 is “handed over to the basanizo in Greek . “Torturer” seems like the accepted and

legitimate translation. But the verb root of basanizo is based on the noun basanos which is “primarily a touchstone, employed in testing metals” (W.E. Vine, Dictionary of N.T. Words.) That is where Tony gets the alternative reading or “the rubber” who tests by rubbing to clean up these goats who have chosen to go away. “God can’t kill anything” Nobody is lost.” (Tony)

This does not take away the seriousness of the call of Jesus and that there is and will be a time of “testing and cleaning” up that is necessary for all in the final Reign of God. Jerry

Parables III

Jesus used parable word pictures which have many layers of interpretation to describe the new reality he was introducing to the world. 

In Mark 3:20-22 we read that Jesus was being opposed by the religious establishment because he wasn’t playing by their rules. Here he is accused of casting out demons by the power of Beelzebul aka Lord of Dung or Lord of the Flies (remember the book by William Golding?) 

In defending himself Jesus used the illustration (parable) that a “house divided cannot stand” (vs.25) and if Satan (the accuser) is casting himself out, then “his end has come”. (vs 26) That is quite logical. Why would Satan do that? This is the common understanding of this short parable. 

Now, from the perspective of Rene Girard, Jesus is, in fact, saying that Satan is finished because Jesus is revealing Satan’s real nature. Satan’s real nature is not a supernatural reality, but a very human construct at work in the world. This is not an easy concept to grasp. Girard believes Jesus is deconstructing the idea of Satan by describing Satan as the principle of imitative (mimetic) rivalry that is everywhere seen in the conflicts that divide nations, politics, churches, homes etc. It is everywhere where conflict divides. “I’m right; your wrong”. “I’m good: your bad”. Without an established hierarchy of social power this rivalry and conflict leads to an “all against all crisis" of increasing violence. This is the crisis that the world is in today, according to Girard. I think he is right. Violence seems to be increasing everywhere. Jesus is the only Way. We better stop imitating one another in the conflict of human desires and start imitating Jesus (God) in love, compassion and forgiveness. The Holy Spirit is the power that makes this possible. We are to be part of the new creation and this is the way to peace. We are all being changed. ( See Bartlett, Virtually Christian)

This a new way! In Mark 2:18-22 Jesus uses two examples of this newness when he is asked, “Why don’t your disciples fast like the disciples of John? (vs18) Jesus says, “We don’t fast because it is party time! We are celebrating the new thing I am doing. When I am gone, then the spiritual discipline of fasting will be more appropriate. (my paraphrase of the bridegroom being present at the wedding vs. 19-20) 

2

Then Jesus adds the fact that you do not sew new cloth on old cloth or put new wine in old wineskins. It will make matters worse. 

There is a radical newness about the Jesus Way. It can’t just be tacked on to the old way of religious practice.

Now, regarding how Jesus cast out demons. He did not destroy them. He bound them by revealing the mimetic conflict and restored the possessed one to inner peace by the power of his loving, accepting presence. (See Mk 5:15 Gerasene Demoniac)

Matthew chapter 25 deserves special attention because it is often interpreted as a final end time Judgment (Son of Man comes) and the king in the parable separates the sheep from the goats with the goats going away into eternal punishment but the righteous into eternal life. (vs. 46) This seems like another case of the writer adapting what may have been a parable of Jesus, but putting a new spin on it to move the division and the judgment to the end time in order to preserve the unity of the fellowship. I think Jesus wants us to give food, drink and clothing. He wants us to care for the sick and those who are in prison. Such caring is like doing those things to Jesus. Don’t we need to look for Jesus in everyone? (Note that neither the sheep or the goats recognized Jesus (See vs 37 & 44) Maybe, “the least of these who are members of my family” ( alternative reading my brothers) vs 40 and also “one of the least of these (vs,45) are both referring to followers of Jesus. See “one of these little ones who believe in me” in Matthew in Matt. 18:6. In that section, Matthew has Jesus talking to his disciples. Considering that Matthew was writing at a time when many Christian believers were suffering in just such conditions as described in Matthew 25, it is possible that Matt. 25 was addressed to situations in the community. However we interpret “least of these”, it is good for us to care for others and to see Jesus in all persons. 

In Matthew 25:46 the goats “go away” they are not sent or cast out. And, we already have talked about eternal (Gk aion) which does not mean an endless, static, timeless condition as in Greek philosophy. It means an age or duration as “ a long, long time”. 

Many of the parables in Matthew end with dire threats of judgment. It is not surprising that some Christian groups prefer Matthew’s gospel because the threats work better to exert control. 

Where both Mark and Luke refer to the kingdom of God, Matthew always substitutes kingdom of heaven. This has led some people, myself included, to think that Jesus was talking about a heavenly, other- worldly realm and minimize the emphasis Jesus placed on the kingdom here on earth. Now, I think, Matthew, because of his Jewish background, was just being a good Jew and used heaven as a euphemism to avoid using the holy name of God. 

“Your Kingdom come.” The Lord’s prayer in Luke 11:5 (NRSV) 

Peace, Jerry

Parables II

The study of the parables continues. Last week’s parable of the growing seed (Mark 4:26-29) was contrasted with the “Wheat and the Tares” (Matthew 13:34-43) Matthew has lumped a number of parables all together in this 13^th chapter and thus separated them from the original narrative context. Now there are weeds (tarno) growing with the wheat and slaves ask the Master, “What shall we do about these weeds?” (Whoever heard of weeds being sown?) The solution is to do nothing. It will be sorted out at the end (eschatology) with some burning (gehenna) of the weeds. 

Matthew seems to be using this modified theme of seeds and growth from Mark to deal with a current problem. There is no established hierarchy to set the boundaries of this free-wheeling early community. Who are the true believers and who are the bad guys (children of the devil). Some of these early Christians want to purify the community by some proper sorting out and casting out. Matthew has this parable (Jesus as adapted) saying, “No, don’t do that.” Does this apply today as denominations try to purify the church? Earl mentioned that the Presbyterian Church in Mexico has recently broken relationships with the Presbyterian Church (USA) over the ordination of gays and lesbians. Matthew is trying to keep the flock together and eliminate the violence of a split in the community. Note that there is still some “burning at the end times, but that is an idea that is hard to eliminate. We will deal with that more when we look at Matthew chapter 25 with the sheep and the goats. 

Then we looked at Matthew 18:6-9. This is one of these “hard sayings” of Jesus about the “stumbling blocks”, scandals, temptations to sin. The Greek word is skandelizo to give offense or cause to stumble. It is translated different ways and can mean cause to sin.. Matthew uses it 14 times is used frequently in the NT and is very important. Jesus seems to take it very seriously. As a concept it was not discussed in theological studies until fairly recently, but is prominent in the work of theologians who are influenced by Rene Girard. The concept introduces a concept of sin as something that happens between people and not something that offends God because of broken rules. It is especially important for those theologians who are developing Biblical understand based on the works of Rene Girard. Undoubtedly, we will be talking more about this because it prompted a lively discussion. 

Jerry

Parables 1

Our first in the new series.  Hope you enjoy!

Studying Jesus' parables is a privileged way into his meaning for us, and for all humanity.

He is a teacher of unparalleled verbal skill and artistry. His stories, delivered in real-time settings to illustrate specific points, retain immediacy of voice and universal appeal two thousand years later.

Quoting the Jewish scholar Geza Vermes, "Jesus was a solitary giant among the ancient Hasidim. The gospel preached by him is fire, power and poetry, one of the high peaks in the religious creativity of the people of Israel."

Geza himself quotes another Jew, Joseph Klausner. from 1922. "In his [Jesus'] ethical code there is a sublimity, distinctiveness and originality in form unparalleled in any other Hebrew ethical code; neither is there any parallel to the remarkable art of his parables. The shrewdness and sharpness of his proverbs and his forceful epigrams serve, in an exceptional degree, to make ethical ideas a popular possession."

Jesus' verbal art is supreme but it has a content which is organic. He is announcing "the kingdom of God". A typical parable beginning is "To what shall I compare the kingdom of God?" (in Hebrew, "What mashal, likeness, byword, compelling verbal picture, shall I give for the kingdom?).

He was continually seeking to explain, communicate, make sens-ible (known in the senses) this thing that mobilized his own life--that God was making God's move to bring justice, life and peace to the world and it was happening through him. There is therefore a continuity between his skill, his message and his self. He is the Word! No one ever spoke like this man! (John 7:4-6) His verbal brilliance is rooted in and grows out of a transformed personal awareness of what everything means.

The simplicity and rigor of so many of the parables demonstrate clearly the wholeness or integrity in his message. We look at three that have these qualities:The Seed Growing By Itself (Mark 4: 26-29); the Mustard Seed, the Leaven in the Dough (Matt. 13: 31-33).

In each of these parables there is a powerful image of organic growth, i.e. growth that emerges from a single source and continues independently and irresistibly to great abundance and size.

This is a teaching of enormous confidence, picturing an historical impact of the gospel that nothing can hold back.

The Seed Growing by Itself stresses the simple act of planting by the farmer followed by the day-and-night growth of the wheat with its successive natural stages. It provides an image of a process now built in to the structure of history itself! For where else are we to see growth as growth?

The figure of the Mustard Seed--"the smallest of all the seeds" which becomes a tree in which the birds of the air make their nests--is in obvious connection to tree images for empire taken from the Old Testament (e.g. Ezekiel 31:1-14). These trees also give shelter to the birds (i.e. the nations, Ez.37:6) but they are proud and arrogant and are cut down. The point of Jesus' word picture is therefore the startling contrast between the political and military weakness of God's kingdom and its eventual size and ability to shelter the nations. Jesus has clearly chosen the tiny mustard seed as a pithy image to make his point.

The Leaven in the Dough recruits the strange semi-miraculous effect of yeast to the same purpose: making a contrast between the small amount of yeast and the very large batch of bread (enough for 150 loaves). The word picture also says how the yeast is "hidden" in the dough, suggesting he kingdom is not simply small but is unseen, while at the same time it has its amazing quickening effect.

Yeast seems to have had a suspect nature in the Old Testament--it was not allowed to be offered on the altar (Leviticus 2:11). Jesus exploits it for its generative, multiplicative quality. He says "Beware of the leaven of the Pharisees and Sadducees" and the text says in commentary that he meant "teaching" (Matt. 16: 6-12). If we add this to his use of leaven to characterize the kingdom we see his understanding of the generative character of all teaching. It cannot leave the individual unaffected, because it always contains its own energy.

From the point of view of mimetic anthropology this energy would either be the generative power of violence or the generative power of forgiveness and love.

Colossians

Here is the last in the course, Re-reading the Bible. Thanks for following the series!

Capping off the Re-reading series we take a look at Paul to the Colossians. A high point in New Testament thought, parallel to John's gospel. It shows a final God-filled end to the whole biblical journey. With Colossians we have re-read the bible from God invisible and remote to God here and fully present.

Did Paul himself write it? Scholarship is divided. Whether or not Paul did, it is a vital piece of Christian teaching based in Pauline principles.

First thing to grasp is the situation to which Paul is responding. The towns he mentions, Colossae, Laodicea, Hierapolis, were important commercial and industrial centers located on the river Lycus and sitting on busy trade routes running toward Greece and Rome. They seemed to have acted as bubbling points of religious speculation derived from Judaism, Eastern religions, the new message of Christianity, and a general Greek philosophical mindset.

In these circumstances Paul is not arguing with people who want to return to the Law but against a free-floating "secular" speculation that would place Christ as just one of multiple agencies, spiritual practices and experiences that communicate with the divine (see 2:8 & 16-18). Sound familiar? Yes, in many ways the context of Colossians is similar to our own new-age, plural, cafeteria-style religiosity. (See 2:23, ethelothreskia, "self-chosen religion").

Paul's response is not to argue from the Hebrew scriptures, proving salvation through faith in Christ. Rather he asserts a new universal truth, the primacy of Christ in all things.

A key sentence is: "See to it that no one takes you captive through philosophy and empty deceit, according to human tradition, according to the elemental spirits of the universe, and not according to Christ." (2:8)

"Elemental spirits" in the Greek is stoicheia which literally means "rods" or "strokes" and specifically the division of hours on the sundial. The word implies the primary matter or order of the world and in Paul's world has a personified spiritual dimension as in "rulers and authorities" (2:15). In our time the word could be interpreted anthropologically as "the way humans put the world together", i.e. its structure out of elemental human violence. Everything has been structured along the "lines" of violence but Christ sets us free from this world into something dramatically new, non-oppositional and whole.

In the setting of the letter Jesus may not have seemed elevated or "other-worldly" enough to satisfy religious longings, and that may have been why "worship of angels" (2:18) was attractive. At the same time, in order to communicate with these elevated beings "self-abasement" and strict taboo regulations (2:21) were necessary. Instead Paul claims that in Christ "the whole fulness of God dwells bodily and you have come to fulness in him" (2:9-10).

It is a startling claim and it is the radicalism of Christianity: that all religion and authority are found in this man. It inverts the apparent natural order of truth from "up" to "down" and from spiritual lack to spiritual fulness.

The reason is that in the cross and resurrection Christ has caused to "die off" the past human order including every violent "legal demand" against us (literally the "written down orders" 2:14). 2:10-13 uses the image of circumcision to present this "die-off" of the flesh (i.e. of the whole human system). 
 

What is natural about this "body of the flesh" is that it is a system of death. But then what is systemically dead becomes dead explicitly with Christ, in order to be co-raised with him into true life.

All of this plays out the core statement of the letter at 1:15-20, perhaps an original liturgical hymn used or expanded by the author. "He is the image of the invisible God, the first-born of all creation; for in him all things were created, in heaven and on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or dominions or principalities or authorities--all things were created through him and for him. He is before all things, and in him all things hold together. He is the head of the body, the church; he is the beginning, the first-born from the dead, that in everything he might be preeminent. For in him all the fulness of God was pleased to dwell, and through him to reconcile to himself all things, whether on earth or in heaven, making peace by the blood of his cross."

Taken in one spoonful this is far too much. But if we begin from the last two sentences as the real formative experience of the early Christian community then we can see how everything that comes before makes sense. In other words, because the direct communicated event of the Crucified and Risen One changed every aspect of violent human experience, both relationships and transcendence, then this man was immediately felt to contain the fulness (pleroma) of God. The experience was organic and neural before it was metaphysical. But, against the background of Hebrew Wisdom thinking, it did naturally expand to a cosmic stature, and so the first two sentences follow logically.

Because of the cross and resurrection Christ remakes the whole of the human cosmos as if for the first time, and so claims preeminence.

But those who have only half-received the message are willing to fit Jesus in a scheme below the angels. In which case they need to have the full significance of Christ restated as a matter of principle. Every power or principle is subordinate to Christ. Why? Because he redesigns the human reality which projected these powers and principles in the first place.

Paul says this in so many words. "...you have stripped off the old humanity (anthropos) with its practices and you have clothed yourself with the new humanity (anthropos) which is being renewed in knowledge according to the image (icon) of its creator.." (3:9-10). Clearly this is a cultural event--putting on clothes--and one dependent on imitation of the image of the creator which is Christ (1:15).

The results of this renewal is a humanity without boundaries, without exclusions, with only the fulness of Christ that remakes everything as endless love.