I want to thank everyone who has joined the conversation. This is an exciting new area of communication to explore. Last week, we began this adventure with Matthew 22:1-14 (Luke 14: 16-24). At this week's Book of Faith meeting, the intention was to return to the gospel of Luke, chapter 10. However, we couldn't leave last week's discussion. Let me share some of those thoughts and observations.
The story as recorded in Matthew is harsher than the one told in Luke. What do we do with the man who is thrown out of the wedding banquet because he has no wedding garment? Is part of the reason that the gospel of Matthew was written for a Jewish audience and Luke was written for a Gentile audience? Matthew had a deep concern for his own people and therefore extends the warning.
There is a great deal of judgment in the stories and parables of Jesus in that final week of his life. As mentioned last week, all of this is given this side of the cross. The cross allows us to face the hard truths of our lives because the cross speaks the word of forgiveness. However, we can't avoid the judgment. To avoid the judgment is to "cheapen" God's grace. A child understands forgiveness when they are caught standing next to the broken vase and have no excuse, yet their mother or father forgives them. The power of that kind of forgiveness is transformative. We encounter that grace only in the truth of our lives. The gospel is death and resurrection. The women hear the good news of Easter after they have made their way to the grave.
It seems as though Jesus changes in the New Testament. There seems to be some truth to that observation. Jesus' own discernment of his ministry seems to change as he encounters people. He discovers greater faith in those outside his own people. His sense of mission expands beyond the people of Israel to the whole world. A change in Jesus' own understanding of his call speaks wonderfully to his humanity. Certainly, Jesus is now one who understands my own struggle in finding my purpose in life.
Finally, God seems to change through scripture. On the one hand, the Bible is the witness of God's people through time. Since God is a God of revelation, then our perception will change through time as God reveals more and more. As the ultimate example, the cross was a revelation that would change everything. In that way, God changes through scripture not because God changes, but because our perception of God changes. The Bible is a faithful witness to the journey of God's people, giving expression to the God who has been made known to them. On the other hand, there is scriptural evidence that God is dynamic rather that static. God is a God who is moved, who responds, who listens, who suffers, and who loves. God is not the Greek idea of God of one who is unchanging, unmovable. God is the dynamic God of Eastern thought who is unchanging only in God's faithfulness and love.
This is just a sample of the conversation that took place with the group on Wednesday. I would love to hear from others. Join us in the discussion. We would love to hear from you.
Peace,
Pastor Summer
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4 comments:
I love that God is ever-faithful and all those other "ever" and "omni" words, so why not ever-changing? That makes prayer all the more powerful, since there is the possibility of the outcome of a situation being changed, rather than just our reaction to or perception of a situation. My favorite part of Bible study this week, though, had to be looking at God as a GPS (thanks, Louise) always "recalculating" whenever we divert from His chosen route for us.
Some more context on our discussion Wednesday:
The end of the gospel from a couple weeks ago continued to sit with me after our last class.
http://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Matthew%2022:1-14&version=NIV
"But when the king came in to see the guests, he noticed a man there who was not wearing wedding clothes. He asked, ‘How did you get in here without wedding clothes, friend?’ The man was speechless. Then the king told the attendants, ‘Tie him hand and foot, and throw him outside, into the darkness, where there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth.’"
I understand first that there are multiple ways to read a lesson. At the end of Matthew 21 we read, "When the chief priests and the Pharisees heard Jesus’ parables, they knew he was talking about them. They looked for a way to arrest him, but they were afraid of the crowd because the people held that he was a prophet." The parable of the wedding banquet in Matthew 22 and Jesus’ warning about the consequences of not wearing "wedding clothes" was also directed to the priests and Pharisees, but I had read it as if Jesus was directing this warning to us. I was troubled that I could not find the grace in this warning, and frankly, I was hoping to find a way out of this judgment.
There are parts of the Old Testament that, from this side of Easter, we discount as no longer applicable, or "the way it used to be" before Jesus changed the world in his sacrifice on the cross. I wondered if there are parts of the New Testament that can also be discounted as "the way it used to be", even if some of those things were Christ's own words.
We discussed the concept of process theology: “Because God interacts with the changing universe, God is changeable (that is to say, God is affected by the actions that take place in the universe) over the course of time. However, the abstract elements of God (goodness, wisdom, etc.) remain eternally solid.” http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Process_theology
This sounds right to me, in that God hears our prayers and can be moved to change His mind. Could this be the way out of the judgment at the end of the parable? Is that judgment no longer applicable, since Easter came and now we have been saved by the grace of God?
This brought us to Bonheoffer’s statement, “Cheap grace is the mortal enemy of our church. Our struggle today is for costly grace.” It’s tempting to want to get to grace without going through the judgment. Yeah, yeah, yeah – I know I fall short of living the life God wants for me and I fail to make the best choices and do what I know I should. Can’t we skip the lecture? Can’t I just be forgiven?
But then, I don’t really want a God who says “don’t worry about it”. God does not condone our behavior when we stray. Christ’s warning is for those who believe they have God’s blessing on whatever they do, or portray that they are blameless and don’t need to change anything about themselves. We need to remember that we’re not good people just because we go to church. Similarly, we don’t go to church because we’re good people. We need to admit when we have strayed, expose ourselves to God and His judgment before we can be forgiven and start making our way back into the banquet.
Luckily for us, the banquet is ongoing, and if we find ourselves in the darkness outside, we can still turn around and follow the light back in. Rather than a black-and-white, “you’re good or you’re bad / you’re in or you’re out” judgment, we have a God who cares for us and wants us to change. So, while there may be times when I am not wearing my “wedding clothes”, and I may find myself outside the party, I believe that the invitation remains open and that God will help me find my way back in.
I wasn't at the discussion, butI remember the parable. I always understood the guests to represent the people who had truly turned their lives over to the will of GOD and repented of their sinful ways and accepted Jesus as their savior. These people who actually did believe all wore the 'wedding garments' that only GOD could see. But this one guest who realized too late that GOD was real and tried to fool those collecting the believers, but could not fool GOD.
Maybe this was from Sunday School but it still sticks with me (after more years than I will admit to)
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