Moment of Clarity With Rev. Lorrie Daly-Price

This week we read the saga of the bridesmaids from Matthew’s gospel. The tradition required the bridegroom to arrive at the home of the bride’s family, claim the bride, and take her to his own house. 

 

Waiting for the bridegroom meant being prepared, not merely passing time. In this parable, some bridesmaids neglected their oil lamps. A trimmed wick ensured maximum light and minimum smoke. Having lamps that once burned well did not mean that they would burn well again. Constant attention to the lamps ensured the light would be available when required. 

 

In Bible times, oil was associated with anointing and indicated the presence of God’s Spirit with a person. Oil also was a metaphor for God’s presence, displayed in one’s compassion and acts of love and mercy. The gospel of Matthew strives to keep the community of disciples grounded in Christ. The parable speaks to being ready whenever God’s reign comes in its fullness. God’s life is birthed in each person. Each person is responsible to tend the light of God’s life within – one person cannot pass her or his inner spiritual strength to another.

This week we hear a reading from the gospel of Matthew known as the Beatitudes or the Sermon on the Mount. It is here that Jesus Microsoft Word - Nov 1 2020 Newsletter v1

shares the attitudes of how to live life knowing that even in the midst of troubles we will be blessed in God’s grace. Sometimes it is about accomplishing a worthwhile goal, even a private, personal victory. Sometimes it is about improving one’s character. Sometimes it is best defined by living into one’s own personal mission, or finding a meaningful purpose to organize one’s life around. And sometimes it is about learning how to live in peace, happiness, generosity and love.

Someone put it like this: "I spent my life frantically climbing the ladder of success. When I got to the top I realized it was leaning against the wrong building. Even if she got to the top first, it made no difference. There is no merit in being first to arrive at the wrong place in life. Any life going after the things that count, will count as a life well spent.”

This week is one of those biblical stories that may be very familiar to you. To us, Jesus is simply echoing what we know in our heart of hearts – love God, love your neighbour. It seems so obvious! But it would not have been so to Jesus’ original hearers.

For the scribes and Pharisees (and thus for the people who were taught by them) the Law given by Moses from God was sacred. There were 61 laws in the Jewish Law but as scholars and rabbis interpreted these according to different times and circumstances, a huge body of oral tradition and oral law began to emerge. In Jesus’ days these unwritten community laws and traditions were beginning to be recorded. And the scribes and rabbis debated at some length about which of these were the most important. The Pharisees concluding that they all were; not one had precedence over another, as all came from God.

So what Jesus does is takes his hearers back to the first principles. To “love God” with heart, soul and mind, the fundamental creed of Judaism. Then directs them to the second command to “love our neighbour.”

What rigid laws or principles, what structures or attitudes need changing in society that people can better love God and love their neighbour?

And how might such changes in our society impact on our own lives?

In the reading this week from the gospel of Matthew, we are confronted with the Pharisees who are attempting to trap Jesus in his own words. Jesus, however, constantly turns the tables on his attackers often leaving them speechless and the bystanders amazed.

In this week’s reading Jesus’ opponents finally raise the subject of taxes. Of course, taxes have never been very popular in human history, and life in the Holy Land under Roman military rule was no exception. The Romans heavily taxed their occupied territories, and typically the local ruling aristocracy used any method possible to extort money from the lower classes. This is why tax collectors are especially hated characters.

In our passage, it is the dynamics of Roman occupation that create the opportunity for this line of questioning: if Jesus responds that it is lawful to pay taxes to the emperor, he will be deemed to be sympathetic to the ruling class. So how will Jesus respond?

This week in our gospel reading from Luke we find Jesus in a village between Galilee and Samaria. He has met a group of ten people with leprosy who cry out to him for mercy. In their sickness, in their loneliness, in their poverty, they reached out for help. Jesus responded in a way that far exceeded anything they could ever have expected. Instead of tossing them a few coins or bit of food (things which might Microsoft Word - Oct 11 202 Newsletter v1 seem to help but were really only answering the symptoms of their sickness) Jesus went to the problem itself, and healed them. For nine of the ten, this was where their encounter with Jesus ended. We hear nothing more about them. We hear nothing about what paths their lives took, not even how (or if) they took advantage of their new status as cleansed individuals. They were no longer outcasts but full and welcome members of society. Did they use their renewed contact with people in a positive way? They were cleansed, and the last picture we have is of them scurrying down the road (off to the priests who would certify their new condition). That is except for the one who found it in himself to return to Jesus in gratitude.

This week in Matthew’s gospel we find a story within a story. A parable of Jesus that leaves us asking all sorts of questions. Here Jesus tells of a vineyard owner who cared for and planted some grapes and waited to see what wonderful things would happen. There is a twist this time though which we know many good stories have. In the climax of the story Microsoft Word - Newsletter Oct 4 2020 v1

the vineyard isn’t simply left to wither away, but those who have been given the opportunity to tend the vineyard are found to be thieves and killers.

Then Jesus leaves the chief priests and elders to whom he is speaking with a question. What do they think the owner will do? Repay them? Get rid of them for good, and find someone who will do what they should have been doing in the first place?

It is a story with lots of twists and turns. With characters that we don’t like and morals that make us squirm. But it is also a story of the gifts that God gives to us to help us in this life. Safety nets for us to use so that our lives are the very best they can be. God provides grace upon grace upon grace.

The reading we hear this week from Matthew’s gospel challenges us to walk the talk. In the reading, one brother talked the talk, while the other brother walked the walk. Jesus asks, “which of the two did his father’s will?”

Today’s gospel is a short but powerful parable. To an audience of talkers, Jesus says that talk Microsoft Word - Newsletter Sep 27 2020

is cheap. Jesus is in the temple in Jerusalem and he has not come to find favour with the religious movers and shakers. He certainly has not come to whisper sweet nothings in their ears.

It seems that Jesus is the new sheriff in town who does not like what he sees and what he hears. The Pharisees had argued the life right out of God’s covenant. Their endless debates and rituals had replaced the purity of devotion. And with it came the pride of self- satisfied, pious frauds.

Then along comes Jesus to blow the hot air right out of the temple and replace all the cheap talk with a priceless message: Love the Lord with your whole heart and your neighbour as yourself. Got it? Good, now go and do it. Don’t just talk about it.

In our reading from Matthew’s Gospel, the teachers of the day had been blinded by the laws and traditions of the past. They were not prepared to open their eyes (and ears) to the new teachings that Jesus offers about the spiritual significance of the kingdom of heaven.

Jesus also presents a number of parables to show how things that are deemed small and insignificant can often make more of a difference than we ever consider them capable of. How many people in our congregations and communities make contributions of time and talent that we take for granted or fail to see the significance of?

Can the same be said of us? Are we often blinded to the opportunities of the future by the rose-tinted spectacles of the past? Do we need to re-focus and look ahead rather than closing our eyes and hoping that everything will stay the same?

In our reading this week from Matthew’s gospel we hear Jesus’ best-known instructions on forgiveness. When Peter asks how many times “another member of the church” is to be forgiven, Jesus insists that forgiving someone seven times is not adequate. The offending member must be forgiven 77 times. The number seems staggering but communicates clearly that forgiveness is to  be an essential part of Christian communal life.

 

To punctuate his point, Jesus invokes a “kingdom of heaven” analogy that shows how seriously we are to take the reprimand to forgive. He tells the story of a king who is owed a debt by his slaves. At the moment when the king expects to be paid, one slave is not able to pay and as a result is to be sold along with his wife and children. The man pleads with the king and asks to be given more time. The king has mercy on him and forgives the debt completely but then the slave does not extend the same mercy to a fellow slave who owes him a debt. When the king finds out, he reinstates the original debt and has the slave tortured until he can repay it.

In Matthew 4:18-23 we hear Jesus calling to Peter and his brother Andrew to leave their lives and livelihood behind and to follow him as he will make them fishers of people.  In this dramatic reading, we hear these brothers reflect on their time spent following Jesus, and the laughter and understanding he brought to them, even amidst the turmoil and challenges of the day.