9/28
 |
| Two turtles. Morningside. |
Later, I walk through Morningside Park. Spend some time with two turtles sunning on a rock.
Tonight in Bible Study, we’re on to Matthew 21: 21-32. A story found in the three synoptic gospels and the Gospel of Thomas. The story of a landlord and tenants. The landlord keeps sending servants to collect the rent. They keep getting killed. Finally he sends his own son and the tenants figure they’ll get rid of him and take his inheritance. Jesus says that the landlord will “…bring those wicked wretches to a a wretched end” and rent the field to other tenants. Then he quotes Psalm 118 about “…the stone that was rejected by the builders..” becoming the “…cornerstone..”
On the surface of it, this is a problematic passage. It’s traditionally been used as “lesson” that the “Jews” refused to follow Jesus, lost their blessing and had the land taken from them as Christians were elected to take their place. A classic example of supercessionist, or replacement theology. With the predictable collateral antisemitism. It is nonetheless clear that the first servants are the early prophets, the next set later prophets and perhaps John the Baptist, and finally Jesus, the son. And the new tenants are, of course, the Christians. We have to dig deeper.
Matthew, in describing the landowner, takes language from Isaiah 5: 1-7. Matthew’s writing context is either right before or after the fall of the Temple and the final victory of the Romans over the Jewish forces of national liberation. So he goes back to an Isaiah text that has to do with the victory by the Babylonian empire. In classic Old Testament form, the message of the prophet is that the failure of Israel to practice justice and righteousness for its people brought on the occupation and exile. Not as a punishment, but as the natural consequences of breaking the bonds that tied a society together and rending the social fabric. The landowner is God, the vineyard Israel and the tenants the Jewish religious and political establishment. In Matthew’s typical scheme of writing, in essence, a new Torah, having Jesus relive the story of the people Israel, he’s making a prophetic point. As their ancestors had failed to live up to their end of the covenant, their contract, and opened the way for the Babylonians, so this generation has failed and opened the way to final subjugation by the Roman Empire. Now the new Christian community will be given its chance.
It’s easy to see the tenants as sharecroppers. They after all did all the hard labor to produce the crops. There is revulsion at the violence of the tenants’ punishment. But the point usually is, in the Gospels, that the punishments are self-created and natural consequences, not external punishments imposed by a vengeful God.
It is easy to see the unravelling of our own society reflected in the failure of the entrusted servants to do justice for our own people. We are creating our own societal falling apart.The message is clear. We are all tenants. It’s not about Jews and Christians and we as the new chosen people. We too have an obligation to fulfill our side of the contract. In the violence against the son, we see John Lewis on the Selma bridge, beaten and bleeding, we see George Floyd with his breath choked out. As we watch our society shaking and vulnerable, prophetic words speak clear.
It is the eve of the Presidential debate.
9/29
 |
| Th eGreat (virtual) Race |
Today’s 5K is the (virtual )Pittsburgh Great Race. As I make my way south through the streets of Upper Manhattan, I imagine the streets of my hometown and the course I have run so many times. Wondering if and when we’ll run together again.
 |
| Vino Levantino |
 |
| Another one bites the dust.... |
I pass by Vino Levantino. Spent many nights there with another pastor friend of mine sharing a bottle of wine and Mediterranean Food. And talk fo theology, ministry and just life. We gathered there with friends when she lost a controversial bishop's election. We followed one of the servers in a music career. They just couldn't make it. Another Covid casualty.
 |
| Pastor Heidi's Trinity Lutheran |
Heidi has a virtual book launch for her Sanctuary: Being Christian in the Wake of Trump. It’s a good conversation, virtually speaking. I miss the wine and cheese and casual conversation between people.
And it’s the first debate. Its upsetting when your worst fears are realized. When you receive proof that yes, things are exactly as bad as you think they are. Though I shouldn’t be, I am still shocked by the crass bullying behavior of the President. How pundits keep wanting to act as if it’s a normal election somehow when this like nothing we have ever seen before. I feel sick to my stomach. Embarrassed. And when Trump tells the right wing militia “Proud Boys” to “stand back and stand by,” as he all but says he won’t leave office, a growing feeling of fear and anxiety,
We are all tenants.
No comments:
Post a Comment