Bible Study Guide for Sunday, October 8, Year A

• Exodus 17:1-7
• Psalm 78:1-4, 12-16
• Philippians 2:1-13
• Matthew 21:23-32

 

            The letter to the Philippians that we read in this week’s New Testament reading comes with some interesting background. As our selection starts the second chapter in the book, the first chapter has set the scene for who was writing (Saints Paul and Timothy) and the situation that they were in: jail. Paul had been jailed for preaching the Gospel, although the letter doesn’t make clear which of the multiple times Paul was imprisoned this was. He begins the first chapter by declaring that his imprisonment is in fact a good thing for the cause of the Gospel and the nascent church, something that may not have been apparent to his original audience. The people around him in prison gained confidence from his own confidence that “I eagerly expect and hope that I will in no way be ashamed, but will have sufficient courage so that now as always Christ will be exalted in my body, whether by life or by death” (Phil 1:20). Paul’s fellow Christians and even the palace guard became braver thanks to his bravery and preached the Gospel to those around them.

            Despite this happy confidence, Paul was also thinking of the very real dangers he faced in prison. He debated whether he would prefer to die, and be with Jesus right away, or to live, and continue to do God’s work in the world. He knew that his being on earth provided encouragement to the Christian communities he was guiding and instructed them that “whatever happens, conduct yourselves in a manner worthy of the gospel of Christ” (Phil 1:27). He encouraged his audience to stick together, telling them that “it has been granted to you on behalf of Christ not only to believe in Him, but also to suffer for Him” (Phil 1:29), the same suffering that Paul himself was going through. This suggests that suffering for Christ is a regular part of being His follower, not an anomaly, and perhaps even a gift to be granted.

            I’m recapping all this info from a chapter that wasn’t even in our readings for this week because I found it gave me a lot more resonance for the verses we do read. It made me read the first verse (“If there is any encouragement … any consolation … any compassion and sympathy …”) with some real uncertainty. Is there encouragement and consolation to be had in Christ? The jails of the Roman Empire weren’t known as compassionate and comfortable lodgings. He was in a painful situation where his life was at risk, surrounded by at best a few people sympathetic to him, writing to other people who may have been less immediately at risk, but were still fearful for their lives because of the religion they all professed. He was asking them to be humble and loving, to look out for each other instead of saving their own skin, to “regard others as better than yourselves”. Most of us find that pretty difficult to do with our fellow church members in our lives today. I can’t imagine how much harder it would be as a first-century Christian. Yet his faith in Christ was such that he believed his beloved friends would obey him and live with each other in concord and love.

            This extra context of Paul’s jail experience also adds resonance to the poetic verses that make up the center of today’s reading. While Paul and his audience are regular humans, being persecuted for their faith, the contrast between Jesus’s godly origins and shameful death is even starker. Jesus utterly emptied Himself of pride or a sense of prominence and submitted Himself to the depths of pain, loneliness, and desolation. And because Jesus as God came down from Heaven to the absolute depths of humanity, God then raised Him up to the most exalted status. This self-emptying is the model of behavior for the Philippians and our model for ourselves. It also demands our worship and praise to God for such a model and such a savior.

            So, then, how are we to apply Paul’s instructions? Paul says that we are to “work out [our] own salvation with fear and trembling.” At first that struck me as intimidating and a bit odd. Wasn’t Paul just telling his audience to stick together, be of the same mind, work together – and now I’m on my own to figure out my own salvation? But then Paul provides the answer: it is God at work within us. God working within us is how we work out our salvation. It’s not that we just let God do all the work, but He enables us to do His work and follow His will, and through those things we – all of us – find our salvation. - Lindy Noecker

 

• Exodus 20:1-4, 7-9, 12-20; Psalm 19
• Or Isaiah 5:1-7, Psalm 80:7-14
• Philippians 3:4b-14
• Matthew 21:33-46

 

 

Today’s Gospel is one of Jesus’ more troublesome parables. Historically, the Church has often read this story to see Israel as the wicked tenants, and the landowner as God.  After God sends a succession of prophets, who are roundly rejected, God sends God’s own son who is then killed.  By this reading, this parable describes how God takes the Kingdom away from Israel and entrusts it to the Church instead. This misreading has had horrific and deadly consequences throughout the centuries. So then what are we to do with this story, which appears in three out of the four Gospels?

First of all, we need to remember that everyone involved here is Jewish.  This is not at all about setting “good Christians” against “bad Jews” because Jesus is Jewish, his disciples are Jewish, and the crowds who regard Jesus as a prophet are all Jewish.  The chief priests and the Pharisees (who themselves represent two very different groups in this society) are the current power structures within the Jewish community and very often power structures will seek to preserve themselves and eliminate anyone who threatens their position.  Such is the human condition. 

In her book Short Stories by Jesus: The Enigmatic Parables of a Controversial Rabbi, New Testament scholar Amy-Jill Levine, who is herself Jewish, explores how a Jewish audience might have heard Jesus’ parables. Is the landowner God?  Is God an absentee landlord who only sends emissaries when he wants to collect from his tenants?  If so, might this be part of the rich Jewish tradition of lament and challenging of God? Are the wicked tenants supposed to represent Israel or perhaps the string of nations who each in their turn conquered Israel, currently the Romans? Perhaps the landowner should not be identified with God but is just a landowner.  Is the landowner acting foolishly by continually sending more representatives instead of re-evaluating his approach?  How often do we do the same thing?  The point of a parable is to be somewhat opaque so we need to struggle with it and puzzle out a meaning.  Any interpretation that seems too neat and easy is probably wrong.  As Levine puts it, “if we hear a parable and think, ‘I really like that’ or, worse, fail to take any challenge, we are not listening well enough.” Any interpretation that says we are the Good Guys and those other people over there, they are the problem, that should be a clue to look again.

The passage from Isaiah clearly has some connections to the Gospel passage and may provide another avenue to explore.  Isaiah sings a “love song” concerning his vineyard.  In the Isaiah passage, the problem is with the vineyard itself, not any tenant farmers, and as the vineyard produces wild grapes despite careful tending the vineyard owner has determined to tear down the garden walls and let the vineyard be overrun.  And yet this is described as a “love song”!  In Isaiah, unlike the Gospel passage, the vineyard is explicitly identified with the house of Israel and the people of Judah, and judgment is coming.  The Babylonians would conquer the southern kingdom of Judah and cart its inhabitants off to exile (after the Assyrians had conquered the northern kingdom of Israel several decades earlier).  And yet this is still a love song, because conquering and exile are not the end of the story.  A time of exile was coming, but it would not last forever.  God is ultimately leading them to redemption and restoration.  Later on in the same book, Isaiah will prophesy “Comfort, O comfort my people, says your God. Speak tenderly to Jerusalem and cry to her that she has served her term, that her penalty is paid.”  Isaiah 40:1-2.  God’s stories never end with judgment and desolation but always ultimately point to restoration and wholeness.

Sometimes we may be the wicked tenants or the vineyard that fails to produce good grapes, and that will bring consequences.  But God does not end there.  Our collect confidently asks God to “pour upon us the abundance of your mercy, forgiving us those things of which our conscience is afraid, and giving us those good things for which we are not worthy to ask.”  And ultimately the vineyard will flourish again.   — Kristen Filipic

 

• How have you understood this parable before?Are you drawn to puzzle with any new angles now?
• Today’s Gospel reading comes in a long series of passages where Jesus is warning about coming judgment.How do you relate to these elements in the Bible?Has this changed over time?
• The chief priests and the Pharisees represent power structures in this society that considered Jesus to be a threat.What sort of power structures does Jesus threaten in our time?How do we participate in those very power structures?