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The bottom line. When all is said and done. The fat lady sang. We’ve been talking, lately, about who deserves pay (eternal life?) and who doesn’t. But more importantly, recent lections have been about GRACE, the steadfast love displayed by God to ALL creatures! The lessons to be heard on the upcoming weekend continue to remind us that God is God–and that we aren’t.

The prophet EZEKIEL spoke for YHWH around the time of the Babylonian Captivity, BC 597. Verses we look at today, 18:25-32, remind Israel and us that sooner or later we’ll be held accountable for our “sin”: blasphemy, injustice, pride… BUT there’s always a chance to turn it around, to “get right with God”. Current missteps will pass away; what defines us is where we stand at the end of the day. “Cast away from you all the transgressions that you have committed against me, and get yourselves a new heart and a new spirit! Why will you die, O house of Israel? For I have no pleasure in the death of anyone, says the Lord God. Turn, then, and live.” Can’t do it yourself? Read on…

Paul, in house arrest in Rome, continues to exhort the PHILIPPIANS to be imitators of Christ (2:1-13). That is, to reflect the humility of the one they look up to. “Do nothing from selfish ambition or conceit, but in humility regard others as better than yourselves….it is God who is at work in you, enabling you both to will and to work for [God’s] good pleasure.” This COULD be a sudden transformation; but usually is a gradual process. So don’t lose heart!

The parable of Jesus re

Most of us ants who scurry around on the Big Blue Marble consider ourselves to be just and fair people. (There are exceptions.) When an issue of inequity arises, we complain to GOD, instead of doing something about it ourselves! But these readings for the weekend have more to do with GRACE than injustice.

You’re probably familiar with JONAH, the reluctant prophet who wouldn’t go preach to the city of Nineveh; but he did, after a fishing story, and the Ninevites repented! As a patriotic Jew, Jonah didn’t go for this; and besides, he wanted to watch that city get nuked. So the present reading, 4:1-11, finds Jonah pouting at the edge of the city. God caused a shady bush to spring up, giving Jonah some relief from the heat; but the next morning, God sent a cut-worm to destroy that bush, leaving Jonah heat blasted again… It’s a good story, and it appears in the Hebrew Bible to tell about God’s abundant generosity, even towards those formerly pagan Ninevites.

Paul’s letter to the PHILIPPIANS, 1:21-30, finds him ruminating about his own life-threatening situation (he’s under house arrest in Rome), and words of encouragement to those congregations who are besieged by the surrounding ungodly culture, urging them to stand “side by side with one mind for the faith of the Gospel”. There are evidently many injustices happening in Phillipi which are hardly “fair” to the resident Christians. Grace is experienced through these opportunities to Change the World. What does it mean for us to experience Grace in our current culture?

The parable of Jesus told in MATTHEW 20:1-16 is uncomfortable to those of us who have high assumptions. The late-comers got paid just as much as those workers who were diligent in “the burden of the day and the scorching heat.” They’d assumed that they’d get paid more; but the Boss gave them all the whole day’s wages, which was quite generous. What can we say about these deathbed converts and these thieves who share the crucifixion? Are they entitled to as much heavenly Grace as we who have attended worship regularly and volunteered for mission and prayed for others all our lives? God’s generosity far exceeds our own standards–and assumptions.

As my parents often told me, “No one said that the world is fair”. And it’s not: I have so much more than my colleagues in Uganda; or Serbia. Maybe when the Kingdom has drawn near enough we’ll see and experience equity for all people! But in the meantime, God expects us to take in each smidgen of Grace.

In the process of unfolding, Horace Brown King

On each Tuesday we present our understanding of what the weekend’s lessons are about. Come join us– argue with us?–at horacebrownking.com.

Did you ever wish that you could take back your words and do it again? Say it again? Of course you have. I’m constantly amazed that God (and others) keep on putting up with me! Scripture lessons to be unpacked this upcoming weekend tend to re-assure the would-be disciple that they are forgiven, no matter how great their crimes; and would call the gathered community into a restoration of wholeness. This is certainly counter-cultural to the way the world works, as we are reminded daily of the brokenness surrounding us. (I’m gonna quit watching Rachel Maddow, it gets me too worked up.)

We begin with GENESIS 50:15-21. Joseph’s brothers, in a fit of jealousy, had sold Joseph into slavery–but he rose to be the grand poohbah of Egypt! And now come his brothers unknowingly to beg for grain to get them through the famine: omigosh, the shoe’s now on the other foot. So the brothers pleaded for forgiveness, figuring that Joseph still nurtured a grudge; he in his greatness, had long forgiven them, and now arranged for them and their families to settle in Egypt, near the mouths of the Nile. The story is holy because the Past has been erased, or at lest altered. The unspoken question becomes whether or not modern-day disciples will overcome the evils of the Past by forgiving the perpetrators of previous wrongs.

St. Paul says to the ROMANS, in 14:1-12, that there will be differences of practice. “…They will be upheld, for the Lord is able to make them stand….Why do you pass judgment on your brother or sister?” It seems that we’re all in the same boat, that is, doers of evil who desperately need God’s grace. We do God a great disservice by ascribing our human feelings to this God: just because we ourselves suffer from road-rage doesn’t mean that God does also! “Paul is helping persons in the early Christian community [and the current one] to resist demonizing each other…” (Jeanette A. Good, in FEASTING on the WORD, A 4:67)

MATTHEW’s Gospel (18:21-35) is really a continuation of last week’s excursion into telling each other about latent hurts before they become festering sores. So Peter (on our behalf) asks about the Jewish tradition of forgiveness seven times. “Jesus said to him, ‘Not seven times, but, I tell you, SEVENTY-seven times.'” What?! But I believe in the old Three-Strikes-and-yer-out rule. Can the offender really reform? Can I forgive the addict who made a sucker of me? And what about the guy who beats his wife? Can these ever be trusted again, enough to rejoin our group? Jesus used hyperbole in his parable: the first slave could never earn enough to repay “the Master”–but he was forgiven everything!! ‘Twasn’t very nice for him, so great a debtor, to put the screws to the guy who owed him three days wages. The first slave was condemned not for his debt, but for his non-forgiving attitude toward the other guy.

Not mentioned in the Biblical account is the realization that forgiveness brings freedom. Those old grudges become very heavy after a while. Marjorie Thompson has written, “To forgive is to make a conscious choice to release the person who has wounded us from the sentence of our judgment….Forgiveness means the power of the original wound’s power to hold us trapped is broken.” (WEAVINGS, March-April 1992, p.9) Good Luck with that!

In the process of unfolding, Horace Brown King

Please join us every Tuesday as we joust about the Scriptures to be heard on the upcoming weekend: at horacebrownking.com

Polite inhibitions when hard words need to be spoken can be toxic to a community. Scriptures to be heard on the upcoming weekend remind us that love can be best realized by speaking the Truth, as we see it, no matter how much risk that involves.

The prophet EZEKIEL spoke most of his oracles from Babylon’s captivity (589 BC?). Here (33:7-11) he recounts his obligation to speak the word of God with no guarantees of his hearers’ repentance (they didn’t). The “hard words” included led Charles Wesley to write in 1742 an archaic hymn, “Sinners Turn: Why Will You Die?” Please note that if you’re using this as a main text for worship, there needs to be room left for Grace; a post-script, if you please. If you’re really into the Charles Wesley mode, consider singing at the end, “See How Great a Flame Aspires”. What does it involve to be a “sentinel” today, even in the glitz of Babylon?

St. Paul gives us much to think about in ROMANS 13:8-14: “Owe no one anything, except to love one another”. He goes on to exhort us to avoid wronging each other, living “honorably” with each other. Well, yeah; but it’s the old question, Who is my neighbor?? Usually this proactive loving involves naming the enemy, the hard truths that go against our perceived ethic. Read on for how this may play out…

It’s to be remembered that MATTHEW is writing to the Jewish community, hoping against hope for their transformation into the wider Christian lifestyle. In 18:15-20, Jesus appears as the monitor of the Church, giving an orderly process for addressing brokenness: talk about it! The preacher may well mention those times of semi-forgiveness (“Ah, that’s all right”) which can fester for years beneath the surface, only to rear their ugly heads at an opportune moment in the future, thus destroying the communal joy so greatly longed for. A meeting of friends may clear the air; and if the entire group is called to intervene, the process may well be completed in loving respect. Matthew cites Jesus’ hopes for reconciliation, and sees this reconciliation as the true mark of the Christian fellowship.

It’s hard for me to be a “sentinel”, especially when I know the offending ones. I’m reluctant to call out the worldly influences except from the safety of my study. I suspect that your parents and grandparents trained you, also, to be polite and impersonal. So all of us, pulpit and pew alike, can be reminded that God’s community, the Church, needs to be woke and not settle for friction and sniping at each other.

In the process of unfolding, Horace Brown King

Please join us every Tuesday as we are examined by lessons to be heard on the upcoming weekend: at horacebrownking.com