For Sunday
Proper 23A
Collect
Lord, we pray that your grace may always precede and follow us, that we may continually be given to good works; through Jesus Christ our Lord, who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, now and for ever.
Amen.
Reading
Reflection
As a teaching tool, the parable may be the most effective. As much as people may like the “classic” didactic method of back-and-forth conversation or the modern rote memorization approach, perhaps nothing is more effective than telling people a story.
Stories hook us. At first with their creativity. But then, with their ability to work past our defenses. So when we read To Kill a Mockingbird, we aren’t intending to think deeply about identity: particularly race, sex, and ability. But we do.
As a teaching tool, I’m not sure anything beats the parable. Even a parable like this one.
We often think of there being “two sides to every story” but this story contains far more than that. And depending on how we see Jesus and the Temple leaders addressed in it can tell us a great deal.
However we read it, there are clear takeaways for the modern reader. That Kingdom of Heaven isn’t a familial inheritance that can be perpetually abused. Like wealthy scions who waste their lives and family fortunes on excess. We’re called to do good. To show up for God.
We can also see it in a fundamentally different way. Not only as Jesus as the groom, but as the one who showed up without dressing up. And it isn’t God who is throwing him out, but a very human king and the Temple leaders, eager to enforce the rules with punishment.
Unlike memorized statements of faith, parables pull together our sense into the faith we’re learning. We get to listen and decide if this sounds like God’s dream for humanity. Which then reveals even more.