Psalm 118; Isa. 19:19-25; Rom. 15:5-13; Luke 19:11-27
"Blessed be Egypt my people, and Assyria the work of my hands, and Israel my inheritance." These words are difficult to imagine for anyone, today or in the time of Isaiah 2600 or so years ago. Isaiah, however, sees a time when they will be true. His vision has room for those who have been judged and purified in even those lands who were oppressors of Israel. Israel will be a sanctuary set apart in holiness and righteousness and yet there will be those who are outside her who also are approved unto the Lord, those who have been healed by the one who has stricken them in the same way the Israelites themselves were healed in the wilderness when the Lord’s judgment came against them with the serpents and they were healed by gazing at the bronze serpent. Isaiah sees that Yahweh has a plan for even the Gentiles.
This parable is the counterpart to the one in Matthew we had in our Sunday lectionary a week ago. Not to be too controversial but as I write there are protesters all over the world who believe that capitalism is the problem and yet many of Jesus’ parables use that particular system and certainly we don’t think they are a critique of capitalism. These parables all begin with a man who is an owner of something who gives some or all of it in trust to another group to manage on his behalf and in the end he expects a return on his investment. The man is always identified as God, so how can the system be wrong? That isn’t to say that our system is somehow validated by Scripture, it all depends on the morality and ethics of the man and we are fallen, but then every human system is flawed at the outset for the same reason. Here we see the wickedness of the people who do not want the man to reign over them, they feel about him as the wicked servant does but the parable tells the story of a man who is quite generous and rewards those faithful servants. Do we believe that about God?
Paul had a tricky job, one that we don’t often see in our day. He had to sort out how to blend a congregation of Jews and Gentiles. The Jews saw the Gentiles as unclean and yet there was a process by which they could become clean, they could become Jews in spirit but it also required them to undergo circumcision and to accept laws concerning diet and a great many other things. In Jesus, all that was done away with and the Gentiles were incorporated into the covenant by the blood of Jesus. The covenant was inward, as the prophets had written, it was now written on the hearts of those who were in covenant with the Lord. There was a new circumcision, the circumcision of the heart, that was the sign of the covenant. Our very lives, all of them, not only the parts we hide from the world, are the sign that we belong to the Lord. I am thankful that the church managed to navigate these waters of incorporation by the power of the Holy Spirit bringing truth and humility to both sides. Let us be one as Paul encourages the Romans in order that we may with one voice glorify the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ.
Let us love and sing and wonder,
Let us praise the Savior’s Name!
He has hushed the law’s loud thunder,
He has quenched Mount Sinai’s flame.
He has washed us with His blood,
He has brought us nigh to God.
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