Ezra's lecture worked!
The people come and confess that they have been disobedient in the
matter of taking foreign wives. It is
important at the beginning to get this right in order that the nation not be
corrupted. The symbol of yeast is
particularly apt here in that a little yeast, in the form of these foreign
wives with foreign gods, leavens the entire nation and makes it vulnerable to
going astray after those gods. As it is
the rainy season of the year the people ask for dispensation that instead of
everyone standing in the rain as these matters are dealt with that only the
leaders of the tribes remain there. Interesting
that leadership has a price rather than a privilege isn't it?
When Jesus tells them to invite those who cannot repay their
hospitality, He is speaking counter-culturally.
The prevailing cultural idea was that you needed patrons, those who
could advance you in society and business and these were the ones you needed to
invite in order to get the social cachet to go up in life. Things haven't changed much have they? Jesus is saying to them that upward mobility
in this life is unimportant and they should choose the path of true greatness,
to do for those less fortunate in an act of almost pure altruism. He rules out pure altruism because there is
actually a selfish reason for such acts, in order that you be repaid at the
resurrection of the just. There is a
reward for acting benevolently it just awaits the resurrection. That is not to say that works get you in, but
works reveal faith. The banquet of which
Jesus speaks is clearly the heavenly banquet and the parable makes clear that
there will be a rejection by some of the invited guests (the Jews) and that the
Gentiles will come in. The master's only
concern is filling all the seats and if the invited guests won't take them,
others will be brought in.
Paul knows that the issue of the resurrection of the dead is
a controversial and divisive topic among the Jews, particularly these
leaders. The Pharisees believed in it
and the Sadducees did not and it was a source of great irritation between the
two parties of Judaism. Paul rightly
makes his defense by saying he honestly hadn't done anything at all, he was not
guilty of any charge they had advanced against him and no one here could say
otherwise. The original charge laid
against him was that he had brought Gentiles into the temple and this was
untrue. In the new covenant there is no
issue of foreigners in the same way as in the time of Ezra. We should, however, encourage our children to
marry Christian wives rather than those who worship other gods or who have no
identifiable gods. We need to be yoked
with those who can support and encourage us to grow in faith and love. The Lord, however, made a way for Gentiles to
become part of His family through the rejection of the Messiah by His original
people.
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