Who Gets to Sit at the Table?

Philippians 3:4b-14, Matthew 21:33-45

Sermon by Peter Terpenning
October 2, 2005

Two interesting scriptures. I don't usually try and tie lectionary passages together since each scripture passage is so unique, written at different times to different audiences, but these two fit; they are both address opening the religious life to all people.

Paul's letter to the Philippians, written earlier than Matthew, Paul tells the people to beware those who would tell them to follow the Law of Moses before they can call themselves Christian. The problem was that some early Jewish Christians thought that people had to be observant Jews if they were going to follow Jesus. This included what Paul calls "Mutilating the flesh", that is circumcision. He goes on to tell them that he was the best Jew of all: ?circumcised on the eighth day, a member of the people of Israel, of the tribe of Benjamin, a Hebrew born of Hebrews; as to the law, a Pharisee?. No one has anything on Paul, but he tells them he counts it all as rubbish. Actually, the word he uses is stronger, which I won't repeat. Righteousness comes only from following Christ, not following all the old rules. Now Paul regards following Christ as very hard and admits that he's not sure he's really reached that goal, but he presses on to this greatest of all goals. Paul opens the message to all, Jews, Gentiles, Men, Women, Slaves and Free.

Then we come to the weird passage in Matthew with the Vineyard and the tenants. God is clearly the vineyard owner in this metaphor, and the tenants are the Pharisees (the People of Israel). The owner loves the vineyard, plants it with his own hands, but the tenants reject the prophets and martyrs who the vineyard owner has sent over the years. Now the vineyard owner sends his own son, that is, Jesus, and the tenants are going to reject and even kill him! The Pharisees listening to Jesus got the message and were very angry. Here we have another story of how the Pharisees and observant Jews had it all wrong, and the message is opened to all people.

One can see how both these stories were used by later Christians to teach anti-Semitism. But I don't agree with that at all. What I see here is the rejection of fundamentalism; the living of faith by the book. The old way was to say that here are all the rules here in this book, and this is how we are to live them out. Jesus and later Paul reject that and open up the message. The passages call for unity, not uniformity! They condemn exclusivity, that only those who follow this set of rules are ok with God.

The new slogan for the United Church of Christ over the last year is "God is Still Speaking". I didn't like the slogan at first. At first glance it sounds like a conservative church, and we ask, "What does that mean anyway?" But what it means is exactly what Paul and the author of Matthew were saying. God is still speaking, not just what is written in the old law, that you have to be circumcised and eat certain foods and be observant Jews or God won't recognize you. No, God is still speaking; new ideas are still emerging about what it means to follow God. The law is not the end all. It's a good start, but not a good finish. God is still speaking is actually process theology, the idea that we are co-creators with God. Creation and faith are not already finished and all wrapped up in a package for us. Rather, the world is moving forward, human knowledge is still expanding, God's creation is changing and we are making choices that influence that creation!

Apply this to homosexuality, for example, as the UCC ads did. The ancient people had certain views about homosexuality and same gender relationships. I don't agree with those who say the Bible is against it, for the authors of the Bible were speaking about a culture very different than our own and it?s hard to compare apples and oranges. But I do agree that the Hebrew culture as laid down in the law viewed the mixing of certain things as impure, among them, the mixing of same sexes. Is this God's law, laid down forever and ever? No, God is still speaking. We have learned something since then about genetics and sexuality and loving, equal relationships. We do not view the Bible and the old ways of thinking the sole guides to how God is working in the world today.

So God is still speaking means that we are not fundamentalists, we are working with science, philosophy, comparative religions, and all human reason and knowledge to make the best choices we can about how to follow God. This is what Paul and Jesus were saying. Not exclusivity, but diversity; unity not uniformity.

I was reading about Benedict XVI, the new Pope. My eye caught this caption about what the Pope's view was of other faiths. I looked closer to read, interested as I always am, in what view someone has of comparative religion. I was surprised that by 'other faiths', the Pope meant Christians who weren't Catholic. Me. He wasn't so sure I was condemned to hell, thank goodness, and that I was actually a distant part of the true church. There are way too many Christians who are still drawing the lines and deciding who is really in and who is out based on a set of rules. Last Pentecost a church in Washington State turned away 100 worshippers from the communion table for wearing rainbow sashes and ribbons to represent including Gay, Lesbian, Bisexual and Transgender folk in communion of that denomination. Some folks last year thought that there were politicians who weren't welcome at the table if they voted in certain ways. We are still busy deciding who is included and who isn't.

I am proud that in the United Church of Christ on World Wide Communion Sunday I can say that we have an 'open table' of communion. What this means is that you decide if you are going to come forward for communion, not me, not the denomination or elders or anybody. It's up to you if you are seeking to follow Jesus Christ and see receiving communion as part of that journey, come on down. If you don't are find it irrelevant to your faith journey, don't worry about it, it is your journey.

When a new Christian who didn't have much history with the church was just feeling her way into a church community, she saw a notice that the next Sunday would be the Lord's Supper, so she called a friend in the church. She said, "I have two questions. It's about this supper thing. Am I invited and how much will it cost?". Paul answered that question, as did Jesus and the church over the ages. The world is still asking those questions. The question is: what kind of tenants are we going to be in this church of the vineyard that has been entrusted to us? What kind of guardians are we of this communion table? Do we guard it with rules set down in a book, or passed down from the ancestors? Or do we open it to those who the Spirit of God is leading in?