CHAPTER 18
THE TWO SONS
Mathew 21:28-32
This parable belongs to a trio of parables describing how the Jewish nation failed God. They were the recipients of God's solicitude, care, and cultivation. They made lofty professions but failed to act. They refused to listen to God's messengers, the prophets. These parables come after the triumphal entry and the cleansing of the temple during the last week of Jesus' ministry. Jesus had been teaching and preaching to the Jewish nation for over three years and things were now coming to a head. The Jewish leaders had not responded to his message and plans were underfoot now to discredit Jesus and kill him. These parables are a last attempt by Jesus to lead them away from their destructive course.
Jesus tells the story of two sons whom the father asks to work in his vineyard. The first son initially refuses but then changes his mind and goes to work. The second son, after emphatically stating his willingness to work, doesn't show up. The question Jesus posed to his hearers was "Which of the two did the will of his father?" They answered, "The first son."
Jesus interprets the parable by adding, "Truly I tell you, the tax collectors and the prostitutes are going into the kingdom of God ahead of you. For John came to you in the way of righteousness and you did not believe him, but the tax collectors and the prostitutes believed him; and even after you saw it, you did not change your minds and believe him."
Oesterley recounts a similar rabbinic parable. "It is like a king who had a plot of land which he wished laborers to cultivate. He called the first and said, 'Wilt thou undertake [to cultivate] the field?' He replied, 'I have not the strength to do so, it is too hard for me.' In the same way he asked a second, a third, and a fourth; but none of them would undertake it. Thereupon he called the fifth, and said to him, 'Wilt thou undertake to [cultivate] the field?' He replied, 'Yes'. Then he (the king) said, 'On the condition that thou wilt keep it in order?' He replied, 'Yes.' But when he came to the field, he let it lie fallow. Upon whom will the wrath of the king be vented, on those who said, 'We cannot undertake it,' or against him who undertook it, but who having undertaken it, and having come [to the field], let it lie fallow? Will it not be upon him who undertook it?" 1
In this rabbinic parable the contrast is not between those who say they will not go and later went, and those who say they will go and later do not go but between those who say they will not work and did not and those who say they will and did not. The point is that it is better to refuse to work than to promise to work and not do it. It is better not to promise even though you do not work then to promise and do not work. This latter group in Jesus' parable is like the religious leaders but the first group does not correspond because the publicans and harlots did in fact later go to work. The parable of Jesus is much more fitting and appropriate for his purpose.
The primary message of both parables is similar-it is better to refuse to work than to promise to work and not do it. However, Jesus' story is slightly different because his purpose in telling his story is different. That purpose is revealed by its application.
When John the Baptist first came on the scene, his audience of publicans and law breakers, because of their greed, extortion, and immorality, had emphatically declined God's invitation to work in his vineyard. On the other hand, the Pharisees, scribes, priests and other leaders of the nation, with their vocal pronouncements and public behavior, seemed to have accepted God's invitation.
However, when John the Baptist began preaching repentance, many "sinners" who had previously said "no" to God's invitation went to work in God's vineyard willingly. And the religious leaders, who were apparently saying "yes", began to say "no" to God's invitation. Their hypocrisy, insincerity, and their pride kept them from accepting God's invitation.
This parable teaches that God's evaluation of us is based on our obedience, not our religiosity, profession, our social standing. We may have been wayward and immoral, but when we accept God's message and change our lives, we are citizens of God's kingdom.
Harry Orchard was a hired killer. At the beginning of the twentieth century, he was hired by the Western Federation of Miners who were in a violent struggle against mine owners in the western states. In his confession he admitted more than a score of murders usually by bombings. He was caught after one of his bombs killed former Governor Steunenberg in Caldwell, Idaho.
The famous Clarence Darrow who was the defense lawyer for the Western Federation of Miners described Orchard as "a self-confessed perjurer, kidnapper, thief, firebug, and multiple murderer." 2 Orchard killed or attempted to kill by bombing, shooting, or poisoning his victims. Orchard described himself when he was arrested after the murder of Steunenberg as "a devil incarnate."
There was no question that Orchard was saying a loud "no" to the Lord's invitation. But as he lay in the cell, thinking about his life of crime, he desperately hoped that God could forgive his atrocious crimes. Slowly through an Episcopal chaplain and then through the forgiving spirit of Mrs. Steunenberg, the widow of the murdered man and a Seventh-day Adventist, Orchard was led to Christ and baptized into the Adventist Church. His changed life was a witness to the power of the Holy Spirit. He finally said "yes" to God's invitation.
We may have been religious and moral; we may even now be judged religious and moral. But when God's message calls us to repentance, do we really obey? Does our religion make us truly obedient or does it mask hypocrisy and pride? Do we humbly recognize our insufficiency, our true sinfulness, and our dire need of God's grace? Do we act in accordance with the gospel message? We can be baptized, attend church, and perform all the proper and appropriate religious duties and still refuse to obey God. According to John Stott, Rowena Pringle was such a person.
William Golding is a contemporary novelist who has vividly illustrated the negative power of hypocrisy. In his book Free Fall he tells the story of Sammy Mountjoy, an illegitimate child brought up in a slum, who became a famous artist. During his school days he was torn between two teachers and between the two worlds they represented. On the one hand there was Miss Rowena Pringle, a Christian who taught Scripture, and on the other Mr. Nick Shales, an atheist who taught science. Hers was the world of `the burning bush'.,. of supernatural mystery, his of a rationally explicable universe. Instinctively, Sammy was drawn to the burning bush. Unfortunately, however, the advocate of this Christian interpretation of life was a frustrated spinster who had her knife into Sammy because he had been adopted by the clergyman she had hoped to marry. She took her revenge by being cruel to the boy. `But how,' Sammy later asked himself, `could she crucify a small boy. . . and then tell the story of that other crucifixion with every evidence in her voice of sorrow for human cruelty and wickedness? I can understand how she hated, but not how she kept on such apparent terms of intimacy with heaven'. It was this contradiction which kept Sammy from Christ. 3
Sammy concludes: "Miss Pringle vitiated her teaching. She failed to convince, not by what she said but by what she was. Nick persuaded me to his natural scientific universe by what he was, not by what he said. I hung for an instant between two pictures of the universe; then the ripple passed over the burning bush and I ran towards my friend. In that moment a door closed behind me. I slammed it shut on Moses and Jehovah." 4
Jim was once a Seventh-day Adventist. He grew up in a farm in Florida. He was thirteen when his parents became zealous converts. The church was having evangelistic meetings and his parents were attending every night. One day Jim and his father came home exhausted after a long, hard day of work. This was the tenth night of the meetings that were to continue for a full three weeks. Jim asked his mother if he could be excused from attending that night since he was so worn out he felt sure he would fall asleep. But his mother steadfastly refused. Once again he asked to be excused. He had attended every meeting so far, and if his mother would let him stay home this one night, he promised he would attend all the rest. But his mother was unyielding.
He went, but he was angry and hurt. Something happened to him. He blamed the church for his mother's attitude and hated it. He determined then and there that when he was old enough to decide for himself, he would never enter a church of that denomination again. And he never did. His mother's commitment to the church was admirable, but her treatment of her son was appalling. She had commitment without compassion. She was saying, "Yes, yes, I will work in God's vineyard," but in reality, she did not go.
Jesus says that the professions of the Pharisees meant nothing. Only their acts of obedience counted. All our professions of obedience, all our affirmations of doing what the Lord commands mean nothing if actual obedience does not result. Promises are useless if they are not kept. "Not everyone who says to me, `Lord, Lord,' will enter the kingdom of heaven, but only the one who does the will of my Father in heaven." (Mathew 7:21)
1. Oesterley, p. 117
2. Quoted in Harry Orchard in collaboration with Leroy Edwin Froom, Harry Orchard: The Man God Made Again (Nashville: Southern Publishing Association, 1952), p. 132.
3. John R. W. Stott, I Believe in Preaching (London: Hodder & Stoughton, 1982), pp. 268-269.
4. William Golding, Free Fall (New York and Burlingame: Harcourt, Brace & World, 1959), p. 217, as quoted in Ibid, p. 269.
Wednesday, March 10, 1999
The Good Samaritan
CHAPTER 17
Luke 10:25-37
A lawyer came to Jesus and asked the question, "What must I do to inherit eternal life?" Typically when Jesus was asked a question, he asked a question in return. "What is written in the law? What do you read there?" The lawyer's answer was a surprising one for someone well acquainted with the myriad rules and regulations of Jewish law. "You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your strength, and with all your mind, and your neighbor as yourself." In Mark 12:28-34 Jesus had summarized the law in the same way. Jesus answered, "You have given the right answer; do this, and you will live."
The lawyer seems to have expected just such an answer. He was really more interested in the answer to his next question. (This question seems to imply that he already knew how to love God.) And so he asks, "And who is my neighbor?"
There was a running debate as to who was one's neighbor. The lawyer might have wanted to force Jesus to take a side, and he was ready to dispute any answer Jesus gave. Or he might have asked the question because he wanted Jesus to confirm his view that the lawyer's neighbor was a fellow Pharisee. Perhaps he had qualms about making limited boundaries when his love was directed to the one God who was the God of people he did not consider his neighbors. Perhaps he wondered how it was possible to simultaneously love God and even people he didn't know?
The question, "Who is my neighbor?" was a timely one. The Pharisees excluded non-Pharisees who were not strict or careful about laws concerning purification, the Essenes (Dead Sea Sectarians) considered themselves the children of light and all others children of darkness, and the Jews excluded everyone else, particularly Samaritans. (The question, "Who is my neighbor will receive further consideration later on in this chapter.)
Jesus answered the question by telling a story about travelers on the
notorious Jericho road. Violence and robbery were commonplace. Jerome called it the "bloody way." The wise traveler made arrangements for protection, and at a later time there was a small garrison stationed there to protect travelers.
Apparently one such violent incident had recently taken place. (Perhaps it was the questioner who had failed to aid a Samaritan who lay on the road half dead.) As Jesus told the story, a Jew had been attacked and left for dead. A priest and then a Levite saw the man but did not risk their lives by stopping and offering aid. Both "passed by on the other side". Along come first a priest and then a Levite.
At this point in the story, the lawyer might have expected a Jewish layman to come to the rescue, thereby exposing the inhumanity and hypocrisy of the Jewish leadership that was critical of Jesus and enable Jesus to identify himself with the common folk who were his followers. Imagine the lawyer's surprise and shock when the hero turned out to be a hated Samaritan. Why did Jesus select a Samaritan to be the one that risked his life by stopping to bind up the Jewish traveler's wounds, pouring on oil and wine, placing him on his own beast, taking him to an inn, and leaving money for the traveler's extended care? This question will be considered a bit later.
When he ended the story, Jesus asked the lawyer a question, "Which of these three, do you think, was a neighbor to the man who fell in the hands of the robbers?" Since the lawyer had asked the question, "Who is my neighbor?" the expected question would be, "Who then is your neighbor?" But that was not the question Jesus asked. Critics have pointed out that in the lawyer's question, "neighbor" is understood in a passive sense as the one to be helped. However Jesus defined "neighbor" in an active sense as the one who offers help.
The impact of this story can be lost in three ways. The first is by an allegorizing interpretation that likens the injured man to sinful humanity whom the devil has stripped of original righteousness. In this interpretation, the priest is the Law of the Jews and the Levite is the Jewish sacrificial system. Both are powerless to help. The Samaritan is Jesus Christ who pours on the wine, the blood of his sacrifice, the oil, the anointing of the Holy Spirit, and the inn is the church where souls are saved. This interpretation wrenches the story from its context and dramatically diminishes its original impact.
The second way the impact of the story can be lost is when we do not fully sense the intense hostility that existed between the Jews and the Samaritans. The Jews despised the Samaritans and the Samaritans responded in kind. In John 8:48 Jesus' opponents slandered him by saying, "Are we not right in saying that you are a Samaritan and have a demon?" Jews avoided Samaria by going through the inconvenience of crossing the Jordan and then recrossing it to go from Galilee to Judea.
Why did this intense hostility exist?
The third way the parable would lose its impact is if we forget that this story was told to a Jewish audience. By making the Samaritan the hero, Jesus shocked his audience. In our day the force of the parable might be lost because we associate the word, Samaritans, with a kind, loving merciful, compassionate people who care for others. Consequently we identify with the Samaritans and not the Jews. It is as if Jesus was telling this story to Samaritans to further denigrate the Jews.
A. C. Forrest writes, "An American pastor in the Middle East told me once that he had often preached from this parable to American congregations, but he had never had the courage to do it in the Middle East. It was too relevant. It could be too relevant in South Africa, Northern Ireland, and many other parts of our modern world, too." 2
Hunter makes the application in South African terms with the victim the Afrikaner, the priest and Levite two ministers of the Dutch Reformed Church, and the Good Samaritan a Bantu. 3 This story could be told with similar effect to audiences in the United States composed of malpractice attorneys and doctors, Alaskan developers and environmentalists, lumbermen and ecoterrorists, right-to-life advocates and abortion doctors.
The overwhelming hostility that existed between Jew and Samaritan provides the backdrop for a further discussion of the two questions promised earlier in the chapter: "Why was the hero of the story a Samaritan?" and "Who is my neighbor?"
If Jesus wanted to make the point that anyone who needs our help is our neighbor, a Samaritan hero was not necessary. By using a Samaritan Jesus shattered the comfortable concept of the homogeneous "neighborhood". By making the Samaritan a heroic protagonist, he shattered all the carefully defined parameters that defined "neighbor" in Jewish culture. By using a Samaritan, Jesus implied that no one could be excluded from the "neighborhood". He was saying that your "neighbor" could be your worst enemy.
Using the Samaritan allows Jesus to shift the focus from the one who needs help to the one who offers help. All the audience's attention now shifts from the victim to the Samaritan. In this way Jesus demonstrates that in fulfilling the command to love one's neighbor, the "neighbor" is the one who helps rather than the one who is helped. Instead of attempting to define "neighbor", we should be more concerned about being a neighbor.
The Greek word for neighbor comes from the word "near" or "close" by. It has two meanings: it refers to the one you are close to, the object, and the one close to another, the subject. It is in this latter sense that Jesus is using the word. The command is directed to you, the subject, as neighbor who is close to another. In this parable, the implementation of the command is up to you as neighbor to others.
When Jesus asks the question, "Which of these three, do you think was neighbor to the man who fell into the hands of the robbers?" he wanted the lawyer to understand that you should not spend your time drawing up qualifications or disqualifications for those you are commanded to love. We should concern ourselves with being good neighbors, in learning how to love everyone. "Whereas he [the lawyer] was concerned with who qualified as a recipient of his love, Jesus' understanding of the great commandment was to be concerned with qualifying as a lover!" 4 The issue is not "Who is to be loved?" or "Who is my neighbor?" but rather "What does it mean for me to love?"; "What does it mean for me to be a neighbor?" Since Christian love is spontaneous, freely given, and boundless, determining who is my neighbor is not a crucial or even significant concern.
The emphasis of the commandment is not, "You shall love YOUR NEIGHBOR," but "YOU SHALL LOVE your neighbor." We should not be concerned about who our neighbor is but with being a good neighbor. If we are good neighbors, we demonstrate genuine love. Genuine love sets no boundaries on our "neighborhood". If we concentrate on neighbor as object and delimit its meaning, it weakens and emasculates the meaning of love.
The lawyer's question demonstrated that he did not understand the commandment, did not understand the meaning of love, and, therefore, did not understand the meaning of neighbor. That is why Jesus does not answer his question, "Who is my neighbor?" but rather asks the real question, "Who is the neighbor?"
The context of the lawyer's question must not be forgotten. He asked, "What must I do to have eternal life?" In a world where hate dominates, and barriers are raised on every hand, where the meaning of neighbor has been contracted to mean our kind, our friends, our ethnic group, we as Christians must show the world that love has no boundaries or limits. This parable reminds us that the world is our neighborhood.
1. Stein, pp. 76-77.
2. A. C. Forrest, The Parables of Jesus (Belfast, Dublin, Ottawa: Christian Journals Ltd., 1079), p. 111.
3. Hunter, p. 111.
4. Steiin, p. 74.
Luke 10:25-37
A lawyer came to Jesus and asked the question, "What must I do to inherit eternal life?" Typically when Jesus was asked a question, he asked a question in return. "What is written in the law? What do you read there?" The lawyer's answer was a surprising one for someone well acquainted with the myriad rules and regulations of Jewish law. "You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your strength, and with all your mind, and your neighbor as yourself." In Mark 12:28-34 Jesus had summarized the law in the same way. Jesus answered, "You have given the right answer; do this, and you will live."
The lawyer seems to have expected just such an answer. He was really more interested in the answer to his next question. (This question seems to imply that he already knew how to love God.) And so he asks, "And who is my neighbor?"
There was a running debate as to who was one's neighbor. The lawyer might have wanted to force Jesus to take a side, and he was ready to dispute any answer Jesus gave. Or he might have asked the question because he wanted Jesus to confirm his view that the lawyer's neighbor was a fellow Pharisee. Perhaps he had qualms about making limited boundaries when his love was directed to the one God who was the God of people he did not consider his neighbors. Perhaps he wondered how it was possible to simultaneously love God and even people he didn't know?
The question, "Who is my neighbor?" was a timely one. The Pharisees excluded non-Pharisees who were not strict or careful about laws concerning purification, the Essenes (Dead Sea Sectarians) considered themselves the children of light and all others children of darkness, and the Jews excluded everyone else, particularly Samaritans. (The question, "Who is my neighbor will receive further consideration later on in this chapter.)
Jesus answered the question by telling a story about travelers on the
notorious Jericho road. Violence and robbery were commonplace. Jerome called it the "bloody way." The wise traveler made arrangements for protection, and at a later time there was a small garrison stationed there to protect travelers.
Apparently one such violent incident had recently taken place. (Perhaps it was the questioner who had failed to aid a Samaritan who lay on the road half dead.) As Jesus told the story, a Jew had been attacked and left for dead. A priest and then a Levite saw the man but did not risk their lives by stopping and offering aid. Both "passed by on the other side". Along come first a priest and then a Levite.
At this point in the story, the lawyer might have expected a Jewish layman to come to the rescue, thereby exposing the inhumanity and hypocrisy of the Jewish leadership that was critical of Jesus and enable Jesus to identify himself with the common folk who were his followers. Imagine the lawyer's surprise and shock when the hero turned out to be a hated Samaritan. Why did Jesus select a Samaritan to be the one that risked his life by stopping to bind up the Jewish traveler's wounds, pouring on oil and wine, placing him on his own beast, taking him to an inn, and leaving money for the traveler's extended care? This question will be considered a bit later.
When he ended the story, Jesus asked the lawyer a question, "Which of these three, do you think, was a neighbor to the man who fell in the hands of the robbers?" Since the lawyer had asked the question, "Who is my neighbor?" the expected question would be, "Who then is your neighbor?" But that was not the question Jesus asked. Critics have pointed out that in the lawyer's question, "neighbor" is understood in a passive sense as the one to be helped. However Jesus defined "neighbor" in an active sense as the one who offers help.
The impact of this story can be lost in three ways. The first is by an allegorizing interpretation that likens the injured man to sinful humanity whom the devil has stripped of original righteousness. In this interpretation, the priest is the Law of the Jews and the Levite is the Jewish sacrificial system. Both are powerless to help. The Samaritan is Jesus Christ who pours on the wine, the blood of his sacrifice, the oil, the anointing of the Holy Spirit, and the inn is the church where souls are saved. This interpretation wrenches the story from its context and dramatically diminishes its original impact.
The second way the impact of the story can be lost is when we do not fully sense the intense hostility that existed between the Jews and the Samaritans. The Jews despised the Samaritans and the Samaritans responded in kind. In John 8:48 Jesus' opponents slandered him by saying, "Are we not right in saying that you are a Samaritan and have a demon?" Jews avoided Samaria by going through the inconvenience of crossing the Jordan and then recrossing it to go from Galilee to Judea.
Why did this intense hostility exist?
- After the defeat by Assyria, 8th century BC, the few Israelites who remained in Samaria intermarried with Gentiles and were considered half-breeds.
- After the Jews returned from captivity, the Samaritans offered to help in rebuilding the temple, but their offer of help was rejected. As a result the Samaritans did all they could to undermine the Jews in this effort.
- The Samaritans then built their own temple on Mt. Gerizim, but John Hyrcanus, a Jewish leader, destroyed this temple in 128 BC.
- Sometime between AD six and nine at midnight during Passover, certain Samaritans scattered the bones of dead men throughout the court of the Temple and defiled it. 1
The third way the parable would lose its impact is if we forget that this story was told to a Jewish audience. By making the Samaritan the hero, Jesus shocked his audience. In our day the force of the parable might be lost because we associate the word, Samaritans, with a kind, loving merciful, compassionate people who care for others. Consequently we identify with the Samaritans and not the Jews. It is as if Jesus was telling this story to Samaritans to further denigrate the Jews.
A. C. Forrest writes, "An American pastor in the Middle East told me once that he had often preached from this parable to American congregations, but he had never had the courage to do it in the Middle East. It was too relevant. It could be too relevant in South Africa, Northern Ireland, and many other parts of our modern world, too." 2
Hunter makes the application in South African terms with the victim the Afrikaner, the priest and Levite two ministers of the Dutch Reformed Church, and the Good Samaritan a Bantu. 3 This story could be told with similar effect to audiences in the United States composed of malpractice attorneys and doctors, Alaskan developers and environmentalists, lumbermen and ecoterrorists, right-to-life advocates and abortion doctors.
The overwhelming hostility that existed between Jew and Samaritan provides the backdrop for a further discussion of the two questions promised earlier in the chapter: "Why was the hero of the story a Samaritan?" and "Who is my neighbor?"
If Jesus wanted to make the point that anyone who needs our help is our neighbor, a Samaritan hero was not necessary. By using a Samaritan Jesus shattered the comfortable concept of the homogeneous "neighborhood". By making the Samaritan a heroic protagonist, he shattered all the carefully defined parameters that defined "neighbor" in Jewish culture. By using a Samaritan, Jesus implied that no one could be excluded from the "neighborhood". He was saying that your "neighbor" could be your worst enemy.
Using the Samaritan allows Jesus to shift the focus from the one who needs help to the one who offers help. All the audience's attention now shifts from the victim to the Samaritan. In this way Jesus demonstrates that in fulfilling the command to love one's neighbor, the "neighbor" is the one who helps rather than the one who is helped. Instead of attempting to define "neighbor", we should be more concerned about being a neighbor.
The Greek word for neighbor comes from the word "near" or "close" by. It has two meanings: it refers to the one you are close to, the object, and the one close to another, the subject. It is in this latter sense that Jesus is using the word. The command is directed to you, the subject, as neighbor who is close to another. In this parable, the implementation of the command is up to you as neighbor to others.
When Jesus asks the question, "Which of these three, do you think was neighbor to the man who fell into the hands of the robbers?" he wanted the lawyer to understand that you should not spend your time drawing up qualifications or disqualifications for those you are commanded to love. We should concern ourselves with being good neighbors, in learning how to love everyone. "Whereas he [the lawyer] was concerned with who qualified as a recipient of his love, Jesus' understanding of the great commandment was to be concerned with qualifying as a lover!" 4 The issue is not "Who is to be loved?" or "Who is my neighbor?" but rather "What does it mean for me to love?"; "What does it mean for me to be a neighbor?" Since Christian love is spontaneous, freely given, and boundless, determining who is my neighbor is not a crucial or even significant concern.
The emphasis of the commandment is not, "You shall love YOUR NEIGHBOR," but "YOU SHALL LOVE your neighbor." We should not be concerned about who our neighbor is but with being a good neighbor. If we are good neighbors, we demonstrate genuine love. Genuine love sets no boundaries on our "neighborhood". If we concentrate on neighbor as object and delimit its meaning, it weakens and emasculates the meaning of love.
The lawyer's question demonstrated that he did not understand the commandment, did not understand the meaning of love, and, therefore, did not understand the meaning of neighbor. That is why Jesus does not answer his question, "Who is my neighbor?" but rather asks the real question, "Who is the neighbor?"
The context of the lawyer's question must not be forgotten. He asked, "What must I do to have eternal life?" In a world where hate dominates, and barriers are raised on every hand, where the meaning of neighbor has been contracted to mean our kind, our friends, our ethnic group, we as Christians must show the world that love has no boundaries or limits. This parable reminds us that the world is our neighborhood.
1. Stein, pp. 76-77.
2. A. C. Forrest, The Parables of Jesus (Belfast, Dublin, Ottawa: Christian Journals Ltd., 1079), p. 111.
3. Hunter, p. 111.
4. Steiin, p. 74.
The Two Debtors
CHAPTER 16
Luke 7:36-50
The setting was an oriental banquet. Simon the Pharisee had invited Jesus home for dinner because Jesus was a prophet. Perhaps he had heard him preach in the local synagogue. In those days prophets were rare in Judea. Ever since the days of Ezra, they had not had a real prophet except perhaps for John the Baptist. But this man was greater than John even by John's own admission. Simon was smiling and happy as he introduced his friends to his celebrity guest. They seemed to be duly impressed.
It was time to dine. They reclined at low tables, legs and feet extended beside them. Jesus reclined near Simon as the guest of honor. Onlookers milled about who were not guests. This was not unusual. When the time came to eat, Simon looked about with satisfaction at his admiring friends and especially the prophet, Jesus Christ. Everything seemed to be going on so smoothly. Simon anticipated a lovely evening.
Then someone caught his attention. He recognized her immediately as a sinner. She was probably a prostitute or a woman married to a man engaged in a dishonorable occupation. What was she doing at his party?
He reasoned, "She's just passing through like the rest of the strangers. Just woman's curiosity. She'll be gone in a minute. She's coming my way. What is she up to? She probably just wants to get a good look at the food. She'll be gone in a minute. Now she's stopped right at the feet of my honored guest! I'll call my servants and have them move her out before she becomes an embarrassment!
"Wait a minute. I wonder what Jesus' reaction will be. If he's really a prophet he'll know what kind of a woman she is and he'll get rid of her. I'll wait awhile and see what happens. I don't think any of my guests have seen her yet. I know some of them know her.
"Oh my, she's beginning to cry. Her tears are falling on Jesus' feet. This is beyond embarrassment! Jesus must feel those tears and yet he's not saying or doing anything. He must not be a prophet. A prophet would surely know who she was. Look at what she's doing! She's loosening her hair and letting it down in public, and she's doing it in my party! Now she's wiping his feet with her hair. Unbelievable.
"Jesus is smiling at her. He's definitely not a prophet. What's that smell? She's poured a jar of ointment on his feet. Unbelievable! Everyone smells the ointment! Everybody's staring! They've stopped talking!
"Nobody's going to say anything now, though after their bellies are full and the evening is over, it will be the talk of the town. Jesus doesn't seem to mind. He's accommodating her in fact. Now everybody's looking at me. I'll act as if nothing unusual is going on. It's not the first time I've been made a fool of."
Simon had not said a word. These were only his thoughts. But just as he concluded that Jesus was not a prophet, Jesus turned to him and said, "Simon, I have something to say to you." "What is it, Teacher?" he answered with less respect than he would have earlier. "A certain lender had two debtors; one owed five hundred denarii, and the other fifty. When they could not pay, he canceled the debts for both of them. Now which of them will love him more?" Simon answered cautiously, "I suppose the one to whom he canceled the greater debt." And Jesus said to him, "You have judged rightly." Simon was relieved he gave the right answer but wondered what it was all about.
Simon thought Jesus did not know the woman. But Jesus knew her far better than Simon knew her. He had in fact brought her great deliverance from a sinful life. She had been forgiven much. Because of that she had come with her jar of ointment to anoint Jesus. But standing at his feet, grateful for what Jesus had done for her, she could not keep back her tears of joy. She did not mean for her tears to wet Jesus' feet. She was shocked that this had happened and so, forgetting herself, she loosened her hair to wipe away her tears. This was an act that respectable women only did in private, but her love for Jesus made her forget about herself. She had brought the ointment to anoint his head. Now she poured it on his feet. In her gratitude she began to kiss his feet. Kissing someone's feet was another astonishing gesture of gratitude, an extraordinary demonstration of love and appreciation. And that was exactly what it was. This woman loved much because she had been forgiven much.
Simon ponders the parable. "What is Jesus telling me? Obviously Jesus has forgiven the woman a great sin and she is grateful. But is he implying that there is something wrong with me because some prostitute isn't washing my feet with her hair? That's ridiculous! I've paid my tithes of mint, dill and cummin. I fast twice a week. I wash my hands ceremonially before I eat."
If Simon were living today, he might be saying, "I go to Sabbath School and church every Sabbath. I pay my tithes and offerings faithfully. I send my children to the church school."
Simon continues: "Anyway, he's not accusing me of anything. It would be rude to even suggest that I need forgiveness. It's just an attempt to excuse the inexcusable-just another story from the mouth of a charlatan."
But then Jesus pointed to the woman and said, "Do you see this woman? When I entered your house, you gave me no water for my feet [a common courtesy and ordinary kindness or a towel to wipe them], but she has bathed my feet with her tears and dried them with her hair. You gave me no kiss [on the cheek], but from the time I came in she has not stopped kissing my feet. You did not anoint my head with oil, but she has anointed my feet with ointment. Therefore I tell you, her sins, which were many, have been forgiven; that's why she has shown great love. But the one to whom little is forgiven, loves little."
Jesus reprimands Simon for hypocritical behavior that is so lacking in love that it demeans an honored guest and is critical of a loving act.
It is obviously true that a person who is forgiven much does not always love his benefactor. Jesus' comment should be understood as a proverb or wise saying that contains a probable truth. Jesus healed ten lepers, but only one came back to thank him. Neither is Jesus is saying that the woman is a worse sinner than Simon. He said to the Pharisees in Mathew 21:31 that "the tax collectors and the harlots go into the kingdom of God before you."
What Jesus was saying is that the woman realized more truly and genuinely the reality of her sin. She had a greater debt not because she was a greater sinner than Simon but because she had a greater sense of her sinfulness. The lesson Jesus draws is that the sinner who has a realization of the heinousness of sin will love much when forgiven. Simon, because he has no sense of his own sins, cannot understand the joy and thankfulness that comes with forgiveness.
The only cure for Simon's type of indifference is the recognition that forgiveness and salvation are God's gifts. Paul was stoned, imprisoned, beaten, whipped, and suffered countless dangers and ignominy serving the Lord who loved him. Paul loved much because he knew he had been forgiven much.
A.J. Cronin's son who was studying medicine at McGill University told him the story of a patient whose life was saved by a blood transfusion. Later the patient asked: "Isn't there any way I can discover the name of the donor and thank him?" He was told that names were never divulged. After the discharge, this patient returned again and again to donate blood. When someone commended him for his splendid record of anonymous service, he answered simply, "Someone I never knew did it for me. I'm just saying `thanks.'" 1
Jesus' life was poured out to deliver us from the depths of sin and bondage. He gave us a blood transfusion that saved our lives. How are we saying thanks?
1. A. J. Cronin, "The Grace of Gratitude," Reader's Digest, March 1953, p. 68.
Luke 7:36-50
The setting was an oriental banquet. Simon the Pharisee had invited Jesus home for dinner because Jesus was a prophet. Perhaps he had heard him preach in the local synagogue. In those days prophets were rare in Judea. Ever since the days of Ezra, they had not had a real prophet except perhaps for John the Baptist. But this man was greater than John even by John's own admission. Simon was smiling and happy as he introduced his friends to his celebrity guest. They seemed to be duly impressed.
It was time to dine. They reclined at low tables, legs and feet extended beside them. Jesus reclined near Simon as the guest of honor. Onlookers milled about who were not guests. This was not unusual. When the time came to eat, Simon looked about with satisfaction at his admiring friends and especially the prophet, Jesus Christ. Everything seemed to be going on so smoothly. Simon anticipated a lovely evening.
Then someone caught his attention. He recognized her immediately as a sinner. She was probably a prostitute or a woman married to a man engaged in a dishonorable occupation. What was she doing at his party?
He reasoned, "She's just passing through like the rest of the strangers. Just woman's curiosity. She'll be gone in a minute. She's coming my way. What is she up to? She probably just wants to get a good look at the food. She'll be gone in a minute. Now she's stopped right at the feet of my honored guest! I'll call my servants and have them move her out before she becomes an embarrassment!
"Wait a minute. I wonder what Jesus' reaction will be. If he's really a prophet he'll know what kind of a woman she is and he'll get rid of her. I'll wait awhile and see what happens. I don't think any of my guests have seen her yet. I know some of them know her.
"Oh my, she's beginning to cry. Her tears are falling on Jesus' feet. This is beyond embarrassment! Jesus must feel those tears and yet he's not saying or doing anything. He must not be a prophet. A prophet would surely know who she was. Look at what she's doing! She's loosening her hair and letting it down in public, and she's doing it in my party! Now she's wiping his feet with her hair. Unbelievable.
"Jesus is smiling at her. He's definitely not a prophet. What's that smell? She's poured a jar of ointment on his feet. Unbelievable! Everyone smells the ointment! Everybody's staring! They've stopped talking!
"Nobody's going to say anything now, though after their bellies are full and the evening is over, it will be the talk of the town. Jesus doesn't seem to mind. He's accommodating her in fact. Now everybody's looking at me. I'll act as if nothing unusual is going on. It's not the first time I've been made a fool of."
Simon had not said a word. These were only his thoughts. But just as he concluded that Jesus was not a prophet, Jesus turned to him and said, "Simon, I have something to say to you." "What is it, Teacher?" he answered with less respect than he would have earlier. "A certain lender had two debtors; one owed five hundred denarii, and the other fifty. When they could not pay, he canceled the debts for both of them. Now which of them will love him more?" Simon answered cautiously, "I suppose the one to whom he canceled the greater debt." And Jesus said to him, "You have judged rightly." Simon was relieved he gave the right answer but wondered what it was all about.
Simon thought Jesus did not know the woman. But Jesus knew her far better than Simon knew her. He had in fact brought her great deliverance from a sinful life. She had been forgiven much. Because of that she had come with her jar of ointment to anoint Jesus. But standing at his feet, grateful for what Jesus had done for her, she could not keep back her tears of joy. She did not mean for her tears to wet Jesus' feet. She was shocked that this had happened and so, forgetting herself, she loosened her hair to wipe away her tears. This was an act that respectable women only did in private, but her love for Jesus made her forget about herself. She had brought the ointment to anoint his head. Now she poured it on his feet. In her gratitude she began to kiss his feet. Kissing someone's feet was another astonishing gesture of gratitude, an extraordinary demonstration of love and appreciation. And that was exactly what it was. This woman loved much because she had been forgiven much.
Simon ponders the parable. "What is Jesus telling me? Obviously Jesus has forgiven the woman a great sin and she is grateful. But is he implying that there is something wrong with me because some prostitute isn't washing my feet with her hair? That's ridiculous! I've paid my tithes of mint, dill and cummin. I fast twice a week. I wash my hands ceremonially before I eat."
If Simon were living today, he might be saying, "I go to Sabbath School and church every Sabbath. I pay my tithes and offerings faithfully. I send my children to the church school."
Simon continues: "Anyway, he's not accusing me of anything. It would be rude to even suggest that I need forgiveness. It's just an attempt to excuse the inexcusable-just another story from the mouth of a charlatan."
But then Jesus pointed to the woman and said, "Do you see this woman? When I entered your house, you gave me no water for my feet [a common courtesy and ordinary kindness or a towel to wipe them], but she has bathed my feet with her tears and dried them with her hair. You gave me no kiss [on the cheek], but from the time I came in she has not stopped kissing my feet. You did not anoint my head with oil, but she has anointed my feet with ointment. Therefore I tell you, her sins, which were many, have been forgiven; that's why she has shown great love. But the one to whom little is forgiven, loves little."
Jesus reprimands Simon for hypocritical behavior that is so lacking in love that it demeans an honored guest and is critical of a loving act.
It is obviously true that a person who is forgiven much does not always love his benefactor. Jesus' comment should be understood as a proverb or wise saying that contains a probable truth. Jesus healed ten lepers, but only one came back to thank him. Neither is Jesus is saying that the woman is a worse sinner than Simon. He said to the Pharisees in Mathew 21:31 that "the tax collectors and the harlots go into the kingdom of God before you."
What Jesus was saying is that the woman realized more truly and genuinely the reality of her sin. She had a greater debt not because she was a greater sinner than Simon but because she had a greater sense of her sinfulness. The lesson Jesus draws is that the sinner who has a realization of the heinousness of sin will love much when forgiven. Simon, because he has no sense of his own sins, cannot understand the joy and thankfulness that comes with forgiveness.
The only cure for Simon's type of indifference is the recognition that forgiveness and salvation are God's gifts. Paul was stoned, imprisoned, beaten, whipped, and suffered countless dangers and ignominy serving the Lord who loved him. Paul loved much because he knew he had been forgiven much.
A.J. Cronin's son who was studying medicine at McGill University told him the story of a patient whose life was saved by a blood transfusion. Later the patient asked: "Isn't there any way I can discover the name of the donor and thank him?" He was told that names were never divulged. After the discharge, this patient returned again and again to donate blood. When someone commended him for his splendid record of anonymous service, he answered simply, "Someone I never knew did it for me. I'm just saying `thanks.'" 1
Jesus' life was poured out to deliver us from the depths of sin and bondage. He gave us a blood transfusion that saved our lives. How are we saying thanks?
1. A. J. Cronin, "The Grace of Gratitude," Reader's Digest, March 1953, p. 68.
The Unmerciful Servant
CHAPTER 15
Matthew 18:21-35
A thousand years ago, Tsar Samuel ruled the Bulgarian Empire. His archenemy was Basil II, the Byzantine emperor. For decades they had fought without either side winning a decisive victory until Samuel set a trap for Basil in a gorge along the river Struma. Basil eluded the trap and captured Samuel's entire army. He then taught the tsar a lesson in Byzantine revenge.
Basil blinded the eyes of all but 150 of the 15,000 captured soldiers. He then blinded one of the eyes of the remaining soldiers so that they could lead their blind compatriots back to the Bulgarian Empire. A horrified Samuel watched the return of his once proud army, eye sockets vacant, shuffling, stumbling, clutching one another, each hundred led by a one-eyed soldier. The sight killed him, and his empire came to an end. Needless to say the Bulgarians never forgot the cruelty of Basil the Bulgar slayer.1
While only a tiny minority of humanity would stoop to such a horrific act of revenge, revenge is an immediate instinctive reaction when human beings are hurt or humiliated. Even though we recognize that everyone makes mistakes, and we wish to be forgiven for our own foibles, it is difficult to maintain a forgiving attitude when we believe ourselves to be harmed by the behavior of others.
The problem of forgiveness is dealt with in Matthew 18:21-35. The occasion for the parable was Peter's question. "Lord, if one of your followers sins against me, how often should I forgive?" He goes on to suggest what he believes to be a generous answer, "As many as seven times?" Peter was sure that the Lord would be pleased and would commend him for his generous answer.
But Jesus does not commend him. Instead he gives an answer that must have swept Peter off his feet. "Not seven times, but, I tell you, seventy-seven times". (The literal meaning is "seventy-seven times" but it might also be a shortened form of "seventy times seven times.") If the answer is seventy-seven, it might be an allusion to the story of Lamech in Genesis 4:24: "If Cain is avenged sevenfold, truly Lamech seventy-seven fold." Peter sensed soon enough that Jesus did not mean any specific number since he recognized that Jesus' answer was predicated upon the answer he gave. In other words, if Peter had said nine times, Jesus would have answered ninety-times nine. Jesus was simply using the figures Peter offered. He meant a limitless number.
In asking this question, Peter revealed that he did not really understand Christ's definition of forgiveness. Peter believed that forgiveness was a matter of intellectual mathematics. Christ's answer implied that every sin should be regarded as a "first sin". He meant that every time someone sins against us, it was to be forgiven as if it were that person's first sin.
Peter did not realize that it is a matter of the heart not mathematics. Forgiveness is not simply a matter of forgetting until another sin was committed but forgetting completely. True forgiveness means just that.
In order to help Peter really see what he meant, Jesus told him the parable of the unforgiving servant. This follows on the heel of Jesus' answer to Peter in Mathew 18:23-35. The parable concerns a king and two of his slaves. The first owed him 10,000 talents. Now this is a fabulous, incredible amount. The NRSV says a talent, the equivalent of 10,000 denarii, represented more than fifteen years' wages of a laborer. If that were the case the slave would have to work for 150,000 years to repay what he owed. Jeremias contends that both talent and 10,000 are the highest magnitudes in use, i.e., the talent was the largest currency unit in the Near East and 10,000 the highest number used in reckoning. 2 The amount was deliberately chosen by Jesus to indicate an amount that the slave could never hope to repay.
Since the slave cannot pay, the lord proposes to sell the slave and his family. But since a slave's value was between 500 and 2000 denarii, the sale of the family even with ten children would not come anywhere close to the 100 million denarii debt. 3 The slave begs for time and claims that he will repay the amount. The king, knowing that the slave cannot pay back this amount, forgives him the entire debt.
Jesus is telling Peter, "You' are like the slave. You owe God so great a debt that you cannot repay it no matter how much time you're given. But God, unlike the king, is forgiveness personified and has already forgiven you what is owed. You are already free."
The first slave who had just been forgiven a debt that would take 150,000 years to repay goes to his fellow slave and demands that he pay back his debt to him. This slave's debt was one hundred denarii, a debt equivalent to 100 days of labor. (This would be 1/1500 of the first slave's debt to the king.) The first slave takes his debtor by the throat and demands immediate payment. The second slave, like the first, falls on his knees and begs for time. The first slave refuses and throws his debtor into prison. When the king was made aware of the contemptible behavior of the first slave, the king "turned him over to the jailers to be tortured, until he should pay back all he owed."
While the parable warns of the emotional and physical consequences that may follow a refusal to forgive, Jesus' answer to Peter's question is clear. We should forgive our fellow sinners their sins since God graciously forgives even the sins of men as wicked and deserving of harsh treatment as the first slave.
We need this forgiving spirit in the church today. Church quarrels are like family quarrels in that members expect to be treated with kindness and consideration. Consequently, harsh words and criticism are difficult to forgive. Wilkinson Barton tells the story of the Ward brothers of Contoocook, N.H., who lived in the same house who had got into a dispute. For twenty years they did not talk to each other. In fact they built a wall right down the middle of their house. One side contained the kitchen and the other the bathroom. Even though it was the most inconvenient arrangement possible, they refused forgive each other and be reconciled. 4
Robert Louis Stevenson writes about two spinsters who lived without the spirit of forgiveness in Edinburgh, Scotland. They had just one room and one bed. Their "wall of separation" was a chalk line right down the middle of the room. They slept in the same bed and they could hear the other breathing, but they refused to speak to each other. 5
What if the offense is so repulsive that only God's grace can make forgiveness possible? On January 14, 1978, in the South Bend Tribune there was the story of the parents of a girl who had been brutally murdered who planned to visit the murderer in prison to offer him forgiveness. Bob and Golden Bristol drove from Dearborn, Michigan to San Luis Obispo, California, to forgive Michael Keeyes. In 1973 Judge Ross Tharp had called him a "cunning, calculating and callous--the most vicious killer I have encountered in my career." Diane Bristol, 20, had been selling encyclopedias door to door when she was found raped and strangled in San Diego's North Park area in 1970.
We have difficulty forgiving others when we ask Peter's question. He put himself in center stage and was concerned about what others had done to him. Instead of asking how much and how often others sin against us, we need to ask how much and how often we have sinned against God. If we ask this question, we would not need to ask the other for we will know that if God forgives our many and great sins, we ought to forgive others their relatively few and petty sins against us. He was primarily concerned about the mechanics of how and when to forgive others, rather than focusing on his own need to forgive and be forgiven "seventy times seven".
Jesus never just taught his principles in words; he lived them. His words on the cross are our reassurance and ultimate example. "Father, forgive them for they know not what they do."
1. Merle Severy, "The Byzantine Empire: Rome of the East," National Geographic, December 1983m p. 734.
2. Jeremias, p. 210.
3. Ibid., p. 211.
4. Wilkinson Barton, "Do You Suffer from the 'Druthers'? Reader's Digest, May 1960, pp. 131-132.
5. Robert Louis Stevenson, Edinburgh: Picturesque Notes, quoted in James Robertson, ed., Handbook of Preaching Resources from English Literature.
Matthew 18:21-35
A thousand years ago, Tsar Samuel ruled the Bulgarian Empire. His archenemy was Basil II, the Byzantine emperor. For decades they had fought without either side winning a decisive victory until Samuel set a trap for Basil in a gorge along the river Struma. Basil eluded the trap and captured Samuel's entire army. He then taught the tsar a lesson in Byzantine revenge.
Basil blinded the eyes of all but 150 of the 15,000 captured soldiers. He then blinded one of the eyes of the remaining soldiers so that they could lead their blind compatriots back to the Bulgarian Empire. A horrified Samuel watched the return of his once proud army, eye sockets vacant, shuffling, stumbling, clutching one another, each hundred led by a one-eyed soldier. The sight killed him, and his empire came to an end. Needless to say the Bulgarians never forgot the cruelty of Basil the Bulgar slayer.1
While only a tiny minority of humanity would stoop to such a horrific act of revenge, revenge is an immediate instinctive reaction when human beings are hurt or humiliated. Even though we recognize that everyone makes mistakes, and we wish to be forgiven for our own foibles, it is difficult to maintain a forgiving attitude when we believe ourselves to be harmed by the behavior of others.
The problem of forgiveness is dealt with in Matthew 18:21-35. The occasion for the parable was Peter's question. "Lord, if one of your followers sins against me, how often should I forgive?" He goes on to suggest what he believes to be a generous answer, "As many as seven times?" Peter was sure that the Lord would be pleased and would commend him for his generous answer.
But Jesus does not commend him. Instead he gives an answer that must have swept Peter off his feet. "Not seven times, but, I tell you, seventy-seven times". (The literal meaning is "seventy-seven times" but it might also be a shortened form of "seventy times seven times.") If the answer is seventy-seven, it might be an allusion to the story of Lamech in Genesis 4:24: "If Cain is avenged sevenfold, truly Lamech seventy-seven fold." Peter sensed soon enough that Jesus did not mean any specific number since he recognized that Jesus' answer was predicated upon the answer he gave. In other words, if Peter had said nine times, Jesus would have answered ninety-times nine. Jesus was simply using the figures Peter offered. He meant a limitless number.
In asking this question, Peter revealed that he did not really understand Christ's definition of forgiveness. Peter believed that forgiveness was a matter of intellectual mathematics. Christ's answer implied that every sin should be regarded as a "first sin". He meant that every time someone sins against us, it was to be forgiven as if it were that person's first sin.
Peter did not realize that it is a matter of the heart not mathematics. Forgiveness is not simply a matter of forgetting until another sin was committed but forgetting completely. True forgiveness means just that.
In order to help Peter really see what he meant, Jesus told him the parable of the unforgiving servant. This follows on the heel of Jesus' answer to Peter in Mathew 18:23-35. The parable concerns a king and two of his slaves. The first owed him 10,000 talents. Now this is a fabulous, incredible amount. The NRSV says a talent, the equivalent of 10,000 denarii, represented more than fifteen years' wages of a laborer. If that were the case the slave would have to work for 150,000 years to repay what he owed. Jeremias contends that both talent and 10,000 are the highest magnitudes in use, i.e., the talent was the largest currency unit in the Near East and 10,000 the highest number used in reckoning. 2 The amount was deliberately chosen by Jesus to indicate an amount that the slave could never hope to repay.
Since the slave cannot pay, the lord proposes to sell the slave and his family. But since a slave's value was between 500 and 2000 denarii, the sale of the family even with ten children would not come anywhere close to the 100 million denarii debt. 3 The slave begs for time and claims that he will repay the amount. The king, knowing that the slave cannot pay back this amount, forgives him the entire debt.
Jesus is telling Peter, "You' are like the slave. You owe God so great a debt that you cannot repay it no matter how much time you're given. But God, unlike the king, is forgiveness personified and has already forgiven you what is owed. You are already free."
The first slave who had just been forgiven a debt that would take 150,000 years to repay goes to his fellow slave and demands that he pay back his debt to him. This slave's debt was one hundred denarii, a debt equivalent to 100 days of labor. (This would be 1/1500 of the first slave's debt to the king.) The first slave takes his debtor by the throat and demands immediate payment. The second slave, like the first, falls on his knees and begs for time. The first slave refuses and throws his debtor into prison. When the king was made aware of the contemptible behavior of the first slave, the king "turned him over to the jailers to be tortured, until he should pay back all he owed."
While the parable warns of the emotional and physical consequences that may follow a refusal to forgive, Jesus' answer to Peter's question is clear. We should forgive our fellow sinners their sins since God graciously forgives even the sins of men as wicked and deserving of harsh treatment as the first slave.
We need this forgiving spirit in the church today. Church quarrels are like family quarrels in that members expect to be treated with kindness and consideration. Consequently, harsh words and criticism are difficult to forgive. Wilkinson Barton tells the story of the Ward brothers of Contoocook, N.H., who lived in the same house who had got into a dispute. For twenty years they did not talk to each other. In fact they built a wall right down the middle of their house. One side contained the kitchen and the other the bathroom. Even though it was the most inconvenient arrangement possible, they refused forgive each other and be reconciled. 4
Robert Louis Stevenson writes about two spinsters who lived without the spirit of forgiveness in Edinburgh, Scotland. They had just one room and one bed. Their "wall of separation" was a chalk line right down the middle of the room. They slept in the same bed and they could hear the other breathing, but they refused to speak to each other. 5
What if the offense is so repulsive that only God's grace can make forgiveness possible? On January 14, 1978, in the South Bend Tribune there was the story of the parents of a girl who had been brutally murdered who planned to visit the murderer in prison to offer him forgiveness. Bob and Golden Bristol drove from Dearborn, Michigan to San Luis Obispo, California, to forgive Michael Keeyes. In 1973 Judge Ross Tharp had called him a "cunning, calculating and callous--the most vicious killer I have encountered in my career." Diane Bristol, 20, had been selling encyclopedias door to door when she was found raped and strangled in San Diego's North Park area in 1970.
We have difficulty forgiving others when we ask Peter's question. He put himself in center stage and was concerned about what others had done to him. Instead of asking how much and how often others sin against us, we need to ask how much and how often we have sinned against God. If we ask this question, we would not need to ask the other for we will know that if God forgives our many and great sins, we ought to forgive others their relatively few and petty sins against us. He was primarily concerned about the mechanics of how and when to forgive others, rather than focusing on his own need to forgive and be forgiven "seventy times seven".
Jesus never just taught his principles in words; he lived them. His words on the cross are our reassurance and ultimate example. "Father, forgive them for they know not what they do."
1. Merle Severy, "The Byzantine Empire: Rome of the East," National Geographic, December 1983m p. 734.
2. Jeremias, p. 210.
3. Ibid., p. 211.
4. Wilkinson Barton, "Do You Suffer from the 'Druthers'? Reader's Digest, May 1960, pp. 131-132.
5. Robert Louis Stevenson, Edinburgh: Picturesque Notes, quoted in James Robertson, ed., Handbook of Preaching Resources from English Literature.
The Unprofitable Slave and the Gracious Master
CHAPTER 14
Luke 17:7-10; Mathew 20:1-16
It is fortunate that Luke 17:7-10 is not the only parable that Jesus related concerning God's relationship to his servants. If this were the case, it would give us a distorted picture of God. The parable does, however, provide a vital truth.
Jesus begins this parable as he often does by asking his audience to agree with him.1 "Who among you would say to your bondservant who has just come in from plowing or tending sheep in the field, `Come here at once and take your place at the table'? Would you not rather say to him, `Prepare supper for me, put on your apron and serve me while I eat and drink; later you may eat and drink'? Do you thank the bondservant for doing what was commanded?"
Jesus rightly assumes that his listeners would answer the last question in the negative. A bondservant's obligation is to serve the master, not the master the servant, even though the servant has worked all day and is tired and hungry. A master doesn't say to a servant, "Supper is ready. Come, take your place at the table." The servant must prepare supper for his master before he eats. He should expect no commendation for this. He is a servant, and this behavior is expected of him.
One should not conclude from this story that the Master is an unjust or evil man. In this case, his bondservant has simply been asked to do what he is obligated to do, and consequently deserves no special thanks or reward.
This parable is given in answer to the disciples' request to have their faith increased (Luke 17: 5-6), and deals with the emotional context of service. Should we as God's servants judge our worth by the rewards we receive? In other words, should we believe ourselves to be judged "useless" in our Christian service if we haven't "earned" special treatment? The bondservant in this parable performs necessary, even vital service for his master, and it wouldn't occur to him that his work was without value because he received no special commendation.
The disciples had left their nets, their boats, their families, their livelihood to follow Jesus, and they were looking for some kind of reward that to them would indicate that their sacrifices were commendable. This seems to have been Peter's attitude when he asked, "Look, we have left everything and followed you. What then will we have?" (Mathew 19:27)
Christians that have made special sacrifices for their faith often look for signs-good health, security, well-being of family members-that indicate God had judged their service praiseworthy, thereby validating their many years of sacrifice and service. Jesus' promise of "treasure in heaven" or that "everyone who has left houses or brothers or sisters or father or mother, or children or fields, for my name's sake . . . will inherit eternal life," (Matt 19:29) somehow isn't enough.
Peter's question revealed that he was still influenced by the Pharisaic understanding of merits. The accumulation of merits took place when one fulfilled the legal precepts; "for example, every individual act of Sabbath observance, every time the phylacteries were put on . . . every act of charity, every prayer, every fast . . . were so many Mitzvoth to a man's credit." 2 In this case, Peter was claiming a reward in the here-and-now for the disciples' good deeds.
It was this spirit that Jesus wanted to counteract when he told the parable of the gracious master in Mathew 20:1-16. In this parable, the master hired workers at the beginning of the day for a denarius a day and continued to hire workers at the third, sixth, ninth, and eleventh hours. When at the end of the day the master paid all the workers the same wage, those who worked twelve hours complained.
Oesterley 3 quotes a Jewish parable similar to this one but with a significant difference.
It is like a king who hired many laborers. And there was one laborer who understood his work beyond measure well. What did the king do? He caused him to accompany him as he strolled along many pathways. When evening was come those laborers drew near to receive their wage; and he gave each the full amount of his wage. But the laborers murmured and said, "We have toiled the whole day, and this man has toiled but two hours, and yet he has given him the same wage as we have received." Then spake the king to them, "He has done more work in two hours than ye have during the whole day."
The point of this Jewish parable is that even though he worked for only two hours the "laborer who understood his work" deserved the whole day's pay because he did twelve hours of work in two. While it is true that some people produce more than others in the same amount of time, the men in Jesus parable who worked fewer hours did not deserve the pay they received. "Thus in this apparently trivial detail lies the difference between two worlds: the world of merit, and the world of grace; the law contrasted with the gospel." 4
Our human reaction would likely be to side with the argument of those who labored through the heat and dust of the twelve-hour day. We might argue that if the master made this his regular practice, no one would come to work first thing in the morning.
This parable is not given as an example of Christian economic practice. Jesus is explaining that the divine economy works differently than the earthly one. God rewards us not according to our desserts but according to his grace. God does not give us what we deserve; he delights in giving us more than we deserve. The master was not being unfair to the twelve-hour workers since they had agreed to work for a denarius a day, and they received the fair wage they had agreed upon. The master simply exercised his prerogative in giving more than that amount to those who worked less.
While Jesus' parable implies the attitude of the grateful workers who came later, it would be highlighted more if we should make the contrast between grateful workers who come early versus hireling workers who come later. If the order were reversed, the hireling workers would gloat over the fact that they received the same pay even though they worked only one hour. They would point their fingers at the grateful workers and call them suckers, that is persons who were so easily tricked. He would say, "Look what we got. The poor guys worked all day and got no more than we did and the stupid master doesn't know what he's doing." Even though the hireling workers would gloat and taunt and ridicule them, the grateful workers would not feel cheated or become hostile toward them. Instead they would feel sorry because they did not have the privilege of serving their loving Master the whole day.
In Jesus' parable some of the grateful workers work only for one hour. What kind of response would they make? Surely they would first recognize that they don't deserve what they receive. Second, they would feel very fortunate that they were selected at all. Third, they would regret that they could only work one hour for their beloved master who chose them to work in his vineyard. They would not boast that they received a whole day's wages for one hour of work but would regret that they could not have spent the whole day, endured the heat of the day for their beloved master who gave them an opportunity through his act of grace in choosing them to be his laborer.
The parable contrasts the spirit of the hireling with the spirit of the grateful worker. Peter, who believed that he and the other disciples had earned a reward for their faithful service, exemplified the hireling spirit of the first workers. The thief on the cross, who became a disciple for a few short hours, epitomized the grateful spirit of the workers who accepted the denarius they had not earned. "Not the amount of labor performed, or its visible results, but the spirit in which the work is done, makes it of value with God." 5
When Christ abides in the soul, the thought of reward is not uppermost . . . We should not be so anxious to gain the reward as to do what is right, irrespective of all gain. Love to God and to our fellow-men should be our motive. 6
The disciples of Jesus serve with joy and gratitude and do not begrudge salvation to those they have spent a lifetime working to save, particularly those whose lives are changed by the grace of God only moments before death. These grateful workers consider themselves privileged to have served the Lord from "the beginning of the day".
Alas, that I so lately knew thee,
Thee, so worthy of the best;
Nor has sooner turned to view thee,
Truest good and only rest!
The more I love, I mourn the more
That I did not love before!
Johannes Scheffler 7
The Norwegian writer, Jens Peter Jacovsen, tells the story of Nils Lyhne, a man who, in the last hours of his life, chose not to make his peace with God. He did not think it fair that having professed atheism all his life that he should now turn to God in his last moments. He wanted and needed a pastor, but he steadfastly refused to ask for him. His family physician who knew his thoughts and respected him for his sense of fairness and integrity, said of him, "If I were God, I would far sooner save the man who does not repent at the last minute." 8 Perhaps integrity is valued more highly in God's eyes than Nils Lyhne imagined, and he will be able to personally testify to the truth of the parable of the Gracious Master in the Earth Made New.
Peter's question at the beginning of the parable showed that he completely misunderstood the spirit of Christ. He thought only of himself and what he had done without realizing that anything he did was due to the original act of grace in choosing him as an apostle. He put himself in the center and asked, "Lord, what do I deserve?" when he should have instead put God in the center and exclaimed, "What has the Lord done for me?" If he had done this, he would never have asked the question at all. He could see that the privilege to labor for the Master was reward enough for him.
One can conclude from the first parable that God is a thankless slave driver. He expects us to be constantly slaving away for him without expecting any respite or gratitude. The focus is on the responsibility of the bondservant. Basically, the parable teaches what we cannot argue against. It is obvious. That is, if we only do what we are obligated to do, we deserve no thanks or claim to a special reward, but apparently that was not something possible for a bondservant.
Yet for those who serve diligently and lovingly without thought of gifts, such service in itself brings great satisfaction and sufficient reward. This is in fact the attitude of the grateful workers in the accompanying parable. If those who worked less than a full day had in fact worked a full day, their attitude would have been the same. They would have been grateful for the privilege of working for such a gracious master. Their regret was that they were not able to do more.
This is also, in fact, the explanation of the first parable. The privilege to labor for the master is reward enough for the bondservant. He doesn't ask, "What do I deserve?" but instead, "What has the Lord done for me in selecting me to be his servant." Thus these two parables need to be looked at together to get the total picture of God's relationship to his servants.
As grateful servants at the end of a life of service, we do not ask, "What shall we have therefore?" but instead humbly say, "We are unprofitable servants; we have done that which it was our duty to do." (Luke 17:10)
1. In the parable of the lost sheep, he began by asking "Which one of you, having a hundred sheep and losing one of them, does not leave the ninety-nine in the wilderness and go after the one that is lost until he finds it?" In the parable of the lost coin, he began, "What woman having ten silver coins, if she loses one of them, does not light a lamp, sweep the house, and search carefully until she finds it?"
2. W. O. E. Oesterley, The Gospel Parables in the Light of their Jewish Background (London: Society for the Promoting of Christian Knowledge, 1936), p. 103.
3. Oesterley, p. 108.
4. Jeremias, p. 139.
5. White, p. 397.
6. Ibid, pp. 389-399.
7. Helmut Thielicke, The Waiting Father (London: James Clarke; New York: Harper & Bros., 1959), pp. 116-117.
8. Thielicke, p. 121.
Luke 17:7-10; Mathew 20:1-16
It is fortunate that Luke 17:7-10 is not the only parable that Jesus related concerning God's relationship to his servants. If this were the case, it would give us a distorted picture of God. The parable does, however, provide a vital truth.
Jesus begins this parable as he often does by asking his audience to agree with him.1 "Who among you would say to your bondservant who has just come in from plowing or tending sheep in the field, `Come here at once and take your place at the table'? Would you not rather say to him, `Prepare supper for me, put on your apron and serve me while I eat and drink; later you may eat and drink'? Do you thank the bondservant for doing what was commanded?"
Jesus rightly assumes that his listeners would answer the last question in the negative. A bondservant's obligation is to serve the master, not the master the servant, even though the servant has worked all day and is tired and hungry. A master doesn't say to a servant, "Supper is ready. Come, take your place at the table." The servant must prepare supper for his master before he eats. He should expect no commendation for this. He is a servant, and this behavior is expected of him.
One should not conclude from this story that the Master is an unjust or evil man. In this case, his bondservant has simply been asked to do what he is obligated to do, and consequently deserves no special thanks or reward.
This parable is given in answer to the disciples' request to have their faith increased (Luke 17: 5-6), and deals with the emotional context of service. Should we as God's servants judge our worth by the rewards we receive? In other words, should we believe ourselves to be judged "useless" in our Christian service if we haven't "earned" special treatment? The bondservant in this parable performs necessary, even vital service for his master, and it wouldn't occur to him that his work was without value because he received no special commendation.
The disciples had left their nets, their boats, their families, their livelihood to follow Jesus, and they were looking for some kind of reward that to them would indicate that their sacrifices were commendable. This seems to have been Peter's attitude when he asked, "Look, we have left everything and followed you. What then will we have?" (Mathew 19:27)
Christians that have made special sacrifices for their faith often look for signs-good health, security, well-being of family members-that indicate God had judged their service praiseworthy, thereby validating their many years of sacrifice and service. Jesus' promise of "treasure in heaven" or that "everyone who has left houses or brothers or sisters or father or mother, or children or fields, for my name's sake . . . will inherit eternal life," (Matt 19:29) somehow isn't enough.
Peter's question revealed that he was still influenced by the Pharisaic understanding of merits. The accumulation of merits took place when one fulfilled the legal precepts; "for example, every individual act of Sabbath observance, every time the phylacteries were put on . . . every act of charity, every prayer, every fast . . . were so many Mitzvoth to a man's credit." 2 In this case, Peter was claiming a reward in the here-and-now for the disciples' good deeds.
It was this spirit that Jesus wanted to counteract when he told the parable of the gracious master in Mathew 20:1-16. In this parable, the master hired workers at the beginning of the day for a denarius a day and continued to hire workers at the third, sixth, ninth, and eleventh hours. When at the end of the day the master paid all the workers the same wage, those who worked twelve hours complained.
Oesterley 3 quotes a Jewish parable similar to this one but with a significant difference.
It is like a king who hired many laborers. And there was one laborer who understood his work beyond measure well. What did the king do? He caused him to accompany him as he strolled along many pathways. When evening was come those laborers drew near to receive their wage; and he gave each the full amount of his wage. But the laborers murmured and said, "We have toiled the whole day, and this man has toiled but two hours, and yet he has given him the same wage as we have received." Then spake the king to them, "He has done more work in two hours than ye have during the whole day."
The point of this Jewish parable is that even though he worked for only two hours the "laborer who understood his work" deserved the whole day's pay because he did twelve hours of work in two. While it is true that some people produce more than others in the same amount of time, the men in Jesus parable who worked fewer hours did not deserve the pay they received. "Thus in this apparently trivial detail lies the difference between two worlds: the world of merit, and the world of grace; the law contrasted with the gospel." 4
Our human reaction would likely be to side with the argument of those who labored through the heat and dust of the twelve-hour day. We might argue that if the master made this his regular practice, no one would come to work first thing in the morning.
This parable is not given as an example of Christian economic practice. Jesus is explaining that the divine economy works differently than the earthly one. God rewards us not according to our desserts but according to his grace. God does not give us what we deserve; he delights in giving us more than we deserve. The master was not being unfair to the twelve-hour workers since they had agreed to work for a denarius a day, and they received the fair wage they had agreed upon. The master simply exercised his prerogative in giving more than that amount to those who worked less.
While Jesus' parable implies the attitude of the grateful workers who came later, it would be highlighted more if we should make the contrast between grateful workers who come early versus hireling workers who come later. If the order were reversed, the hireling workers would gloat over the fact that they received the same pay even though they worked only one hour. They would point their fingers at the grateful workers and call them suckers, that is persons who were so easily tricked. He would say, "Look what we got. The poor guys worked all day and got no more than we did and the stupid master doesn't know what he's doing." Even though the hireling workers would gloat and taunt and ridicule them, the grateful workers would not feel cheated or become hostile toward them. Instead they would feel sorry because they did not have the privilege of serving their loving Master the whole day.
In Jesus' parable some of the grateful workers work only for one hour. What kind of response would they make? Surely they would first recognize that they don't deserve what they receive. Second, they would feel very fortunate that they were selected at all. Third, they would regret that they could only work one hour for their beloved master who chose them to work in his vineyard. They would not boast that they received a whole day's wages for one hour of work but would regret that they could not have spent the whole day, endured the heat of the day for their beloved master who gave them an opportunity through his act of grace in choosing them to be his laborer.
The parable contrasts the spirit of the hireling with the spirit of the grateful worker. Peter, who believed that he and the other disciples had earned a reward for their faithful service, exemplified the hireling spirit of the first workers. The thief on the cross, who became a disciple for a few short hours, epitomized the grateful spirit of the workers who accepted the denarius they had not earned. "Not the amount of labor performed, or its visible results, but the spirit in which the work is done, makes it of value with God." 5
When Christ abides in the soul, the thought of reward is not uppermost . . . We should not be so anxious to gain the reward as to do what is right, irrespective of all gain. Love to God and to our fellow-men should be our motive. 6
The disciples of Jesus serve with joy and gratitude and do not begrudge salvation to those they have spent a lifetime working to save, particularly those whose lives are changed by the grace of God only moments before death. These grateful workers consider themselves privileged to have served the Lord from "the beginning of the day".
Alas, that I so lately knew thee,
Thee, so worthy of the best;
Nor has sooner turned to view thee,
Truest good and only rest!
The more I love, I mourn the more
That I did not love before!
Johannes Scheffler 7
The Norwegian writer, Jens Peter Jacovsen, tells the story of Nils Lyhne, a man who, in the last hours of his life, chose not to make his peace with God. He did not think it fair that having professed atheism all his life that he should now turn to God in his last moments. He wanted and needed a pastor, but he steadfastly refused to ask for him. His family physician who knew his thoughts and respected him for his sense of fairness and integrity, said of him, "If I were God, I would far sooner save the man who does not repent at the last minute." 8 Perhaps integrity is valued more highly in God's eyes than Nils Lyhne imagined, and he will be able to personally testify to the truth of the parable of the Gracious Master in the Earth Made New.
Peter's question at the beginning of the parable showed that he completely misunderstood the spirit of Christ. He thought only of himself and what he had done without realizing that anything he did was due to the original act of grace in choosing him as an apostle. He put himself in the center and asked, "Lord, what do I deserve?" when he should have instead put God in the center and exclaimed, "What has the Lord done for me?" If he had done this, he would never have asked the question at all. He could see that the privilege to labor for the Master was reward enough for him.
One can conclude from the first parable that God is a thankless slave driver. He expects us to be constantly slaving away for him without expecting any respite or gratitude. The focus is on the responsibility of the bondservant. Basically, the parable teaches what we cannot argue against. It is obvious. That is, if we only do what we are obligated to do, we deserve no thanks or claim to a special reward, but apparently that was not something possible for a bondservant.
Yet for those who serve diligently and lovingly without thought of gifts, such service in itself brings great satisfaction and sufficient reward. This is in fact the attitude of the grateful workers in the accompanying parable. If those who worked less than a full day had in fact worked a full day, their attitude would have been the same. They would have been grateful for the privilege of working for such a gracious master. Their regret was that they were not able to do more.
This is also, in fact, the explanation of the first parable. The privilege to labor for the master is reward enough for the bondservant. He doesn't ask, "What do I deserve?" but instead, "What has the Lord done for me in selecting me to be his servant." Thus these two parables need to be looked at together to get the total picture of God's relationship to his servants.
As grateful servants at the end of a life of service, we do not ask, "What shall we have therefore?" but instead humbly say, "We are unprofitable servants; we have done that which it was our duty to do." (Luke 17:10)
1. In the parable of the lost sheep, he began by asking "Which one of you, having a hundred sheep and losing one of them, does not leave the ninety-nine in the wilderness and go after the one that is lost until he finds it?" In the parable of the lost coin, he began, "What woman having ten silver coins, if she loses one of them, does not light a lamp, sweep the house, and search carefully until she finds it?"
2. W. O. E. Oesterley, The Gospel Parables in the Light of their Jewish Background (London: Society for the Promoting of Christian Knowledge, 1936), p. 103.
3. Oesterley, p. 108.
4. Jeremias, p. 139.
5. White, p. 397.
6. Ibid, pp. 389-399.
7. Helmut Thielicke, The Waiting Father (London: James Clarke; New York: Harper & Bros., 1959), pp. 116-117.
8. Thielicke, p. 121.
The Pharisee and the Publican
CHAPTER 13
Luke 18:9-14
This parable follows the parable of The Widow and the Unjust Judge and contrasts the self-righteous prayer of a Pharisee with the prayer of a humble and contrite publican. While the focus of the parable is on the attitudes each brings to their prayers, the words of the prayers also serve to contrast acceptable and unacceptable prayer models.
Jews could pray at the temple at any time, but corporate prayer took place at nine in the morning and three in the afternoon during the time of the morning and evening sacrifices. Apparently the parable takes place during corporate prayer because both men are some distance from the other worshippers and pray at the same time.
Because Pharisees as a class were enemies of Jesus, our initial reaction may be to immediately cast the Pharisee in the role of villain. But we need to get into the skin of the people of those days to get the full impact of this parable. The Pharisee was a highly respected member of society; a religious person who was careful to please God even in minute matters. He was a person who upheld and sustained the religious traditions of the Jewish people. He rejected the theology of the more liberal Sadducees who had made doctrinal compromises with their Roman overlords. He kept the Sabbath strictly, paid his tithes faithfully, attended synagogue regularly, and fasted more often than was required. He was a moral guide and a pillar of society. Today he would be a church elder and a stanch supporter of society’s “moral majority”.
The publican, on the other hand, was classed as a thief, fraud, and traitor because he served the Roman enemy. Because of Zacchaeus’ confession, we know that publicans defrauded people as a regular practice. No one would consider nominating him for church office of any kind. The mention of his name would elicit curses.
The Pharisee stood by himself fearful that he might pollute himself by rubbing shoulders with people who were not careful about what they ate, what they touched, and who might not be ritually pure. The publican stood by himself because he was a social outcast.
The Pharisee's prayer begins first with what Buttrick calls "his virtues of omission." 1 He is thankful that he is not like others: "thieves, rogues, adulterers, or even 2 like this tax collector" (Luke 18:11). (The people of the time could applaud this prayer, especially the last part about the tax collector. They could all thank God that they were not publican “thieves” and “rogues”.) The Pharisee then proceeds to enumerate "his virtues of commission." He fasts twice a week and can be admired for his superb discipline in that fasting meant abstaining from food and water even on hot summer days. (Only one day a year was required for fasting, but Pharisees fasted more than one hundred times the number required!) He tithes a tenth of all his income to the temple. (While the Greek verb could refer to his purchases, Jeremias believes that he was paying tithe on every thing he bought, including things that were already tithed and did not need to be tithed again. 3 If this is so, he again contributes far more than is required.) Ordinary Jews could be counted on to admire this Pharisee for his supererogatory works. They would believe that if all of them were as righteous as he was, the Romans would not be their rulers!
To understand how Jesus' hearers would have reacted to this man's prayer, a similar type of prayer was offered as a commendable model in the first century A.D. "I thank thee, O lord, my God, that thou hast given me my lot with those who sit in the seat of learning, and not with those who sit at the street-corners; for I am early to work, and they are early to work; I am early to work on the words of the Torah, and they are early to work on things of no moment. I weary myself, and they weary themselves; I weary myself and profit thereby, while they weary themselves to no profit. I run and they run; I run towards the life of the Age to come, and they run towards the pit of destruction: (b. Ber. 28b).” 4
Before criticizing this kind of prayer, we Christians need to look at ourselves. Do we sometimes pray using the Pharisee’s prayer as our “prayer model”? A.E. Forrest asked one of his church members to offer a benediction. The member thanked God that the members of his church were not like others "in the community who broke God's law, thoughtlessly and deliberately profaned the Lord's Day, and never came to church." He listened, aghast but after the prayer no one seemed surprised. 5
The publican stands by himself because he doesn't want to defile others with his sinfulness. He knows what he is—a desperate sinner, who without God's grace is lost. He knows that he is a contemptible tax collector. He doesn't tithe half as conscientiously as the Pharisee and he has trouble even fasting once a year. He deserves nothing from God. In fact, he deserves condemnation. He knows his sinfulness and doesn’t dare to lift up his eyes to heaven. On this day, however, he comes before God not only recognizing his sinfulness but repentant and contrite. So he beats his breast in anguish and sorrow and throws himself upon the mercy of God. He cannot recite a litany of virtues of omission and virtues of commission. He just cries out, "God, be merciful to me a sinner!" The people listening to Jesus would look at this prayer and say his prayer is appropriate to his condition. He didn’t enumerate his evil deeds and he can't enumerate any good deeds, so his prayer is short in contrast to the Pharisee’s and he’d better cry out for God's mercy.
Jesus’ commentary on the prayers of the publican and the Pharisee was designed to shock his audience. It is a complete reversal of what they expected. It was what Crossan calls a "complete, radical, polar reversal of accepted human judgment, even or especially of religious judgment. . ." 6 The moral, religious man, the one who should have been applauded, the one who should have been justified was the Pharisee, and the crooked, disloyal traitor, the thief should have been roundly condemned. But instead Jesus says, "I tell you, this man (the publican) went down to his home justified rather than the other. . ." (Luke 18:14) Why this reversal of human judgment?
Jesus’ commentary makes it clear that the prayers of boastful arrogance are offensive to God, but humble prayers of genuine repentance honor God. It was in the spirit of the publican that the Puritan preacher, Richard Baxter, cried out “There but for the grace of God go I” when he encountered a criminal or drunkard.
Pride and arrogance undermine the effects of righteous behavior. We admire people who are generous, but if it is discovered that generosity is motivated by something other than openhandedness, it is no longer admirable. Holiness is admirable, "but when holiness turns to `holier-than-thou-ness', the best turns to the worst, righteousness to self-righteousness, holy ones into ‘Holy Willies’. . . Spurgeon once said that he thought a certain man in his congregation the holiest man he had ever known--till the man told him so himself!" 7 In this respect this man was just like the Pharisee who believed that a surplus of good deeds put God in his debt.
Prideful arrogance is the worst of sins because it creates psychopathic behavior. Pridefully arrogant people come to believe that they can do no wrong. They become so preoccupied with themselves that they cannot love or feel compassion for anyone else. Even God becomes a rival. Like Lucifer, the psychopath aspires to self-deification. "I will ascend to heaven; I will raise my throne above the stars of God; . . . I will ascend to the tops of the cloud, I will make myself like the Most High" (Isaiah 14:13-14). These people censure the sins of others but are not aware of their own. Like the church of Laodicea, they can say, "I am rich, I have prospered, and I need nothing." They fail to realize that they are “wretched, pitiable, poor, blind, and naked." (Rev 3:17)
In this parable, Jesus makes it clear that virtue alone will not save us and the price we humans pay for arrogant pride is catastrophic. We do not feel the need to change our thinking or behavior. We remain prisoners of our illusions of grandeur. We become separated from a God who longs to heal and restore us. Buttrick writes of the Pharisee that “measured by other men, he towered aloft. It had not occurred to him to measure himself by the sky. A mountain shames a molehill until both are humbled by the stars." 8
In this parable, Jesus informs us that our prayer model should be that of the humble and contrite publican. Jesus’ life assures us that God is mercy and forgiveness personified.
1. Buttrick, p. 88
2. The word “even” could also be translated “also”.
3. Jeremias, p. 140.
4. Ibid, p. 142.
5. Forrest, pp. 44-45.
6. J. Dominic Crossan, In Parables: the Challenge of the Historical Jesus (New York and London: Harper & Row, 1973), p. 69.
7. Hunter, p. 64.
8. Buttrick, p. 88.
Luke 18:9-14
This parable follows the parable of The Widow and the Unjust Judge and contrasts the self-righteous prayer of a Pharisee with the prayer of a humble and contrite publican. While the focus of the parable is on the attitudes each brings to their prayers, the words of the prayers also serve to contrast acceptable and unacceptable prayer models.
Jews could pray at the temple at any time, but corporate prayer took place at nine in the morning and three in the afternoon during the time of the morning and evening sacrifices. Apparently the parable takes place during corporate prayer because both men are some distance from the other worshippers and pray at the same time.
Because Pharisees as a class were enemies of Jesus, our initial reaction may be to immediately cast the Pharisee in the role of villain. But we need to get into the skin of the people of those days to get the full impact of this parable. The Pharisee was a highly respected member of society; a religious person who was careful to please God even in minute matters. He was a person who upheld and sustained the religious traditions of the Jewish people. He rejected the theology of the more liberal Sadducees who had made doctrinal compromises with their Roman overlords. He kept the Sabbath strictly, paid his tithes faithfully, attended synagogue regularly, and fasted more often than was required. He was a moral guide and a pillar of society. Today he would be a church elder and a stanch supporter of society’s “moral majority”.
The publican, on the other hand, was classed as a thief, fraud, and traitor because he served the Roman enemy. Because of Zacchaeus’ confession, we know that publicans defrauded people as a regular practice. No one would consider nominating him for church office of any kind. The mention of his name would elicit curses.
The Pharisee stood by himself fearful that he might pollute himself by rubbing shoulders with people who were not careful about what they ate, what they touched, and who might not be ritually pure. The publican stood by himself because he was a social outcast.
The Pharisee's prayer begins first with what Buttrick calls "his virtues of omission." 1 He is thankful that he is not like others: "thieves, rogues, adulterers, or even 2 like this tax collector" (Luke 18:11). (The people of the time could applaud this prayer, especially the last part about the tax collector. They could all thank God that they were not publican “thieves” and “rogues”.) The Pharisee then proceeds to enumerate "his virtues of commission." He fasts twice a week and can be admired for his superb discipline in that fasting meant abstaining from food and water even on hot summer days. (Only one day a year was required for fasting, but Pharisees fasted more than one hundred times the number required!) He tithes a tenth of all his income to the temple. (While the Greek verb could refer to his purchases, Jeremias believes that he was paying tithe on every thing he bought, including things that were already tithed and did not need to be tithed again. 3 If this is so, he again contributes far more than is required.) Ordinary Jews could be counted on to admire this Pharisee for his supererogatory works. They would believe that if all of them were as righteous as he was, the Romans would not be their rulers!
To understand how Jesus' hearers would have reacted to this man's prayer, a similar type of prayer was offered as a commendable model in the first century A.D. "I thank thee, O lord, my God, that thou hast given me my lot with those who sit in the seat of learning, and not with those who sit at the street-corners; for I am early to work, and they are early to work; I am early to work on the words of the Torah, and they are early to work on things of no moment. I weary myself, and they weary themselves; I weary myself and profit thereby, while they weary themselves to no profit. I run and they run; I run towards the life of the Age to come, and they run towards the pit of destruction: (b. Ber. 28b).” 4
Before criticizing this kind of prayer, we Christians need to look at ourselves. Do we sometimes pray using the Pharisee’s prayer as our “prayer model”? A.E. Forrest asked one of his church members to offer a benediction. The member thanked God that the members of his church were not like others "in the community who broke God's law, thoughtlessly and deliberately profaned the Lord's Day, and never came to church." He listened, aghast but after the prayer no one seemed surprised. 5
The publican stands by himself because he doesn't want to defile others with his sinfulness. He knows what he is—a desperate sinner, who without God's grace is lost. He knows that he is a contemptible tax collector. He doesn't tithe half as conscientiously as the Pharisee and he has trouble even fasting once a year. He deserves nothing from God. In fact, he deserves condemnation. He knows his sinfulness and doesn’t dare to lift up his eyes to heaven. On this day, however, he comes before God not only recognizing his sinfulness but repentant and contrite. So he beats his breast in anguish and sorrow and throws himself upon the mercy of God. He cannot recite a litany of virtues of omission and virtues of commission. He just cries out, "God, be merciful to me a sinner!" The people listening to Jesus would look at this prayer and say his prayer is appropriate to his condition. He didn’t enumerate his evil deeds and he can't enumerate any good deeds, so his prayer is short in contrast to the Pharisee’s and he’d better cry out for God's mercy.
Jesus’ commentary on the prayers of the publican and the Pharisee was designed to shock his audience. It is a complete reversal of what they expected. It was what Crossan calls a "complete, radical, polar reversal of accepted human judgment, even or especially of religious judgment. . ." 6 The moral, religious man, the one who should have been applauded, the one who should have been justified was the Pharisee, and the crooked, disloyal traitor, the thief should have been roundly condemned. But instead Jesus says, "I tell you, this man (the publican) went down to his home justified rather than the other. . ." (Luke 18:14) Why this reversal of human judgment?
Jesus’ commentary makes it clear that the prayers of boastful arrogance are offensive to God, but humble prayers of genuine repentance honor God. It was in the spirit of the publican that the Puritan preacher, Richard Baxter, cried out “There but for the grace of God go I” when he encountered a criminal or drunkard.
Pride and arrogance undermine the effects of righteous behavior. We admire people who are generous, but if it is discovered that generosity is motivated by something other than openhandedness, it is no longer admirable. Holiness is admirable, "but when holiness turns to `holier-than-thou-ness', the best turns to the worst, righteousness to self-righteousness, holy ones into ‘Holy Willies’. . . Spurgeon once said that he thought a certain man in his congregation the holiest man he had ever known--till the man told him so himself!" 7 In this respect this man was just like the Pharisee who believed that a surplus of good deeds put God in his debt.
Prideful arrogance is the worst of sins because it creates psychopathic behavior. Pridefully arrogant people come to believe that they can do no wrong. They become so preoccupied with themselves that they cannot love or feel compassion for anyone else. Even God becomes a rival. Like Lucifer, the psychopath aspires to self-deification. "I will ascend to heaven; I will raise my throne above the stars of God; . . . I will ascend to the tops of the cloud, I will make myself like the Most High" (Isaiah 14:13-14). These people censure the sins of others but are not aware of their own. Like the church of Laodicea, they can say, "I am rich, I have prospered, and I need nothing." They fail to realize that they are “wretched, pitiable, poor, blind, and naked." (Rev 3:17)
In this parable, Jesus makes it clear that virtue alone will not save us and the price we humans pay for arrogant pride is catastrophic. We do not feel the need to change our thinking or behavior. We remain prisoners of our illusions of grandeur. We become separated from a God who longs to heal and restore us. Buttrick writes of the Pharisee that “measured by other men, he towered aloft. It had not occurred to him to measure himself by the sky. A mountain shames a molehill until both are humbled by the stars." 8
In this parable, Jesus informs us that our prayer model should be that of the humble and contrite publican. Jesus’ life assures us that God is mercy and forgiveness personified.
1. Buttrick, p. 88
2. The word “even” could also be translated “also”.
3. Jeremias, p. 140.
4. Ibid, p. 142.
5. Forrest, pp. 44-45.
6. J. Dominic Crossan, In Parables: the Challenge of the Historical Jesus (New York and London: Harper & Row, 1973), p. 69.
7. Hunter, p. 64.
8. Buttrick, p. 88.
The Importunate Widow and the Friend at Midnight
CHAPTER 12
Luke 18:1-8; 11:5-13
In the introduction to the parable of “The Importunate Widow”, Jesus emphasized the need to pray always and not to lose heart. The parable of “The Friend at Midnight” follows the Lord's Prayer and also underscores the need for persistence in prayer.
The first parable deals with a judge who is described as one "who neither feared God nor had respect for people" (Luke 18:2). Jesus describes an immoral, unsympathetic judge. He is a man who uses his power to enrich himself rather than to execute justice and consequently demonstrates no concern for the poor and unfortunate.
A poor widow who has been mistreated is denied justice. The judge knows that she has no money to pay him a substantial bribe or the influence and power to pressure him to act in her behalf. He feels no need to do anything, and he assumes that in time she will give up her appeal. However, she pesters him incessantly. "She could only plead with the persistence of despair. So she pleaded even against hope. She entreated the judge at his tribunal. She waylaid him as he went home. Wherever he might go, there she would be, waiting to pour her intolerable tale of woe upon him. He could not escape her." 1 Finally he relents, "Though I have no fear of God and no respect for anyone, yet because this widow keeps bothering me, I will grant her justice, so that she may not wear me out by continually coming" (Luke 18:4-5).
Bailey has provided us with cultural background that enables us to better understand this parable. The following is a description by Tristram of a court scene he witnessed in Nisibis, Mesopotamia. A judge is seated with his assistants around him. While men shout out their appeals in the hope that their cases will be heard, other cases are considered first because the judge and his assistants have been bribed. A poor woman continuously interrupts the proceedings with loud cries for help but is told to keep silent. She refuses. Finally exasperated, the judge asks, "What does that woman want?" She explains that her son has been taken into the army, and she cannot work the farm by herself. She is being required to pay tax even though as a lone widow she could be excused. After some questioning, the judge exempts her. 2
In the Middle East, women do not ordinarily appear in court. The fact that a woman asks for her case to be heard in a courtroom indicates that there is no man in her family to speak for her and strongly suggests that she has nowhere else to turn for help. Jesus chooses a widow, Bailey implies, because only a woman could behave as she does, persistently clamoring for attention, pestering, and making herself an indisputable nuisance. A man who behaved in this manner would be punished, even killed. "Men can be mistreated in public, but not women. Women can scream at a public figure and nothing will happen to them." 3 When Jesus wanted to illustrate the need for persistent, desperate, judicial pleading, the story of a poor woman was an obvious choice.
The second parable concerns three friends. The first friend comes at midnight to visit the second friend. The second friend is caught by surprise, and he has nothing to offer him. In the Middle East, custom demands that visitors are provided with food and refreshment regardless of time of day. Duty requires hospitality, and hospitality requires the best that you have, better even than your family’s regular fare. But the host in this parable has “nothing”—an exaggeration, meaning nothing worthy to set before him—and is faced with two choices. He could be inhospitable and tell his guest that he is sorry he cannot offer him anything. This would be an insult of the highest order. Or he could make an acceptable excuse, slip out the back door, wake up the third friend irrespective of the hour, obtain what he needs, and meet the requirements of hospitality.
Bailey notes that in the Middle East, when a woman baked bread, she baked enough for an entire week, and the people of the village knew who had baked bread most recently. Based on this information, he believes that the third friend whose wife had baked recently was asked for the needed bread. The reason for the three loaves, Bailey believes, is simply that he could give a whole loaf to the guest which was more than adequate, and offer a second for courtesy’s sake. The third loaf would be for himself in order that he could share the meal with his guest. 4
The third friend understandably puts off the second and tells him he's already bolted the door. The children in bed with him are sound asleep and he can't get up. He knows his friend is in a quandary and wants to help him out but not enough to make him get up and honor the request. So he puts him off, perhaps hoping he'll ask another neighbor. But the second friend does not give up. He keeps shouting out his predicament. The friend in bed is not so concerned about his friend's predicament as he is about his own. To get some sleep and avoid waking the town, he gets up and supplies the bread. "I tell you, even though he will not get up and give him anything because he is his friend, at least because of his persistence he will get up and give him whatever he needs." (Luke 11:8)
Both of these parables contrast the way God deals with us and the way we are sometimes treated by other people. If an immoral, corrupt judge will finally grant the persistent claims of a poor widow, and a sleepy, angry friend who doesn't want to be bothered will finally get up to supply the needs of his persistent neighbor, how much more willing to supply our needs is a gracious God, a righteous judge and a caring friend?
These parables also inform us that God does not always answer our prayers immediately and that persistence is sometimes required for prayers to be answered.
Persistence is important because it discourages flippant, casual requests. If our original petitions aren’t really important, we will not persist. Too much prayer is glib, flippant, superficial, and perfunctory. We pray for missionaries and colporteurs without seriously and genuinely thinking about them. We pray for the leaders of our country or of our church because it seems appropriate to do so without feeling any real concern for them. We pray for some great virtue without any serious thought of the effort needed to attain it. "Any loitering student can cheaply pray to be learned; any idler in the market place can pray to be rich; and an irresolute dodger of duty can pray for a vigorous character. But such praying is not really prayer.” 5 Persistence teaches us that with God, the get-rich-quick philosophy does not work.
Persistence is important because it purifies our motives. If our prayer is not immediately answered, we ask ourselves why? Are we praying for something that will make us better human beings? Persistence requires that we search our hearts for the answer. There would be no need to reflect, no need for introspection if all our prayers were answered immediately.
Persistence is important because it leads us to prioritize the dominating concerns of our lives. According to Fosdick:
The fault of the Pharisees who prayed on the corners was not that they were asking for unworthy things. Their petitions were doubtless excellent, springing out of scriptural ideas and couched in scriptural language. But the prayers did not represent the inward and determining wishes of the men. The petitions were not sincere. The lives of the Pharisees blatantly advertised that their habitual ambitions did not tally with their occasional supplications. When the Master bids us make prayer private, to think of God when we pray as "the Father who seeth in secret," to use no futile and repetitious formulas but to go at once to the pith of our want (Matt. 6:5ff), he is making a plea for sincerity. Prayer to him is the heart, with all its most genuine and worthy desires aflame, rising up to lay hold on God. It is no affair of hasty words at the fag-end of a day, no form observed in deference to custom, no sop to conscience to ease us from the sense of religious obligations unfulfilled. Prayer is the central and determining force of a man's life. Prayer is dominant desire, calling God into alliance. 6
Persistence implies urgency and controlling desire. If we do not persist, it is obvious that there is no urgency; there is no controlling desire. Our passing fancies and whims do not deserve persistence. But if we desire something urgently, ardently, and intensely, we will not quickly give up. If it becomes our dominant desire, what we want more than anything else, our attention is focused on it and our life becomes organized around it. Buttrick puts it beautifully when he says that Paul, Carey, and Livingston prayed for the triumph of Christ with all their hearts and then hurled their lives after their prayers. 7
1. Buttrick, page 169.
2. Bailey, Through Peasant Eyes, p. 134
3. Ibid, pp. 134, 135.
4. Bailey, Through Peasant Eyes, p. 122.
5. Harry Emerson Fosdick, The Meaning of Prayer (New York: Association Press, 1920) p. 147.
6. Ibid, p. 149.
7. Ibid, p. 150.
Luke 18:1-8; 11:5-13
In the introduction to the parable of “The Importunate Widow”, Jesus emphasized the need to pray always and not to lose heart. The parable of “The Friend at Midnight” follows the Lord's Prayer and also underscores the need for persistence in prayer.
The first parable deals with a judge who is described as one "who neither feared God nor had respect for people" (Luke 18:2). Jesus describes an immoral, unsympathetic judge. He is a man who uses his power to enrich himself rather than to execute justice and consequently demonstrates no concern for the poor and unfortunate.
A poor widow who has been mistreated is denied justice. The judge knows that she has no money to pay him a substantial bribe or the influence and power to pressure him to act in her behalf. He feels no need to do anything, and he assumes that in time she will give up her appeal. However, she pesters him incessantly. "She could only plead with the persistence of despair. So she pleaded even against hope. She entreated the judge at his tribunal. She waylaid him as he went home. Wherever he might go, there she would be, waiting to pour her intolerable tale of woe upon him. He could not escape her." 1 Finally he relents, "Though I have no fear of God and no respect for anyone, yet because this widow keeps bothering me, I will grant her justice, so that she may not wear me out by continually coming" (Luke 18:4-5).
Bailey has provided us with cultural background that enables us to better understand this parable. The following is a description by Tristram of a court scene he witnessed in Nisibis, Mesopotamia. A judge is seated with his assistants around him. While men shout out their appeals in the hope that their cases will be heard, other cases are considered first because the judge and his assistants have been bribed. A poor woman continuously interrupts the proceedings with loud cries for help but is told to keep silent. She refuses. Finally exasperated, the judge asks, "What does that woman want?" She explains that her son has been taken into the army, and she cannot work the farm by herself. She is being required to pay tax even though as a lone widow she could be excused. After some questioning, the judge exempts her. 2
In the Middle East, women do not ordinarily appear in court. The fact that a woman asks for her case to be heard in a courtroom indicates that there is no man in her family to speak for her and strongly suggests that she has nowhere else to turn for help. Jesus chooses a widow, Bailey implies, because only a woman could behave as she does, persistently clamoring for attention, pestering, and making herself an indisputable nuisance. A man who behaved in this manner would be punished, even killed. "Men can be mistreated in public, but not women. Women can scream at a public figure and nothing will happen to them." 3 When Jesus wanted to illustrate the need for persistent, desperate, judicial pleading, the story of a poor woman was an obvious choice.
The second parable concerns three friends. The first friend comes at midnight to visit the second friend. The second friend is caught by surprise, and he has nothing to offer him. In the Middle East, custom demands that visitors are provided with food and refreshment regardless of time of day. Duty requires hospitality, and hospitality requires the best that you have, better even than your family’s regular fare. But the host in this parable has “nothing”—an exaggeration, meaning nothing worthy to set before him—and is faced with two choices. He could be inhospitable and tell his guest that he is sorry he cannot offer him anything. This would be an insult of the highest order. Or he could make an acceptable excuse, slip out the back door, wake up the third friend irrespective of the hour, obtain what he needs, and meet the requirements of hospitality.
Bailey notes that in the Middle East, when a woman baked bread, she baked enough for an entire week, and the people of the village knew who had baked bread most recently. Based on this information, he believes that the third friend whose wife had baked recently was asked for the needed bread. The reason for the three loaves, Bailey believes, is simply that he could give a whole loaf to the guest which was more than adequate, and offer a second for courtesy’s sake. The third loaf would be for himself in order that he could share the meal with his guest. 4
The third friend understandably puts off the second and tells him he's already bolted the door. The children in bed with him are sound asleep and he can't get up. He knows his friend is in a quandary and wants to help him out but not enough to make him get up and honor the request. So he puts him off, perhaps hoping he'll ask another neighbor. But the second friend does not give up. He keeps shouting out his predicament. The friend in bed is not so concerned about his friend's predicament as he is about his own. To get some sleep and avoid waking the town, he gets up and supplies the bread. "I tell you, even though he will not get up and give him anything because he is his friend, at least because of his persistence he will get up and give him whatever he needs." (Luke 11:8)
Both of these parables contrast the way God deals with us and the way we are sometimes treated by other people. If an immoral, corrupt judge will finally grant the persistent claims of a poor widow, and a sleepy, angry friend who doesn't want to be bothered will finally get up to supply the needs of his persistent neighbor, how much more willing to supply our needs is a gracious God, a righteous judge and a caring friend?
These parables also inform us that God does not always answer our prayers immediately and that persistence is sometimes required for prayers to be answered.
Persistence is important because it discourages flippant, casual requests. If our original petitions aren’t really important, we will not persist. Too much prayer is glib, flippant, superficial, and perfunctory. We pray for missionaries and colporteurs without seriously and genuinely thinking about them. We pray for the leaders of our country or of our church because it seems appropriate to do so without feeling any real concern for them. We pray for some great virtue without any serious thought of the effort needed to attain it. "Any loitering student can cheaply pray to be learned; any idler in the market place can pray to be rich; and an irresolute dodger of duty can pray for a vigorous character. But such praying is not really prayer.” 5 Persistence teaches us that with God, the get-rich-quick philosophy does not work.
Persistence is important because it purifies our motives. If our prayer is not immediately answered, we ask ourselves why? Are we praying for something that will make us better human beings? Persistence requires that we search our hearts for the answer. There would be no need to reflect, no need for introspection if all our prayers were answered immediately.
Persistence is important because it leads us to prioritize the dominating concerns of our lives. According to Fosdick:
The fault of the Pharisees who prayed on the corners was not that they were asking for unworthy things. Their petitions were doubtless excellent, springing out of scriptural ideas and couched in scriptural language. But the prayers did not represent the inward and determining wishes of the men. The petitions were not sincere. The lives of the Pharisees blatantly advertised that their habitual ambitions did not tally with their occasional supplications. When the Master bids us make prayer private, to think of God when we pray as "the Father who seeth in secret," to use no futile and repetitious formulas but to go at once to the pith of our want (Matt. 6:5ff), he is making a plea for sincerity. Prayer to him is the heart, with all its most genuine and worthy desires aflame, rising up to lay hold on God. It is no affair of hasty words at the fag-end of a day, no form observed in deference to custom, no sop to conscience to ease us from the sense of religious obligations unfulfilled. Prayer is the central and determining force of a man's life. Prayer is dominant desire, calling God into alliance. 6
Persistence implies urgency and controlling desire. If we do not persist, it is obvious that there is no urgency; there is no controlling desire. Our passing fancies and whims do not deserve persistence. But if we desire something urgently, ardently, and intensely, we will not quickly give up. If it becomes our dominant desire, what we want more than anything else, our attention is focused on it and our life becomes organized around it. Buttrick puts it beautifully when he says that Paul, Carey, and Livingston prayed for the triumph of Christ with all their hearts and then hurled their lives after their prayers. 7
1. Buttrick, page 169.
2. Bailey, Through Peasant Eyes, p. 134
3. Ibid, pp. 134, 135.
4. Bailey, Through Peasant Eyes, p. 122.
5. Harry Emerson Fosdick, The Meaning of Prayer (New York: Association Press, 1920) p. 147.
6. Ibid, p. 149.
7. Ibid, p. 150.
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