Insiders/Outsiders: Year A, Proper 10

Genesis 25:19-34; Isaiah 55:10-13; Psalm 119:105-112; Psalm 65:1-13; Romans 8:1-11; Matthew 13:1-9, 18-23

The most obvious theme for these readings is the traditional Christian dichotomy:  Insiders who know the secrets and are “saved” versus outsiders who refuse to hear the truth and are condemned.  Insiders/outsiders brings up the second question in the series of four questions that underlies these commentaries: What is the nature of Jesus’s message?  Inclusive or exclusive?  The answer to this question determines believers’ attitudes toward themselves, their families, communities, global relationships, and God’s Kingdom itself – the created Universe.

The parables attributed to Jesus that are most likely authentically his creations always have an element of improbability, or a joke, that points to overturning social convention – whether in the 1st Century or the 21st.  The clue to the meaning of the Parable of the Sower is not found in Matthew’s pious pontificating in 13:18-23.  Nor is it found in the part the Elves skipped (13:10-17), where Matthew’s Jesus whines about the political fact (still true today) that “to those who have, more will be given . . . and from those who don’t have, even what they do have will be taken away.”  The clue lies in the outrageous yield the good earth provides: 30%, 60%, 100%.  The meaning of the clue comes into focus in commentary by Laurel A. Dykstra, “Living the Word” (Sojourners magazine, July 2008, p. 49):  “Commenting on Mark’s earlier version of this parable [Mark 4:3-8], theological animator Ched Myers  says, ‘The symbolic harvest represents a dramatic shattering of the vassal relationship between peasant and landlord.’  Such a harvest would allow a peasant family to eat, pay rent, taxes, and debts, and even buy land, effectively turning the social order on its head.” 

Matthew’s Jesus provides an obvious and pious explanation, that leaves us with the idea that only Christians can hear the message and understand it and profit from it.  But, as the Jesus Seminar scholars insist, “This disposition is entirely alien to Jesus, but characteristic of some strands of the early Christian movement that were akin to gnosticism.  The Gnostics claimed to be in possession of esoteric knowledge that was necessary for salvation.”  The Five Gospels, p. 193.  For too long, Christians have bought into that idea and have made Jesus’s message exclusive.  The parable of the sower is not about “insiders and outsiders,” as tradition and Matthew’s Jesus tell us.  It is about grace and justice.  

Psalm 65 sings the joy of an abundant earth and a just God; Psalm 119 praises God’s law, which sets up human society to live and prosper in abundance, justice, and peace.  Isaiah 55 contains the original blessing, empowering us to go out with joy because our God is just and the world belongs to God.  Jesus would not have said otherwise.  As the sower scatters his seed, it falls wherever it falls.  But when we live in God’s realm, fairness and abundant life prevail.

Is the story of Esau and Jacob also about “insiders and outsiders” or is it about the liberation that comes from throwing over tradition?  If we get outside the Christian gloss, we find that the story raises basic questions about good and evil, and choosing not only whether to participate in establishing justice-compassion, but how to do so.  “Jacob and Esau are the prototypes for two types of souls, each with a distinct role to play in the fulfillment of the Divine purpose in creation. Maimonides calls these two spiritual types ‘the perfectly pious’ and ‘the one who conquers his inclinations’; Rabbi Schneur Zalman refers to them as the ‘Tzaddik’ and the ‘Beinoni.’  Humanity is divided into these two types, writes Rabbi Schneur Zalman in his Tanya, because ‘there are two kinds of gratification before G-d. The first is generated by the good achieved by the perfectly righteous. But G-d also delights in the conquest of evil which is still at its strongest and most powerful in the heart, through the efforts of the ordinary, unperfected individual.’” From Meaningful Life.com /  Chassidic Masters

Paul’s argument tells us that the imperfect individual is the one who is awarded the free gift of grace, just because he or she joins the ongoing struggle for distributive justice-compassion, begun by Jesus during his life, and continued by his spirit after his death.  Justice as retribution, payback, the normal course of civilization, lies well outside God’s realm.  The struggle is not only whether to redeem the world from its exile, but how.  Christians should define themselves as those who model their lives after one who taught that the way to redemption was the radical abandonment of self-interest.  “Belief” in life after death has nothing to do with it.  Paul’s point is that life in the spirit of the Christ is about radical inclusiveness.  There are no“insiders and outsiders.”  There is only the free gift, available to all who choose to participate.  But this begs the question, what about those who do not choose to participate?  

Would anyone consciously choose not to participate in distributive justice-compassion?  Suppose the answer to that is a resounding “no.”  Suppose that the reason for evil-doers among humans is not that “When anyone listens to the message . . . and does not understand it, the evil one comes and steals away what was sown in the heart . . . .”  Matthew 13:19a.  If our sense of justice was truly distributive, “evil” would be understood to be reversible.  The Genghis Kahns, the Hitlers, the Stalins, the Saddam Huseins, would not be enemies to be destroyed, but fellow human lives to be redeemed into justice.

In the continuing foundation myth of Abraham his twin grandsons Jacob and Esau are archetypal. The privileged Esau, certain of his “birthright” as first-born of the two, demands food after an unsuccessful day of hunting.  In the typical hyperbole of ego, he claims to be dying of hunger anyway, so who needs a “birth right”?  Jacob is only too happy to oblige.  Applied to 21st Century global conditions, Jacob is the multi-national corporation that controls seed, land, markets, and commodities futures.  Esau is the politically disempowered and the disenfranchised.  Whether the Esaus of the Planet today are facing certain death anyway, or are caught in ideological systems that threaten well-being, they either are afraid to, or can’t afford to consider the social, political, and environmental consequences of selling out.  We can’t push this portion of this foundational myth too far.  Nevertheless, whether we see the incident as a clash of agrarian versus hunter-gatherer cultures, or as an allegory of the history of the Hebrew people as they established themselves and became dominant in the ancient Middle East, or as a cautionary tale for children caught up in the battles of sibling rivalry, the story contains all the worst elements of human behavior:  Greed, treachery, arrogance, self-righteousness.

Romans 8:1-11 must be read in that light.  Paul, after all, was a trained expert in Torah.  He knew the stories and the traditions.  When he writes, “To set the mind on the flesh is death, but to set the mind on the spirit is life and peace” he is not talking about premarital (or extramarital) sex.  Paul has been arguing for 8 chapters that participation with the risen Christ in God’s realm of distributive justice-compassion brings life and peace.  To refuse to participate is death and suffering.  Why?  Because God’s law (not Roman law – or human law) is just.  This is not about “believing” that a dead corpse came back to life, although Paul could only describe his extraordinary insight in those terms.  “But if Christ is in you, though the body is dead because of sin, the Spirit is life because of righteousness.”  In other words, even though we are trapped in systems that perpetuate injustice and death – where there is no god – if we are participating with the ongoing program of restoring justice-compassion to the Planet, we live with the Spirit in that realm.  

There is therefore no condemnation – not even for the killers of Jesus – for those who accept the challenge and participate in the great work of justice-compassion.  This teaching means that not only is the death penalty in the United States inappropriate for those who rape children, it is inappropriate for anyone no matter what the crime.  The punitive, retributive, system that controls how the United States deals with aberrant behavior is the opposite of “justice.”  Everyone deserves the chance to turn his or her life around and sign onto the program.  

The gift of grace is free.  This is an extraordinary claim.  The free gift of grace is the same outrageous promise as the seed flung at random by the sower that produces 30%, 60%, even 100% return.