God is at Work in You – 1 October 2017 – 17th Sunday after Pentecost/ Lectionary 26

A number of questions hang in the air with these texts. What is authority? How do we judge it? Do words or actions matter more? What is the “mind of Christ”? How could we ever hope to have such a mind ourselves?

Lest the preacher get trapped by the impossibility of answering these questions adequately, let us all concentrate on the promise of God’s active presence among us. In that promise lies the final answer to all the questions that have no solution.

Matthew 21:23-32

The leaders’ question [to Jesus] about authority is not unreasonable. . . However, the real question. . . is not about [Jesus’] credentials but about the inability of the leaders to trust God’s Word when it appears. They rejected John’s call to repentance. They now reject Jesus. Jesus then tells this parable, which is unique to Matthew.

The heart of the matter is whether talk or actions are what really matter. Certainly, Jesus aligns the leaders who confront him with the son who agreed and then did not act. The tax collectors, sinners, and other riffraff. . . are aligned with the son who said no, but then acted anyway. As the leaders of the Temple answer with the obvious answer, they indict themselves and—here is the key to the question of authority—show themselves to be without authority to ask the question of Jesus in the first place.

. . . The good news here, and in all the passages, is that God is indeed acting in our midst to call us to new life. . . –– Timothy V. Olson

Ezekiel 18:1-4, 25-32

The exiles have fallen into a hopeless acceptance of exile as punishment for Israel’s past sins. The prophet will have none of it. In the form of a legal debate, Ezekiel challenges any feelings of unfairness the people may have toward God. Punishment is a consequence of rebellion.

Ezekiel also will not let them wallow in hopelessness. Despite the length of time spent on punishment in the chapter, it all drives to the redemptive word at the end. Repentance is possible because God does not desire punishment or death. God is a god of life and calls the people to turn and live. –– Timothy V. Olson

Philippians 2:1-13

While this passage is a highly Christological reading with the cross firmly planted in the middle as we read it every year in Lent, the current liturgical setting allows us to see the communal concerns perhaps a little more fully. The overall concern of the passage is unity and faithfulness.

Verses 1–4 use an “if, then” structure to lift up some marks of living a life in Christ that a community of disciples should bear. Consolation, compassion, encouragement, unity, humility and self-sacrifice are to be manifest if Christ is present in Spirit, and love is what guides the community.

Paul then uses the Christological hymn in 5–11 to show the way that this is possible. What is tricky here is how to translate verse 5. Some translations make this a call to conformity or imitation. Others make it out to be an openness to God’s work at empowering us to follow. The first puts the burden upon the faithful, the latter on the work of the Spirit. Either approach is a legitimate rendering of the Greek. However, if the argument is to square with verse 13, “it is God who is at work in you, enabling you...” and 1:6, where Paul assures that God will complete the work begun in the Philippian community, one might choose the latter reading. This does not create a passive submission, however; these are still people on the journey of faith, capable of resistance and rejection. –– Timothy V. Olson

Timothy V. Olson is the Lead Pastor for Mission and Vision at Holy Trinity Lutheran Church, Ankeny, Iowa.

Homily Service 38, no. 10 (2005): 47-56.

The Mind of Christ –– Palm/Passion Sunday, Year A –– 9 April 2017

This is a day for careful reading of the scripture. Bring it to life. Invite a variety of voices. But even an excellent reading does not make a sermon unnecessary. The text resides in a realm that needs, still, to be brought “home.” How does this astonishing story resound in our lives? Tell us that. What does it mean to have the “mind of Christ”?

This day is supreme paradox. Hosanna to the victorious king! Riding on a donkey. Then arrested, tried, and executed. Hosanna!

Some Christians want the imagery of our stories to be clean, uncomplicated, and one-dimensional. This day is not that. Instead, we are invited by the Palms and Passion put together that the God we worship is strong enough to be weak enough for truth. We are to see that power comes from vulnerability, that victory is assured where it is not expected or understood. This is not a God who comes to us in a form we comprehend easily. For that kind of understanding, we need paradox.

Here, at the beginning of Holy Week, the center of our lives, we see the whole story, so that on Maundy Thursday we can understand why we are called to wash each other’s feet. On Good Friday we are called to pay the greatest honor to Jesus’ cross – without which no resurrection could occur. On Saturday when we sit Vigil beside the grave and hear the great stories of God’s people, we are shown all the evidence for faith, and then the stone is rolled away.

Matthew 26:14––27:66

When considered from a critical perspective, what the narrative tells us is: the earliest memory of what took place is that both religious and political authorities came together and Jesus was crucified. We find it plausible that the temple priesthood sensed their own fortunes could be threatened if Jesus decided to apply his popularity to an insurrection against Rome. As for Pilate, any suggestion of a possible sedition would have sealed the potential leader's fate. The sign on the cross, “Jesus King of the Jews,” is Rome's understanding of why it crucified Jesus.

Apart from these points, the details of these narratives were fashioned from knowledge of crucifixions, reflections drawn from the psalms and suffering servant songs. Perhaps some memories originated with women who watched from afar, or even with Simon the Cyrenian. . . The story, however, is for Christians a way to enter into a real event that came to be understood as salvific as well as how God has chosen to identify with all human suffering. –– Regina Boisclair

Isaiah 50:4-9a

The servant described in Isaiah is a disciple of God, called by God and instructed by God. The servant faithfully executes his instructions, often suffering because of them. The servant can only endure the suffering because he is confident that God will vindicate him. God is with him, so his confidence is not in his own strength, but is in the LORD. Those who listen to God are susceptible to suffering, not because God endorses it, but because the ways of God are often in contradiction to the ways of the world. –– Jennifer Copeland

Philippians 2:5-11

This Philippians song tells the same story that the gospels tell: the life, death and resurrection of Jesus Christ. The details are missing, but the essential ingredients are here: descent, humility and servanthood, death on a cross, and exaltation “to the highest place.” It is a song, it is a story, and it was also later one of the resources for Christological debates over the nature and status of Jesus. “Being in very nature God” is how my translation (NIV) reads, while an alternative states, “in the form of God” (NAB). This is followed by “being made in human likeness” (NIV). Although it might seem that a song was a poor source for highly technical philosophical distinctions, this is one of several from which all sides in ancient theological discussions took their proof-texts.

. . . Song let Christians be daring in claims about Jesus. This and other songs opened up ways to use metaphors, to play with speech, and to draw richly on traditional resources from the Hebrew Bible's poetry. . . . Moreover, it is important to stress that the songs of the New Testament were already embedded in Christian worship before they became embedded in texts such as epistles. –– Lucy Bregman

The holy scriptures, in other words, arose from the language and patterns of worship in the early church. Let this Sunday bring the people of God in your life to the Three Days of deepened ritual signification so that the paradox of life from death can become a way of seeing and living.

Lucy Bregman, professor of religion at Temple University, Philadelphia, PA, is the author of several books including Beyond Silence and Denial: Death and Dying Reconsidered (WJK, 1999) and Preaching Death (Baylor Univ., 2011).

Jennifer Copeland, a United Methodist ordained minister, served for 16 years as chaplain at Duke University and as director of the Duke Wesley Fellowship. She is currently executive director at North Carolina Council of Churches in Raleigh-Durham.

Regina Boisclair, a Roman Catholic biblical scholar, teaches at Alaska Pacific University, Anchorage, Alaska.

Homily Service 41, no. 2 (2008): 68-77.