Daily Lesson for June 2, 2014

Today's Daily Lesson is from Matthew 8 verses 11 and 12:

11 I tell you, many will come from east and west and recline at table with Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob in the kingdom of heaven, 12 while the sons of the kingdom will be thrown into the outer darkness.

So I have to confess, if I had been there when Jesus said this I would have been at least a little put off.  

First of all, a Roman soldier had come to him asking that his servant be healed and Jesus healed him.  I'm sure that didn't sit well with most of Jesus' Jewish neighbors who were living under Roman occupation.  So that's one thing.  But then Jesus went further; he extolled the soldier's faith, saying foreigners from all over the world are going to eat with Abraham at the heavenly banquet, while sons of Abraham will be thrown out.  

If I had been there,  hearing Jesus extoll a pagan's faith and saying the children of Abraham would be thrown out, I gotta say it wouldn't have sat very well.

Because what Jesus was saying was so disturbing to traditional thinking, Christians for centuries misinterpreted it to be about Gentile Christians being saved and Jews being rejected.  That is a gross misinterpretation and it is an attempt by Christians to avoid what Jesus is saying by thinking it is about someone else.

What Jesus is really saying is that God's heavenly table is open to all who would come - Jew and Gentile alike.  The invitation is an open gift - a grace.  Those who will be thrown out are those who cannot accept the fact that they might well have a seat at the table next to someone of a different race, or nationality, or even religion.  Many will come from east and west; and if they come they will be welcome, and we will have to be apart of the welcoming party.  This is what the heavenly banquet looks like.  It's God's party, and it's God's intention to include all - even when including all will make us uncomfortable, seem unfair, and bless people we think ought to be cursed.

If I had been there to hear Jesus say this I know it wouldn't have sat altogether well with me.  I know this, because it still doesn't sit altogether well with me. 

There is a Dietrich Bonhoeffer poem I love that says what I think today's lesson is all about:

"All people go to God in need
For help and calm and food they plead
That sickness, guilt and death may cease
All, Christians and pagans, pray for peace.

"But some turn to God in God's need and dread
A God poor, despised, without roof or bread
By sin's harm weakened and by death distressed,
Christians stand steadfast by their God oppressed.

"But God - God goes to all in their need and dread
Their soul's loving grace and their bodies' bread
By the Crucified Lord who for them was slain
Both Christians and pagans God's pardon gain."

Jesus was once talking about grace and asked, "Is your eye evil because I am good?"  Two thousand years later that's still a relevant question . . .