Some parables are fun. The “Good Samaritan” is a fun parable that shows us who our neighbor is and what it is to be a good neighbor. The parable challenges us, yes, but it does not raise any fear. It is fun and refreshing. The parable from Matthew 21:33-46 is not fun. Are we not encouraged to read the Bible all the time by our pastors? And, if I am going to listen and invest some precious time into doing it, should it not be fun and refreshing? It should be a holistic experience that draws together the body and soul into one healed whole. It should cause you to walk away feeling good that you took the time to do it. Reading this parable is the opposite of that.
Discussing wicked tenants who are given control of a landowner’s vineyard does not appear to begin a fun and healing parable. Why should we care whether or not they try to steal the produce for themselves because they were put “in control” of it? Who wants to talk about tenants staining red the soil of the vineyard with the blood of the slaves and the son of the vineyard owner? There is nothing fun about the vineyard owner coming in and slaughtering the bad tenants to make room for good tenants. There is nothing fun about this parable at all in fact. I believe that this parable was probably skipped in most Sunday Schools because of its bloody and quite frankly un-fun nature. Perhaps, we should do the same and focus on some nice Biblical texts.
Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.
Blessed are those who mourn, for they will be comforted.
Blessed are the meek, for they will inherit the earth.
Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they will be filled.
Those are nice texts are they not? They are so healing…so full of hope. Everyone who suffers and hungers will be healed and fed by God. Surely those are the texts that God wants us to focus on.
I do this with myself quite often; I choose to read the Bible texts that make me feel good; the ones that do not poke at me and cause me to evaluate myself. The bad thing about a lectionary (the three year cycle of Biblical texts that we read in church) is that I am forced to look at texts I do not like. And, you are forced to read texts that you just may choose to skip over when opening the Bible. Of course, you still have the option to just close out this blog and ignore them altogether. I do not have that option.
What I do and you do when we choose to not read things we do not like is what I call selective blindness. We choose to remain blind when we start to read something we would rather not. We choose to remain blind when what we are reading starts to pry into our lives and wrench things loose. An example of this selective blindness is to take this parable and interpret the parable to be talking only to the Pharisees of Jesus’ time. “They are the bad tenants who horde the power and wealth given them by God and we are the good Christians to whom God has now given the kingdom of God.” Selective blindness would stop right there.
Selective blindness would not venture to ask the question, “Well, if we are the new tenants, are we doing any better with what God has given us? Are we sharing all that the Lord has entrusted to us or are we hording it? Do we share God’s possessions or do we convince ourselves that God's possessions are our own to do with however we please? Do we share the good news that says, the sick are made well, sinners are restored to the community, and God is praised because it is all God’s doing,” or do we like to keep those hope filled biblical texts to ourselves? Are they just treasures that we keep hidden on our bedside night table for personal encouragement only? Selective blindness does not allow us to ask those questions because it fears the answers.
Fear from questions such as, “But, if I share it, what will I do if something happens to me?” penetrate us. It enters into our veins and muscles and allows us to ignore Christ. It allows us to want blessings for the poor in spirit but does not allow us to participate in making that happen. Not only that; this fear does not allow us to trust that Christ will find a way to provide for us.
What if we did get the courage to offer some of our wealth to our poor neighbor and something did happen to us? Is the only option that we will die because we cannot care for yourselves? Do we really trust Christ so little? Do we really need to steal God’s possessions and direct them only to ourselves in order to feel secure?
We and the Pharisees do not knowingly reject Christ and his wondrous kingdom where the blind see, the hungry are fed, and the sinful are forgiven. All we know is that we are scared. We do not understand how fear causes us to loose sight of what God’s will for the world really is. We cannot see unless we allow these uncomfortable, not fun texts to encounter us and unsettle us.
If selective blindness had not hidden this parable from those involved with sub-prime mortgages (those who handed out mortgages to people who could not possibly afford them) would our nation be in trouble now? They only saw the money from the sales of those mortgages that would make them personally secure.
Of course, it is easy to point fingers at others and showcase how fear and the resulting greed can ruin everything. What is hard to think about is how your own blindness has unknowingly hurt someone else. Trust me, it has. I have done it, and you have done it. This may be a fearful placed to trod. You might hate me for bringing it up just as the caretakers hated the son. But, do we really want to be the selfish, wicked caretakers? I thought not. It is time for some truth seeking and some truth telling; for the sake of ourselves, for the sake of our communities, for the sake of the nation, and for the sake of the world. Christ's light shines most brightly when the truth is close by.
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