{"id":2829,"date":"2020-09-20T11:00:35","date_gmt":"2020-09-20T15:00:35","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blogs.bu.edu\/sermons\/?p=2829"},"modified":"2020-09-28T21:44:19","modified_gmt":"2020-09-29T01:44:19","slug":"taking-precedence","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.bu.edu\/sermons\/2020\/09\/20\/taking-precedence\/","title":{"rendered":"Taking Precedence"},"content":{"rendered":"

Click here to hear the full service<\/a><\/p>\n

Jonah 3:10\u20134:11<\/a><\/p>\n

Philippians 1:21\u201330<\/a><\/p>\n

Matthew 20:1\u201316<\/a><\/p>\n

Click here to hear just the sermon<\/a><\/p>\n

A friend of mine tells a story about their facilitation of a bible study on Matthew a few years ago.\u00a0 The study was held in a church in a well-off town just outside a major American city.\u00a0 For the first nineteen chapters of Matthew, there was lively discussion, and everything remained relatively calm.\u00a0 But when discussion started on the passage which is our Gospel text this morning, the tenor of discussion changed.\u00a0 There was anger, and resentment, and attempts to dismiss the story on various grounds, the chief ground being that it might be all right for the landowner to act like that in the kingdom of God, but in real life no one would work for them, and such behavior only rewards the lazy.\u00a0 The members of the study had all worked hard to get where they were, and the idea that late hires would be paid the same as those who had worked out in the sun all day was both an outrage and deeply distressing to them, especially as this was a God story.\u00a0 The vineyard owner\u2019s claims were offensive.\u00a0 Did they have no respect for diligence and hard work?\u00a0 Did God have no respect for them in their hard work and diligence?\u00a0 Things got pretty heated.\u00a0 Then one of the members, who had not said much, suddenly said, \u201cBut haven\u2019t any of us ever caught a break?\u00a0 That\u2019s what happens to the late hires, isn\u2019t it?\u00a0 It wasn\u2019t their fault they weren\u2019t hired.\u00a0 They caught a break from the landowner.\u201d\u00a0 Well, this was a bible study that had been going for a while, and the members knew and trusted each other.\u00a0 So they thought about it.\u00a0 And little by little, \u201cWell, when you put it that way \u2026\u201d, the stories began to come out: some about little and amusing breaks, some about life-changing ones, sometimes about breaks that saved a life or many lives.\u00a0 The concept of \u201ccatching a break\u201d was examined, as something that was not expected, not necessarily deserved; and while it might involve someone else feeling affection or the desire to help another person out, it could be, as it is in the Gospel, purely due to the desire of the one who hires and has both the control and resources to provide the break, and they provide it because they can.\u00a0 The study session ended on the general understanding that everyone present allowed that they had experienced catching a break and they were grateful.\u00a0 And of course God could do whatever God liked.\u00a0 But they were honest enough to allow that while the kingdom of God was one thing; if they saw such behavior from their bosses, and if they were the ones first hired, it would still rankle.<\/span><\/p>\n

Someone or something that \u201ctakes precedence\u201d is someone or something that is more important than the people or things around them.\u00a0 Or it is someone or something with somehow a right to preferential treatment.\u00a0 Religious, academic, state, community, or family, processionals or seating arrangements often demonstrate the importance of some people taking precedence over others, through formal organization hierarchy.\u00a0 And, taking precedence is often claimed, or given informally by individuals or groups, or given to certain people, as the members of the bible study gave precedence to the early hires over the late hires with regard to who deserved the most pay from the landowner.\u00a0\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Some things, commitments, and feelings also take precedence, even over things, commitments, and feelings that are also important.\u00a0 The Book of Jonah describes a case in point.\u00a0 Previously in the book to our story this morning, Jonah has been called by God to go and preach warning and repentance to the capital of the Assyrian Empire, the great, wicked city of Nineveh.\u00a0 For reasons that are unclear at the time, Jonah goes overland to the place farthest from Nineveh, and then he takes a ship to go even farther away.\u00a0 A storm blows up, Jonah tells the sailors that the storm is his fault for disobeying God, and he allows the sailors to throw him overboard so that they will not be harmed.\u00a0 Jonah goes overboard, the sea calms, and Jonah is a swallowed by\u00a0<\/span>a great fish, or a whale.\u00a0 He spends the fabled three days in the whale\u2019s stomach.\u00a0 Then the whale\u00a0<\/span>spews him up onto dry land.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Our Scripture this morning, then, is post-whale.\u00a0 Jonah has, it seems, decided to obey God\u2019s call, and goes to Nineveh.\u00a0 He has a spectacular preaching tour.\u00a0 He only repeats one phrase, and the people and even the king pay attention.\u00a0 They fast, repent in sackcloth and ashes, and turn from their evil ways.\u00a0 God accepts their repentance, changes the divine mind, and does not overthrow the city.<\/span><\/p>\n

Amazingly enough, Jonah is angry at the results of his work, work that he had been called by God to do.\u00a0 He is angry with God.\u00a0 He is specifically angry with God\u2019s character and nature.:\u00a0 God\u2019s grace, God\u2019s mercy, God\u2019s slowness to anger, God\u2019s abounding in steadfast love, God\u2019s readiness to relent from punishment.\u00a0 The same qualities of God that he remembered as he prayed in repentance from inside the whale, when they are turned toward his enemies, he is so angry with God that he wants God to kill him, because he would rather die than live in such a situation.\u00a0 God asks Jonah if he has a right to be angry, but receives no answer, and Jonah goes to a lookout to see what becomes of the forgiven city.\u00a0 A bush grows over Jonah\u2019s head and shades him, but a worm comes and kills the bush, and in the renewed heat Jonah again asks God to kill him.\u00a0 God asks again if Jonah has the right to be angry, this time about the bush, and Jonah says he is angry enough to die, which is better than to live.\u00a0 Jonah has allowed his anger and hatred of the Ninevites, and his concern for his own comfort, to take precedence:\u00a0 precedence over his call from God, precedence over what he knows is the character and nature of God, and precedence over the great transformation of a wicked and violent city into a place concerned with repentance toward a right relationship with God and others.\u00a0 For God, however, what takes precedence is the welfare of one hundred and twenty thousand people who are confused and fearful; and let\u2019s not\u00a0<\/span>forget their animals, because God does not forget them.<\/span><\/p>\n

The message of this morning\u2019s two stories is that God\u2019s idea of who or what takes precedence is different from Jonah\u2019s; and as Jesus declares in his God story, it is different from that of the early hires.\u00a0 God, who created everything, can in divine generosity do whatever God wants, for whoever God wants, and the people who are called to God\u2019s mission both are taken care of and also will catch some breaks.\u00a0 In these things, these stories are similar.\u00a0 For our purposes this morning, we will note some differences between other aspects of the stories.<\/span><\/p>\n

While there is some scholarly warrant for the possible existence of a \u201cJonah son of Ammitai,\u201d and the enmity between Assyria and Israel is a matter of historical record, debate rages over who actually wrote the Book of Jonah.\u00a0 Debate also rages over why, where, and when the author wrote it.\u00a0 There is even debate over what category the book falls into:\u00a0 history, parable, satire, and\/or political\/religious persuasion toward a more universal concept of God\u2019s presence and love.\u00a0 What we do know for sure is that Jonah\u2019s is a story that was included in the Hebrew Bible, is referenced in both Matthew and Luke in the Christian scriptures, and has captured the imagination in books, song, and art for centuries.\u00a0 And, the picture of Jonah it paints is both absurd, and in our time a bit too close to some of what we see at loose in the world:\u00a0 a man who insists that what takes precedence, what is more important, is his own hatred of others, his anger toward those who change for the better and toward God,, and his preference for death, rather than life in a world where human repentance and divine generosity and mercy are possible.<\/span><\/p>\n

Jesus\u2019s story has noticeable differences.\u00a0 It is an everyday story of marginal day workers and a disconcertingly fair and also generous employer.\u00a0 We recognize its issues in our own reactions as to which workers should or should not take precedence in our own workplaces.\u00a0 And we recognize its issues in our national labor policies that affect millions of lives and futures. \u00a0 If we are like the members of the bible study, we will also remember the times when someone\u00a0 allowed us to take precedence and gave us a break, and the warm feelings up to and including incoherent relief with which we received that break.<\/span><\/p>\n

In the Gospel of Matthew the tax collector, this story is set in a whole section of stories which emphasize the fact that God\u2019s idea of who or what takes precedence is not necessarily what we or the world think takes precedence, think what is more important.\u00a0 In the stories that precede our story this morning:\u00a0 Jesus insists that little children be allowed to come to him, because it is to those like them that the kingdom of heaven belongs:\u00a0 Jesus encounters the rich young ruler who would not follow him because of his riches, and acknowledges that it is hard for rich people to enter the kingdom of heaven; when Peter asks what will they get, who have left everything to follow Jesus, Jesus says that they will have more than they need, and, in this case too, that \u201c \u2026 many who are first will be last, and the last will be first.\u201d\u00a0 In the verses following our story this morning, Jesus tells his disciples that he is going to Jerusalem to die; the mother of the sons of Zebedee does their work for them and asks Jesus to put her sons to the right and left of him when he comes into his kingdom; Jesus tells James and John that they don\u2019t know what they are asking, and anyway that\u2019s not his to grant; when the others are angry with James and John, Jesus tells them all that whoever wants to be great among them must be their servant, and that Jesus himself, who comes to serve, is the embodiment of God\u2019s upending of worldly ideas of what takes precedence, of what is more important<\/span><\/p>\n

We have noted before that the Gospel of Matthew is in part a manual of instruction, a teaching Gospel, that teaches through the example of Jesus what his followers\u00a0 need to know:\u00a0 about God and Jesus, about themselves, and about their neighbors. The Gospel teaches about God\u2019s invitation and inclusion, about God\u2019s ideas of who and what takes precedence, about who and what is more important.\u00a0 The kingdom of heaven, present and coming, is like this:\u00a0 a place where everyone is included, where everyone is important, and where at any given time and in any given situation, some people change places, so that the first shall become last, and the last shall become first, so that love and justice can prevail.<\/span><\/p>\n

These stories come at an interesting time for us.\u00a0 The Covid-19 pandemic also upends our\u00a0<\/span>ideas of what takes precedence, of what is more important.\u00a0 It reveals the deep fissures in our society, which in turn reveal disdain and hatred, and as well mercy and generosity.\u00a0 Now I want to be very clear here.\u00a0 I am not saying that God caused either the virus or the pandemic.\u00a0 From what I gather from the science, medical , and political communities they are likely the result of a combination of natural processes and the consequences of human denial, fear, and short-sighted choices around environment, our relations with other species, and public health.\u00a0 I am also not saying that God has sent us the virus as a punishment.\u00a0 The pain, sorrow, fear, and despair this virus has caused and continues to cause is suffering enough to go on with for anything. \u00a0 And these all are exacerbated in turn by uncontrolled wildfires, racial injustice and unrest, a frightening economic situation, and the background of climate change.\u00a0 Our faith does not promise us that we will be punished for anything through natural processes or their consequences.\u00a0 What our faith does promise is that God\u2019s presence, guidance, and help are with us, to help bring us through, and to help us learn.\u00a0\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

And we are learning a lot now, in deeper and richer, and yes, in more challenging ways.\u00a0 Some of what we are learning is that those who we may have overlooked or taken for granted take precedence in importance to our well-being, if we are to eat, to continue to function as individuals and a society, and to recover and get well.\u00a0 We are learning that some, through no fault of their own but through being discounted in their human being and dignity, suffer more deeply and widely than others, and that certain changes must take precedence over the <\/span>status quo<\/span><\/i> if this extra suffering and blatant injustice is to end.\u00a0 We are learning how important each individual person who has died <\/span>was<\/span>, to their loved ones and to their communities. We are learning how important we who live are to each other, as we long for physical presence, contact, and energy.\u00a0 We are learning how human relationship, and human relationship with the natural and wider world, take precedence over so much of what we thought was more important.\u00a0 And we are learning the importance each one of us has and can have to God and to our neighbor, in actions both large and small.<\/span><\/p>\n

Paul writes about this in his own inimitable way in his letter to the church at Philippi, a church for which Paul has a particular affection.\u00a0 His letter is full of friendship and rejoicing in and for them, even in the midst of the sufferings they variously face, and he recounts his dilemma in the face of their friendship in Christ. \u00a0 He does not know which to prefer:\u00a0 to die and be with Christ is what he would prefer as the best of all situations; but if he continues to live, he has fruitful labor to do, and that is more necessary for the church at Philippi, which he loves.\u00a0 So, he will remain alive and in the flesh, to continue with them in progress and joy, and so that they may all boast in Christ when they can be together again.\u00a0 Since life take precedence over death for Paul in his call from God, he will do his work toward fruitfulness, endure his sufferings in faith, and enjoy his time with his friends.<\/span><\/p>\n

Covid-19 is no respecter of precedence or people.\u00a0 But as long as we are, like Paul, still alive and in the flesh, our life with God, self, and neighbor takes precedence even over our fear, and accompanies our grief and the many other emotions of this time.\u00a0 Now more than ever, we are called to consider what will take precedence, what will be more important, in our lives.\u00a0 We are called to be fruitful in the work we are called to do.\u00a0 We are called to rejoice in our friends and companions in Christ.\u00a0 In all this we are called to be guided by God\u2019s ideas of what takes precedence, rather than our own or the world\u2019s.\u00a0 And when we do, we are promised that our world will be the more interesting, the richer, and the more just for it.\u00a0 May we rest in God\u2019s mercy and generosity, and may we extend God\u2019s mercy and generosity to as many others as we can.\u00a0 AMEN.<\/span><\/p>\n

-The Rev. Dr. Victoria Hart Gaskell, Minister for Visitation<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Click here to hear the full service Jonah 3:10\u20134:11 Philippians 1:21\u201330 Matthew 20:1\u201316 Click here to hear just the sermon A friend of mine tells a story about their facilitation of a bible study on Matthew a few years ago.\u00a0 The study was held in a church in a well-off town just outside a major […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2679,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[24],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.bu.edu\/sermons\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2829"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.bu.edu\/sermons\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.bu.edu\/sermons\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.bu.edu\/sermons\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2679"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.bu.edu\/sermons\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2829"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.bu.edu\/sermons\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2829\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2832,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.bu.edu\/sermons\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2829\/revisions\/2832"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.bu.edu\/sermons\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2829"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.bu.edu\/sermons\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2829"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.bu.edu\/sermons\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2829"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}