"The Good News of God" (Mark 1: 1, 9-15)

In his book The Power of Parable, John Dominic Crossan points out that when Julius Caesar triumphantly ended Rome’s agonizing Civil War, he became a military hero.  For decades to come, Caesar’s praises were sung.  Paulus Fabius Maximus, governor of Asia Minor, wrote that “the birthday of the most divine Caesar we might justly equate with the beginning of everything… since he restored order… and gave a new look to the whole world.”

An inscription written a few decades after Caesar’s death reads: “He who put an end to war and brings peace – Caesar – who exceeded the hopes of those who prophesied good news…”

Julius Caesar was so successful that he was the first Roman Emperor to be officially deified.  He was officially declared a god.  He was referred to as the divine savior of the world, the bringer of peace who brought about a new reign of peace; and the story of Caesar’s accomplishments was labeled “good news” for all the people.

For the past several weeks, I have preached about how the parables of Jesus were mostly presented as challenges to prevailing mindsets.  The parables challenged common ways of thinking; they challenged people to look at the world in a whole new way.

When the gospel writers we know as Matthew, Mark, Luke and John wrote their gospels, they didn’t set out to record history.  History is certainly a part of what they wrote, but their more important concern was to write their own parables: stories about Jesus that challenged prevailing mindsets and preconceived notions. 

And chief among these mindsets that they challenged was the view society had of Caesar. 

By the time of Jesus, Julius Caesar was gone and Caesar Augustus was now emperor.  And the labels given to the former were applied to the latter: Caesar was the divine savior of the world, the giver of bread, the bringer of peace; and stories of Caesar and his accomplishments were good news for all people.

However, the peace of Rome – the pax Romana – came at a price.  Incredibly high and burdensome taxes were levied on the people, and most especially on the poor, in order to support the large and mighty military that a powerful empire required.  And, in order to maintain peace in the empire, Caesar made sure to squash any and all rebellions that might threaten the peace of Rome, which meant oppression and persecution.  Nothing was allowed to threaten the pax Romana.

So Caesar is the divine savior, the giver of bread, the bringer of peace, and news of his reign is good news for all the people. 

It is a mighty powerful challenge, then, to tell the story of a child born to poor peasants in a tiny town, parents so oppressed by Caesar that they had to travel a long distance just days before the child was born to satisfy Caesar’s requirements for a census.  It is a mighty challenge to label that child divine savior, bringer of peace, and to call the story of his birth good news for all the people.  It is a mighty challenge to say that this child was the one to establish a new kingdom.

The gospels take the world of Caesar and Roman Empire, and turn it completely upside down.

Let’s start with the gospel according to Mark.

The gospel of Mark begins with these words:  “The beginning of the good news of Jesus, the anointed one, the son of God.”  At the beginning of his ministry, Jesus says “Repent.  Turn away, and turn to the Kingdom of God which has now arrived.”  When Jesus casts out a demon, the demon is named “Legion,” the name given to a battalion in the Roman army. 

But the challenge does not end there.  The pax Romana is enforced by a strong military.  But Jesus says that this new Kingdom of God will not come about through military might.  And those who had followed this story of a new, alternative to Caesar would stop at this point and say, “Unh?”  Because how else, they wondered, would the kingdom come?

The kingdom Mark presents challenges any and all preconceived notions of what a kingdom is.  It is such a great challenge that no one in Mark’s story seems to understand this, because it is so different. 

One of the patterns parables use is to present repetitions in 3; think of the 3 passersby who encountered the man on the side of the road in the parable of the Good Samaritan, or the 3 servants who had been given talents for safekeeping by the master.  In the story Mark tells, Jesus proclaims three times that his kingdom involves taking up one’s cross, that it involves being last of all and servant to all, being like a child, which, in those days, meant being like a nobody, and that it will not come about through force or military might.

But that’s not how it is in the kingdoms of the world.  And even the disciples didn’t get it.  They argued over who would sit next to Jesus, in places of honor.  They tried to make a name for themselves by being leaders of the movement that developed around Jesus – especially Peter, James, and John.  And they sought to rain fire down upon those who were against Jesus.

But remember what we learned a few weeks ago about those who are named and those who aren’t?  Remember the parable of the unnamed rich man, and the poor man named Lazarus?  In society, it’s the rich and powerful who are named, and everyone knows their name.  But in the gospel of Jesus, it’s the nobodies, the nameless, who are lifted up.  And indeed, in Mark’s gospel, the named disciples fail, even at the end; they are confused and frightened at the crucifixion and bewildered at the resurrection; but in chapter 14 it is an unnamed woman who believes; and in chapter 15, it is an unnamed man who believes; and in the upside-down world of the gospel, it is they who are the real heroes. 

And for anyone who has ears to hear, the challenge is there.  John Dominic Crossan writes: Christianity’s “named leaders come and go, and much that they leave behind them is not to Christianity’s credit.  How few of them down through the centuries have exercised power, authority, and leadership as Jesus told the Twelve to…”  as slaves and servants.

The gospel of Mark was the first of the four gospels written, and that is the challenge parable he crafted.  It’s the challenge of a new kingdom, but one that is nonviolent, one in which unnamed slaves and servants are exalted over named leaders and rulers.

Matthew and Luke used Mark’s story as a source when composing their own versions of the gospel.  But Matthew and Luke also incorporated material from other sources.  I talked about this a little with our high school youth a few weeks ago, about how Mark was one of several sources for Matthew and Luke.

But Luke has his own agenda.  Luke came to be a follower of Jesus from a group of people who weren’t a part of mainstream Judaism.  Therefore Luke wanted to see the Jesus movement expand beyond Jerusalem, to welcome others who were a part of the Roman Empire. 

Luke wants Christianity to become a world-wide movement, and therefore Luke portrays Christianity as progressing geographically from Jerusalem and Galilee all the way to Rome.

Yes, Rome.  In Luke, the challenge isn’t so much against Rome as it is to Rome.  Luke isn’t quite as hostile toward Caesar as Mark is.  Instead, Luke challenges Rome to take a second look at Christianity, to give special accommodations to Christianity in the same way that Rome had given special accommodations to Judaism. 

So because Luke is appealing to Rome to look sympathetically upon Christianity, Luke is much kinder toward Rome than Mark is.  At Jesus’s crucifixion, the role of the Roman government is downplayed, and more of the guilt is cast upon the Jewish leaders.  In fact, the Roman leaders find no fault with Jesus.  “I find no fault with this man,” says Pilate, the Roman governor, in Luke’s gospel.

So Luke’s challenge is a challenge to Rome, to look at the Christian movement in a new, more hospitable way.

Matthew originates more within the Jewish community; but in Matthew, Jesus does speak in ways that Mark would probably condemn.  Jesus engages in a bit of name-calling, especially towards the leaders of the Jewish people, who Matthew thinks have missed the point.

Then we have John’s gospel, the last of the four gospels written.  John’s gospel is very different from the other three.  Whereas Mark was virtually free of words of accusation, and Matthew and Luke were willing to attack the Jewish leadership, John does not hesitate to generalize and attack the Jews as a whole.  Instead of criticizing the Pharisees and the “chief priests,” John criticizes the Jews in a way that almost makes one forget that Jesus and his companions were, themselves, Jews.

There are many other differences in John.  Every act in John has a symbolic, spiritual meaning.  And at Jesus’s death, Jesus is in complete control. 

In Mark, the crucifixion is a traumatic experience for a suffering Jesus, who is distressed, agitated, and grieved; but in John, Jesus is totally in control.  In Mark, Jesus cries out, “My God, why have you forsaken me!” 

But in John, Jesus declares, “It is finished.”

That is a very different portrayal.  So different, in fact, that John Dominic Crossan says that the challenge in John’s portrayal is a challenge to the other gospels.  It’s as if John took the stories told by Mark, Matthew, and Luke, and said, “No; let’s look at this in a whole new way.”

Given that John was the last of the four gospels written, and that John is so violently anti-Jewish (even though Jesus himself was a Jew), it is easy to dismiss John altogether.  It does seem that John’s portrayal of Jesus is probably quite different from the actual, human, Jesus of Nazareth who roamed the earth in the early part of the first century.  In other words, John’s Jesus is probably the furthest from the truth when one defines truth as actual, historical fact.

But isn’t there another kind of truth?  A deeper truth, a truth of meaning, that manifests itself when a story is told?

Why did John tell the story of Jesus the way he did?  John Dominic Crossan suggests that, probably, John was himself a Samaritan.  Keep in mind that even though tradition says the apostle John wrote this gospel, the actual author is anonymous, and probably was someone other than John.  If this anonymous author was indeed a Samaritan, and if he had experienced first-hand the prejudice and discrimination directed at Samaritans by the Jews, then doesn’t it makes sense that the story he wrote would be so anti-Jewish?

I don’t mean to condone or approve of the anti-Jewish sentiment in the gospel according to John… but I do think that, perhaps, we can understand why it’s there.

Also, writing quite a few decades after Jesus’s death, the story John told was filtered through at least one or two generations of people trying to make sense and figure out the meaning of it all. So doesn’t it makes sense that John’s gospel is more symbolic and more spiritual than the others, that it would focus more on metaphorical truth and deeper meaning, rather than actual, historical fact?

And taking all four gospels together, recognizing that none of them is 100% literally true, but that each has an important story to tell… can we find a deeper understanding and a greater truth in all of them?

Perhaps more importantly, as we consider the relationship between these four stories – their different perspectives, the reasons they tell the stories the way they do – can we find meaning and truth for our times and our lives?

Can we, for example, see the treatment of Samaritans, the common prejudice and discrimination against them, John’s anti-Jewish reaction to that prejudice and discrimination; and Jesus’s challenge to overcome prejudice and discrimination?

If so, can we then see, perhaps, the modern parallel of a Christian church that has long harbored prejudice against the gay community, the anti-church reaction of many in the gay community, and the present challenge we have today to overcome those prejudices?

I suppose that if – hypothetically speaking – a gospel story were to be written by the gay community, it would present the story of Jesus, in a way that lifts up meaning and truths from his life and his teachings.  I also suppose that it would speak harshly and negatively about the modern church, which has done so much to hurt and abuse people who are a part of that community.  And perhaps it would present a new vision, an alternative vision, challenging the church to a new way of living, a way that overcomes prejudice and discrimination and which sees in the story of Jesus good news for all the people.

It would be a parable for our time, a story that challenges us to a new vision, to life in a new kingdom. 

It would be a story that makes us go, “Unh?”

"Parables About Jesus" (Mark 14:12-16 & John 19: 31-33, 40-42)

For the past several weeks my sermons have focused on the parables of scripture.  Using John Dominic Crossan’s book The Power of Parable as a guide, I have shown how parables in scripture were of three types, the most powerful being the challenge parable.  I mentioned that challenge parables were those which challenged the hearer’s prejudices and preconceived notions, and presented an entirely different worldview than that which is commonly held.  In other words, they turn things upside down.  I have presented the books of Ruth, Jonah, and Job as Old Testament examples of challenge parables, and have discussed a number of the parables Jesus told and showed how they employed this traditional type of storytelling.

Those who wrote about Jesus could not help but be impressed by the parables he told.  I’m talking specifically about Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John.  In fact, the way they wrote about Jesus led John Dominic Crossan to say that, in many ways, what they did was write parables about Jesus.

I’ll explain that a little more in a few minutes.  But first, I want to tell you about how I spent my summers while I was in college.  Every summer, I would spend a couple of weeks on the staff of a camp for mentally disabled adults.  These campers were adults of all ages (but all over the age of 18) who had autism, downs syndrome, and other intellectual challenges. 

This experience followed several years in high school when I volunteered to help run a boy scout troop for a group of developmentally disabled scouts.  We ran meetings and took these scouts on outings, camping trips, and even camporees where they competed in events alongside scouts from many other units.  The support they received from their fellow scouts always amazed me.

Because of these experiences, when the movie Rain Man came out, people asked me how true it was.  In that movie, Dustin Hoffman plays an autistic savant named Charlie, who demonstrates a number of remarkable abilities.  People asked me if the story seemed true, if Dustin Hoffman’s character seemed true.

Well, I said, yes; I had met people who could do what Dustin Hoffman’s character did in Rain Man.  However, I hadn’t met one single person who could do all the things he could do.  It seemed to me that his character was a composite, incorporating the traits and abilities that any number of people might have.  However, a movie about “any number of people” would get tedious and confusing and boring.  So those “any number of people” were combined into one character.  And even though that one character does not exist in real life, the portrayal in the movie of people with autism is very, very true.

In other words, that character isn’t a literally true depiction of any one person in real life; and yet, it is a very true depiction of people with autism.

In fact, if the characteristics of that one character were divided up into multiple characters in order to be more accurate to real life, the meaning and deeper theme of the movie would be lost; and if the meaning and deeper theme were lost, then the movie would actually become less true, even though it is more accurate.

Make sense?

A few years after Rain Man, Dreamworks Animation produced the movie Prince of Egypt, an animated version of the story of Moses.  And in that movie, they made some changes to the story.  For example, the Bible says that the daughter of Pharaoh discovered baby Moses in a basket; but the movie changed it so that it was Pharaoh’s wife, not daughter, who discovered Moses.

According to the Bible, Moses was 80 years old when he returned to Egypt and confronted Pharaoh.  In the movie, I must say he looked remarkably good for 80.  And then, of course, he led the people through the wilderness for another 40 years before dying.

In the movie, he never looks older than perhaps mid 30s.

And the movie had a number of religious leaders serving as consultants.  And these religious leaders had no problems with the changes made by the moviemakers.  Why?  Because they recognized that the themes of the story were still present, and in fact, the changes made by the movie makers helped bring out the meaning of the story better than if they had strictly followed the Biblical account.  The way the story was told in the movie expressed the truth of the biblical story better than if it had followed exactly every detail that we read in the book of Exodus.

And besides, there is good reason to suspect that the book of Exodus itself was more concerned with bringing out the meaning of the story and its deeper truth, than with being accurate with all the details.  I mean, come on:  a man of 100 years old, 110, 120, leading people on a strenuous wilderness journey?

It’s possible that this story – the story of the exodus – could be considered a parable, and perhaps even a challenge parable since it conveyed a deep truth and featured the reordering of society.  But unlike many of the parables Jesus told, which were fictitious stories told to reveal truth, the story of the exodus, it seems, had its origins in historical events, even if everything in the story isn’t historically true. 

But that doesn’t mean it isn’t true true.

Ernest Hemingway once said that “all good books are alike in that they are truer than if they had really happened.”  Does that make sense to you?  In the greatest literature of the world, stories of fiction have a way of conveying powerful, important truths in a way that historical accounts just can’t.

Someone once asked well-known Disciple preacher Fred Craddock, who has a reputation for weaving wonderful stories into his sermons, if all the stories he’s ever told were true.  And the answer Craddock gave was: “Of course they’re true; they happen every day.”

Then again, I’m not really sure that Craddock said that.  It could just be a story told about him.  But it’s true nevertheless.

So… the gospel writers – Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John – in writing about Jesus, they were inspired by how Jesus wove meaning and deep truth into the stories he told, and they did the same in the stories they told about Jesus.

This is why John Dominic Crossan divides his book into two sections.  The first section is titled, “Parables by Jesus.”  The second section is titled, “Parables About Jesus.”

The gospel writers wanted to convey actual historical events, but this was not their first concern.  Their first concern was to convey deeper meaning and truth. 

For example: we heard two scripture readings this morning, one from Mark, and one from John.  Did you notice how they contradict each other?

We heard a few verses from Mark’s depiction of the Last Supper.  Mark saw the Last Supper that Jesus had with his disciples as a new Passover meal.  He talked about the Passover, and how the disciples prepared for the Passover meal, and how Jesus added new meaning and significance to this Passover meal.  So obviously, what we call the Last Supper took place on the day of Passover.

John, on the other hand, saw Jesus as the paschal lamb, the lamb that is sacrificed for the sins of those present at the Passover meal.  On the cross, Jesus dies for the sins of the world.  So, in John’s gospel, it makes sense that it is the crucifixion that takes place on the day of Passover, not the Last Supper.  The Last Supper was the day before.

So which story is true?  Marks’ story of the Lord’s Supper being on Passover, or John’s story of the crucifixion being on Passover?

Some people try to reconcile the two stories.  But they can’t be reconciled.  The Lord’s Supper was one day, the crucifixion was the next day, and they both can’t be on the Festival of Unleavened Bread, the first day of Passover.

It’s possible that neither story is true as far as the history is concerned.  It’s possible that both Mark and John are wrong, that neither event actually took place on the day of the Passover meal.  Do we say, then, that neither story is true?

On the other hand, there is great truth in thinking of the Lord’s Supper as a sort of re-invented Passover meal.  This is a meaningful way of thinking of the Lord’s Supper, and therefore we can say that there is great truth present in Mark’s gospel.

And, there is great truth in thinking of Jesus’s death on the cross as a sacrifice for the sins of the world, like the paschal lamb.  This is a meaningful way of thinking of the crucifixion, and therefore we can say that there is great truth present in John’s gospel.

For some Christians, it is a real challenge to think that either Mark or John – or both – are wrong, that there are errors in the Bible.  After all, it’s the Bible: God’s holy word.  Every word is true, is it not?

Well, if you want to talk history for a moment, the Bible was not interpreted literally for most of Christian history.  It wasn’t until the Enlightenment that some Christians began to look to the Bible for factual evidence. 

During the Enlightenment, in the period following the great scientific discoveries of people like Copernicus, Galileo, and Newton, “truth” came to be identified with actual facts.  People were fascinated with these discoveries about how the universe works, and began looking to the Bible for scientific facts as well.  They began to look for “factual truth” in the Bible.

  But up until that time, the stories of scripture were read more for their deeper truth and metaphorical meaning, with little attention or concern given to whether the stories in the Bible were “factual,” or whether certain events “actually happened.”  This way of reading scripture is actually quite recent in Christian history.

Now certainly, many things in scripture did “actually happen.”  There is no doubt among scholars that a man named Jesus actually existed, that he was raised in a small Galilean town called Nazareth, that he attracted a large following due to his teachings, that he was recognized as having a special connection to God, that he was seen as a threat to many of those in power, and that he was crucified by the Roman government.

But it is in these actual events that the gospel writers saw a deeper and profound truth at work, and their goal was to convey this deeper and profound truth to their readers.  Their goal was not to “get it right” concern all the facts of history. 

And that’s why, for example, Luke says that Mary and Joseph were from Nazareth, while Matthew says they were from Bethlehem.  Each has their own theological reason for saying so.  At least one of them has to be factually wrong; and yet, both are true because of the deeper symbolism involved.

Now, for Christians who have been influenced by the more recent centuries’ emphasis on reading the Bible as history, this is a whole different way of reading.  It’s reading for a different kind of truth, a truth that is deeper, more profound, and more meaningful.  But it is different, and for someone whose faith is based on a literal understanding of scripture, reading the Bible in this other way can turn their world upside down.  It challenges their understanding of basis of their faith. 

And being told that there’s a whole different way of seeing one’s faith really can make you go “Unh?” 

So that’s why John Dominic Crossan says that scripture contains not only parables by Jesus, but also parables about Jesus.  Because the stories about Jesus told by the gospel writers are told with the same purpose in mind that Jesus had when he told stories about good Samaritans, nameless rich people, and laborers who got paid the same whether they worked one hour or all day.

The stories about Jesus that we have in scripture challenge us to look at our world in a whole new way.  They have the power to change our lives and change our world.  It is what makes reading the Bible so meaningful to me, and why I treasure these stories so much, studying them daily to discover the truth they contain.

Next week: a comparison of the four gospels.  How each of them tells the story of Jesus challenges certain aspects in their society… And also, the way each gospel tells the story presents a challenge to the way the other gospels tell the story…

A Nameless Rich Man (Luke 16: 19-31)

When I was a kid, and my family went on a road trip, it was always important to me to know where we were going, and even what route we were taking.  This did have some good results.

For example, when I was about nine years old, my aunt and uncle moved from Chicago to Santa Maria, California, which is just a few hours’ drive from my childhood home in Burbank.  Upon moving, they sent out invitations for a little gathering at their new home, which my parents stuck on the refrigerator door with a magnet.

When the day came, my sisters and I hopped into the back seat of our station wagon, and my parents drove us up highway 101 to Santa Maria.  After several hours of driving, we came to the Santa Maria city limits, and it was then that my parents realized they had left the invitation with the directions to the house on the refrigerator door.

And this was long before people had cell phones or GPS or any other such devices.

I remember my Dad saying, “Well, how hard can it be?  Santa Maria’s not that big of town, is it?”  Just as soon as he said that, we came to a sign that said, “Santa Maria – Next 6 exits.”

And my Dad got upset and said, “6 exits!  Are you kidding me?”

At that point, I spoke up from the backseat.  “You want to get off at Donovan, and turn left, then right, then left.”

My Dad was skeptical.  Donovan wasn’t the first exit, or the second, or the third.  But he kept driving.  When Donovan finally appeared, he got off … and went left, then right, and then left.  And there, halfway down the block, were my aunt and uncle standing on the front porch of their new house.

Well, I, of course, felt pretty good about myself and my abilities.  However, the flip side of this is that it was – and is – often hard for me to just “go with the flow.”  On school field trips, riding in the bus, I would worry about whether or not the bus driver really knew the shortest, quickest way to where we were going.  Sometimes, when I was a boy scout, we’d be traveling to a camp that I had no idea where it was.  I’d just get in the car and try my hardest to not bother the driver about where he was taking us.  I didn’t want him to think I doubted his ability to reach our destination – which, in fact, I did.  The truth was that it made me anxious because I didn’t know exactly where our destination was.

One time, I think it was when I graduated from elementary school, my grandparents decided to take me to a special place as a graduation present.  And they wanted it to be a surprise. 

I don’t like surprises.

Well, I got in the car and they started driving south from Burbank on Interstate 5.  We drove through East L.A. and kept going, and I began to get ideas about where they were taking me.  Needless to say, I knew how to get to places, and I knew that driving south on I-5 past L.A. eventually led to Disneyland.

I started to get my hopes up.  We kept going on I-5 … but then we merged right and got on the 710.

And I probably shouldn’t say it, not here anyway, but my first memory of going to Long Beach was such a disappointment to me.

But the Spruce Goose – our final destination – was pretty cool.  So it wasn’t all bad.  But I still got anxious whenever I didn’t know where I was going.

Well, after some time I realized that I could turn that anxiety into a thrill.  Adolescents are, after all, thrill seekers and risk takers, and for me one of the biggest thrills and risks was getting in the backseat of a car without knowing exactly where it was going to take me.

Two weeks ago I began a sermon series on parables.  And guess what?  When I started, I wasn’t quite sure how long the series would be, or where we’d end up when we get there.  It makes it all very exciting.  I’m sure you find this as thrilling as I do, and I know you feel the adrenaline rush every Sunday as I step into the pulpit to preach!

I began by talking about three types of parables, and how most of the parables Jesus told are challenge parables.  They are stories that challenge our way of thinking.  I talked about the stories of Ruth, Jonah, and Job, and how they challenged prejudices of the time … and even challenged those older scriptures that supported those prejudices.  In other words, Ruth, Jonah, and Job dared to suggest that scriptures from Deuteronomy, Ezra, Nehemiah, and Jeremiah were wrong, that there is another way of seeing things.  Then, and now, that is a challenging thing to hear.

I also mentioned how Ruth, Jonah and Job – in challenging commonly held prejudices – paved the way for Jesus and his parable of the Good Samaritan, which did the exact same thing.

Today, I’ll talk about the challenges presented in some of Jesus’s other parables.  Because as I said two weeks ago, if you hear a parable of Jesus, and it doesn’t make you go “unh?” … If you don’t find it difficult to accept because it challenges your way of thinking about things … then you probably haven’t understood it.

And one more thing:  a book called the Power of Parable by John Dominic Crossan has been greatly influential to me in preparing these sermons.  If these sermons have got you thinking, and you want more, I encourage you to attend Founders Day at Chapman University next March, where John Dominic Crossan will be the featured speaker.

In the 18^th chapter of Luke, Jesus tells the parable of a Pharisee and a tax collector who went in to pray.  And when we read this story, we often read it as an example of how we are to pray, and how we are not to pray. 

The Pharisee enters, makes a big show, and says, loudly, “thank you, God, that I am not like that sinner, that tax collector, over there.” 

The tax collector, meanwhile, humbly bows his head and whispers, “God, be merciful to me, for I am a sinner.”  And Jesus concludes the story by saying that this tax collector’s prayer was the better one.

Now, we hear this parable, and think, okay, this is how we should pray, without a lot of fanfare, without a lot of showing off.  It’s an example of how to pray.

And we miss the deeper challenge that this parable presents.

The question is: why was the “bad example” in this story a Pharisee?  Pharisees were good people, respected for their faith.  So often in scripture they are used as a bad example that it’s hard for us to imagine this, but the Pharisees were perhaps the holiest people of their time, and they encouraged other people to live lives of holiness.

Tax collectors, on the other hand, deserved no respect.  First of all, it was well-known that when they collected taxes, they always charged a little more than they needed to, and pocketed the difference.  That in itself was bad enough.

But the very fact that tax collectors willingly collected taxes on behalf of Rome meant that they were in collaboration with the powers of oppression. 

The Pharisees believed that if the people of Israel lived lives of holiness, God would intervene and end this oppression;  God would free them from Roman occupation and establish a new kingdom, if only the people were more faithful.

But the tax collectors didn’t seem to care about any new kingdom.  They cast their lot with the kingdom that already existed: the oppressive kingdom of Rome.  They sold out, believing that money, and a safe, comfortable existence was more important than living by one’s beliefs.

So why would Jesus have the Pharisee be the bad example of how to pray, and the tax collector be the good example?

That’s the challenge.

In the story we heard read this morning, a similar thing happens.

It’s a story about a nameless rich man, and a poor man named Lazarus.

The challenge in this parable is right there in that one introductory sentence.  If you missed it, then let me ask you this:  A few weeks ago, a young pop star made news because he was accused of speeding recklessly through his quiet gated community.  Did anyone hear who that was?  Who was it?

Justin Bieber.

In the weeks since, how many people in L.A. County have received traffic tickets?  According to one estimate I saw, 150,000.

Does anyone know the names of those 150,000 people?  No.  Not unless one of them was you. 

And why is that?  Because Justin Bieber is famous.  He’s rich.  He’s a superstar.  And everyone knows his name. 

But those 150,000 people are just… normal people.  They’re nameless.

So let’s start the story again.  There was a [nameless] rich man… How could a rich man be nameless?  Everyone knows the names of those who are rich and powerful.  Rich people aren’t nameless… except when Jesus tells a story.

 And at his gate lay a poor man, whose name was Lazarus.  In this story, it is the “nobody” who gets a name.  And Lazarus was covered with sores.  In other words, he couldn’t afford any health care.  And he was starving.

The person you passed on the freeway offramp, holding the sign, looking for a handout … who knows his name?  No one.  But in Jesus’s story, he has a name.

Both Lazarus and the nameless rich man died.  Lazarus went to heaven, and the nameless rich man went… to the other place. 

Why did Lazarus end up where he did, and why did the rich man end up where he did?  Neither of them is described as being particularly good or particularly bad.  The nameless rich man was punished just because he was rich; Lazarus was rewarded just because he was poor.

According to John Dominic Crossan, these are not stories which Jesus could have told in a minute or two, and then had people walk up to him when it was over and say, “Nice story, rabbi.”  No; probably, there were interruptions, disagreements, and debates breaking out in the middle of his telling, so that the telling of the story probably took an hour or two.

Rewarded just because he was poor?  But everyone knows it’s the rich who are rewarded…

A nameless rich man?  Everyone knows the names of the rich and powerful…  A nameless rich man is just as absurd as a good tax collector… or a good Samaritan.  It’s just too hard to imagine…

One more parable for today, from Matthew 20:

A landowner went out early in the morning to hire laborers for his vineyard.

A landowner is, by definition, rich and powerful.  Not many people owned land.  And in order to maintain his hold on his land, there is a good chance he was ruthless.  This particular landowner seemed intent on not hiring any more workers than was absolutely necessary. 

He went early in the morning to where the day-laborers were gathered and said, “I’ve got work for only so many people; get in the truck, I’ll take you to the vineyard, and pay you the daily wage.”

All those who didn’t get in the truck said, “What about us?”

And the landowner said, “Sorry, I only need this many.”

Well, later the landowner realized he did need some more workers.  So he drove back and hired a few more.  He did this again several more times throughout the day.  He figured it was better to hire too few workers, because there were always people waiting to be hired, and he could always go back for more.  It would be worse to hire too many in the morning, and then have to pay them even though they weren’t needed.

It’s this kind of shrewd, financial thinking that allowed him to hold on to his land.

The people listening to Jesus tell this story would have identified with the day laborers.  And every time the landowner was mentioned, they’d frown and get a bad taste in their mouths.  That landowner – like all landowners – is so cheap; why didn’t he just hire more workers in the first place?

And then… the last time the landowner came back to the crowd of people, he said:  “Why have you all just been standing around here doing nothing, being idle and lazy?”

Well, that did it.  Those listening to Jesus must have been just beside themselves.  Isn’t that just how landowners are?  They complain and criticize the workers for not working, when they themselves have left them behind.  Why have they been standing around all day doing nothing?    Because no one has hired them!

This story isn’t just about one landowner and his workers.  It’s about the whole economic system under which the people lived.  It was a challenge to the whole set-up of society. 

And it most certainly got people talking.

But wait.  There’s one more twist to this story.  When it came time to pay his workers, the landowner paid them all the same.  Whether they were hired early in the morning, before sunrise, or at 5:00 in the afternoon, each worker got the daily wage. 

And preachers have tried to make sense of that and explain it in ways that make sense to their congregations.  But really, what else can one say to that, except:  “Unh?”