Our two readings this morning were chosen by the Liturgical Group of the Church of England, the body who
choose the readings set for each day, because they complement each other and also shed light on each other.
It is one of the basic principles of interpreting the Scriptures that we don’t just take single verses or even whole passages of Scripture and expect to get an accurate and helpful interpretation without looking also at their context and comparing them with other passages that deal with the same subject or issues.
Why? Well because the danger – and it is a very great one and, sadly, common one – is that it is all too easy to get a lop-sided or even quite perverse understanding of single verses and even whole passages if we do not. There are, sadly, those who, instead of wrestling with the difficult or unpalatable passages in the Scriptures, prefer to base their understanding of what the Scriptures say and, more worryingly, what they then believe and do as a result, on those verses and passages that they like or which suit their particular agendas. I have seen a lot of this in my time and could give you several examples: but just one - briefly to illustrate this error - will suffice this morning. It struck me as I was pondering these readings this week that is very topical, having already made inroads from America into some British churches.
It is to do with the fanatical and unquestioning support which some large Fundamentalist Christian churches and organisations are giving to the state of Israel based upon an ill-informed and biased reading of the Old Testament. (Please understand, I am not about to preach politics from the pulpit and I am definitely not anti-Semitic: I merely want to illustrate how very dangerous is bad or biased interpretation of the Scriptures we read Sunday by Sunday and, I trust, day by day.)
The mantra of this group is ‘Israel, right or wrong’, and is based upon one or two verses in the Book of Genesis alone. It completely disregards not only other verses in that book but other books of both the Old Testament and the New. These include our passage from Isaiah this morning. The point, quite simply, is this:
In Genesis Chapter 12, God says he will bless Abram’s ‘seed’, i.e. those descended from him and who continue in the faith; and he will curse those who try to destroy them. Now these Fundamentalists or, as I prefer to call them, these ‘Irrationalists’ - there being nothing wrong at all about keeping to the fundamental tenets of orthodox Christian belief informed by the Scriptures and correctly interpreted - have used this verse not only to condone Israel’s oppression of Muslims and Christians in Israel and Palestine but even those Jews in Israel and elsewhere who are trying to bring a just peace to the region.
We have to look at such a verse in context and in comparison with other verses and books of Scripture. And what the context and other Scriptures tell us is that God’s blessing of Israel is conditional upon their faithfulness to him and upon their keeping of his commandments. Indeed God sent the prophets, like Isaiah here, to remind them of that deal or ‘covenant’ because they had kept on breaking it: they had not kept the commandments; they had not treated properly the poor, the sick, the widowed, the orphaned, the ‘strangers within their gates’; they had not been faithful to God; and they did not listen to the call to repent. (v1, v2, v18). The prophets also reminded them that the perfect or perfected Jerusalem was to be built by God and in his time plan, not theirs. This then is the danger when some charismatic personality comes along and interprets the bible in a bad or biased way. This was not what I was planning to speak about this morning but it is so important that you understand how easy it is for heresy and horror to arise. If you come across this erroneous teaching with any friends or acquaintances, please feel free to give them my number.
But, as I said at the beginning, these passages do complement each other and shed light on each other. V4 and v18 illustrate the people’s characteristic unwillingness to listen to God and his messengers, and to obey him. And this is exactly the same situation Jesus finds – illustrated in verses 16-19, and of course in so many other passages! - when he, God himself in human form, comes to earth to call them to repentance and to be reconciled to him.
Now our Gospel reading has in fact been shortened by the Liturgical Commission because they did not want to upset you with what Jesus was saying to those who refused to listen to his message. If you read on, the whole passage is verses 16 – 24, its warnings among the most sober and serious words Jesus ever spoke.
I’ll leave that to you to follow up during the week. Just to say that, thinking of context, you need to bear in mind that he is speaking to his very own neighbours and community here: there is a very real sadness and disappointment in his warnings to those who had seen the wonderful things he had done, who had heard his wisdom, witnessed his life and lifestyle, and yet, allowed their obstinacy, their own agendas, to rule them. We come across such people of course today; people who won’t receive the Good News of Jesus. People who think they are self-sufficient; people whose agendas are too full or too busy or too different from Jesus’ to want to listen to what he has to say. As Jesus puts it so tellingly in the parable about the selfish rich man in Hell, those blinded by selfishness and greed would not repent ’though one rose from the dead.’ V17. And such people are never satisfied; they will always find fault with the message or the messenger. V18 (Deut 21: 18 – 21 people describing Jesus in terms of the ‘rebellious son’ who must be put to death for leading people away from God. See how easy it is to turn the Scriptures against even God himself if he threatens our most cherished prejudices!)
But Jesus’ answer and our answer to those who will not listen, who do not think they need to be forgiven by God, who think they are good people and do not need to repent, who are righteous in their own eyes – whether they be members of the Church or not - is the same. V19. Just take a genuine look at Jesus and at what he did; look at his explanation of what he did; look at what happened to him and why – and why he did all that he did for you personally. And then take an honest, clear-headed look at yourself – setting your prejudices and your agendas and your fancy notions about yourself apart for a moment; and I hope that you will be able to say to yourself in the words of that great hymn about God’s ‘Amazing Grace’, ‘I once was lost, but now am found; was blind but now I see’.
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