Matthew 5:1-12

This passage occurs in the Epiphany season of the Revised Common Lectionary (Year A), most recently January 2023.  It also occurs on All Saints Day, Year A, most recently November 2023.
 
Summary:
A very familiar passage.  What caught me this time was the focus on Jesus teaching them:  διδασκω.  Jesus is presented as a teacher in the Gospels.  Sometimes in our (Lutheran) emphasis on Jesus as savior we overlook Jesus as teacher.  This passage, if not Matthew's Gospel, can rub us the wrong way as theologians because it portrays Jesus as moralistic; in fact, it even seems to be moralistic and therapeutic.  So where is the theology of the cross?  Well, in the beatitudes, God once again is showing up in the wrong places for the wrong people.  This is the theology of the cross and something worth teaching.

στομα ('mouth'; 5:2)  The prophets Isaiah, Jeremiah and Ezekiel all use this expression to talk about the Word coming from the mouth of the Lord.  The Lord also tells Moses he will open his mouth to speak before Pharoah.  It does not seem an entirely common phrase, but one really picked up by these four prophets, all of whom faced false prophets.  I suggest with this strange wording, Matthew harkens back to this prophetic tradition, portraying Jesus as the Word of God who had spoken through the prophets.

εδιδασκεν ('began to teach'; imperfect form of διδασκω; 5:2)  Jesus teaches in all four Gospels.  The question is, what is he teaching them?  About heaven?  About how to live?  About how they are all sinners in need of grace?  Sometimes as Lutherans we want to avoid Jesus as teacher - making him into Moses - but the Gospels have no problem with Jesus teaching!

παρακληθησονται ('they will be comforted', future passive of παρακαλεω; 5:4)  This is a major word in the Bible; in fact, the word for Holy Spirit (the advocate in John 14:26) comes from this verb.  In Isaiah 40, God promises to comfort the people.  Have fun with the concordance on this one!  It is fair to say that, although Jesus is not simply a big teddy bear, part of the mission of God is comfort.

ονειδιζω ('reproach' or 'insult'; see also 5:11; 11:20; 27:44).  This word appears twice more in Matthew's Gospel...once when Jesus rebukes the unrepentant and finally when Jesus himself is on the cross.  This would mean that Jesus is blessed even on the cross.  Moreover, it shows that Jesus is not simply talking about his disciples' conduct, but talking about his own ministry.

μακάριος (‘blessed’ or ‘happy’: 5:3 and throughout the passage): The theological Lexicon of the New Testament (Spicq) gets to the core of this word and its striking use in the beatitudes. After a long summary of the Greek understanding of what it means to be blessed (pretty much what average Americans think, namely, healthy, wealthy and wise), the Lexicon finally assesses Jesus' use: “It is impossible to insist too strongly on the meaning of this μακάριος …This is much more than contentment; it is an interior joy that becomes external, elation translated into shouts, songs, acclamations. …Secondly, the new faith implies a reversal of all human values; happiness is no longer attached to wealth, to having enough, to a good reputation, power, possessions of the goods of this world, but to poverty alone.”

η βασιλεια των ουρανων (5:3; the kingdom of heaven): Matthew's Gospel does not use the phrase kingdom of God.  Some scholars speculate this may be out of deference to the word God that comes from Matthew's Jewish piety.  Generally Matthew only uses θεος in quoting the OT; κυριος (often the NT translation of YHWH) is reserved for its more secular meaning, "master." 

Grammar review and verse translation:  To be or not to be?
NRS Matthew 5:3 "Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.
μακαριοι οι πτωχοι τω πνεθματι οτι αυτων εστιν η βασιλεια των ουρανων

First clause:  μακαριοι οι πτωχοι τω πνεθματι
In Greek, you do not (always) need to use the verb "to be."  You can simply add it.  So the sentence reads:  "Blessed the poor in spirit."  You supply the "are." 

 
The phrase τω πνεθματι is challenging for a translator, even though the words are straight forward.  The simplest translation is to interpret the dative as indicating location (where it is).  But then what does "Poor in the spirit" mean?  Psalm 34:18 has a similar phrase often translated "discouraged." 

The second clause:  οτι αυτων εστιν η βασιλεια των ουρανων
is more interesting.  In this case we have a "to be" verb - "εστιν"
What is most peculiar is the genitive case in which we find "αυτων" and "ουρανων."  The genitive can be translated a number of ways.  Consider how many relationships the word "of" can imply in English:  Kingdom of Fish.  Does this mean possessive (it belongs to the fish) or partitive (it consists of fish) or objective (kingdom for fish).  So in this case, "αυτων" might be a possessive genitive, like "the kingdom of heaven BELONGS to them."  However, nothing suggests why it couldn't be partitive, ie, "the kingdom of heaven CONSISTS of them." In fact, it might even be "objective," as in "the kingdom of heaven is for them."  I think "belongs" (possessive) is probably the most natural use of the genitive, but this exercise reminds us possibilities.  Likewise, "heaven" is in the genitive, which mean all of these translation possibilities exist for it as well.  (Also worth throwing in there is that οτι  can mean "because" or "that")

So, this sentence could read:
"Happy are the poor in spirit that the kingdom belonging to God consists of them."
or
"Blessed are the poor in spirit because the kingdom which belongs to God belongs to them."
or
"Blessed are the discouraged because the kingdom from God is for them."
And so forth!

Revelation 7:9-17

This is the Gospel passage for All Saint's Sunday in the Revised Common Lectionary, Year A.  Most recently November 2023.

Some words/language constructions I found interesting 

αριθμησαι (form of αριθμεω, meaning "to count", 7:9)  This word has a clear English cognate:  arithmetic! The point here is that the writer first records carefully how many people from each tribe will be in heaven (in the preceding verses).  Then the seer says, wait, no, they can't be counted!!  A lot of people make it to heaven :)  For a funny view of what heaven with many cultures might look like, you can see the cartoon Simpson's Heaven.   Laughing aside, this verse is a powerful reminder that early on the church understood its mission to exist far beyond its own culture and time.

λευκος (meaning "white", 7:9, 7:13).  There is an increasing discomfort with the use of "white" to describe things that are pure.  This is because of how we have often divided the world into skin-tone groups -- races -- with "white" being on the top of the pecking order.  Thus, when churches use "white" albs, use white lilies and associate white with holiness, this could potentially communicates that white skin tones are likewise more holy.  A few thoughts on this:

• White never refers to a skin-tone in the Bible.  In fact, if skin is white, it is diseased.  (See Leviticus 13).  Most of the characters in the bible have far more olive toned than white toned skin
  
• The image in revelation is for people from every nation and language; it is not a forced mono-culture.
• People in the bible almost never would have anything pure white for clothing.  It would be been incredibly expensive to produce and keep clean.  "Such as no one on earth could bleach them" is how Jesus' transfiguration clothing was described in Mark's Gospel.  Bright white clothing would not be reserved for undergarments like in today's America, but would have been spectacular to behold.
  
• The whiteness is often associated with incredible brightness - like a star!

In short, there is no sense that the Biblical writers are trying to reinforce a notion of hierarchy based on skin-tones.  This is not to say we should not be aware of the "world in front of the text" and how people hear the constant association of white with holy.  But the Bible itself is not communicating any superiority based on white skin tones.

στολας ("robe", literally stole, 7:9)  Oddly, the word "stole" in church language typically refers to more of a scarf than a robe.  This passage makes me think a lot about what we are trying to communicate with albs and stoles.

φοινικες (φοινιξ, meaning "palm branch", 7:9) The word for palm branch here is literally "phoenix"!  Now, in John 12:13, the people wave these before Jesus, so translating it as "palm branch" seems fair, especially within the biblical context of triumphal celebrations for a king.  However, I find it very amusing and poetic to imagine that in heaven we each get our own phoenix in celebration of the resurrection!

This also adds to the Messianic overtones of the palm branches when Jesus entered into Jerusalem.

γλωσσων (form of γλωσσα, meaning "languages", 7:9)  We don't learn a new language in heaven.  We communicate in our own earthly language.  Revelation 7 providing us a glimpse of the new creation, yet we have somethings like tribe and language -- human constructs -- that carry over into the new creation.  What else carries on into the new creation, or at least, what else is redeemed but somehow exists in a recognizable form to its previous reality?  Our bodies, our language and I would argue our relationships.

φωνη μεγαλη (meaning "loud voice", 7:10) The words for loud voice is literally "mega phone."  It is interesting to consider, in an era of protests and megaphone, what words are we putting through our megaphones?

σκηνωσαι (aorist form of σκηνοω, meaning "to shelter", 7:15).  The word for "shelter/spread tent" is "skeno-oo" which is from the Greek for tent. In the beginning of John's Gospel (1.14), Jesus is said to have "dwelt" or "tented" among us, drawing on the OT idea of God's tabernacle presence. Now however, the dwelling is not among them, but upon them.  The movement of Revelation is not God away from the earth, but of heaven toward earth, ultimately culminating in the presence of God being with the people.

εξαλειψει (meaning "wipe away", 7.17)  The word "wipe away" or "destroy" (εξαλειψω) is also found in Acts 3:19 and Col 2:14, where Jesus wipes away our sins.  Jesus comes to wipe away both our sin and sorrow.  It is not an either/or.

ποιμανει ("shepherding", 7.17)  This word is not a noun, but a verb, although everyone translates it as a noun. The focus here is less on Jesus as shepherd and more on the activity that Jesus is doing -- leading and taking care.  It is also worth nothing that the verbs in verse 17 are in the future tense.  This suggests that there is something that is already happening (heavenly worship) but something that will happen different/anew.  Now and not yet.

Grammar note

περιβεβλημενους (περιβαλλω, meaning "robe", 7:9)

The participle for "robed" is in the perfect. It happened in the past but still effects the present states, namely, that they are robed. Here it is used as a circumstantial participle; in 7.13 it will be used as a substantive.

Matthew 22:34-46

This passage occurs in the RCL "Pentecost"/"Ordinary"/"Proper" Season, Year A, most recently October 2023.
 
Summary:  I suppose one could go to great lengths to parse out the Greek meaning of the words, "heart", καρδια, "soul," ψυχη, and "mind," διανοια.  After discovering that they mean different things in Greek than in English you learn that Jesus wants us to...drum roll...Love God and love our neighbor with everything we've got.  This is probably not much for a sermon, but I find it comforting that Jesus wants us to love God with our minds.  In my formation and candidacy, I often internalized guilty about my intelligence as if somehow, I just needed to be a big ball of emotions to serve God.  One of my professors, Dr. Henrich, pointed out that in this passage, we are called to love God with our mind.  This was an incredible word of Gospel to me.  Intellectual exploration of God's Word is okay too!  Funny how law can be heard as Gospel sometimes...

Key words:
διδασκαλε ("Teacher", 22:36)  Thanks be to God Jesus wasn't simply a teacher, but also the savior.  However, let us not dismiss the idea of Jesus as teacher.  The word teacher appears throughout each Gospel a total of 48 times.  What can we learn from Jesus this week?  One might understand Jesus' teaching role as salvific (if we just followed Jesus' teachings, healing and life would follow); but I would like to understand it in more dialectical and unsolved relationship.  Jesus is the world's greatest teacher of human wisdom and law.  Jesus also teaches though that finally the law is not enough to save us.  However, we cannot avoid the teachings of Jesus, including when it comes to ethics.  Also, the great teachers have a passion for their subject and also a passion for their students -- Jesus literally has THE passion for his students, us.

αγαπαω ("Love" 22:37)  One can parse the word love a number of ways.  What is interesting here is that αγαπη, which is often thought to refer to divine love, here refers to neighborly love.  A reminder that in the kingdom of God, love doesn't remain on heaven, but comes to earth.

καρδια ("heart", 22:37)  In Greek, the heart is NOT the center of emotions, but of will.   

ψυχη ("soul", 22:37)  BDAG points to the broad nature of this word.  The soul is, perhaps best said, that which makes flesh alive.  The Bible will use the word ψυχη to mean more than simply "the ghostly blue vapor" of our existence.  Perhaps another way:  our essence?  Hard to nail down...

διανοια ("Thoughts" or mind, 22:37):  As I stated in my summary, I want to point out that Jesus wants us to love God with our mind.  Also interesting is that God admits fulfilling this is impossible.  In Genesis 8:21 God says that all our thoughts (διανοια) are bent on evil.  Eph 2:3 and 4:18 are similar.  Interestingly, in Jeremiah 31:33, God says he will put the law into our minds.  All this points out that not simply our "hearts," but our minds, are also a battle ground for God, a place that needs rebirth.  (In fact, this word is often translated from the Hebrew word that means "heart" because the ancient Jewish thought located thoughts in the heart).

χριστος ("anointed" 22:42).  This is a very common word in the NT.  The reason why I bring it up here is because most of our thoughts about the word "Christ" are not what the listener's in the OT would have heard.  

The word Messiah was a loaded term that encompassed the deepest hopes of ancient Israel for the one through whom God would bring fulfillment of long-standing promises.  The challenge is that people living in Jesus' day understood differently how God would do this (although there was probably less disagreement about the end result).  There was certainly a faction that believed the Messiah would be a military leader who would overthrow Herod.  But this was not universally understood in this way.  Regardless, no one was articulating the idea that the Messiah would be a crucified rebel.

The spiritualization of this role is not  New Testament development.  That Jesus came to "take us to heaven" is a much later development.  All first century Jews, including Paul and Jesus, would have understood the Kingdom of God as heaven breaking into earth, rather than us escaping earth to get to heaven.

Grammatical review:  "Hendiadys"
A Hendiadys is a very fancy way of saying "using two words to mean one thing."  Literally from the Greek:  "One through two."  An example of this might be from Genesis 1:  "Formless and void."  They both essentially mean the same thing.  Put them together and you get:  "A whole lot of nothing." 
In this particular passage, we have a hendiadys typical of the New Testament: 
ο νομος και οι προφηται (22:40)

The law and the prophets.  This is the NT way of referring to the Old Testament.  Sometimes they will include the Psalms, but more often, just these two sections.  So Jesus isn't simply saying, "All of the commands and words of the prophets hang on these two commandments" he is saying, "the whole Bible that you know of depends on this."

Matthew 22:15-22

This passage occurs in the RCL "Pentecost"/"Ordinary"/"Proper" Season, Year A, most recently October 2023.

Summary:  One does not find the Greek words for church and state in this passage, even though this passage is used to justify all sorts of behavior and relationships between church and state.  What is mentioned though is the word "εικον" meaning icon, or image.  The tempters of Jesus, forgetting Genesis 1, say that the coin bears the image of Caesar.  They answer the truth, but not the whole truth.  An image of a man is still an image of God.  Money, whether it says, "In God We Trust" or "Caesar" or anything, isn't exempt from God's creation.  It still has to do with humans and how we live in this creation, and thus it still belongs under God's dominion.

Freedom note:  I used this passage in 2017 to launch a Reformation 500 series on the Freedom of a Christian.  I pick this passage because Jesus discusses that even those of us free in Christ still have responsibilities before other people.

Key words: 
παγις ("hunter's trap", used as a verb, 22.15) The word for ensnare comes from the root for trap. What a cruel image of the pharisees trying with metal jaws, to trap Jesus. 

Interestingly, by possessing a coin with the image of Caesar on them, one could argue the Jewish leaders here are already worshiping an idol.  This is especially true given the cult of the Emperor and the fact he was viewed as a god.  They were carrying around images of a foreign god!!  Furthermore, they set up a bogus system whereby you had to trade you Roman money for Jewish money to buy sacrifices.  Thus the temple profited from this exchange.  Jesus traps them as he reveals their sin and their entanglement with the Emperor.  Herod was a puppet king of Rome...but even the Pharisees benefit from the Roman tyranny because so often they are in places of power.   So Jesus is showing that they play in the Emperor's sandbox all the time. They want to trap him and in the end, they lay a trap for themselves.  Hence why they are hypocrites (see below!)

αποστελλω ("send" 22.16).  The literal phrase here is that his enemies "apostled their disciples," a reminder that Jesus is not the only one with apostles and disciples...

υποκριτης ("actor/hypocrite", 22.18) The word for hypocrite means actor, or one who plays a part.  (He answered above the others from stage.)  This is not necessarily a negative word, but in the NT it is used exclusively that way.  Jesus isn't interested in actors, but real people with real sins that need real forgiveness.  (In fact, the sentence before Luther famously asserts 'sin boldly', he says, "God did not die for fictitious sinners.")

εικον (image/icon, 22.20) The word here for "head" or "portrait" here is literally "eikon," (icon!) which means image. So the question is whose image? If it is a human head, the answer could just as easily have been "God." (See Genesis 1!)  As Christians we must always seek to serve the creator behind the created governments of this world...yet while still acknowledging the reality of human government and laws!

τα του θεου (the things of God).  The word 'things' is implied here, for it literally reads, "the(se) of God."  While this is straight-forward Greek grammar that we don't have in English -- where we would need to include the word "things", there is something a bit trickier going on here.  Grammatically, it is worth asking -- what is the connection between "the(se) things" and "God"?  "God" is in the genitive case and this opens up many possibilities.  Do we give God back the things that come from God? The things that belong to God?  The things in this world which are for God?  The grammatical possibilities seem endless, underlying the more theological question:  What belongs to God? 

The best answer it seems, is from the Psalms:

The earth is the LORD's and all that is in it, the world, and those who live in it  Psalm 24:1

For 2026 to beef up -- I preached on the word "render" (αποδιδημι).  In the NT, only once we are called to give a rendering to God -- on judgment day.  In the OT, we are called to render a sacrifice of thanksgiving.  Two interesting ways to think about what we actually have to render -- confession of sin and confession of praise!

Translation/Grammar review:  Idioms
"The things of God" is not the only idiomatic construction in this passage!

Some things in a language are simply impossible to translate literally.  This week Jesus is told, "You do not look into the face of people."  This doesn't sound so nice.  It simply means, "You don't look at exterior things."  (Which is a positive assessment).  He is also told he doesn't care about nothing.  Missing from this idiom is the word "opinion."  Jesus doesn't care about the opinions of others, in the sense that he acts free from petty judgments of others.  You could take them literally, and perhaps derive some meaning; that said, with idioms, it is often best to let professional translators do the work...

Matthew 22:1-14

This passage occurs in both the Narrative Lectionary (Year 1) and the Revised Common Lectionary (Most recently October 17, 2023).

Summary:  I am having a hard time with this passage this year (2023).   As I update this post, Israel is engaged retaliation against the brutal attacks and kidnappings by Hamas.  Jews witnessed their own people slaughtered, even when they thought they were safe.  The abysmally poor in Gaza Strip will suffer as well as countless others in poverty.  This is classic tribal war along ethnic and religious lines, the kind that somehow we thought we had outgrown as a world.  When I combine this with the war in Ukraine and the political dysfunction in my own country that seems - on its worst days - to be leading us to internal civil war along tribal lines, I can do little else but lament.  And then I encounter in this parable a God who seems intent on revenge, focused on marker of tribe (clothing) and comfortable with exclusion and even cruelty.  Very tough to stomach.

Is there a glimmer of hope here?  Hmm...  This might be a passage I need to wrestle with some more, but the response of the King to the indifference and cruelty of the word is the following

- Purge it of evil

- Throw a party for everyone willing to come, including the bad and marginalized

- Deny entry to the self-righteous (see note on clothing below)

That is a party I can get behind.  But I am really wrestling with it all!  For those who are not struck by this reality a more standard way I might approach it:

It is interesting that those who don't want to come are into their own thing!  Those we (in the American church) think should come seem plenty busy and satisfied with their life.  Yet eventually folks do come -- interestingly those originally not invited.   Perhaps a challenge to most American 'mission' efforts, which are designed to get the busy to pay more attention to the church instead of inviting those in need -- those by the wayside.  This is about whom we invite but also why we invite -- are we inviting people to one more activity or something that is the balm for the wounds?  If we cannot go to the margins of people's lives, our ministry will be ineffective.

Key Words/Grammar insights:

καλεω (kaleo, "call" or "invite"; 22:3, 4, 8, 9 (14 as adjective)).  The word here for invited is simply the perfect of καλεω which means to call/invite. This word is used in various forms throughout the passage.  Jesus calls us to invite those willing to come because many of those invited were not interested.  A reminder that in all Gospels, but truly in Matthew, Jesus cares for people the world does not; the b-list people, so to speak.  The b-list people, you know, the beatitudes people!

τεθυμενα (tethymena, perfect participle of θυω, "slaughter" or "kill", 22:4).  This word can mean sacrificed.  If one were to go this route, then this parable could be interpreted within the paradigm of the conflict between Jews and early Jewish converts to Christianity:  Jesus has died (been sacrificed); many early Jews are not accepting him.  The temple is destroyed and that nation has fallen, perhaps as punishment for lack of conversion. A few other items that support this reading:

διεξοδος (literally "dia-exodus", meaning "crossroads" or "fork", 22:9)  This usually referred to the point where the roads from the country converged to the city.  (Thayer Dictionary, accessed via Accordance).  In this way, this can be seen as the movement of the church outside of its walls and likely into gentile territory.  He offers "the phrase figuratively represents the territory of heathen nations, into which the apostles were about to go forth"

εφιμωθη (aorist passive form of φιμοω, phimo-oo, "silence"; 22:12) Jesus will silence the Sadducees later this chapter (22:34).  This parable is not intended simply as a myth, but as a description, I would suggest, of how Jesus' was and is being received.

ενδυω/ενδυμα ("clothe" as verb; "clothing" as noun; 22:11, 12).  Matthew's Gospel talks about clothing a few times (more than any other Gospel, incidentally).  We learn that John the Baptist is clothed in Camel's hair (3:4); we learn not to worry about our clothing (6:25-28); we meet the angels wearing white (28:3).  Which leads to the question -- what should one wear to the heavenly banquet?

To get at this, I did a word search on ενδυω ("clothe/wear" to find examples of people wearing stuff in the New Testament, especially as it would relate to the heavenly banquet.  I've included them and underlined the word as the NRSV translates as ενδυω:

1 Corinthians 15:54 When this perishable body puts on imperishability, and this mortal body puts on immortality, then the saying that is written will be fulfilled: "Death has been swallowed up in victory."

Romans 13:14 Instead, put on the Lord Jesus Christ, and make no provision for the flesh, to gratify its desires.

Luke 24:49 And see, I am sending upon you what my Father promised; so stay here in the city until you have been clothed with power from on high."

Matthew 27:31 After mocking him, they stripped him of the robe and put his own clothes on him. Then they led him away to crucify him.

Ephesians 4:24 and to clothe yourselves with the new self, created according to the likeness of God in true righteousness and holiness.

Ephesians 6:14 Stand therefore, and fasten the belt of truth around your waist, and put on the breastplate of righteousness.

1 Thessalonians 5:8 But since we belong to the day, let us be sober, and put on the breastplate of faith and love, and for a helmet the hope of salvation.

Revelation 19:14 And the armies of heaven, wearing fine linen, white and pure, were following him on white horses.

Galatians 3:27    As many of you as were baptized into Christ have clothed yourselves with Christ.

The only thing that can meet all of these criterion:  the gift of Jesus Christ in faith, love and righteousness, eternally pure and immortal yet also ready to die to the world, is our Baptism.  The question becomes, then, what might it mean to have the wrong clothing.  The text does not answer this question directly.  Perhaps it means to not be baptized?  Hmm.  I wonder if the wrong clothing means we come thinking that belong on our own and not in the clothing given to us by God.

υβριζω (hubrizoo (rough breathing over υ), meaning "mistreat"; 22:6)  The word for mistreat here is "hubriz-oo," literally, have hubris.

διακονοις (-ος, diakonos, meaning "attendant", 22:13)  I find it haunting that the "deacons" are sent into bind and cast out the wicked.  Typically we associate diaconal or deacon work with humble service to the poor.  Perhaps it is a reminder that purging the world of evil is a deacon's work too.  But very disturbing!

Grammar note with some theological reflection, verse 22:5
22:5 shows two ways that Greek can show possessive; 

εις τον ιδιον αργον   his field (literally, the field of his own)

επι την εμποριαν αυτου    and his business (genitive αυτου signifying 'his')

Both of which mean that that the people were into their own thing.  Quite a statement about why people don't engage with Christianity.

Innovation is not Transformation

In this post, I am going to focus on the leadership failure I see within churches: the inability to form leaders to be transformers of culture, not simply administrators or innovators.  My sense is that I am describing a phenomenon occurring across industries, in that we prepare people to implement best practices or experiment with the newest trend, but we do not prepare them for the frankly spiritual task of transforming culture to integrate new practices into existing systems.  If you are not involved involved in a church, I welcome your input on how you see this playing itself out in your field (you may be able to skip point #1).  If you are involved in a church, I welcome your pushback on what I am missing.

Point #1:  Most churches are in need of more than simply "a few more young families" but wholesale transformation.

Point #2:  We have prepared leaders to adopt best practices or experiment with the newest trend.  This will not lead to transformation.

Point #3:  Changing culture is linked with reforming best practices and embracing new business models, but requires a different approach and character.

Therefore:  If we want to see the transformation of existing churches, we will need to speak more openly about culture change and design systems to equip and sustain leaders for this kind of change.

Point #1:  Most churches are in need of more than simply "a few more young families" but wholesale transformation.

Subpoint A:  Most churches, even when clamoring for growth, do not want change, or at least, real change.

Most churches, especially those within mainline denominations, are experiencing decline.  We could reveal this using all sorts of metrics.  Typically when you ask people within these congregations how they can move forward, the answer is something like:

• We need more X:  young families, kids in Sunday School, money in the bank
• We need cooler Y:  a praise band, screens in worship, less formal vestments
• We need social change Z:  Prayer back in school, no sports on Sundays, Wednesday night church time 

To put it in terms of a business, the people within declining congregations typically look for change in one of three ways

• We want customers who used to like to return to us
• We want to employ practices of firms whose skill set is entirely different than ours
• We want society to bring back the time when consumption of our products was supported.

Perhaps I am framing this too uncharitably or setting up an unfair strawman!  I admit I've thought and said most of these things over the years.  Furthermore, wanting a praise band or less formal worship style may be helpful in some contexts.  Many congregations would be helped significantly by cosmetic and incremental changes.  Lastly, at least some such comments acknowledges that some sort of internal change is necessary.  Yet I have almost never heard a congregation say: "In order to stop this decades long trend of decline, the way we've done things must fundamentally change, which will require our hearts to be transformed by God's Word and encounter with our neighbor."

Subpoint B:  In the Bible the church grew because it underwent a transformation grounded in prayer and study of the word.

In the book of Acts, the church grows rapidly.  It did not have great marketing techniques.  It did not have a culturally sophisticated worship style.  It enjoyed no cultural advantages.  Yet somehow, this group of Galilean peasants launches a movement that transforms the entire Roman Empire.  Obviously the Spirit leads the transformation; let's take a closer look at what happens:

• A group of fairly inward looking, yet very pious Jews living in Jerusalem (Acts 1) spend time in prayer waiting for the Holy Spirit.  They are overcome by fear and joy at the cross and resurrection.
• The Holy Spirit comes and blows them out of their comfort zone and they are transformed into an open faith community that welcomes Jews from all over the world (Acts 2).  
• They spend time listening to God, each other and the neighbor (Acts 2). 
• They preach and embrace the reality of rigorous discipleship as preached earlier by Jesus (Acts 2-5)
• As the community grows, they must address internal growing pains (Acts 6) and external social pressure (Acts 8).  
• Finally, they are led to preach and find Jesus outside of their city (Acts 9 and 10).
• This culminates in official "doctrine" of the church codifying a new way of engaging the outsider (Acts 15) in a way that forever orients the community toward the broader world and paves the way for incredible expansion.

I realize that one could summarize the first half of the book of Acts differently, but it is fair to say that the growth of the church happens as a result of the insiders undergoing a change of their hearts to embrace new people, new practices and new policies.  We cannot expect congregations (or firms or non-profits) to grow, after years of decline, without undergoing such a similar transformation of their hearts. 

Point #2:  We have prepared leaders to adopt best practices or experiment with the newest trend.  This will not lead to transformation.

Subpoint #A:  The American church grooms its leaders into one of two types.  My sense is that there is something similar within the business world that happens.

We tend to foster future congregational leaders to have a chaplain and/or innovator mentality.

- Chaplains:  People who are excellent at providing care within their settings.  Many of these people also have strong skills in administration and equipping of others for the care-giving task.  When it comes to leadership, these people can be very wise at setting up processes to ensure broad participation.  They also tend to be people who can get "into the weeds" and are willing patiently to address concerns people have.  They can study best practices at other churches and will implement once they perceive that the kinks have been worked out.

- Innovators:  People who have no time for shifting deck chairs on what they perceive as the sinking Titanic called the church of the Western hemisphere.  They want to seed new ministries that will help reach out to the ever-growing number of people who have tuned out or are turned off to formal religious expression in the USA.  They likely have a love-hate relationship with the churches and denominations they are in and lots of other leaders are bit jealous, terrified and yet hopeful for them.  Denominations often shine a spotlight on the ministries of innovators because they show great promise in their infancy and hope that others can adopt what works from these inventors.  When it comes to leadership, they thrive in "adaptive" leadership, that is, situations in which they are willing to experiment, fail and try again.  

For those familiar with the terms technical and adaptative change, I am arguing that we produce pastors who are ready to implement technical change and/or adaptive change.  Technical change is a change in which the problem and solution can be identified and implemented beforehand.  Adaptive change is a chance in which the problem and solution can only be discovered by trial and error.  For example, a technical change might be moving a choir rehearsal from Wednesday night to Sunday afternoon to acknowledge that the aging choir does not like night driving.  An adaptive change might be experimenting with models of integrating youth into adult ensembles after years of separate youth choirs.  The adaptive change likely requires a number of iterations to get it right.  The technical change likely works, if it is well communicated and those effected are on board.  Adaptive change, even when well communicated and with the supportive of stake holders might not work.

Subpoint #2:  This will not lead to transformation.

To be clear, I believe we need congregations to engage in adaptive leadership.  We need innovation as the existing model isn't working.  However, innovation is not transformation.  I argue that successful innovation requires transformation.  To put it another way, adaptive change requires cultural change.  For example, let's say that we start having youth work with adult choirs  This starts changing the whole way a congregation things about youth no longer as a silo (the dominant way of thinking for nearly two generations).  What kind of possibilities or push-back does this produce?  In order for youth to sing with adults, this is not simply going to require some changes in scheduling, but a change in heart of how people in the congregation relate across generations.  It might also require the congregation to break down barriers it had around style of music to find something that works for all ages.

Another example:  We started worshipping outside during COVID.  This blossomed into a favorite part of our congregation's life.  Now we have people from the neighborhood who will not join the main group of people for worship, but will sit outside of their apartments and listen from a distance.  We have been very slow as a congregation to embrace or reach out to them.  Why is this?  We innovated by adding outside worship.  Yet our culture still says the people that matter are the people whose butts are in front of the pastor on a Sunday morning.  What culture shift will be required by us to view those worshipping from a distance as part of us?

Point #3:  Changing culture is linked with reforming best practices and embracing new business models, but requires a different approach and character.

Culture change is not something that just happens.  It actually requires

• Time in prayer and study, listening to God, each other and the broader world
• Identification of culture change that is desired by leadership
• Implementation of technical change to support that culture change
• Openness to adaptive change that this makes possible 
• Leadership to hold strong when resistance is encountered

Going back to the example of the outside worship, we have generally a culture that is open to others entering into our space, but likely expects them to come into our space.  It will require leadership to recognize this as a challenge and lean in.  However, it will also require technical change - we need to, for example, knock on their doors the week before summer worship starts, invite them and then make bulletins available to them.  But it may also lead into adaptive change.  What happens when some of those folks start coming to worship and bring their hearts, concerns and stories of faith?  It will also come with a pushback - "Why are we printing bulletins for people that don't pay in" or other such possible comments.  (Frankly, I don't believe my congregation would say that, but I wanted to give an example of this). 

However, it should be noted, that if we hadn't gone through a huge culture shift - worship does not need to happen in our sanctuary - which was built on lots of technical changes - how to make worship outside work - we wouldn't be in a position to engage in adaptive change around engaging the stranger who does not come into our circle or our building.  We needed the confidence of the successful move outside to begin the experimentation with our neighbors in this apartment complex.

Here is my summary of these three types of change

	Types of Change
	Technical	Cultural	Adaptive
Changes	Processes	Values	Clients
Addresses	How	Why	For Whom
Builds on		Technical Change	Cultural Change
Who must be consulted	Existing end-users	Whole community; Stakeholders	Audience outside/on-margins of system
Takes	1-3 meetings to decide	5+ years to accomplish	3-5 years to prepare
Communication stops	Once new process accepted	Once new value accepted	Once new community accepted
To find solutions	Ask "end-users"; Examine best practices in industry	Align practices with values	Try stuff that builds on your existing skill set
To succeed	Follow transparent process and communicate	Ensure leadership is linked to endure pushback	Develop capacity for failure
Stance toward mistakes	Eliminate them	Forgive People	Embrace them
Leaders must be...	Thoughtful	Enduring	Innovative
	Attending	Listening	Dreaming

Therefore:  If we want to see the transformation of existing churches, we will need to speak more openly about culture change and design systems to equip and sustain leaders for this kind of change.

To put this all together, I was educated in how to be a chaplain and how to be an innovator.  But I was not equipped for the long-hard, gut-wrenching practice of changing culture.  This really is a spiritual task because it does not simply involve failing, but it involves interacting with people whom you love with whom you find yourself in disagreements.  More painfully, the disagreement may seem about technical change, but underneath, it is about culture change, and typically masking a great deal of grief about culture and loss of identity within a community.

If we are serious about revitalizing congregations (and this is actually an if), then I think we will need to equip ministers far-differently, preparing them to lead transformations of cultures within congregations so that they can eventually guide congregations in the messy process of figuring out how they can be the church for the next generation in a very different world than the one these congregation arose out of.

Lastly, I realize that any congregation who is in decline has heroic expectations on their pastor.  (This was a glaring and intentional omission under point #1!)  Congregations  (and companies!) clamor for a leader this younger and yet more experienced, more caring yet more bold, deep and inspiring, and of course a traditionalist innovator.  Impossible, right!  I wonder though, how many say out loud, "We want a pastor who will change our hearts to embrace others outside the community who are different than us!"  If you ever find a congregation that says this, take the call right away.

Matthew 21:33-46

This passage occurs in the Revised Common Lectionary, Year A; Most recently October 8, 2023.

Summary
The meaning of the parable is clear:  Ancient Israel rejected prophets of old; they will reject and kill Jesus.  Somehow God will rebuild on the rejected Jesus.  How do we find a Gospel message relevant for people's lives?  While there is some interesting stuff in verse 34 about sending and bearing fruit, I sense myself drawn to verse 42 and the proclamation that God will rebuild on the rejected stone.  This verse points toward the faithfulness of God, who rebuilds on Christ.  I think we can apply this to people's lives: even through we again and again reject God's commands and even love in our lives, God rebuilds us on Christ.

For 2023, I have added a tangent on institutional vs servant church leadership.

Key Words in verse 34 -- which sets up the whole thing
ηγγισεν (from εγγιζω, meaning "approach", 21:34)  This word, meaning "approach" or "come near", appears at turning points in the Gospel:
3:2  John Baptizes Jesus (John the Baptist say the Kingdom of Heaven is approaching/near)
4:17 Jesus begins ministry (Jesus says the KoH is approaching/near)
10:7 Jesus sends disciples (He instructs them to proclaim KoH is approaching/near)
21:1 Jesus is approaching/near Jerusalem
26:45/46  Jesus is betrayed (The hour is near/approaching)

Broad point:  Each time the Kingdom of Heaven is approaching, there is movement of Jesus and arguably a movement of the Spirit.  

Specific point:  The Lord of the Vineyard is doing something new when he sent his prophets and now when he is sending Jesus.

καιρος (kairos, meaning "season", 21:34; 41)  This word means 'season' or 'ideal time.'  In this case, it describes the harvest season.  A reminder that in Jesus there is the fullness of time!

απεστειλεν (from αποστελλω, meaning "send", 21:34)  I am amazed at how many times in Jesus' parables in Matthew we have (the character representing) God sending out people.  I think we often think of this as a concept in John's Gospels, but it is really crucial to Jesus' ministry.  We are sent out, certainly if and when the Kingdom of Heaven is approaching!  This word is important because it reminds us that the Kingdom of Heaven, while principally about the movement of Jesus into this world and toward the cross (see discussion on ηγγισεν), involves our movement too.

καρπος ("fruit", 21:34)  Again, we find a word that appears throughout scripture to describe the impact of the Spirit and the Kingdom of Heaven in our life:  We bear fruit.  In this case, workers are sent to gather the fruit.  What a beautiful image of ministry -- gathering the fruit that God has already created.  As the word αυτου ("of him") remind us, the fruit belongs to God.

Other interesting words

οικοδεσποτης  (literally, oikos - despot, meaning "owner of the land", 21:33)  This is a fun word in Greek.  It is built on two smaller words that we can recognize: oikos and despot!  It is interesting that Jesus would refer to God as an οικοδεσποτης, which was unlikely a favorable comparison for working-class listeners.  It is a reminder that first, these are parables and not allegories; second, it all belongs to God.

αμπελωνα ("vineyard", 21:33)  Jesus tells three vineyard parables, almost right in a row.  This seems clearly the one built the most on Isaiah 5, in which the vineyard owner builds a tower, as this vineyard owner does here as well.  It is a sermon series by Jesus :-)  It shows us how good stories and metaphors work, they continue to unfold in new ways.  It reminds us of Jesus' creative genius to somehow use old wine skins!

υστερον (meaning "last," 21:37)  The word here for "last" is used 4 times in Matthew 21 and 22; and also in Matt 25 and 26, but rarely ever appears elsewhere in the NT...Matthew is starting to emphasize the final nature of things and of his Gospel.

εντραπησονται  (future passive of εντρεπω, "respect", 21:37)  The word for "respect" means more like embarrass...in short, they will be embarrassed enough to show respect.  In the rest of the New Testament, it is always used within a context of shame rather than respect.  Perhaps this is a reminder that respect within an honor/shame culture has a different meaning; perhaps it is a reminder that Jesus ends up shaming the pharisees and religious leaders.  Ironically their attempts at shaming Jesus (killing him outside of Jerusalem) only lead to his glory!

οικοδομεω (meaning "build" "erect" or even "rebuild", 21:33 and 21:42)  The word here for builder is the same as in vs. 33. God built something.  People messed it up.  God will rebuild.  God is always at work revising the mistakes of our bad construction, relaying the foundation of our lives on Christ that we may bear fruit!

εθνει (ethnos, meaning "gentiles", 21:43)  The word for "people" here is "Gentiles."  Interestingly, Paul will talk about how he has a harvest of Gentiles in Romans 1:13, a case where Scripture is fulfilling itself!

Institution vs Servant Church

In verse 45, the religious leaders recognize this parable is directed at them.  As tenants of the vineyard, they have killed the servants sent by God.  I see this parable as a reminder of the way in which the institution of the church has again and again chewed up prophets and the servants of God.  In this way the parable serves as a judgment on institutional Christianity as well and the ways in which we devour prophets among us.  Those who come with a servants heart, beware!  However, in the end of the parable, Jesus says that there will be new tenants.  There will always be an institutional church...that always abused the pure in heart and always needs reformation. 

Church history reveals this too -- where the small and forgotten folks on the margins get forgotten, if not excluded.  They form a movement.  Which becomes a church.  Which gets too institutional.  Which then needs reform...or more likely kicks out the people that will grow the next generation of the church.