Nineteenth Sunday after Pentecost; 8 October 2023; Proper 22A (RCL); Exodus20:1-4, 7-9, 12-20; Psalm 19; Philippians3:4b-14; Matthew 21:33-46.
I dread this parable. If there were any passage I could excise from scripture, it would be the parable of the vineyard and its tenants. All three synoptic Gospels (Mark, Matthew, Luke) include a version of it. It happens in the narrative context of Jesus teaching in the Temple after he has expelled the sellers of animals and overturned the tables of the money changers, so the Temple cult is in view. And any parable about vineyards or vines occurs against the background of Old Testament passages like Isaiah 5:1-7 and Psalm 80:8-19, in which Israel is compared to a vineyard or a vine.
This parable lies at the source of Christian supercessionism, the idea that the Christian Church has replaced Israel in God’s purposes for the salvation of the world. That, and the blood-libel, that the Jews are responsible for Jesus’ death, have caused untold misery and hatred down through the centuries. We’re seeing a resurgence of antisemitism in American culture in the last few decades, and the source of that is right here in our Gospel reading.
Anyone familiar with the reception history of Paul’s letters, and the way they have been interpreted from Chrysostom and Augustine to Luther to the present would think that Paul thought this way also — that what God has done in Jesus Christ nullifies what God was doing through Israel. But a careful reading of his letter to the Romans (especially chapters 9-11) will show that this is not the case. What God has done in Jesus Christ has fulfilled and will include what God has done and is doing through Israel (understood as a theological construct, not as the modern nation-state). God’s word to the Jews has not failed and cannot fail.
This week’s passage from Philippians could be read to seem like Paul is repudiating his Jewishness. But he is not. He is simply saying that it, along with any other form of identity “in the flesh,” counts for nothing when compared to the righteousness established by God’s faithfulness as demonstrated in Christ Jesus. No flesh-bound identity can be privileged over against any other: Jew nor Greek, white nor black, male nor female, slave nor free, Arab or European — name any form of identity you can think of, white American Christian nationalism included — all of them pale to nothingness against the love of God demonstrated in Christ Jesus.
And Paul does something interesting in this passage. The Christ-hymn he quoted just before this stated that Christ did not count equality with God “as something to be exploited” as the NRSV translated. The RSV had “as something to be grasped.” The image is the brass ring that a runner in a race would grasp at the finish (like the tape to be broken in our races). So, a good translation might be that Christ did not count equality with God as a prize to be won.
In this passage Paul uses the image of the race again: forgetting what lies behind, he stretches forward, pressing toward the goal of the prize of the heavenly call in Jesus Christ. Even this early, we can already see the idea of theosis (usually translated deification) in Paul’s writings. In Christ, God became human so that humans might become God (or divine). It is this passage that convinces me this is Paul’s farewell letter. He is looking forward to his martyrdom, knowing that by sharing in a death like Christ’s, he hopes to share in Christ’s resurrection and participation in the divine life. No wonder he counts his Jewishness as nothing — compared to participation in the divine life, what else can matter?