Jesus has been telling people terrorized by Empire, David’s and Caesar’s, parables about the Community of God. The Community of God is described as a treasure, a fine pearl, a net and therefore surprising, joyful, fulfilling. Upon concluding all the parables Jesus says, “Every scribe who has been instructed in the Community of God is like the head of a household who brings from his storeroom both the new and the old.”
Biblical scholars tend to interpret Jesus’ concluding line about new and old backwards, in reference to the Old Testament. They influence us to honor Old people and Old traditions as forebearers to the New Jesus. But what if, in this context, Jesus is positioning himself as old in reference to all the new yet to come? Jesus understands the fear of some people and their need to keep building up ancient Empires, be they named Israelite, Roman, Chinese, British, or U.S. He understands such fearful people will persist in domination, hatred, and violence. Jesus also understands the courage of other people, far more people, and their willingness to grow instead the New Community of God. How are we peacemakers growing new Communion to transform dominators – be they cops, federal soldiers, or a GOP-led congress? How are we growing new Love to transform these current haters – be they white supremacists, U.S. stormtroopers, or an incompetent and evil/adversarial administration? How are we growing new Healing to transform the violators of this U.S. Empire – be they maintaining the confederacy, abducting protesters off the streets, or mismanaging Covid 19? Too often we do not act as radical transformers of our age but instead as subjects of the ancient age. This is glaringly true of soldiers, especially soldiers who self-title as Christian. They subordinate themselves to empire and bring forth from their storerooms only ancient dominators, hatreds, and violences. They subject us to ancient evils as well. We wait for ancient dominators, haters, and violators to lessen their domination of immigrants, their abuse of disabled persons, their violence against children. We are living in an ancient past as if that is all that has gone before us. Jesus is over 2,000 years old! What are we waiting for? Now is our revolution. Now in our wisdom and in our youth, in our vision and in our energy we can grow New revolutionary Communion, New revolutionary Love, and New revolutionary Healing to transform the ancient. Let us bring out of our storeroom now the enduring 2,000 year old creative witness of Christ and our own New creative witness.
“Joy, begin to rise. Hope, begin to light the dark. Our God exchanges old for new. Dawn has conquered dark. Death has lost to life. And now we are exchanging old for new.” (Old for New – Hannah McClure)
Prayer: Spirit, inspire us for wisdom and creativity.
Question: What ancient evils of empire are taking up space in my faith leaving little room for new creative action?
July 26, 2020 Gospel Matthew 13:44-52 Seventeenth Sunday in Ordinary Time