A Fresh Perspective

In our text today Mark begins a story, then that story is interrupted by another story, a second story, after which Mark returns to complete the first story. This sandwiching technique in telling stories is common in Mark. Mark wants us, his readers, to find common features and themes in the two stories. So as I read the text perhaps you can look for features that are common to both stories. Fred Craddock tells a wonderful story about arriving at a hospital to make a pastoral visit, but in the corridor he sees a woman.   Her head is against the door, and both fists are beside her face, and she is banging on the door: “Let me in, let me in, let me in.”   When he gets over to where she is he could see that it was the chapel door. Fred stops a worker, “This chapel is locked.” The worker says, “We have to keep it locked. There were some kids that trashed it and we had to get all new furniture. We can’t afford to keep doing that, so we have to keep it locked."  Fred says...

Isaiah 55 reads as an invitation for anyone to share in the fruits of God’s new creation, the new world God is creating. The blessing is offered to anyone who will receive it. “Everyone who thirsts come to the waters” cries the prophet. God chose Israel to share that message. Not to be a people who thought of themselves as better than others, but a people called to offer life giving water to all the peoples of the world. One of the New Testament readings listed for this Sunday, which we did not read, is Romans 9:1-5. In that text Paul speaks of his passion for the Jewish people, his own people, and he enumerates a number of things that set Israel apart – that constituted Israel a chosen people – the covenants, the Torah, the tradition of worship of the one God, and ultimately the Jewish Messiah. However, the privileges and advantages of being the covenant people of God were never intended for Israel exclusively. In the Isaiah text God’s steadfast love is not intended for just on...

The story of the landowner and the workers in the vineyard in Matthew 20:1–16 generally leaves those who read it for the first time scratching their heads. It has a kind of shocking, subversive impact because the actions of the landowner are so not like the way things actually work in our world. The last workers hired, who are paid first and work only one hour in the field, are paid the same wage as those hired first who bore the heat of the day. A short saying that appears in several different contexts forms the conclusion: “So the last will be first, and the first last.” The landowner chides the first hired workers who complain: “Friend, I am doing you no wrong; did you not agree with me for the usual daily wage? Take what belongs to you and go; I choose to give to this last the same as I give to you. Am I not allowed  to do what I choose with what belongs to me? Or are you envious because I am generous? From the standpoint of economic justice this would be a real prob...