Monthly Archives: September 2023

Disobedient Brothers

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Since I commented on the Parable of the Two Brothers and the Vineyard in my book Moving and Resting in God’s Desire, I will quote my brief comments here:

One brief parable Jesus told are about two brothers, asked by their father to work in the vineyard. One said he would go but he didn’t, the other said he wouldn’t go but then he did. Which did the will of the father? (Mt. 21:28-32) Jesus’ listeners took the bait and took sides, but I don’t think that is the way to respond. Short as this parable is, it suggests that the two brothers are embroiled in mimetic rivalry to the extent that they always say the opposite of what the other says and do the opposite as well. That is, they react to each other and not at all to the father. Both then, have failed to respond to the father and both are in need of forgiveness and mercy. When Jesus responds to his listeners by pointing out that tax collectors and prostitutes believed John the Baptist and they didn’t, he is hinting that the victims of their mimetic rivalry are entering the Kingdom ahead (and maybe instead) of them.

The rivalrous context of the parable increased the likelihood that Jesus’ listeners would hear the parable rivalrously as I suggest they did. The chief priests and elders were trying to stoke tensions, which were already high, by asking Jesus by what authority he did the things he did, most especially his provocative act of cleansing the temple. Jesus deflected the question by asking them if they thought John’s baptism had come from God or was only John’s human initiative. Since the chief priests and the elders were not willing to publically commit themselves, Jesus was not going to commit himself either. He must have realized that they were not going to admit that Jesus’s authority came from heaven any more than they would admit the same of John.

It is worth noting that fraternal strife is a running thread throughout the Hebrew Bible, starting with Cain and Abel. Except for Abel who was killed, the “righteous” brother who wins each struggle can in some ways be seen to be compromised, such as Jacob having trouble believing in Esau’s forgiveness and Joseph testing his brothers severely before reconciling with them. This same fratricidal strife continues throughout Israel’s history with the strife between the divided kingdoms. The parable can also be taken as referring to fraternal strife between Jew and Gentile as is conventionally done, another layer of fraternal strife on a broader scale in Israel’s history. This strife suggests that nobody had both committed to going to the vineyard and actually doing it.

The famous hymn in Philippians 2 shows how Jesus renounced rivalry in a radical way, the same way that Jesus renounced rivalry in his altercations with the chief priests and elders. Since Jesus was not in rivalry with anybody and his attention was directed to the will of his heavenly Abba, Jesus said he would go into the vineyard and went. In this way, Jesus’ authority came from heaven. It is this obedience and renunciation, that, as Paul’s hymn says, led Jesus to the cross where his death offers us a way out of the rivalry that marked not only Israel’s history, but the history of all humankind.

See also Moving and Resting in God’s Desire

Forgiving the Unforgiving Servant

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It is obvious that the Parable of the Unforgiving Servant is about forgiveness, but what it actually says about forgiveness can be a bit elusive. It seems to say that if you do not forgive the sins of others; your own sins will not be forgiven. Fair enough. The trouble is, forgiveness isn’t fair; it’s totally unfair. That’s the whole point of forgiveness. We often complain about unfairness if we are blamed for something we did not do, or if we think the punishment is out of proportion to the offense. But forgiveness is an opposite unfairness; we are not given the punishment we deserve. We don’t complain about the unfairness of it except for when it comes to other people who obviously deserve a harsh punishment for what they did to us,

Fairness and unfairness aside, this parable seems to pose the conundrum about the forgiving god being unforgiving. We could say it isn’t God but the Master in the parable who is unforgiving. There’s no question about the Master, but does the Master stand in for God? The concluding verse seems to suggest it: “This is how my heavenly Father will treat each of you unless you forgive your brother or sister from your heart.” (Mt. 18: 35) But how can we speak of God being forgiving if God does not always forgive? Of course, if we aren’t inclined ourselves to forgive the unforgiving servant, who are we to judge God for not forgiving him?

I find the Swiss theologian Raymund Schwager helpful here. In his book Jesus in the Drama of Salvation he develops a dramatic theology in five acts. The first act is the proclamation of , forgiveness, most powerfully expressed in the Sermon on the Mount. The second act is the refusal of the message of forgiveness on the part of Jesus’ hearers. This parable and many others that include acts of violence fall into this second act. That Peter asked if he had to forgive as much as seven times is an example of resisting the teaching on forgiveness. Schwager suggests that the weeping and gnashing of teeth that crops up in several parables refer to this refusal of Jesus’ message. Schwager emphasizes the point that Jesus is not just talking about small-scale relationships; Jesus is preaching a System of forgiveness. Society is to be made up of forgiveness rather than blame and retaliation. If God really is a forgiving God, then God forgives our lack of forgiveness, but God does not save us from the consequences of sticking to the old system of blame and retaliation. All this old system ever got us is weeping and gnashing of teeth. Gnashing of teeth is an apt image of blame and retaliation; Paul admonished his corespondents to stop devouring one another. (Gal. 5: 15) On a more positive note, in Romans, Paul gives a concrete illustration of what it means to live and die for the Lord: Do not judge our brothers and sisters or hold them in contempt because we all stand under God’s judgment seat. (Rom. 14: 8, 10)

If Jesus does indeed want us to develop a system of forgiveness as Paul clearly believes, then it only takes one unforgiving person to short circuit the system and knock over all the dominoes of forgiveness in quite a spectacular crash. The effect is much the same if someone commits what seems an unforgivable act. Even worse is an act that combines vengeance with lying accusations. The only way to keep the system from crashing in a situation like this is to remain open to God’s gift of forgiveness as a free gift for ourselves and for the offender in the midst of the crash. If Jesus is indeed enjoining a system of forgiveness, then he isn’t telling Peter, as an individual, to forgive offenses seventy-seven times or seven times seventy times; he is asking Peter, as he is asking us, to counter offenses and vengeance by starting a counter chain reaction of forgiveness. Easier said than done. We need to be focused on God and not the one who has hurt us and certainly not on our own hurt. The judgment seat we stand under is a judgment of forgiveness, but forgiveness does shed light on what needs forgiving in the very act of forgiveness. That can be a painful and a built-in punishment for what we have done or not done. Forgiveness may get us off God’s hook, but it doesn’t take us off the hook we’ve hung ourselves on. We are easily distracted by thoughts (sometimes legitimate ones) that the other is the one who needs a lot of forgiveness, but we must remain grounded God’s forgiveness of us and use that free gift to participate in God’s forgiveness of others. Only then can we rebuild the system of a forgiving society.

In Schwager’s drama, the third, fourth, and fifth acts are the crucifixion, the Resurrection, and the sending of the Holy Spirit. Indeed, far from punishing his unforgiving hearers, Jesus took on the wrath of their blame and retaliation on the Cross. And that is where accepting the gift of God’s forgiveness in the midst of blame and retaliation can take us as well. But what other way is there, really, to the resurrected life and the breath of the Holy Spirit which breathes God’s forgiveness of our sins?