God the Street Vendor

Isaiah 55:1-5, the First Reading appointed for the 9th Sunday in Pentecost in the Year of Matthew, is unusual because God sounds like a marketplace merchant - a street vendor.  "Ho, everyone who thirst," the vendor cries.  Everyone?  It will be the preacher's task to make clear that God means exactly what God says here: everyone who is thirsty is invited.  Perhaps recognizing our thirst is our biggest obstacle.

(The following questions are not meant to be exhaustive but have been developed to answer questions which are important for Law and Gospel preachers.  These questions center on how the Word is functioning in the text.  To learn more about this method and Law and Gospel preaching in general, see my brief guide to Law and Gospel preaching, Afflicting the Comfortable, Comforting the Afflicted, available from wipfandstock.com or amazon.)

1.  How does the Word function in the text?  The Word here is almost completely a gospel word.  God is offering water, wine, and milk to everyone who thirsts, and there is no price.  God is inviting all to listen and eat what is good and delight in abundance.  God is promising to make an everlasting covenant with all who will enter into his embrace.  This is a gospel word.

2.  How is the Word not functioning in the text?  The Law is not present except in the form of a question:  "Why do you spend your money for that which is not bread, and your labor for that which does not satisfy?"  The Law is clearly present here as God calls into question futile ways of living.  Yet, God is not condemning here, but rather pleading, therefore it is a 'softer' form of the Law.

3.  With whom are you identifying in the text?  We are the hearers of this text.  God is speaking to us for we are those who so easily spend all we have in futile, senseless pursuits which do not lead to life.  We are the ones whom God is pleading with.

4.  What, if any, call to obedience is there in this text?  This text is a call to faith, not a call to obedience.  God is calling to us to trust in the covenant offered to us.  God is pleading with us to believe in the gifts God is offering.  This is a call to faith.

5.  What Law/Gospel couplet is suggested by this text?  The two futile pursuits named in verse 2 give us some fodder for couplets:  not bread/bread of life; not satisfied/filled to overflowing.

6.  Exegetical work:  The Hebrew text is illuminating in verse 2.  A rough translation which is more direct could be, "Why are you weighing out a piece of silver for fake bread, and bartering your labor for worthless fillers?"  The Hebrew lifts up the futility and foolishness of such transactions.  Claus Westermann, in his classic commentary, says God is like a water seller here.  "The repetition of 'come' and 'buy" is an imitation of street vendors." (The OT Library series, Isaiah 40-66, p. 282).  It is interesting that God, the merchant, not only invites all to come and partake without price, but God also steers the listeners away from other vendors who are selling worthless items.  Luther is quick to identify the life-giving merchandise as the grace God gives.  Luther says, "They labor for that which is not bread.  Note therefore that all righteousness outside of grace is toilsome and futile... Thus you see that the prophet is calling us away from our own righteousness in highly forceful and dramatic words and is directing us to the free righteousness of God."  (Luther's Works, vol. XVII, p. 251). 

7.  Consider the insights of the pioneers of the New Homiletic?  This text might be a good one to remember Eugene Lowry's advice that the preacher is well-served to conceive the sermon as a plot wherein we move the listener into disequilibrium and then back to equilibrium.  This text seems to lend itself to such an approach.

Blessings on your proclamation!

God's Hidden Work

Matthew 13:31-33,44-52, the gospel reading appointed for the 8th Sunday in Pentecost, is a series of parables, all of which are introduced by the phrase, "The kingdom of heaven is like..."  It will be important for the preacher to spend some considerable time exploring the meaning of the phrase, "kingdom of heaven."  Many scholars are quite clear that the kingdom is not a realm but a reign (Kittel), and knowing this will color our understanding greatly.  How then does one preach a realm?  That is the preacher's riddle to unravel.

(The following questions are taken from a method developed to explore fundamental questions of Law and Gospel preachers around the function of the Word.  These questions are used most effectively when they are used in conjunction with other fine sets of questions available to exegetes. To learn more about this method and Law and Gospel preaching in general, see my brief guide, Afflicting the Comfortable, Comforting the Afflicted available from wipfandstock.com or amazon.)

1.  How does the Word function in the text?  This text functions mostly as Gospel in that the four parables which are told - the mustard seed, leaven, treasure, pearl - are either evidence of what God is up to (mustard seed and leaven) or the joy that comes from discovering what God is up to. (treasure and pearl).  The Law comes to play in the final parable about the dragnet.  Here is a clear warning that someday there will be an accounting, and some will be found lacking.

2.  With whom are you identifying in the text?  We are certainly those to whom these teachings are addressed.  Do we identify with the farmer who sowed the mustard seed or the woman who hid the leaven?  Probably not, since the actor there we assume is God.  Do we identify with the ones who found the treasure and the fine pearl?  Yes, since it is our joy to catch glimpses of the kingdom amongst us.  Where do we land in the parable of the dragnet?  Perhaps it is best to identify with the 'fish of every kind.'

3.  What, if any, call to obedience is there in this text?  The call in this text is the call to faith, not the call to obedience, since we become a part of the kingdom only through faith.  It is tempting to see these parables as calls to "sow little seeds" or "hide a little leaven" but that is a misuse of these parables.  It is God's business to do the sowing and the leavening.

4.  What Law/Gospel couplet is suggested by this text?  Since the Law is evident only in the final parable, we shall have to use our imaginations to create couplets that speak to all these parables. Some possibilities:  barren ground/seed planted; lifeless loaf/bread for all.

5.  Exegetical work:  Gerhard Kittel has an extended article in his Theological Dictionary of the New Testament (TDNT) on the term 'basileia'.  This article is most helpful.  One excerpt:  "[The kingdom of heaven] refers to the lordship which comes down from heaven into the world.  If so, this gives us two important insights.  The first is the plain reassurance that the essential meaning is reign rather than realm. The second is the related indication that this reign cannot be a realm which arises by a natural development of earthly relationships or by human efforts, but it is one which comes down by divine intervention."  (TDNT, Vol. 1, p. 582)  One other passage:  "[The question] is not...whether or how we men may have the kingdom of God as a disposition in our hearts, or whether we may represent it as a fellowship of those thus minded.  The question is whether one belongs to it or not." (TDNT, Vol. 1, p.585)    Douglas Hare, in his commentary, concurs:  "Despite all the ethical injunctions of the Gospels, the central thought is that the kingdom of heaven is something God is doing, that is, it is to be received as a gift.  The kingdom of heaven is not something that can be acquired...it is a sphere into which one enters."  (Interpretation series, Matthew, p. 158)  David Buttrick, in his commentary on the parables says it this way:  "The kingdom is not possessed but lived in!"  (Speaking Parables, p. 102).

6.  How does the Crossings Community model work with this text?  Steve Albertin has several analyses archived for this text.  I like the one entitled "One Man's Trash is Another Man's Treasure."  In this analysis Albertin argues that we are often blind to the hidden things of God that are all around us.  Because of this blindness, we eventually find ourselves completely adrift from God.  God, however, always sees the treasures which are hidden, and even counts us all as treasures, righteous through Christ's work.  See the entire analysis, and others archived under the text at crossings.org/text - study.org.

Blessings on your proclamation!