Living the righteous life!

This weeks readings from Exodus and Matthew are held together by feasts, abundant generosity, spurned invitations, and the inviters (God’s?) deep disappointment and anger.

Exodus is the story of the Hebrew people’s growing sense of identity being forged in the wilderness. As we read this story we read of their ongoing struggle to understand what it means to be the people of God. The rest of the Old Testament can be understood as their continuing struggle plus their deepening and developing understanding of whose they are, who they are, and what is theirs to do.

Today’s story betrays how different faith in the One God was. It began as faith in one god among many who would be their God. Different enough in a polytheistic world. It ends with this god being the only God, the One God of all people and all creation. Unlike the other gods who were represented in statues and images which their followers worshipped, this God wanted no images or statues. How can you worship a God you cannot see? The lure of the known was very strong. It continues to be very strong. The debate about what is a false image has dogged Christianity for the last 2000 years.

Those questions of identity and how to live that out lie behind the Gospel reading. This is the third story Jesus tells in answer to the question asked by the Jerusalem leadership, “By whose authority do you do these things?” He told them the story about the son who said no and then did what was asked, and the one who said yes and did nothing. He told the story about the wicked tenants, with the nice wee twist about the consequences of those listening not bearing fruit. Today we hear about a wedding feast, where all is ready, but against every social protocol the invited guests dishonour the host and do not come. In response the king destroys these guests, and in their place invites all that can be found. All those who the Jerusalem leadership has forced off their land and had turned into tenants. All the poor, the orphans, the widows. The people of the margins who the Jerusalem leadership treated with such contempt. Jesus suggests these are the ones who will replace them at the banquet, in the kingdom.

So what is all this about? Living the righteous life! This for the chief priests and elders meant being from the right family, being with people of the right honour and status, and outwardly obeying the Law of Moses, particularly around the temple sacrifice. But for Jesus the righteous life was living out God’s generosity, mercy, and life, God’s enthusiastic delight in all people and the pain at their refusal to share the life freely offered.

So what is the righteous life for us? How does our answer to whose are we, who are we, and what is ours to do shape our answer?