How many of you have played peek-a-boo with a baby? Fun, isn’t it? But eventually they figure out that you can see them even when they can’t see you, and the thrill goes away. It’s a control thing, I think... they’re learning that what they do has an effect on their environment, and sometimes it works, and sometimes it doesn’t. So they move on to more sophisticated games, like hide-and-seek. By that time kids know they have to work at finding a good place to hide, that just squeezing their eyes shut doesn’t do it any more.
But it seems to take a whole lot longer for people to figure out that God can see us even when we can’t see him. For the Israelites in the wilderness, it’s out of sight, out of mind where God is concerned. By the time Moses came back down from Mt. Sinai with the tablets containing the law, they had capped their months of grumbling and whining and complaining that God was going to abandon them to die in the desert by making a golden calf. If they couldn’t see God, obviously God wasn’t there, and they could do what they liked.
But when Moses came back with the law, and they had an opportunity to actually hear God speak themselves, Scripture tells us that “they were afraid and trembled and stood at a distance, and said to Moses, "You speak to us, and we will listen; but do not let God speak to us, or we will die." [Ex 20:18-19] So you see they wanted to have their manna and eat it too, so to speak. They wanted God to be with them and take care of them, but they didn’t want him to get too close. An idol was much more to their liking, in fact; they had the control, then. They could get a religious thrill from the ceremonies while not actually being challenged to anything life-changing. YHWH God was just more than they wanted to deal with.
And that’s what most people are like, even today. Most of us want a domesticated God, one who forgives us and provides for us but doesn’t ask us to do anything difficult in return. We want a God whose priorities are the same as ours, one we have fashioned in our own image, in fact. The golden calf wasn’t exactly in the Israelites image, of course, but it was the sort of thing they imagined a God ought to be. And we do the same thing.
Some of you have probably heard of the “Search for the historical Jesus.” It started well over a hundred years ago, and to make a complicated theological issue as simple as I can, the claim was that the Gospels were full of all kinds of embroidery that the early church had added following the resurrection in order to make various theological points, and wasn’t necessarily an accurate portrayal of the Jesus who actually lived and walked in Palestine so long ago. The interesting thing was that each interpretation of the “historical Jesus” looked exactly like the scholar who had come up with it. There were “social activist” Jesuses and “fiery revolutionary” Jesuses and “mystic healer” Jesuses and so on. But each one affirmed the biases of his creator. Interesting, no?
We all are so much more comfortable with a God who will tell us we’re just fine exactly as we are and it’s all other people’s fault the world is in such a mess.
The Pharisees of Jesus’ day were like that, too. Since the Jews had returned from exile some 400 years before, they had had a great deal of trouble maintaining a strong national identity. They were always under the thumb of someone or another, the Persians or the Greeks or the Egyptians or the Romans. The hereditary priests were often corrupt, usually in the pockets of the political powers, and so a lay renewal movement got started. They insisted that knowing and obeying Scriptures were the essentials of being Jewish, rather than just showing up at the temple for the appointed feasts. It was, in fact, very much like our own 16th c. Reformation. And religious authority slowly began to move away from the priests and into the hands of these scholars, who were known as Pharisees. Their hearts were in the right place, but they wound up creating an idol. Their system was so focused on maintaining their own purity through strict adherence to the law that they forgot God’s larger purpose.
There had been a time when these devout and dedicated people remembered that they were supposed to be the means through which God would bless the world. The great Rabbi Hillel, one of the founders of the Pharisee movement, maintained that righteous Gentiles merit salvation just as Jews do, and in 20 B.C.E. a man named Menahem the Essene took 160 of his followers on a mission to the Gentiles.
But by the time Jesus came on the scene, Hillel’s branch of the Pharisees had lost out to the followers of a rabbi named Shammai, who despised all Gentiles, and maintained that not even the most righteous one merited a place in the world to come. In fact, no-one could get into God’s good graces without absolutely strict adherence to each one of the 632 laws they had identified. YHWH God was for the Jews alone, and not all the Jews at that.
That’s the scene Jesus is facing when he tells the religious leaders in Jerusalem this parable.
Now, obviously the vineyard is Israel, which God planted and tended and protected. And then he left leaders to be in charge, to take care of the vineyard and to manage the crop - that is, to lead the people to an obedience that would bear fruit. The slaves who are sent stand for the prophets, of course, who call the people back to God and are vilified and killed for their pains. And the owner’s son is, of course Jesus himself. And when Jesus explains the parable to his hearers, they’re furious. How dare Jesus threaten them like that! Who did he think he was?
You see, their legal system had replaced God. The Pharisees - at least this branch - had created a system that reflected their own narrowness and pride, and called it God’s. But in fact they had taken their eyes off of God, once their system was in place, and they were no longer able to recognize him even when he called to them.
Do you remember the story of King David, how he had Bathsheba’s husband Uriah killed in battle so Uriah wouldn’t find out that Bathsheba was pregnant? Afterward the prophet Nathan came to him and told him an allegory which showed him his guilt; David immediately recognized himself and repented. Because his relationship with God was more important to him than even his kingship.
These Pharisees didn’t recognize themselves, and they didn’t repent. On the contrary: when faced with their guilt, they turned on their accuser, unwilling to be changed by their encounter with God. And so Jesus tells them that all that they have enjoyed for so long - the religious prestige, the temple worship, God’s special favor and protection - will be taken away from them.
Too often we react to criticism just the way these Pharisees did, rejecting any notion that our view of God might have gotten distorted over the years. Because it’s easy to make idols of our habits and customs, and to be threatened when someone asks us to take a second look at whether we’ve really been alive to God or just going through the motions. Some of the conflict between the liberal and conservative wings of our denomination is the result of that kind of reaction; both sides get angry instead of soberly considering whether or not there might be a grain of truth in the charges.
God is only out of sight when we close our eyes. He is even active in the conflict and turmoil of our everyday life. We need learn to ask, “What is God trying to do with me in this?” rather than defending our turf. It’s a habit that takes daily practice to learn. And it’s not that simple, either, because we also have to want to see God. It’s an awesome challenge to live your live daily in full sight of our Creator God; he might want to change you. So - like the Israelites - some of you may say to yourselves, “I’ll listen to God when I go to church, when the pastor speaks, but I don’t want to get too close the rest of the time.”
But that’s for children playing peek-a-boo. Because God can see us all the time, whether we acknowledge him or not. It’s much more sensible – as well as safer – to turn around and meet him half way.
