That’s how Rosemerry Wahtola Trommer and I felt after we’d talked for an hour about parables and poetry. Was Jesus really a sort of poet? We don’t exactly make that case, but together we wondered about and wandered through words — and found ourselves, well, grateful. And closer to the sacre…

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This year, unlike past years, the Cottage Summer special is open to all subscribers (paid and free) as a gift to nurture your spirit this Pentecost season.

In this final parable of our summer series, we explore the story of the Talents.

A wee reminder: the word “parable” means to “overturn” or “cast aside.” The parables are STORIES told by Jesus and intended to upset what we think!

Today’s parable continues the task of casting off convention.

*

The audio excerpt is courtesy of my publisher from the audiobook version of A Beautiful Year, “The Parable of the Talents.” If you are reading the book, it is found on pages 252-257; in the e-book, this parable is in the Pentecost section.

Read and reflect on this parable. How do you feel about this story? Where are you in the story? Does this parable challenge you — and us — at this moment in history?

Explore the suggestions below for further reflection and understanding — as you choose.

This isn’t a homework assignment! This is an invitation and a guide. Think about all three topics or pick one. Leave comments and observations. Read the comments of others and learn from the community. Reply to each other. I’ll jump into the thread a few times during the day.

Ask questions, wonder together.

Share

THE STORY

The most familiar version of this parable is found in Matthew 25:14-30 (below). But there is a similar — but not exactly the same — story found in Luke 19:11-26 as well. The Luke version, however, has an absolutely horrifying ending that probably explains why we don’t hear it as often.

‘For it is as if a man, going on a journey, summoned his slaves and entrusted his property to them; to one he gave five talents,^* to another two, to another one, to each according to his ability. Then he went away.

The one who had received the five talents went off at once and traded with them, and made five more talents. In the same way, the one who had the two talents made two more talents.

But the one who had received the one talent went off and dug a hole in the ground and hid his master’s money.

After a long time the master of those slaves came and settled accounts with them. Then the one who had received the five talents came forward, bringing five more talents, saying, “Master, you handed over to me five talents; see, I have made five more talents.” His master said to him, “Well done, good and trustworthy slave; you have been trustworthy in a few things, I will put you in charge of many things; enter into the joy of your master.” And the one with the two talents also came forward, saying, “Master, you handed over to me two talents; see, I have made two more talents.” His master said to him, “Well done, good and trustworthy slave; you have been trustworthy in a few things, I will put you in charge of many things; enter into the joy of your master.”

Then the one who had received the one talent also came forward, saying, “Master, I knew that you were a harsh man, reaping where you did not sow, and gathering where you did not scatter seed; so I was afraid, and I went and hid your talent in the ground. Here you have what is yours.”

But his master replied, “You wicked and lazy slave! You knew, did you, that I reap where I did not sow, and gather where I did not scatter? Then you ought to have invested my money with the bankers, and on my return I would have received what was my own with interest. So take the talent from him, and give it to the one with the ten talents. For to all those who have, more will be given, and they will have an abundance; but from those who have nothing, even what they have will be taken away.

As for this worthless slave, throw him into the outer darkness, where there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth.”

WHAT IS THIS STORY ABOUT?

How would you explain this story to someone who had never heard it before? What’s the point? Is there more than one point to this parable?

Do you like the story? Do you not like it? Does it puzzle you? Anger you? Make you resentful? What emotions does it stir? Be honest!

What do you think a person who’d never heard this story before make of it?

Do you think it is better described as a moral parable, an example parable, or a challenge parable? It is tempting to say “all three,” but which of these styles is most prominent?

Leave a comment

THE STORY AND YOUR STORY

WHAT DOES THIS STORY MEAN TO YOU NOW?

When did you first hear this story? How many times do you think you’ve heard it? Have you heard it in other forms (film, novel, poetry, art, music) in addition to the biblical story?

To which character do you most relate? Who garners your sympathy? Who is the hero of this story? Is there a villain? Who do you like the most? The least?

I share how this was the scripture I was assigned to preach at my father’s funeral. This is often a popular memorial text. Have you heard it preached in that setting? Did it work or did it raise (as it did for me) difficult or unwanted questions about using this story in that context?

How has your understanding of this story changed over the years? What stands out for you differently today than at other times in your life? As you re-read it or listen to my reflections on it, what surprised you? Is there something you’ve never noticed before?

Leave a comment

THE STORY AND OUR STORY

During the first week of this series, John Dominic Crossan joined the paid subscriber community in an online conversation about the parables.

We focused on how the parables challenged empire, how they present an alternative to Christian nationalism, and how they widen our vision toward evolutionary — and revolutionary — possibilities for a sustainable, peaceable future for humankind.

In his book, The Power of Parable, Crossan points out a strange thing that contemporary readers rarely notice. The “Master” in the story desires and praises those who make interest on his money. But the Torah (Exod. 22:25, Deut. 23:19, and Lev. 25:36-37) clearly forbade Jews from charging interest to other Jews! According to the Hebrew scriptures — and ancient Jewish practice — accrued interest was, like bribery, an abomination and a curse.

And Jesus is telling a story where a “Master” praises two slaves who make interest for him and calls the one who refused to do so “wicked”?! The Master can’t be the God of the Jews! He literally has to be a bad Jew.

Who is the Master anyway?

Of this, Crossan says:

HOW DOES THIS PARABLE CHALLENGE YOU — AND US — AT THIS SPECIFIC MOMENT IN HISTORY?

If parables are supposed to upset conventional wisdom what is the convention being overturned here?

How do you answer the questions Crossan poses in the shaded box above?

Who is consigning whom to what “hell” in this story? If the master represents an ungodly empire and the third slave resists him, what is the “wailing and gnashing of teeth”?

What is most challenging for you? For your community? What’s the challenge for NOW socially, politically, or economically?

Can you imagine Jesus purposefully provoking an argument on religion and politics? What does this say about many Christians’ specific avoidance of political and economic issues in church?

Leave a comment

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Thank you.

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INSPIRATION

Let us give thanks
for the whistleblowers / of our faith:
express our gratitude, as deep and pure
as the underground lakes / of the world.
Let us breathe in their pain / and exhale
our sensitivities, opening / our arms wide enough
for all the worlds / that be.

Let us grieve too, for those
who have been lost. For those
who left / because of the mistakes
of the many. Grieve / for our sisters
and our siblings who went looking / elsewhere
for belonging, not / finding it here.
Let us grieve for our own pain, as oppressions
come between us, as sharp
as broken glass, and as invisible
to those who aren’t / paying attention.

Choosing to leave,
—to heal, to protect yourself—
is sacred, and is something many / of us must do.
But let us give all the more thanks, then
for those / who stay, and those
who come back. Let us give thanks
for the poor people / and indigenous people
and the trans people: for those
who chose to stay / in conversation,
lifting stifled / voices in rooms
of hostility. Let us give thanks
for our whistleblowers, who gave / themselves
for our faith—fools, all of us
for martyring ourselves / for a dream,
for this dream, for congregations
who have hurt us / too many times
to count, for the cracked / and broken path
we tread / that we hope / will lead
to Beloved Community: to that place
we have never seen, and yet still / pursue,
that rainbow / that touches the ocean’s
horizon, a distant gleam / of the acceptance
we have never / found.

Let us give thanks
for those who chose / to be angry
rather than leave, for those
who put their broken hearts / into words,
for those who challenged / our institutions
and our leaders / when they erred
—as we all err.

Let us give thanks for their love,
for without them—without / us—
we would know nothing / of it.
— Frances Koziar, “Let Us Give Thanks for the Whistleblowers”

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After settling in my hotel, I went for a walk to one of my favorite places in Dublin — Christ Church cathedral. You can tell it is a church that I’d like from the photo of the flags on the labyrinth plaza:

The inside is beautiful, too.

Something about this church speaks to me. Which, I suppose, not many people who know me would find surprising.

But it wasn’t the ancient architecture or the illuminated-Celtic interior that moved me today. Instead, a manuscript in the crypt tugged at my soul.

The Magna Carta.

The Magna Carta, a charter that established fundamental rights of the rule of law, was sealed by King John, after a group of rebellious nobles forced his hand. The document became the basis for English law, the American Constitution, and charters of freedom around the world.

I’d forgotten that Christ Church holds a very old copy. Not an original (there are only four original copies in the world). Rather, it is part of another book — a handwritten version inside a longer tome. An archbishop brought this book to Christ Church in 1301, about 85 years after the Magna Carta was first drafted. No one is entirely sure when the text was copied into the book, maybe some fifty or so years earlier, perhaps only decades from the event.

It is an important text.

Under the church, sheltered in low ceilinged-half darkness, there’s a small exhibit about the book. I read the history of Magna Carta and the saga of this particular copy, and I was stopped by these words:

Enshrined…first time…that even kings should be subject to the law of the land.

That was 811 years ago.

What a long fight we’ve been in for the rights of the people against tyrants.

I laughed when I thought of those back home celebrating — or trying to celebrate — July 4, the great American holiday of freedom from tyranny. As if we invented it.

1776 was just one more act of a very long human drama. It is a drama that began before Magna Carta.

Of course, before trying to stop tyrants with the law, people had tried other, often more violent methods, most of which had led to greater violence or more dictatorship. Like when Brutus and Cassius determined that Caesar had become a tyrant and they needed to do something about it on the steps of the Roman senate. They certainly rid Rome of one corrupt ruler but didn’t even come close to restoring the Roman Republic.

The nobles against King John faced a very similar problem — that of a corrupt ruler in an age when violence begat revenge and then more violence. They, unlike Brutus and Cassius, decided that a piece of paper was a more powerful weapon against authoritarianism than a knife. Living by law was preferable to living under the whim of one man’s ego.

The law is king. And even the king is subject to it. Lex Rex.

Eight hundred years ago.

We the people — of many races, classes, and situations — have struggled against tyrants — claiming the rights and dignities of our humanity.when others threatened to extinguish them.

Then. Now. 1215. 1776. 2026. The long revolution.

There have been many victories in the past, even when it seems this problem never goes away. There will be many victories in the future, even when it seems we might be losing in the present.

Yet, there is much power in the words. In words. In pieces of paper rather than knives and swords. It is amazing how long words last and how much they inspire. And how often you must return to them to remember, to recover their meaning, to expand them to include those initially left out, and renew their promises.

Happy July 4th, to my fellow citizens. It might be good to remember that, even at 250 years-old, we’re still newcomers to the lengthy human quest for liberty. We’ve done some good work. We’ve failed a lot, too.

And now, we struggle. Again.

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On this particular July 4, we’re celebrate the 250th anniversary of the Declaration of Independence: We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.

Because of the holiday, there will be no Sunday Musings this weekend.

Instead, I’m sending you this poem from my friend, Rosemerry Wahtola Trommer. Her work is based on Walt Whitman’s famous piece, “I Hear America Singing.”

You’ll also find music, images, and an additional poem below — even without Sunday Musings, there is much to muse upon this weekend.

At the very bottom of this post, you’ll find a clip from a recent podcast with my friend Tripp Fuller, about the “end of the world” and a different kind of love for the nation. I hope you’ll watch it.

And I hope you’ll consider joining Tripp’s theology summit on America 250 (I’m a cohost). Check it out!

This July 4, may your remember the millions and millions of good people who have called this nation home — and who acted with grace, gratitude, and courage to help the United States live into the power of its founding words of life, liberty, and happiness for all. Treasure the beauty of the land and all those human beings and creatures who have inhabited and now inhabit this remarkable place — from magnificent cites to quiet hamlets, from one rocky coast to the other, across hills, plains, deserts, and mountains.

May we find our way to being the best America again, and the heart to listen to and love our neighbors. May we steward this precious place and our cherished founding words for a future we cannot imagine.

Hold a minute of silence for America.

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Dear Mr. Whitman,

I want to hear America singing
all those varied carols you mentioned.
But it’s noise now, Walt, more shouting
than song. As if volume makes a leader.
Any singer knows being louder
just makes discord, and harmony
needs constant attunement
to every other singer.
I want to hear America listening.
Want a citizen chorus that knows
our voices are only as good as our ears.
I want a new song that begins
with a silence that stretches
from sea to shining sea —
the kind of silence that holds
every one of us, every part of us.
And when the many parts do arise,
glorious in their differences,
I want to hear inside them
the careful attention that tunes
them to each other, I want to hear
in our song the deep listening that makes
even the most uncomfortable dissonance
beautiful.

— Rosemerry Wahtola Trommer

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No more intoxicating ideas of
racial superiority
as we walk toward abundance
we will never forget

the earth
the sea
the children
the people

For we the people will always be arriving
a ceremony of thunder
waking up the earth
opening our eyes to human
monuments.
And it’ll get better
it’ll get better
if we the people work, organize, resist,
come together for peace, racial, social
and sexual justice
it’ll get better
it’ll get better.

— Sonia Sanchez, from “Poem for July 4, 1994”

Please consider supporting The Cottage as a paid subscriber.
Thank you.

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For more information on the Theology Summit for America250, “Unsettled Ground,” click HERE. There’s a Frequently Asked Questions section on the page.

I’m a co-host and content collaborator of the event, but The Summit is NOT produced by The Cottage. Access to the summit is NOT part of a Cottage subscription.

“Unsettled Ground” is a production of Homebrewed Christianity. There is a SEPARATE REGISTRATION and requested donation (you can donate as little as a dollar!). All questions, requests, and tech help must be directed to Tripp’s team at classinfo@homebrewedchristianity.com.

(I’ll be in Ireland. I won’t be able to help you. Honest. Write to classinfo, not me.)

🇺🇸Happy birthday, America🇺🇸

May we bloom always with love and justice, peace and freedom.

Keep gardening, friends! We’ve much work to do.

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In other words, a perfect fit for the Cottage community.

A few years ago, Debie wrote a piece on the Parable of the Talents, “A Good Kind of Worthless,” that appea…

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This year, unlike past years, the Cottage Summer special is open to all subscribers (paid and free) as a gift to nurture your spirit this Pentecost season.

Today, we explore the story of the Wise and Foolish Bridesmaids in our summer series on Parables and Pentecost.

A wee reminder: the word “parable” means to “overturn” or “cast aside.” The parables are STORIES told by Jesus and intended to upset what we think!

Today’s parable continues the task of casting off convention.

*

The audio excerpt is courtesy of my publisher from the audiobook version of A Beautiful Year, “The Parable of the Wise and Foolish Bridesmaids.” If you are reading the book, it is found on pages 247-251; in the e-book, this parable is in the Pentecost section.

Read and reflect on this parable. How do you feel about this story? Where are you in the story? Does this parable challenge you — and us — at this moment in history?

Explore the suggestions below for further reflection and understanding — as you choose.

This isn’t a homework assignment! This is an invitation and a guide. Think about all three topics or pick one. Leave comments and observations. Read the comments of others and learn from the community. Reply to each other. I’ll jump into the thread a few times during the day.

Ask questions, wonder together.

Share

THE STORY

The parable itself is found only in Matthew 25:1-13. It is most commonly read in November to prepare for Advent, but I included it here because the parables are a popular summer theme.

The kingdom of heaven will be like this. Ten bridesmaids took their lamps and went to meet the bridegroom. Five of them were foolish, and five were wise.

When the foolish took their lamps, they took no oil with them; but the wise took flasks of oil with their lamps. As the bridegroom was delayed, all of them became drowsy and slept.

But at midnight there was a shout, “Look! Here is the bridegroom! Come out to meet him.” Then all those bridesmaids got up and trimmed their lamps. The foolish said to the wise, “Give us some of your oil, for our lamps are going out.” But the wise replied, “No! there will not be enough for you and for us; you had better go to the dealers and buy some for yourselves.”

And while they went to buy it, the bridegroom came, and those who were ready went with him into the wedding banquet; and the door was shut. Later the other bridesmaids came also, saying, “Lord, lord, open to us.” But he replied, “Truly I tell you, I do not know you.” Keep awake therefore, for you know neither the day nor the hour.^*

WHAT IS THIS STORY ABOUT?

How would you explain this story to someone who had never heard it before? What’s the point? Is there more than one point to this parable?

Do you like the story? Do you not like it? Does it puzzle you? Anger you? Make you resentful? What emotions does it stir? Be honest!

What do you think a person who’d never heard this story before make of it?

Do you think it is better described as a moral parable, an example parable, or a challenge parable? It is tempting to say “all three,” but which of these styles is most prominent?

Leave a comment

THE STORY AND YOUR STORY

WHAT DOES THIS STORY MEAN TO YOU NOW?

When did you first hear this story? How many times do you think you’ve heard it? Have you heard it in other forms (film, novel, poetry, art, music) in addition to the biblical story?

To which character do you most relate? Who garners your sympathy? Who is the hero of this story? Is there a villain? Who do you like the most? The least?

How has your understanding of this story changed over the years? What stands out for you differently today than at other times in your life? As you re-read it or listen to my reflections on it, what surprised you? Is there something you’ve never noticed before?

Leave a comment

THE STORY AND OUR STORY

During the first week of this series, John Dominic Crossan joined with the paid subscriber community in an online conversation about the parables.

We focused on how the parables challenged empire, how they present an alternative to Christian nationalism, and how they widen our vision toward evolutionary — and revolutionary — possibilities for a sustainable, peaceable future for humankind.

In his book, The Power of Parable, Crossan interprets this parable an “unconventional challenge” parable — a story that disregards “the institutions and conventions” of society.

Crossan identifies that format of this parable as folklore, a story with a feature common to much of the genre:

A traditional folklore format lends itself to “sanctioning” established beliefs, and served as a way to form people in oral societies — this shared storytelling also shaped shared communal ethics.

But Crossan argues that Jesus bent the folkloric convention and turned familiar formats toward “unconventional challenges” to those shared beliefs, thus “the unconventional calling parable and the conventional folklore story are set on a collision course.”

Thus, the Parable of the Wise and Foolish Bridesmaids means to upset convention by twisting the story. Hearers should have walked away from the story wondering: Who’s really wise? Who’s really foolish?

I didn’t know Crossan’s categorization when I wrote my post on the this parable. But I intuited what Jesus was doing! When you think of a wedding and preparedness, you already have a story in your mind (I refer to that as the “Scout leader” version of the parable). Although the characters and setting are conventional, the whole thing is upside down — this is the worst wedding ever!

I can only imagine Jesus’ first hearers laughing like crazy at this story — at the conventional “wisdom” it offered. This is more comedy than anything else. But that comedy also makes a serious point.

Maybe they were grateful that they had been invited to a completely different party, the one that hadn’t started yet.

HOW DOES THIS PARABLE CHALLENGE YOU — AND US — AT THIS SPECIFIC MOMENT IN HISTORY?

If parables are supposed to upset conventional wisdom — and Jesus reverses the formula of the folklore tale — what is the convention being overturned?

I’ll ask again. Who’s wise? Who’s foolish here? Notice that artist He Qi calls his painting of this parable “The Clever Bridesmaids.” Who is clever and why?

What is most challenging for you? For your community? What’s the challenge for NOW socially, politically, or economically?

What has wisdom got to do with our struggles now, for justice and for compassion? What kinds of “wisdoms” do you see operating around you? What is the “wisdom of this world” versus the “wisdom of God”?

Reflect on “for the wisdom of this world is foolish with God.” How does this insight speak to the confusion and chaos of our times?

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Thank you.

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INSPIRATION

Talk about an upsetting parable! Here’s a contemporary poetic spin on this folklore tale that knocked me for a loop!

Grab a lamp. Off we go. Here’s our secret: We are all wise. We go not to meet the bridegroom but to avoid him altogether, for a woman needs a man like a fish needs a camel. We will talk among ourselves about the taste of wine, sharing the bottle, the price of oil, and the lamp that helps us see ahead in the moonless dark. We gather on the edge of the city where we will not be followed by clownish men orating scripture and sin. One day we will outnumber them. Our laughter perfumes the desert, and the dust from our sandals will choke all predators as we return to our rooms and scribble our verses well past midnight.
— Donna Pucciani, “The Wise and Foolish Virgins”

The early weeks of Pentecost, the long church season that tells “the story of us,” emphasize a foundational practice of faith — welcoming the stranger.

My friend, Brian McLaren, writes: “Imagine what might happen around the world if more and more Christians rediscover that central to Christian life and mission is what we could call subversive or transgressive friendship — friendship that crosses boundaries of otherness and dares to offer and receive hospitality…. Imagine the good that could happen — and the evil that could be prevented from happening — if more Jews, Muslims, Hindus, Christians, Buddhists, and others cross the roads and other barriers that have separated them, and discover one another as friends.”

Imagine hospitality.

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Matthew 10:40-42

Jesus said, “Whoever welcomes you welcomes me, and whoever welcomes me welcomes the one who sent me. Whoever welcomes a prophet in the name of a prophet will receive a prophet’s reward; and whoever welcomes a righteous person in the name of a righteous person will receive the reward of the righteous; and whoever gives even a cup of cold water to one of these little ones in the name of a disciple — truly I tell you, none of these will lose their reward.”

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MUSING

In recent weeks, we’ve been reading Matthew 10 on Sundays. In this chapter, Jesus sent out his followers into the world as healers, preachers, and prophets. He warned them honestly and starkly. This would not be easy; people would oppose them, be angry, and reject both their message and the messenger. Even their own families would turn their backs to them.

But the chapter full of such bad news ends with today’s strangely optimistic verses about being rewarded and saved by hospitality.

Two Sundays ago, I wrote on the practice of hospitality in the Hebrew Bible. In the story of Abraham, hospitality is revealed to be the foundation of Judaism. From Abraham and Sarah’s risky welcome extended to three strangers, the ethical imperative to welcome passes down through the tradition to both Christianity and Islam.

When we hear stories of hospitality, the focus is typically on guests and hosts. Guests receive gifts of provision, care, and shelter on their journeys. Hosts typically experience the blessing of doing good, an act that often breaks down boundaries between people, and, as Henri Nouwen so elegantly insisted, whereby enemies can become friends.

If you are anything like me, however, you might rarely think about what hospitality means to God. The act of sheltering others pleases God — and creates an otherwise elusive intimacy for us with the divine presence.

Jesus’ words today surely prefigure his later claim (“whatever you do for the least of these….” in Matthew 25), that hospitality is a spiritually transitive relationship! If you welcome Jesus, you welcome God. If you receive a prophet, you receive the same reward as does God’s prophet. If you give hospitality to a righteous person, you will be blessed with God’s favor.

Hospitality reveals the luminous threads between all things. Welcoming is, in a deeply spiritual way, sacramental — the act itself makes invisible things visible.

This isn’t just about welcoming someone famous, a religious celebrity like Jesus, a prophet, or one of the righteous. Hospitality holds such sacred power that even if you give a cup of water to a child in the name of any disciple (presumably including yourself!), you have honored God and will be honored by the divine.

In Jesus’ days, Jews believed children were a blessing and heirs of the covenant. Yet they were essentially the property of their fathers (with no independent status or legal rights) until adulthood — a social status shared across many cultures, including the colonizing Romans. Put simply, children were a gift, but they held no position under the law. They were at the lower rungs of the social pyramid. At the bottom, with women, peasants, non-citizens, and the enslaved.

Throughout his ministry, Jesus elevated those of lesser status to positions of honor. It’s his Kingdom inversion — the first shall be last and the last first. And thus, it is telling that he adds children to the list of those to be welcomed, right there with Jesus, the prophets, and the righteous.

Hospitality isn’t to be offered only to those we deem deserving. Rather, welcome must be extended to everyone from the “top” of the social order to the bottom. Because, as this little sermon says, every guest — every single one from every class or race — reflects God’s image. Every act of hospitality is an act of welcoming the sacred presence.

That cup of water to a child is, of course, a refreshing and restoring drink. It is a great kindness. But, if you gaze just a little longer, you might see that it is also a portal that opens to the holy.

Last week’s text ended with what seemed like a narrowing — Jesus saying that the Kingdom cuts, that family relations would be broken, and that some may not be worthy.

But the words of Jesus that we read this week, words that immediately follow the harsh ones, ask us to welcome and be welcomed. And in that simple act of hospitality, we find our own humanity and the reflection of God. It seems that even swords, estrangement, and fears of our own inferiority can be healed when we reach out with cups of water in hand.

And that’s where God shows up. Right there. You can touch the holy when you reach out to others — the poor, the rejected, immigrants and strangers, the unwanted, the fearful. If you want to know God, give a cup of water to a child. Or to an asylum seeker.

Hostility is overcome by hospitality. The open hand opens closed eyes, hearts, and doors.

In recent remarks, Pope Leo said, “The Church has always recognized in migrants a living presence of the Lord.” Although he was speaking of the Catholic Church, it is equally the case for all true Christians, what we call the Body of Christ:

Pour cups of water, my friends. Water the world. May we all wade in the sacred presence.

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JUST A THOUGHT, NOT A MUSING: This week’s news is about as far from the Christian practice of hospitality as is possible to imagine.

The Supreme Court gave Donald Trump and Stephen Miller a free pass to deport even legal immigrants, those who came to the United States in acts of political hospitality, back to their home countries (or wherever they are now sending people). These court cases are likely to further fuel the extremist and cruel anti-immigration policies of the current administration.

The response by Trump-supporting media? Mostly jubilant dehumanizing remarks taunting those about to be deported and rejoicing in their suffering.

And there was a harrowing story about Pete Buttigieg’s children being used in a twisted political dirty trick. When I read his post, I thought immediately about this Sunday’s readings and how completely contrary the episode is to Jesus’ words. I urge you to read this hard report — “A Terrible Thing Happened to My Family” — and consider how faithful people should and can respond.

INSPIRATION

After I drove six hours
she welcomed me at the door
of her home
with a pair of slippers
and a glass of water —
there are many languages
I want to learn to speak fluently.
Kindness, most of all.
— Rosemerry Wahtola Trommer, The Arrival

Dear Lord, I have swept and I have washed but
still nothing is as shining as it should be
for you. Under the sink, for example, is an
uproar of mice — it is the season of their
many children. What shall I do? And under the eaves
and through the walls the squirrels
have gnawed their ragged entrances — but it is the season
when they need shelter, so what shall I do? And
the raccoon limps into the kitchen and opens the cupboard
while the dog snores, the cat hugs the pillow;
what shall I do? Beautiful is the new snow falling
in the yard and the fox who is staring boldly
up the path, to the door. And still I believe you will
come, Lord: you will, when I speak to the fox,
the sparrow, the lost dog, the shivering sea-goose, know
that really I am speaking to you whenever I say,
as I do all morning and afternoon: Come in, Come in.
— Mary Oliver, “Making the House Ready for the Lord”

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HBO just released a new documentary on immigration — especially due to environmental and political change — called THE WELCOME TABLE.

It tells the story of climate refugees and immigrants and their struggle to make a home in a new world. And it asks us to create communities of listening and hospitality.

You can watch on your own, host a showing, share with your church, or sponsor a welcome table in your own community.

HIGHLY RECOMMENDED.

It is Friday. On these summer Fridays, I’ve been sending out videos as part of the Parables & Pentecost series.

Not this week, however. Don’t worry — all is well at The Cottage. But I’m swamped with work. This is my own fault! I accepted an unexpected invitation to be one of the opening speakers at Chautauqua this season. I love speaking …

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Tripp Fuller and I are going to RUIN YOUR BREAKFAST!

Join us Thursday morning, June 25 at 11AM Eastern/8AM Pacific.

IF YOU CAN’T JOIN US LIVE, COME BACK TO THIS EXACT LINK AND WATCH THE VIDEO WHENEVER. No separate recording will be sent to you.

This is the RUINING DINNER with Diana & Tripp: Faith & the American Story at 250 edition.

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This year, unlike past years, the Cottage Summer special — Parables & Pentecost — is open to all subscribers (paid and free) to nurture your spirit this season.

Today, we explore the story of the Wicked Tenants in our summer series on Parables and Pentecost.

A wee reminder: the word “parable” means to “overturn” or “cast aside.” The parables are STORIES told by Jesus and intended to upset what we think!

A few readers have written to say they were upset with some of last week’s suggestions for reading the parable. Well, my friends, that’s what a parable is supposed to do — overturn conventional wisdom. Indeed, the Gospel of Matthew itself says that these Jesus stories set “the whole city … in turmoil.”

Today’s parable continues the task of casting off convention.

***

The above audio excerpt is courtesy of my publisher from the audiobook version of A Beautiful Year, “The Parable of the Wicked Tenants.” If you are reading the book, it is found on pages 242-246; in the e-book, this parable is in the Pentecost section.

Read and reflect on this parable. How do you feel about this story? Where are you in the story? Does this parable challenge you — and us — at this moment in history?

Explore the suggestions below for further reflection and understanding — as you choose.

This isn’t a homework assignment! This is an invitation and a guide. Think about all three topics or pick one. Leave comments and observations. Read the comments of others and learn from the community. Reply to each other. I’ll jump into the thread a few times during the day.

Ask questions, wonder together.

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THE STORY

The parable itself is found in Matthew, Mark, Luke, and the non-canonical Gospel of Thomas. This version is from Matthew 21:33-44

Listen to another parable.

There was a landowner who planted a vineyard, put a fence around it, dug a wine press in it, and built a watchtower. Then he leased it to tenants and went to another country.

When the harvest time had come, he sent his slaves to the tenants to collect his produce.

But the tenants seized his slaves and beat one, killed another, and stoned another. Again he sent other slaves, more than the first; and they treated them in the same way.

Finally he sent his son to them, saying, “They will respect my son.” But when the tenants saw the son, they said to themselves, “This is the heir; come, let us kill him and get his inheritance.” So they seized him, threw him out of the vineyard, and killed him.

Now when the owner of the vineyard comes, what will he do to those tenants?’ They said to him, ‘He will put those wretches to a miserable death, and lease the vineyard to other tenants who will give him the produce at the harvest time.’

Jesus said to them, ‘Have you never read in the scriptures:

The stone that the builders rejected
has become the cornerstone;
this was the Lord’s doing,
and it is amazing in our eyes?

Therefore I tell you, the kingdom of God will be taken away from you and given to a people that produces the fruits of the kingdom. The one who falls on this stone will be broken to pieces; and it will crush anyone on whom it falls.

WHAT IS THIS STORY ABOUT?

How would you explain this story to someone who had never heard it before? What’s the point? Is there more than one point to this parable?

Do you like the story? Do you not like it? Does it puzzle you? Anger you? Make you resentful? What emotions does it stir? Be honest!

What do you think a person who had never heard this story before would make of it?

Do you think it is better described as a moral parable, an example parable, or a challenge parable? It is tempting to say “all three,” but which of these styles is most prominent?

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THE STORY AND YOUR STORY

WHAT DOES THIS STORY MEAN TO YOU?

When did you first hear this story? How many times do you think you’ve heard it? Have you heard it in other forms (film, novel, poetry, art, music) in addition to the biblical story?

To which character do you most relate? Who garners your sympathy? Who is the hero of this story? The villain? Who do you like the most?

How has your understanding of this story changed over the years? What stands out for you differently today than at other times in your life? As you re-read it or listen to my reflections on it, what surprised you? Is there something you’ve never noticed before?

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THE STORY AND OUR STORY

During the first week of this series, John Dominic Crossan joined with the paid subscriber community in an online conversation about the parables.

We focused on how the parables challenged empire, how they present an alternative to Christian nationalism, and how they widen our vision toward evolutionary — and revolutionary — possibilities for a sustainable, peaceable future for humankind.

In his book, The Power of Parable, Crossan interprets this parable as a very particular kind of challenge parable — a “paradigm shift” parable of the Kingdom of God.

Crossan explains that Jesus, in his parables, transformed expectations of the Messiah. According to many scholars, at the time of Jesus, the Jewish people generally expected a “Davidic Messiah,” a warrior king who would restore the kingdom of Israel and defeat the enemies of God. Crossan argues that “Jesus proclaimed nonviolent resistance to the injustice of Roman imperialism in a world that belonged to a just and nonviolent God.”

This biblical shift seems, in retrospect, obvious — and central to the nascent Christian message. But at the time, it wasn’t. Jesus told stories to invite hearers into a different vision of the Messiah and the Kingdom, and this was the “kingdom paradigm-shift.”

Now, with the shift in mind, imagine you are a first-century Jew. It would be easy to think that the landowner was Rome. Because the land was owned by Roman colonizers and flunkies! They might have thought of themselves as the tenants, those who had to work the vineyard (rather like sharecroppers) and turn the profits over to this distant absentee owner. When the slaves show up to collect on the master’s behalf, the workers rebel and kill the slaves. And when the master sends his son, well, they kill him, too.

See what this sounds like? Enslaved people on a plantation killing their enslavers? A colonial uprising? The rightful overturning of injustice?

If you heard this parable and you were being forced to hand over the work of your hands to Roman authorities, you’d probably be siding with the tenants! They wouldn’t seem so wicked. They’d seem like their cause was just.

Here’s Professor Crossan’s view:

But, the story holds another possibility (indeed, more than one additional possibility!). My sense — and I think Crossan’s as well — is that the landowner (in this particular parable) may well be God. The tenants aren’t all Jews; rather, they are Jews who are collaborating with Roman colonizers (they “work” Rome’s vineyard on behalf of the imperialists). The “slaves” are God’s faithful servants and prophets (like John the Baptist). And the son is the Messiah who, in this case, does not respond with violence to the tenants’ murderous intent. Instead, he dies revealing the wickedness of the collaborators of empire.

Ouch. That must have hurt. And it surely shocked them.

That’s the power of a paradigm shift.

HOW DOES THIS PARABLE CHALLENGE YOU — AND US — AT THIS SPECIFIC MOMENT IN HISTORY?

Can you imagine how a first-century Jew in Galilee, a region occupied by Rome, might have felt about this story? Might they have sympathized more with the landowner, the tenants, or the slaves? Do you understand how shocking this parable may have been in its original context?

Crossan claims, “Jesus is not just announcing to his audience that God’s kingdom is now present. He is announcing that is only present if and when it is accepted, entered into, and taken upon oneself.” The question, “Where are you in this parable?” is an invitation to change, to shift your consciousness about the meaning and nature of the Kingdom of God. Can you grasp that? (Hint: some of the collaborators couldn’t!)

What is most challenging for you? For your community? What’s the challenge for NOW — socially, politically, or economically?

Is this Kingdom paradigm-shift needed now? What if Christian nationalists changed their vision of the kingdom from a warrior-king Messiah to a nonviolent, non-imperial, self-giving one? What if people like, say, Pete Hegseth, shifted from collaborating with a violent empire to co-creating the Kingdom? Can you imagine? Is this parable speaking to people like him?

Maybe we humans always collaborate. The question is: With which paradigm do you collaborate?

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INSPIRATION

Jesus tells a story about wicked tenants
who want to take over a vineyard.
A vineyard would have been repossessed land
taken from farmers, turned to an export crop,
where they are now sharecroppers.
The story is a commentary on economic systems
that use people.
And also a hit at leaders
who are doing a lousy job.

But what if it’s also about us,
about our urge to take over religion
and make it ours?

God, I confess
sometimes I want to possess your vineyard,
to make my religion work out for me,
not merely to receive it but to control it,
to manage your grace,
to center it on me.
I repent of my mutiny.

I will let this be yours,
and I will work your fields.
— Steve Garnaas-Holmes, “Wicked Tenants”

The passage for this day is a tough one, no way around it. This text has been used for all sorts of bad purposes throughout church history. On the surface, this selection seems to reveal a Jesus who approves of both swords and familial separation. Many have used it to advocate for violence and division.

If you’re struggling with it, you aren’t alone.

I wrestle with it below, and I hope you’ll find my honesty with it helpful.

The Cottage is supported by the generosity of paid subscribers.

There are no ads, no list-selling, no institutions, and no media companies sponsoring my work. Just us, trying to find our way together during tough and confusing times.

If you upgrade to a paid subscription this month, you’ll have full access to the current Parables and Pentecost series, including the video posts.

Click below for options and information.

Thank you.

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Matthew 10:24-39

Jesus said to the twelve disciples, “A disciple is not above the teacher, nor a slave above the master; it is enough for the disciple to be like the teacher, and the slave like the master. If they have called the master of the house Beelzebul, how much more will they malign those of his household!

“So have no fear of them; for nothing is covered up that will not be uncovered, and nothing secret that will not become known. What I say to you in the dark, tell in the light; and what you hear whispered, proclaim from the housetops. Do not fear those who kill the body but cannot kill the soul; rather fear him who can destroy both soul and body in hell. Are not two sparrows sold for a penny? Yet not one of them will fall to the ground apart from your Father. And even the hairs of your head are all counted. So do not be afraid; you are of more value than many sparrows.

“Everyone therefore who acknowledges me before others, I also will acknowledge before my Father in heaven; but whoever denies me before others, I also will deny before my Father in heaven.

“Do not think that I have come to bring peace to the earth; I have not come to bring peace, but a sword.

For I have come to set a man against his father,
and a daughter against her mother,
and a daughter-in-law against her mother-in-law;
and one’s foes will be members of one’s own household.

Whoever loves father or mother more than me is not worthy of me; and whoever loves son or daughter more than me is not worthy of me; and whoever does not take up the cross and follow me is not worthy of me. Those who find their life will lose it, and those who lose their life for my sake will find it.”

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Three things happened this week that tempted me to skip today’s reading.

First, I watched an HBO documentary: Bring Me the Beauties: A Model Cult. It traced the harrowing journey of supermodel Hoyt Richards, who is now in his sixties, in to and out of an abusive spiritual group. The group’s main practices included giving all of one’s resources (i.e., money) to the leader and cutting one’s self off from parents. This is always the strategy of controlling religious movements. It was a hard watch.

Second, I received several emails about last week’s Prodigal Son post. More than a few readers shared how their families were divided — and some specifically mentioned that one of their children had “divorced” them. A 2024 study found that 26% of American adults were estranged from their parents. I know about family division personally, partly from my late parents’ estrangement from their own families in the 1970s and 1980s. It wasn’t easy.

Third, I was in three conversations this week about family rifts because of Donald Trump. And that brings up very painful feelings for me as my own brother cut me off nine years ago in the wake of the Nazi riot in Charlottesville, Virginia. Until that day, I really didn’t know that he sided with such people. Let’s just say that I handled the whole thing inelegantly.

Today’s gospel isn’t some distant, ancient text to explore theoretically. For millions of us, Matthew 10 is like a slap in the face. Our families are in tension because of religion, therapeutic guidance (which many therapists believe is being wrongly advocated at this time), or Trump.

I’m very grateful not to be preaching this week. The lectionary serves up a passage about hating one’s parents on Father’s Day.

The gospel hits way too close to home for far too many people.

******

Instead of ignoring it, I decided to look back into my own journey with this text and family division. I discovered — somewhat to my own surprise — that I wrote on this passage in 2023:

The words take me back to my teenage years at Scottsdale Bible Church, the evangelical church I attended during high school. I can’t even remember the number of sermons I heard on this passage — about obedience and submission, the devil and Hell, division and threat. This was truly a text of terror.

I vividly remember hearing one such sermon when I was 15. The scene is clear: exactly where I was sitting, the sound of the preacher’s voice, the nodding heads of those in chairs nearby. I felt so grateful that I’d “acknowledged” Jesus; he would acknowledge me to his Father. I’d go to heaven and live forever.

Then, the pastor said this truth would divide families and set them against one another. My body shook — my parents were going to hell. I gasped, perhaps even quietly sobbed. I loved my mom and dad. But I had to love God more. That was my cross, having “unbeliever” parents. It felt awful.

I don’t think I was the only one who reacted this way. Although there were scattered “amens,” many seemed uncomfortable, squirming in their seats, and murmuring audibly.

I can’t read these words without that memory — and the pastor’s sermon stuck in my brain.

If you spent time in a church whose theology you’ve rejected, reading certain texts can be spiritual triggers or, perhaps, even re-traumatizing. Some theologies can be like earworms — you might not think of something for years, but if you hear the song again, you discover that you never really forgot.

I reread this passage last Monday to start preparing for today’s musing. I can’t say I’ve enjoyed thinking about it. This entire week, I’ve found myself thinking about Scottsdale Bible Church, bad theology, and Arizona in the 1970s. It has been a weird mix of regret, anger, and nostalgia.

How to manage such spiritual memories? Maybe I should have just dumped the reading with a sigh, feeling sad that some biblical passages might be irredeemable.

Instead of that course (which may be a completely legitimate choice), I opted for a spiritual practice that I call “reading for surprise.”

Years ago, when I taught church history, I had students read mountains of primary texts (former students will testify to the truth of this!) that we’d discuss in class. Every discussion began with the exact same question: What most surprised you about this text?

I don’t remember where I first heard this question in a classroom. I *think* it may have come from Ted Campbell, who was one of my professors at Duke (he later taught at Wesley Seminary and Perkins). My students, of course, quickly realized that would be the first question. They learned to read for surprise. The practice cultivated curiosity, immersed them in ideas, and raised additional questions (theirs instead of mine). Often, an entire class session was spent only on surfacing the surprise of an historical source — leading in unexpected and lively directions for both the students and me, their professor.

Reading for surprise is my primary hermeneutic (i.e., “method of interpretation”) not only for history texts but for biblical ones as well. When I approach the Bible, I don’t begin with Greek or Hebrew translation, historical context, or literary genre. I usually wind up employing such academic skills and tools, but they aren’t my go-to.

My first step in preaching or teaching scripture is always the question: What most surprises me about this text?

To overcome my resistance to today’s gospel, I went back to my hermeneutic of surprise: What most surprised me about these verses in Matthew 10?

My first surprise was how burdened I was with someone else’s interpretation of this story. It surprised me how clearly I remembered that sermon, how sad and angry I still felt about it. I was surprised how much my spiritual imagination had been colonized by a particular interpretation proclaimed in that fundamentalist church.

My second surprise? As I set the clutter of memory aside (as best I could), I found myself drawn not to hell and division, but to these verses:

So have no fear of them; for nothing is covered up that will not be uncovered, and nothing secret that will not become known. What I say to you in the dark, tell in the light; and what you hear whispered, proclaim from the housetops. Do not fear those who kill the body but cannot kill the soul; rather fear him who can destroy both soul and body in hell. Are not two sparrows sold for a penny? Yet not one of them will fall to the ground apart from your Father. And even the hairs of your head are all counted. So do not be afraid; you are of more value than many sparrows.

The frame — and refrain — surprised me: So have no fear . . . . Do not fear . . . So do not be afraid. Those three phrases jumped out to me as if I’d never seen them before. The very text that terrorized a congregation into a particular notion of being “saved” was actually a text of condolence. “Saved” doesn’t mean to be “born again” or to become part of a secretive cult — it means to be rescued or liberated from the shadows of domination by this world, to be healed from brokenness.

I reread, this time in my own words:

So have no fear of them — those who have given themselves up to delusion, lies, and evil. They may try to justify their actions, injustices, and greed, but such evil will be exposed. I say this to you, when things seem lost and hopeless, you must speak the love and truth of God’s household under the fullness of the sun; I whisper this to you, but you will shout justice for all to hear.

Nothing, no matter how much it hurts right now, will harm you. Because you are surrounded and held by my love. Be brave.

This isn’t a threat. It is a promise! No fear, do not fear, don’t be afraid when corruption, deception, and hatred seem to reign. Evil will be revealed by the burning light of the sun, and love and justice shall be the voice of the city of God. Life may be frightening — and the work of compassion hard — but know that God cherishes you in the midst of the upheaval. You. Are. Beloved.

The hard verses about division unfold from the central promise of the passage — that those who know themselves to be of God’s “household” will find themselves at odds with the falsehoods of the world. There can be no “peace” with oppression and empire. God’s sword has severed us from imperial deceit. God loves us too much to allow us to dwell in the shadows of worldly mendacity. The sun burns away the fog of lies, exposing every evil that has held humankind in its grip. All are invited to a new household — away from the injurious households of race, class, and even biology to the beloved community of self-giving love and true fraternity.

I confess: I’m surprised.

******

This morning, in 2026, I understand how hard it is to live by what I wrote three years ago. In so many ways, things seem even worse now. Abusive religions still abuse. (Just look at the Southern Baptist Convention’s treatment of women in recent weeks.) Family estrangement continues, even while professionals still warn that it should be a “last resort” option. (There’s a vigorous discussion of this online and in therapeutic circles). And well, Donald Trump is president again. (Returned to office on lies, fear, and promises of division that he continues to fulfill.)

Even with all that, I still hear hard hope in the words. And, instead of interpreting Jesus’ words as a prediction, I think they are better understood as a description of human relationships — even our closest ones, like our families. Yes, fathers and sons will take sides against one another; mothers and daughters will feud. That’s how tough it is to live with others, and how easily these relationships can be exploited by malevolent actors.

Jesus wasn’t approving of this. Instead, he said what was true. What has always been true. Yet, through it all, focus on love. Lean into love. Love overcomes even the deepest divides.

Love is the only way through. I don’t always know what that looks like. But, Jesus insisted, even as division is a certainty, love is stronger still. Love is both the goal and the truth of what is. Always.

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INSPIRATION

Summer solstice is June 21 in the Northern hemisphere; winter solstice in the South. Thus, this is both the longest day and the shortest. Today is a thin time.

And, since the third Sunday in June is Father’s Day in many countries, I also find myself thinking of my dad.

O Summer, zenith of the year,
I praise your robust life, your hot blood.

You are a liberator who calls us out-of-doors
into your desert-like sun and heat,
just as the God of Moses and Aaron
called the children of Israel
out of the brickyards of Egypt.

Those who work in the warmth of this day
are blessed to be outside,
while others are stuck in buildings built of brick,
constructed with concrete and glass.

Chilled-but-artificial air
blows upon the new slaves
of electric Egypt's indoor brickyards.

Fortunate are those children who play today
under the great yellow face
of our giant daystar, the sun.

Free to jump through sprinkler sprays
or ride their bikes in the free flight
of real air-conditioned coolness.

Corporate giants in their stainless steel skyscrapers
dream of their treehouse days
when every kid was truly a millionaire.

O Liberator God, who called your children
away from the mile’s sweaty slavery,
lead me, this day, into the glorious freedom
of which the spirit of summer sings.
― Edward Hays, “A Summertime Prisoner’s Psalm”

My father was a quiet man.
He said few words and left none behind.

When I catch a whiff of two things, however,
the scent of his presence
comes near.

Cigarettes. Florist shops.

He smoked. He couldn’t stop.
For pleasure, for stress.
He smoked at the gym,
Benson & Hedges in hand,
jogging on the treadmill.

He wished his youth lasted forever.

He worked. He couldn’t stop.
For pleasure, for stress.
He worked standing at a table,
knife in hand,
designing flowers impasto.

He wished his creations lasted forever.

There was cancer.
There was passion.
Nicotine and roses.
Inhaling death; exhaling life.

He wished to live forever.
He could not arrange that.

My father was a quiet man.
Still today, I catch the whiff of enigma.

And I inscribe his fragrance with words.
— Diana Butler Bass, “Father’s Day”

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Breathe, breathe.

I hope you’ll find today’s video encouraging.…

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Much to our surprise, that 2022 post, Mary the Tower, went viral. As far as we know, more than a million people around the world have listened to the sermon.

Since then, Libbie earned her doctorate at Duke University in New Testament and has joined the faculty of Villanova University. She’s continued on with her research on Mary Magdalene. Interest in her work has expanded to include a large popular audience and an international discussion among scholars about the Gospel of John and Mary Magdalene.

In this conversation, Libbie shares important news about the reception of this research at the highest level of global scholarship.

Please share this post with others

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During the first part of our conversation, she reviews her thesis and the importance of John 11, and she talks about scholars who both agree and disagree with her. After a compelling conversation that includes additional recent research, we turn to the NEWS she is eager to share with you.

If you are familiar with her work, you can fast forward to around 43:00 and pick up the discussion at that point — where she announces news about her work and John 11. The second half of our conversation is focussed specifically on what she shares with us, especially its implications moving forward.

The Bible she refers to is the Novum Testamentum Graece (Nestle-Aland). The “Nestle-Aland,” or “NA,” is the source from which almost all versions of the New Testament are translated into every language around the world. It is THE text behind your Bible. If you went to seminary, chances are that you already know “the blue book” (I sure did - and I still have my copy from the 1980s). You can read about the Novum Testamentum Graece (Nestle-Aland) here. It is a really big deal.

If you look carefully, you might see that I almost start to cry near the end.

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If you want to listen to the song that started all of this, check out Libbie’s “Magdalene” from 2012.

The Cottage is dedicated to sharing a message of faith that is loving, just, heart-felt, open, and intellectually curious.

We care about full inclusion, human solidarity, earth-keeping, and doing good. We’re striving to understand the ancient story of Jesus anew and speak to these chaotic and cruel times with courage and compassion.

If you’d like to support this vision, please consider becoming a paid subscriber.

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This year, unlike past years, the Cottage Summer special is open to all subscribers (paid and free) as a gift to nurture your spirit this Pentecost season.

In addition to these Wednesday posts on the parables in A Beautiful Year, paid subscribers have access to weekly recorded conversations during Parables & Pentecost.

At the conclusion of this series, pastors, book group or Bible study leaders are welcome to use these posts as the basis for 6-week sermon series or with small groups. All you need to do is give credit to the Cottage and encourage people to read A Beautiful Year.

Today, we explore the story of the Laborers in the Vineyard in our summer series on Parables and Pentecost.

I invite you to read and reflect on this parable. How do you feel about this story? Where are you in the story? Does this parable challenge you — and us — at this moment in history?

Today’s excerpt is courtesy of my publisher from the audiobook version of A Beautiful Year, “The Parable of the Laborers in the Vineyard.” If you are reading the book, it is found on pages 236-241; in the e-book, this parable is in the Pentecost section.

(You can order A Beautiful Year as an audiobook, an e-book, or in hardcover. Please click here for ordering and format options.)

Listen, read, and enjoy. Explore the suggestions below for further reflection and understanding — as you choose. This isn’t a homework assignment! This is an invitation and a guide. Think about all three topics or pick one. Leave comments and observations. Read the comments of others and learn from the community. Reply to each other. I’ll jump into the thread a few times during the day.

Ask questions, wonder together.

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THE STORY

The parable itself is found only in Matthew 20:1-15:

For the kingdom of heaven is like a landowner who went out early in the morning to hire laborers for his vineyard. After agreeing with the laborers for the usual daily wage, he sent them into his vineyard.

When he went out about nine o’clock, he saw others standing idle in the market-place; and he said to them, “You also go into the vineyard, and I will pay you whatever is right.” So they went.

When he went out again about noon and about three o’clock, he did the same. And about five o’clock he went out and found others standing around; and he said to them, “Why are you standing here idle all day?” They said to him, “Because no one has hired us.” He said to them, “You also go into the vineyard.”

When evening came, the owner of the vineyard said to his manager, “Call the laborers and give them their pay, beginning with the last and then going to the first.”

When those hired about five o’clock came, each of them received the usual daily wage. Now when the first came, they thought they would receive more; but each of them also received the usual daily wage. And when they received it, they grumbled against the landowner, saying, “These last worked only one hour, and you have made them equal to us who have borne the burden of the day and the scorching heat.”

But he replied to one of them, “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?”

WHAT IS THIS STORY ABOUT?

How would you explain this story to someone who had never heard it before? What’s the point? Is there more than one point to this parable?

Do you like the story? Do you not like it? Does it puzzle you? Anger you? Make you resentful? What emotions does it stir? Be honest!

What do you think a person who’d never heard this story before make of it?

Have you ever considered this parable in light of the story of Cain and Abel (as I link the two in the reading)? Does that switch up the story for you?

Do you think it is better described as a moral parable, an example parable, or a challenge parable? It is tempting to say “all three,” but which of these styles is most prominent?

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THE STORY AND YOUR STORY

WHAT DOES THIS STORY MEAN TO YOU NOW?

When did you first hear this story? How many times do you think you’ve heard it? Have you heard it in other forms (film, novel, poetry, art, music) in addition to the biblical story?

Have you ever had an experience like this? Have you ever been on the short end of something you deem unfair? Or an unexpectedly generous gift you didn’t know was coming?

To which character do you most relate? Who garners your sympathy? Who is the hero of this story? The villain? Who do you like the most?

How has your understanding of this story changed over the years? What stands out for you differently today than at other times in your life? As you re-read it or listen to my reflections on it, what surprised you? Is there something you’ve never noticed before?

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THE STORY AND OUR STORY

During the first week of this series, John Dominic Crossan joined with the paid subscriber community in an online conversation about the parables.

We focused on how the parables challenged empire, how they present an alternative to Christian nationalism, and how they widen our vision toward evolutionary — and revolutionary — possibilities for a sustainable, peaceable future for humankind.

In his book, The Power of Parable, Crossan interprets this parable somewhat differently than do I in A Beautiful Year. He presses us to consider the owner from an alternative perspective.

Here’s Professor Crossan’s view:

HOW DOES THIS PARABLE CHALLENGE YOU — AND US — AT THIS SPECIFIC MOMENT IN HISTORY?

Look at the two images in this post — the Orthodox icon of the parable and the photograph of the migrant workers. Where is God in the first? In the second? What happens when you change the focus of the story?

Can the two interpretations of the parable both be “right”? Is that even the question to ask vis-a-vis parables?

The parable is more of an “challenge parable” than was last week’s Prodigal Son. What is most challenging for you? For your community? What’s the challenge for NOW socially, politically, or economically?

What does this parable say to the global rise of authoritarianism and Christian nationalism? To Elon Musk, who is now the first trillionaire in the entire history of the human race?

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INSPIRATION

These are immigrant times
And the lines are long,

The signs for jobs few,
The songs sadder, the air meaner.

Everyone is hungry.
Everyone is willing.

Jobs are not jobs but lives lived
Hard at the work of being human.

These are immigrant times,
And the lines are long again.
― Alberto Ríos, Immigrant Centuries

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We don’t often cover sports here at the Cottage.

But this week, it can’t be avoided. What with gladiators and victors hurling ancient insults, the oldest rivalry in Christian history made the headlines: Rome versus Christianity.

And, my friends, I’m sorry to report but our team lost. Again.

1. Rome at the White House

More than a few commentators have noted that Trump’s UFC birthday spectacle was a 21st century version of an ancient Roman gladiatorial contest with men beating each other up in cages played out in front of the “emperor.”

The short form of this came from Tea Pain over at Bluesky:

I often wonder if any of Trump’s evangelical fans — 67% of whom still support him — remember that thousands of early Christians were murdered in Roman public games. For many decades, American evangelicals venerated the ancient stories celebrating the martyrs under Rome. Back then, gladiators were definitely not the good guys. And no good Christian was a Nero fan. Or the fan of pretty much any emperor until around 325 or so.

In the martyr tradition, the losers were the heroes. Instead of fighting back, they testified to a God of love even when their lives were at stake. Being persecuted and ripped to shreds by wild beasts or executed in public games — well, that proved your devotion to Jesus. You wanted to lose. Because losing meant winning an eternal crown of victory.

The first shall be last and the last first — and all that.

Now, of course, MAGA Christians cheer the emperor and want to persecute others. Winning is fun! Winning is God’s will. It’s all backwards.

History can be weird like that. Things change, I guess. Beating up others for the emperor’s pleasure is the vibe. So is fighting in cages.

Whatever it is, it is the opposite of what most early Christians believed and practiced. And completely contradicts everything that Jesus taught — not to mention that it seems to defame the blood of real martyrs.

(Here’s a good article on the subject, “How Gladiators Inspired Evangelicals’ Sense of Persecution”)

2. Roman Insults Hurled in Addition to Punches

Speaking of Christians celebrating gladiators, the evening ended with Trump’s fighters praising Jesus for the victories. Comments like this from the 1.7 million follower “Jesus” account on Instagram put it this way:

Then, the IG Jesus folks called out specific fighters:

As it turns out, Hokit is a darling of the Instagram evangelical manosphere. This one is from “Highlight Truth,” an account with 427K followers run fellow a guy who bios himself as having a “master’s degree in Christian ministry.”

Although they didn’t report it, TIME magazine (in an overall positive review of the night) gave its readers a fuller story:

Yes, Josh Hokit, praised by Instagram Jesus and a guy with a master’s degree in ministry, is the same champion who used his moment of glory to thank Jesus Christ and insult two women — the mother of another fighter and Michele Obama.

The mom-insult was so vile that very few sources have even quoted it. But no such consideration for the former First Lady — the Michele Obama remark has appeared widely in the press.

You might be wondering what this is all about — some trans-insult? (Which would be, by the way, nasty, bigoted, and uncalled for in itself.) But, in this cage-match world, isn’t being a man a good thing? Calling Michele Obama a man elevates her, right?

Not if you’re playing by Roman rules, it isn’t. The smear-trope of calling a woman a man goes way back!

In ancient Rome, calling a man a “woman” was a gender insult (a man who has basically lost power and sexual prowess). And calling a woman a “man” was not a gender insult, but a dehumanizing one.

A woman could not lose social or sexual powers she never had — she could only corrupt them by seizing what was, according to Roman patriarchal culture, the natural and legal right of men. A lesser being can never really be a man — she can only pretend to be one. In the process, she demeans herself by destroying her own possibility of feminine virtue and can never achieve real manly virtue. To call such a woman a “man,” therefore, is to say she isn’t human because she has violated her own possibility of humanity — she has no gender. She is a deformed beast, “animalized,” and subject to both social shame and state sanction.

According to classical scholar, Donald Lateiner, “To feminize a man, to animalize a woman, to barbarize or de-animate either sex to a thing (e.g., a rock, a turd) disesteemed the person and his or her status and due respect.”

And so, what we are currently seeing is a rebirth of two ancient Roman insult tropes in our political culture — James Talarico being called womanly and Michele Obama insulted as manly. In the first case, his political opponents say Talarico has laid aside masculine valor in favor of feminine characteristics. That makes him unworthy. In the second, they imply that Obama has lost her humanity completely by usurping male power that is inherently impossible for her to assume, thereby turning her into an inhuman creature. (This also, by the way, insults and demeans her husband whose social status is reduced by his wife. Hokit’s remark was, in this sense, a twofer.)

It is worth nothing that early Christians rejected these Roman norms in favor of gender solidarity and equality: In Christ, “there is no longer Jew or Greek, there is no longer slave or free, there is no longer male and female.” Even the later authored household code in the infamous Ephesians 5 chapter mutes Roman gender norms by framing them in love and mutual submission.

And it is clear from early Christian writings that men and women alike could excel in a sort of faithful “athleticism,” and that discipleship was the work every follower of Jesus. Even while Rome promoted the games — and occasionally used Christians for sport — Christians themselves appropriated Roman athletic images to describe faithfulness. Their honor wasn’t found in the virtues of Roman patriarchy but rather a character shaped by humility, service, gentleness, gratefulness, and love (and, for what it is worth, in Roman culture, those traits were more often assigned to women than to men).

All I can say to this is that we’ve got work to do right now if either democracy or a semblance of real Christian faith is to survive this American nightmare. To put it in the words of the author of Hebrews, “let us also lay aside every weight and the sin that clings so closely, and let us run with perseverance the race that is set before us.”

Keep running, friends. This isn’t a cage match. We’re in a marathon to, as Hebrews continues, “pursue peace with everyone.”

*****

And that’s a wrap of this week’s news in sports and religion.

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Richard, my husband and the author of the Cottage Reader, texted me this sports and faith essay by David Bentley Hart. “Running in Circles” makes the case that baseball is the best theological and truly sacred of all American sports.

It is totally worth your time.

NEWS FROM THE COTTAGE

On Thursday, July 18, all subscribers will receive a video recording of a special conversation with Elizabeth Schrader-Polzcer with SIGNIFICANT updates about her research on Mary Magdalene.

DO NOT MISS IT! Honestly, I’m so excited by her news.

On Friday, July 19, I’ll send out a video “class” to all paid subscribers, “Colonized by Rome? The Shape of Time and the Radical Wisdom of the Christian Calendar.” This is part of our Parables & Pentecost series — and I’ve only given this lecture to groups in person.

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INSPIRATION

While there’s life there’s baseball
the backdoor’s open the radio’s on
the hiss of the crowd fills our house
in early summer when there’s still a chance.

It’s baseball season again
thank god
there’s a small white ball
circling the sky
there are men on base
the 95 year old Italian hawking peanuts
like church
all of us stand up for the incredible play
our heads turning together in one arc.

A guy in the stands catches a foul ball
his friends give him five until his hands are red
and he’s grinning like the moon
the father of a tiny boy asks the guy can his son just
touch it
the man places the ball in the cupped hands of the child and says:
I’ll do more than that. He can have it.

Rows of fans turn their heads toward the man
the father
and the boy
clutching his small prize of light.
— Jack Spicer, “God is a Big White Baseball”

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This week’s musing is unusual. Below I share a passage from my book, Grounded. Those words, written in late 2013, are on today’s lectionary text from the Hebrew Bible.

Although I’ve republished it here, I didn’t leave it as it was. I’ve added an afterword. The Grounded passage is still the original (I’ve always loved it). But the afterword is honest and urgent, and perhaps, even angry.

Please do read the whole post to the end. We don’t often hear an author reflect on a piece a dozen years later. I hope you’ll find this meaningful. Only together do both make sense.

I was glad to revisit my own words.

And I still love the Genesis story. It is the genesis of true hope.

The Cottage is supported by the generosity of paid subscribers.

There are no ads, no list-selling, no institutions, and no media companies sponsoring my work. Just us, trying to find our way together during tough and confusing times.

If you upgrade to a paid subscription this month, you’ll have full access to the Parables and Pentecost series this June, including the video posts.

Click below for options and information.

Thank you.

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Genesis 18:1-15

The Lord appeared to Abraham by the oaks of Mamre, as he sat at the entrance of his tent in the heat of the day.

He looked up and saw three men standing near him. When he saw them, he ran from the tent entrance to meet them, and bowed down to the ground. He said, “My lord, if I find favor with you, do not pass by your servant. Let a little water be brought, and wash your feet, and rest yourselves under the tree. Let me bring a little bread, that you may refresh yourselves, and after that you may pass on—since you have come to your servant.” So they said, “Do as you have said.”

And Abraham hastened into the tent to Sarah, and said, “Make ready quickly three measures of choice flour, knead it, and make cakes.” Abraham ran to the herd, and took a calf, tender and good, and gave it to the servant, who hastened to prepare it. Then he took curds and milk and the calf that he had prepared, and set it before them; and he stood by them under the tree while they ate.

They said to him, “Where is your wife Sarah?” And he said, “There, in the tent.” Then one said, “I will surely return to you in due season, and your wife Sarah shall have a son.” And Sarah was listening at the tent entrance behind him. Now Abraham and Sarah were old, advanced in age; it had ceased to be with Sarah after the manner of women. So Sarah laughed to herself, saying, “After I have grown old, and my husband is old, shall I have pleasure?” The Lord said to Abraham, “Why did Sarah laugh, and say, ‘Shall I indeed bear a child, now that I am old?’ Is anything too wonderful for the Lord? At the set time I will return to you, in due season, and Sarah shall have a son.” But Sarah denied, saying, “I did not laugh”; for she was afraid. He said, “Oh yes, you did laugh.”

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MUSING

An excerpt from Grounded: Finding God in the World (2015)

Most religious traditions are based in tribal stories. Ancient stories from India relate the tales of numerous tribes and their many gods, forming Hindu sacred texts. Israelites tell a story of God’s chosen people comprising twelve tribes. Prince Siddhārtha Gautama, the Buddha, or the “enlightened one,” came from the Kahkya clan, whose origins were thought to be of the Sun. Christians proclaim a savior descended from the tribe of Judah and the House of David. Muhammad, from the Banu Hashim clan of the Quraysh tribe, managed to unite warring Arab clans into a religious and political system. And, of more recent vintage, the Book of Mormon relates the story of hostile tribes, the Lamanites and the Nephites, and the appearance of Christ among native Americans.

Indeed, for much of human history, gods were local. Every village, tribe, or city had at least one divinity from whom the people had descended, typically known by a name and his or her location, such as “Chemosh of Moab” and the like. For ancient clans, it was easy to draw boundaries. Your god blessed only your tribe. Your god protected only your village. Your god chose only your chief. Your god cured only your faithful tribesmen and women from disease. The primal pattern was that a god gave birth to a people, made them a home in a particular place, provided for them, and kept them safe from outsiders.

But something odd began to occur during the late Iron Age (ca. 1000—200 BCE): some of the local deities transformed into universal gods, most of whom became monotheistic in the process. This development presented a problem. It was easy to conquer or kill neighbors born of a rival god, but harder to do so if one worshipped a God who claimed to be the God of all nations. A universal God surely called for a universal people in a peaceable kingdom where a world of divinely sanctioned mayhem would no longer suffice. A good number of older faiths were challenged by these new ideas. As a result, the new prophets, storytellers, and philosophers valorized an important ethical and spiritual practice, one that came to form the core of most faith traditions: hospitality.

In the Hebrew Bible, Genesis 18:1-15 records a story of hospitality central Judaism, Christianity, and Islam. Abraham, of the tribe of Shem, left his home in Ur to go to the land of Canaan. After years of nomadic life, he and his wife, Sarah, his servant Hagar and their son Ishmael, and their household set up their tents by “oaks of Mamre,” the location to which God had directed them. Mamre was a Canaanite holy place, complete with a shrine to the sun god that hosted pagan rituals and festivals.

This seems an unlikely neighborhood to welcome the father of Western monotheism.

One afternoon, Abraham is outside his tent when three men walk by. Abraham probably assumed that these fellows were heading the shrine. Abraham, who worships this new God, should avoid them to maintain his tribe’s religious purity. Their foreign beliefs might contaminate the worship of the true God; their pagan practices could tempt Abraham’s family. Certainly it would be better to let them pass.

But the tale is otherwise: “When Abraham saw them, he ran from the tent entrance to meet them, and bowed down to the ground.” He begged them to stay, to rest, to be refreshed on their journey. He and his wife, Sarah, hastily prepared a feast of water, bread, curds, milk, and beef, giving the entire meal to the guests and eating nothing, even though he was the host.

The lavish act of hospitality has a twist. The strangers are not pagan travelers. Rather, they are messengers of God, perhaps angels, or, as Christians believe, a manifestation of the Trinity. They tell Abraham that Sarah shall bear him a son, through whom many nations will be blessed. This single act of hospitality will multiply into a global community of “righteousness and justice” whereby all the peoples of the earth will know God.

The story of Abraham’s hospitality is quickly followed (Gen. 19:1-29) by the counter tale, the story of Sodom. After the strangers leave Mamre, they travel to Sodom, where Abraham’s nephew, Lot, offers them hospitality to shelter them from his violent neighbors (it is worth noting that when Lot’s evil neighbors demand to come into his house, he refuses them entry, leading to the conclusion that you do not offer hospitality to those who would hurt other guests). God, angered by the shameless Sodomites who abuse travelers, strangers, and aliens, destroys their city but rescues Lot and his family from its fate.

The point is clear: hospitality is the spiritual practice that saves tribes from tribalism, allowing them to open their gates and widen the boundaries of neighborhood to include those who happen to wander by.

Thus begins a long struggle within religion about neighborhood:

For the last couple of millennia, human beings have vacillated between asserting the superiority of their tribe and struggling to practice the hospitality necessary for true neighborliness commanded by a universal God. The story of that struggle is the narrative drama in many a sacred text, including the Bible, in which the Hebrew people cannot seem to figure out if God is only the God of Israel or the God to whose holy city all nations will stream.

But this is not only ancient drama, confined to old stories. For the tension between hostility and hospitality remains the central conflict underlying the worst episodes of human hatred, oppression, terrorism, and war. To live behind walls of fear, especially those constructed on foundations of divine approval, is to assure a future of global uncertainty and violence.

In the 1970s, Catholic priest Henri Nouwen once noted, “Our society seems to be increasingly full of fearful, defensive, aggressive people anxiously clinging to their property and inclined to look at their surrounding world with suspicion, always expecting an enemy to suddenly appear or do harm.” It has only gotten worse since then, much worse in the early years of this century. Thus, what Nouwen insisted then remains true today: one of the primary spiritual needs of our world is to “convert” hostility into hospitality, to turn “the enemy into a guest.”

When hostility is converted into hospitality then fearful strangers can become guests . . . (whereby) guest and host can reveal their most precious gifts and bring new life to others. . . The term hospitality, therefore, should not be limited to its literal sense of receiving a stranger in our house but as a fundamental attitude toward our fellow human being, which can be expressed in a great variety of ways.^[1]

The world can no longer afford tribes intent on purity who believe God blesses only them; the world is longing for tribes that place hospitality front and center of spiritual practice and work to bless others on their way. We do not need gated neighborhoods, but neighborhoods with open gates.

*****

11 YEARS LATER:

Reading these words now, I’m overcome with sadness. Or maybe bittersweet pain. Perhaps hard-earned wisdom.

Grounded was published in 2015, but these words were written in late 2013. The biblical story hasn’t changed — nor has my overall explanation of the passage.

But there’s an underlying optimism, most overt in the final graph, that I can no longer claim. Back then, two years before Trump, I trusted that reasonable people understood that our future depended on “hospitable tribes” and that global politics were moving in that direction.

Sure, I knew that there was a possibility for backlash. For several years previous, I’d warned of that — notably in Christianity After Religion. By 2013, however, it seemed as if tendencies toward that backlash were ebbing. I then saw the world through the somewhat surprising re-election of Barack Obama. I had become convinced that a new tide of inclusive faith and multicultural democracy was reaching our shores. Some people were angry about that, of course. But I actually believed they’d get over it.

I certainly never imagined that there were political, economic, and religious actors hellbent on stoking enmity and turning neighbors into enemies — and that the powerful benefited from converting hospitality into overt hostility.

Talk about rose-colored glasses….

I’m literally too good a Christian and too nice a human to believe that any rational human being could possibly want a world of warring tribes instead of neighborly ones.

But the last dozen years have brought too many lessons. Unwanted, to be sure. And yet, we’ve seen and experienced much that many of us still struggle to understand.

Now optimism eludes even me. Instead my words prompt the melancholy of lost opportunity, the longing of unrealistic hope. My heart aches with a bittersweet realization that things were worse than I suspected or imagined — and that our world is full of Caesars building empires that depend on slavery, inequality, conflict, and violence. And they like it that way.

It would be easy at this point to say that Augustine was right: “Oh well. Original sin and all that. What can we expect in this life?”

Living through this last decade in the United States, I understand sin and evil far better than I thought I ever would or could. The second Trump term, in particular, has been enough to convert even Pelagius to Augustine’s POV. I am tempted to despair (on a regular basis) or opting for the standby of “pie-in-the-sky” theology (God will fix it all in heaven).

But the oddest thing has happened in addition to these feelings. I’m strangely energized.

Yes, we’ve lost opportunities. Yes, we misplaced hope. And yet — the absolute radicalness of the this biblical story is bracing. It jars me out of complacency, out of resignation.

God’s intention for humanity is clear. From the beginning until now.

Nouwen was right.

And he was also right about this: “fearful, defensive, aggressive people” are anxiously clinging to their property.” And even more than he suggested — fearful, defensive, aggressive people anxiously clinging to their property and stealing from everyone else, consolidating their power, and weakening us that we cannot question them or resist their rule.

They ridicule hospitality. Demean and despise those whom they deem unworthy. Just look at Elon Musk. On the same day that he became the richest human being to ever live, he spent most of his time on Twitter attacking and insulting Black people.

You’d think he’d be grateful or generous? Appreciate the astonishing gift given by God, hard work, and good luck? Well, you’d be wrong.

Divide and conquer — divide et impera — instead. All hail Julius Caesar and Machiavelli and history’s masters and colonial overlords and Trump. And Musk, of course.

My 2013 undertow of optimism is gone. It has been replaced by honest urgency. I honestly believe in the spiritual truth and moral power of this ancient story of Abraham and Sarah. And this story — of hospitality and the blessing of all nations — is the genesis of the Christian story of Pentecost.

Acts isn’t a missionary story in the way that American Christians think of mission. It is a story of the enmity of empire being challenged by an ancient vision of hospitality and human solidarity. But it is about conversion. We’re all called to convert from hostility to hospitality.

Pentecost begins with Abraham and Acts. Both stories reveal the sacred alternative to empire — of rejecting fear and enmity and welcoming all to tent and table.

It is urgent we understand all of this. In our bones. In our guts. In all of our communities.

That’s not optimism. It is the truth. There’s only one way for us to flourish as a species. Hospitality turns enemies into friends. And that’s the one thing that the new Caesars don’t want. That is the one thing that frightens them.

A hospitable neighborhood is a genuine threat to the Elon Musks of the world.

No wonder Sarah laughed. It is laughable. Ridiculous. Impossible even.

Yet, with new honesty and urgency, the last dozen years make me want and work for a world of hospitality even more than I did when I first wrote Grounded. I’m not optimistic any more. I’m angry for the good. I now know why this story is important. Hospitality isn’t a theological or ethical theory — and it is not just nice spiritual practice.

Hospitality is the way we must be. Or we won’t make it. We’ll wind up destroying ourselves. We must remember that the epilogue to the story of Abraham is a story of doing violence to strangers.

The oaks of Mamre shelter our future.* The tent welcomes all. Let us prepare the meal.

^[1] Nouwen, Reaching Out, pp. 46-48.

* It was SO HARD not to write, “The oaks of Mamre shelter our future, even while autocrats threaten it with the claw.” If you know, you know.

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INSPIRATION

This being human is a guest house.
Every morning is a new arrival.
A joy, a depression, a meanness,
some momentary awareness comes
as an unexpected visitor.
Welcome and entertain them all!
Even if they’re a crowd of sorrows,
who violently sweep your house
empty of its furniture,
still, treat each guest honorably.
[S]he may be clearing you out
for some new delight.
The dark thought, the shame, the malice,
meet them at the door laughing,
and invite them in.
Be grateful for whoever comes,
because each has been sent
as a guide from beyond.
— Rumi

He had been a stranger,
so took in strangers,
today three, and
in the heat of the day.
He interrupts my spinning
wool for his new cloak,
orders me to make a fire,
use my best meal
to make cakes
for heaven’s sake,
tells the servant boy
to slaughter that calf
I’ve had my eye on.
Of course I listened
behind our tent’s flap.
How else do we women
learn anything important?
How peculiar of them
to speak of a son
to such as we are,
such as I am who
no longer swells and empties,
with whom Abraham
no longer sleeps, nor
could mange if he did.
His Lord, who does not
even speak directly to me,
questions my laughing?
I should weep or howl,
but have no time or energy,
must clean up after their
feast, from which, perhaps,
they left me cake crumbs,
a bit of meat on a bone,
a practicable promise.
— Bonnie Thurston, “By the oaks of Mamre”

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As a storyteller, writer, and film critic, Gareth knows stories. His point is simple: “All human beings are storytellers … but most of us are unconscious of the fact that we are telling stories all the time.”

The whole conversation is then framed by three questions he introduced:

This discussion shines with insights and wisdom. Listen in as a master storyteller tells the story about why stories are necessary for healing, hope, and wholeness.

And it underscores why stories are important right now for cultures struggling with political change and social unrest.

Read more

This year, unlike past years, the Cottage Summer special is open to all subscribers (paid and free) as a gift to nurture your spirit this Pentecost season.

In addition to these Wednesday posts on the parables in A Beautiful Year, paid subscribers have access to weekly live and recorded conversations during Parables & Pentecost.

At the conclusion of this series, pastors, book group or Bible study leaders are welcome to use these posts as the basis for 6-week sermon series or with small groups. All you need to do is give credit to the Cottage and encourage people to read A Beautiful Year.

Today, we explore the story of the Prodigal Son in our summer series on Parables and Pentecost.

I invite you to read and reflect on this well-known parable. How do you feel about this story? Where are you in the story? Does this parable challenge you — and us — at this moment in history?

Today’s excerpt is courtesy of my publisher from the audiobook version of A Beautiful Year, “The Parable Prodigal Son.” If you are reading the book, it is found on pages 233-235; in the e-book, this parable is in the Pentecost section.

(You can order A Beautiful Year as an audiobook, an e-book, or in hardcover. Please click here for ordering and format options.)

Listen, read, and enjoy. Explore the suggestions below for further reflection and understanding — as you choose. This isn’t a homework assignment! This is an invitation and a guide. Think about all three topics or pick one. Leave comments and observations. Read the comments of others and learn from the community. Reply to each other. I’ll jump into the thread a few times during the day.

Ask questions, wonder together.

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THE STORY

The parable itself is found only in Luke 15:22-32:

Then Jesus said, ‘There was a man who had two sons. The younger of them said to his father, “Father, give me the share of the property that will belong to me.” So he divided his property between them. A few days later the younger son gathered all he had and travelled to a distant country, and there he squandered his property in dissolute living.

When he had spent everything, a severe famine took place throughout that country, and he began to be in need. So he went and hired himself out to one of the citizens of that country, who sent him to his fields to feed the pigs. He would gladly have filled himself with the pods that the pigs were eating; and no one gave him anything. But when he came to himself he said, “How many of my father’s hired hands have bread enough and to spare, but here I am dying of hunger! I will get up and go to my father, and I will say to him, ‘Father, I have sinned against heaven and before you; I am no longer worthy to be called your son; treat me like one of your hired hands.’”

So he set off and went to his father. But while he was still far off, his father saw him and was filled with compassion; he ran and put his arms around him and kissed him. Then the son said to him, “Father, I have sinned against heaven and before you; I am no longer worthy to be called your son.”

But the father said to his slaves, “Quickly, bring out a robe—the best one—and put it on him; put a ring on his finger and sandals on his feet. And get the fatted calf and kill it, and let us eat and celebrate; for this son of mine was dead and is alive again; he was lost and is found!” And they began to celebrate.

‘Now his elder son was in the field; and when he came and approached the house, he heard music and dancing. He called one of the slaves and asked what was going on. He replied, “Your brother has come, and your father has killed the fatted calf, because he has got him back safe and sound.”

Then he became angry and refused to go in. His father came out and began to plead with him. But he answered his father, “Listen! For all these years I have been working like a slave for you, and I have never disobeyed your command; yet you have never given me even a young goat so that I might celebrate with my friends. But when this son of yours came back, who has devoured your property with prostitutes, you killed the fatted calf for him!”

Then the father said to him, “Son, you are always with me, and all that is mine is yours. But we had to celebrate and rejoice, because this brother of yours was dead and has come to life; he was lost and has been found.” ’

WHAT IS THIS STORY ABOUT?

How would you explain this story to someone who had never heard it before? What’s the point? Is there more than one point to this parable?

Do you like the story? Do you not like it? Does it puzzle you? Anger you? Make you resentful? What emotions does it stir? Be honest!

Do you think it is better described as a moral parable, an example parable, or a challenge parable? It is tempting to say “all three,” but which of these styles is most prominent?

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THE STORY AND YOUR STORY

WHAT DOES THIS STORY MEAN TO YOU NOW?

When did you first hear this story? How many times do you think you’ve heard it? Have you heard it in other forms (film, novel, poetry, art, music) in addition to the biblical story?

Have you ever had an experience of being lost then found? Of returning home or being welcomed?

To which character do you most relate? Who garners your sympathy? Who is the hero of this story? The villain? Who do you like the most?

Where’s the mother? What do you think she was thinking?

How has your understanding of this story changed over the years? What stands out for you differently today than at other times in your life? As you re-read it or listen to my reflections on it, what surprised you? Is there something you’ve never noticed before?

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THE STORY AND OUR STORY

During the first week of this series, John Dominic Crossan joined with the paid subscriber community in an online conversation about the parables.

We focused on how the parables challenged empire, how they present an alternative to Christian nationalism, and how they widen our vision toward evolutionary — and revolutionary — possibilities for a sustainable, peaceable future for humankind.

In his book, The Power of Parable, Crossan pointed out that the Prodigal Son is one of three parables in Luke 15 about things that are lost and found. He also suggested that this story is an “example parable” of an episode found in Luke 5:

If you read Sunday Musings, you surely will recognize this context as being very similar to last weekend’s reading from Matthew! Indeed, “Levi” is another name for “Matthew.”

Like Sunday’s Matthew text about an offensive dinner and two women being healed, the Prodigal Son makes a similar point — that which has been lost will receive mercy and invited to the feast.

The parable isn’t only about one person — or personal repentance. The one stands for many. In my essay, I wrote,

HOW DOES THIS PARABLE CHALLENGE YOU — AND US — AT THIS SPECIFIC MOMENT IN HISTORY?

What do you think about Crossan’s suggestion that the Prodigal Son is an “example parable” of the dinner with “tax collectors and sinners”? Does its example of “lost and found” resonate with my reflection? With your experience?

I hadn’t read Crossan’s interpretation of the Prodigal Son when I wrote my essay about all the food in the parable. Do you see the similarities between his framing and mine? I primarily saw the Prodigal Son feast as prefiguring the Last Supper, but Dom drew on a different dinner example. How are these feasts all related?

The parable is more of an “example parable” than was the Good Samaritan. Yet it held a challenge for the older brother! And it does challenge us as well. What is most challenging for you? For our communities? What’s the challenge for NOW?

What does this parable say to the global rise of authoritarianism and Christian nationalism?

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INSPIRATION

TWO OF TODAY’S THREE POEMS about the Prodigal Son were written by women. One is a classic nineteenth century piece; the other is from 2002. The third (1992), by Charles Simic, imagines the prodigal watching his estranged mother. All three — whether subversively or overtly — introduce a female voice into the story of the Prodigal.

It is interesting to compare the perspectives of Funk (from the mother’s POV) and Simic (from the prodigal’s angle) on this story.

Does that lamp still burn in my Father’s house,
Which he kindled the night I went away?
I turned once beneath the cedar boughs,
And marked it gleam with a golden ray;
Did he think to light me home some day?

Hungry here with the crunching swine,
Hungry harvest have I to reap
In a dream I count my Father’s kine,
I hear the tinkling bells of his sheep,
I watch his lambs that browse and leap.

There is plenty of bread at home,
His servants have bread enough and to spare;
The purple wine-fat froths with foam,
Oil and spices make sweet the air,
While I perish hungry and bare.

Rich and blessed those servants, rather
Than I who see not my Father’s face!
I will arise and go to my Father:—
“Fallen from sonship, beggared of grace,
Grant me, Father, a servant’s place.”
— Christina Georgina Rossetti, “A Prodigal Son” (1896, published posthumously)

When he returned a second time,
the straps of his sandals broken,
his robe stained with wine,

it was not as easy to forgive.

By then his father
was long gone himself,

leaving me with my other son, the sullen one
whose anger is the instrument he tunes
from good morning on.

I know.

There’s no room for a man
in the womb.

But when I saw my youngest coming from far off,
so small he seemed, a kid
unsteady on its legs.

She-goat
what will you do? I thought,
remembering when he learned to walk.

Shape shifter! It’s like looking through water—
the heat bends, it blurs everything: brush, precipice.

A shambles between us.
— Allison Funk, “The Prodigal’s Mother Speaks to God”

Dark morning rain
Meant to fall
On a prison and a schoolyard,
Falling meanwhile
On my mother and her old dog.

How slow she shuffles now
In my father’s Sunday shoes.
The dog by her side
Trembling with each step
As he tries to keep up.

I am on another corner waiting
With my head shaved.
My mind hops like a sparrow
In the rain.
I’m always watching and worrying about her.

Everything is a magic ritual,
A secret cinema,
The way she appears in a window hours later
To set the empty bowl
And spoon on the table,
And then exits
So that the day may pass,
And the night may fall
Into the empty bowl,
Empty room, empty house,
While the rain keeps
Knocking at the front door.
— Charles Simic, “The Prodigal” (from The New Yorker, 1992)

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PARABLES AND PENTECOST
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On Friday, June 12, I’ll email a recorded conversation on the parables and storytelling to paid subscribers.

(We’re unable to do live conversations at the moment due to the security breach we had with Zoom last week. But this recorded conversation will be quite wonderful - I promise!)

The conversation is with my friend, Gareth Higgins. Gareth is from Belfast, Northern Ireland and is a storyteller and film critic. He is one of the founders of the Wild Goose Festival, a co-founder of the Porch community, and the co-host of Ireland Retreats.

Last year, I traveled with Gareth to Ireland. And, in July, I’ll return to Ireland to work with him again. We enjoy one another’s company and I know you’ll love listening in as we talk about the magic of storytelling and Jesus as a great storyteller!

The second half of the Christian year is now underway. During these months, the lectionary shifts its focus to us — to the people of God and how we follow the way of love of God and neighbor.

We read today of Jesus’ invitation to Matthew, the tax collector-disciple: “Follow me.”

What happens if we say yes? Who else has also accepted the invitation to the journey of following? What surprises await?

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Matthew 9:9-13, 18-26

As Jesus was walking along, he saw a man called Matthew sitting at the tax booth; and he said to him, “Follow me.”

And he got up and followed him. And as he sat at dinner in the house, many tax collectors and sinners came and were sitting with him and his disciples. When the Pharisees saw this, they said to his disciples, “Why does your teacher eat with tax collectors and sinners?”

But when he heard this, he said, “Those who are well have no need of a physician, but those who are sick. Go and learn what this means, ‘I desire mercy, not sacrifice.’ For I have come to call not the righteous but sinners.”

While he was saying these things to them, suddenly a leader of the synagogue came in and knelt before him, saying, “My daughter has just died; but come and lay your hand on her, and she will live.”

And Jesus got up and followed him, with his disciples.

Then suddenly a woman who had been suffering from hemorrhages for twelve years came up behind him and touched the fringe of his cloak, for she said to herself, “If I only touch his cloak, I will be made well.” Jesus turned, and seeing her he said, “Take heart, daughter; your faith has made you well.” And instantly the woman was made well.

When Jesus came to the leader’s house and saw the flute players and the crowd making a commotion, he said, “Go away; for the girl is not dead but sleeping.” And they laughed at him. But when the crowd had been put outside, he went in and took her by the hand, and the girl got up. And the report of this spread throughout that district.

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MUSING

Have you ever been invited to a party and then surprised by the other guests?

That’s what happens in today’s story from the Gospel of Matthew.

I love this story of the “double invitation.” First, Jesus called Matthew, “Follow me.” Matthew does so — and finds himself at a dinner table with Jesus’s friends, other tax collectors, and an assortment of sinners.

Then, a few sentences later, Jesus followed a synagogue leader (in Mark’s gospel, this man is named Jairus) away from the table out into the streets where they encounter a woman and a young girl. Jesus healed one and raised the other from the dead.

Everything in this story challenges conventional social arrangements. From the invitation from a rabbi to a tax collector to the offensive guest list at the dinner party to “mutual follower-ship” to the encounters with two desperately ill women.

In just a few verses, Matthew provides a vision of the new community being gathered by Jesus — the community that will be mostly fully constituted and will grow in the giving of the Spirit.

Disciples. Tax collectors, sinners, and women. And a very merciful synagogue leader.

The very first thing that Jesus taught his new follower, Matthew, was that the Kingdom of God was wide open. There were many seats at the table; there were many unexpected guests.

And that included women.

I’m not sure why I’ve never thought of this passage in a particularly feminist or womanist frame before. I know that I’ve read those sorts of interpretations of the bleeding woman. But the raising of the little girl?

I’ve heard the story many times. But I don’t think I’ve ever heard anyone stress her gender! There are three resurrection miracles attributed to Jesus in the New Testament — Lazarus, the widow of Nain’s son (Luke 7:11-17), and this girl, Jarius’s daughter.

Matthew followed Jesus to the dinner. We don’t know who was there other than a few disciples, and “tax collectors and sinners.” Perhaps there was a woman disciple or maybe some of the “sinners” were women. Surely there were women in the house serving the meal. But gender isn’t called out. Rather, the offensive guests — odious because of things they did — were the problem to Jesus’s critics.

And the guests must have surprised Matthew, too!

But the dinner guests weren’t the final surprise of the evening for this new follower. One of the synagogue leaders, a group who had expressed curiosity (if not disdain) over Jesus’ choice of companions, took his words about physicians and mercy seriously. He came to Jesus pleading for the ultimate healing — to bring his recently passed daughter back to life.

Jesus then accepted his invitation. They left the dinner, with Jesus following the synagogue leader into the streets. It was an interesting turn of events — Jesus usually called others. In this case, he followed another leader. The disciples, surely wondering what was about to unfold, followed their teacher.

It must have been interesting to watch this group make its way through the streets: a pious synagogue leader, followed by an upstart young rabbi, trailed by an odd assortment of rowdy dinner guests.

All heading to a house in mourning.

And that’s where the two female characters enter the story.

The first interrupted the curious parade. She was quite ill as she has suffered for a dozen years from a hemorrhage. She was both desperate and determined. It is easy to imagine her pushing her way through those watching the procession of this motley crew lead by the local synagogue leader: “If I only touch his cloak, I will be made well.”

She reached for Jesus. He turned and said, “Take heart, daughter; your faith has made you well.”

And she was healed.

Then, the parade that began back at the dinner party reached the synagogue leader’s house. Jesus went inside, he took the girl by her hand, and she got up. The synagogue leader’s daughter was raised from the dead.

I’m struck by one word: daughter.

The New Testament says a lot about sons. Jesus is called the “Son of Man” and the “Son of God.” The language of sonship is used as a metaphor for new believers — those who have become disciples and who have been adopted by God.

But, in this passage, daughters stand out. In another gospel healing story (in Luke’s gospel), Jesus cured a woman on the sabbath. When questioned by authorities about that, Jesus replied: “Then should not this woman, a daughter of Abraham, whom Satan has kept bound for eighteen long years, be set free on the Sabbath day from what bound her?” Later, when Jesus was on his way to be executed, he said to the women gathered on the Way of Sorrow, “Daughters of Jerusalem, do not weep for me; weep for yourselves and for your children.”

Daughter, you are healed. Daughter, you have been raised. Oh, daughters of Abraham. Daughters of Jerusalem.

In ancient Judaism, “daughter” indicated both the endearment of familial relations and eschatological promise. While “daughter” certainly referred to a female child, it also was a metaphor for Jerusalem itself, as scholars have noted, “Jerusalem…is personified throughout poetic and prophetic biblical passages as a woman—’Daughter Zion’ (bat tzion) or ‘Fair Zion.’”

And, as a daughter in the biological sense, “Under the aegis of the father, the unmarried daughter is the most precious figure and, therefore, potentially the most vulnerable in the household. In the patriarchal world of the Bible, she remains protected within her father’s household until she moves to her husband’s home. She is an extension of her father’s honor.”

In other words, the healing of a woman called “daughter” and the raising of a dead daughter are not small matters. In both cases, there’s a double meaning at play. In one case, the daughters represent Jerusalem itself — its healing and rising. And on another level, the two women indicate that the guest list at the “dinner” won’t be exclusively for men — but, instead, the “most vulnerable in the household” will be invited in.

Thus, on the first day of Matthew’s discipleship, the tax collector is introduced to this vision of daughters. Daughters are beloved of God, an “extension of her father’s honor” and cherished by Jesus as he cherished all the vulnerable people who came to him. Daughters represent both the covenant with Abraham and the blessings of the New Jerusalem, the holy city that will be healed and recreated in glory.

The double-follow passage leads us to a vision of double-daughtership. (Yes, I just invented “double-daughtership”!)

That’s the FIRST thing Matthew witnessed on his first outing as a disciple.

What a lesson!

All this leads me to wonder about this thoughtful question posed by writer New Zealand theologian, Beulah Wood:

Think of it: Jesus followed a faithful synagogue leader on a way that led him to heal and raise daughters of Abraham, two daughters of God. One woman, whose condition put her in the category of being ritually impure, was cured; the second, a girl who was the cherished daughter of a pious Jewish religious figure, was brought back to life.

This is a deeply respectful story of women and Judaism, both metaphorically and actually. And it tells us much about Jesus’s vision of God’s kingdom.

On the Jesus parade, daughters — from the ritually unacceptable to a treasured one protected by her righteous father — count. All are precious. All matter. All women, from outcast to beloved child.

Given the centrality of the metaphor, “Daughter Zion” as the personification of Jerusalem in Jewish thought, that is significant. And it isn’t just about individual women and girls. It is also about the way that “daughter” represents the blessing and promise of the Kingdom, that “daughter” stands in for the Holy City itself. Matthew’s calling is a calling for the whole of Israel — to be restored and to be raised to new life. Oh daughters of Jerusalem!

It was significant in the ministry of Jesus, in the practices of those who followed Jesus, and for early Christian communities.

We know this because this story — with both women and these intertwined miracles — shows up in three of the four gospels. This was an important text to the first Christian communities; these passages spoke to how they understood the very nature of being a disciple.

How you treat women is sign and symbol of your readiness for the solidarity and inclusion of God’s commonwealth. Are you prepared for a community in which there is “no longer male and female”?

Because, even as sonship matters, so does daughtership. They are both faces of the sacred prism.

And it is significant for us right now — not only in the church but for politics. Because, under the thumb of Christian nationalism and religious authoritarianism, women’s privileges and rights are being eroded — and the vulnerability of women under malevolent and controlling forms of patriarchy is becoming (once again) painfully obvious.

I wonder what Matthew thought, what he said to the other disciples. Was this the party he expected? The parade he had intended to join?

I have no doubt as to what the women would say. They’d say “Welcome! We’re glad you are here. Come with us on the way.”

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INSPIRATION

On a Night When My Daughter Is Struggling
by Rosemerry Wahtola Trommer

I won’t tell her it is up to her
to repair the broken world.
Perhaps that comes later
with pen or needle, pointe shoe or song.
But for now, the thing to do
is to sit together in the broken world
and feel how it is to be broken.
To let shame sit with us.
Let grief sit with us.
To feel the sharp nails of fear.
It is not wrong to feel small,
to feel frightened, to be lost.
Nor must we feel these things alone.
So for now, I sit with her
in the brokenness
with no tools, no salve,
no metaphor of redemption.
It is not enough, perhaps
to meet brokenness
with nothing but love
and breath and a willingness
to be nowhere but here,
but in this broken moment,
it is everything.

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Unfortunately, we had a zoom disruptor who ambushed the gathering and took over the screen with pornographic material.

We have reported the incident to Zoom.

Because of the unpleasantness, a few minutes of the conversation have been edited out. And there’s an additional few minutes after the inciden…

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