Faith, fidelity, and commitment

 

Every so often, I find myself reflecting on some pretty unpleasant readings from the Old and New Testaments.  From the book of Judges there’s the story about how Jephthah killed his own daughter, his only child, as a “burnt offering” to God (Judges 11:29-39).  In Matthew’s Gospel is the parable of how guests invited to a prince’s wedding feast actually “laid hold of [the king’s] servants, mistreated them and killed them.”  Next, as might be expected, the king “was enraged…destroyed those murderers and burnt their city.” Finally, this harsh king rejected a guest who was wearing the wrong clothes – in fact, he told his servants to “Bind his hands and feet and cast him into the darkness outside.”  And this difficult Gospel ends, “Many are invited, but few are chosen.”  I don’t like to think that!  I didn’t like the grief, violence, judgment and punishment in these two passages; I struggled to see what all these terrible lines mean to me in my life today.

I think I found one possible answer in a refrain from Psalm 40: “Here I am, Lord, I come to do your will”.  Right after I read Jephthah’s sad story, the Psalm quietly put me back in a better frame of mind.  “Sacrifice or oblation you wished not…Burnt offerings or sin-offerings you sought not.” Instead, “To do your will, O my God, is my delight.” (Psalm 40:5-10)

So I turned my reflection towards how I tend to take God’s love for granted.  Don’t most of us tend to think that nothing more can be asked of us beyond what we’re already doing quite comfortably?  We have smug and ready excuses for not feeding the hungry, tending the sick, clothing the naked, etc. (Matthew 25) – in other words, for not truly living the Christian faith: “I do enough already,” or “I can’t be expected to be more than I am.”   

My meditation hauled me back – not to the ancient practice of human sacrifice or to an obsessive concern with proper attire, but to faith, fidelity and commitment.  Jephthah was no ordinary man but a mighty warrior, a figure to represent power and success.  The daughter was no ordinary child bouncing out the front door to greet Daddy, but rather a princess giving a ceremonial welcome, signifying, again, power and success.  Together, father and daughter represent something greater still—about not taking the Lord for granted, and about sacrifice beyond human reason, for love.  To accept her role in fulfilling her father’s vow, the daughter must have loved God, and her father, very much!  I see parallels in Jephthah’s story with the “Binding of Isaac” by Abraham (Genesis 22:1-19) and even with the sacrifice of the Son of God on the Cross (John 3:16).

Also, the man “not dressed in a wedding garment” in the Gospel parable reminds us that the Kingdom of Heaven is not to be taken for granted.  When the king noticed him, the lazy guest “was reduced to silence.”  So it’s not like he didn’t have or couldn’t get the proper clothing.  The other last-minute invitees managed to dress appropriately.  This guest complacently preferred the comfort of his old jeans and t-shirt (or the first-century equivalent) instead of sacrificing a bit of convenience to do the right thing for his particular situation.

I think this parable has (at least temporarily) shaken me out of my slothful self-satisfaction, reminding me to not take God for granted!  I pray that I love God enough to sacrifice any convenience and comfort in order to say honestly, “To do your will, O my God, is my delight.”