Apparent Possession Is Nine Tenth of the Law?

19 Pentecost, Cycle A Proper 22, October 8, 2023

Exodus 20:1-4, 7-9, 12-20 Psalm 19
Philippians 3:4b-14 Matthew 21:33-46

Lectionary Link

What is the difference between a contract and a covenant?  A contract is a legal agreement which has juridical consequences, like punishment and penalties if one does not fulfill the terms of the contract.  Any punishment in a covenant are the self-punishments which occur because of bad behaviors in the covenant.

A covenant is like a contract but it is based not upon potential penalty but upon relationship and the quality of that relationship.

The biblical writings are about a covenant with God and the collective and cumulative insights that people throughout the years gained about a loving relationship with God.

St. Paul wrote that to love is to fulfill the law, and a chief definition of God is Love.

This means that a profound energy of relation, Love, is the perpetual lure which pulsates through Nature and Love is the Super-Nature is which always already present and able to be engaged by all who are born to love and be loved.

The biblical writings are about how we as human beings have discovered our failure to be loving with God and each other.  God as a loving parent does not disown or disinherit unruly children especially those who live in ignorance of their original blessing and calling to love and be loved.

Children who are ignorant of their own limited probabilities as well as their own positive potential need to be instructed in best practices for fulfilling the human vocation to love and be loved.

One could say that great 10 commandments were a watershed moment in people coming to wisdom about recommended behaviors which were founded upon a relationship with a loving God and in discovering this, discovering behaviors which made for loving behaviors within human community.

And this is the age old human vocation.  Discovering God in loving relationship and using this relationship to build loving relationship within human community.

Some people might fault God for being too inapparent in this covenant relationship.  God as a Luring Energy of Love, might not be in-your-face or coercive enough to be effective like we grown accustomed to with earthly authorities.  We perhaps would rather have a Teddy Roosevelt God who "walks softly but carries a big stick," to intervene at anytime to bring unloving behaviors to an immediate halt.  Those who have entered the covenant in the discovery of loving relationship with God, may get impatient with God's seeming inapparency. 

God being seemingly, inapparent means that we can note that humanity often lives by the famous law stated as "Apparent Possession is Nine Tenth of the Law."  Namely, if I can appear to be the owner and no one is actively intervening to dispute my use of the property, then for all intents and purposes I can act as though I am owner of the property.

The parable of Jesus present this scenario: The absentee landlord keeps sending agents to collect his rent and the tenants resist and even destroy the very son of the landlord.  This represents the complete blindness of humanity to the Greatness from which we came and the Greatness to which we belong.  We act like emperors with fifteen minutes of fame in our relative short lifespan in comparison to the Everlasting One who still own everything after our petty pretensions about our "apparent" but usurping ownership.

The members of the communities which read the writings we call the Gospel of Matthew believed that many people were tripping over Jesus as a cornerstone to a new manifestation of what it would be like to build our lives acknowledging God's ownership.  Many treated Jesus as one who challenged their exclusive claims of ownership on this world.  Jesus came to not to take away the fact that the world is fully give to the Jews and to everyone, but to make sure that everyone was invited to this covenant of a loving God who calls us to love.  St. Paul also wrote, "Do you not know that you were bought with a price so that you are not your own and that your bodies are temples of the Holy Spirit?"

The witness of Jesus was to better define the stewardship roles for us given to all by a loving God.  No one, Jew or Gentile could claim to be God's exclusive stewards.  A loving God does not exclude but lovingly lures all to tap into the power of divine love which allows the stewardship of loving our neighbor as ourselves.

Today, we can be fooled by God as an apparent absentee landlord and we can pretend we own our lives and all which we seek to hoard.  Or we can discover the loving lure of God who has given all for our enjoyment and use, and who invites us to stewardship, stewardship of our relationships with each other, and stewardship in our loving care of our world.

Let us live this covenant of love with God and with each other and make God apparent to this people who desperately need this covenant of love.  Amen.