Parables: "Occupy Temple" by Dave Sim || Matthew 21:23-32 || October 01, 2017

This Sunday's lectionary Gospel text is timely given our country's current context of protest and disdain for this protest, ie., NFL players/Trump. Jesus has just cleansed the temple and now occupies it in protest of the corruption/injustices rampant in the temple religious system. The Chief Priests and Elders of the people have come to challenge his authority: "By what authority [what right] are you doing these things?" Jesus counter-challenges with a parable about two brothers in a vineyard to convey his point about true righteousness and the faithfulness of Israel to being people of God. We are not Israel, but our hermeneutical approaches to cultural symbols risk a dangerous dogma of its own. A dogma that renders non-white expressions of freedom of speech and protest as un American and dangerous, while blindly defending relics of dominant culture and ritual that actually oppress people of color. What really does it mean to be American and 'patriotic?' Is it blindly defending enculturated, politicized symbols legalistically, or embodying and defending the values of freedom and equality those symbols were meant to represent? #Matthew 21:23-32