The Qetsatsah Ceremony

Sermon-4th Sunday in Lent March 14, 2010
The Cloud of Unknowing, "O God, our great companion, lead us ever more deeply into the mystery of your life and ours, that we may be faithful interpreters of Life to each other, through our Lord Jesus Christ. Amen
I have so much to tell you this week, thank God I have an extra hour. First, I haven’t given you any obscure church history in a while. Today is Laetare Sunday. The 4th Sunday of Lent always began with the song, “Rejoice, O Jerusalem…” In Latin, “Rejoice” is “Laetare”. Because we are now more than half way through Lent it was the Sunday when people could relax a little from the difficult disciplines that they had set for themselves 23 days ago. The gospel that always used to be read on this Sunday was John 6-the story of the feeding of the 5000-so it was also known as “Fishes and Loaves Sunday”. In England, this was the day that all the young men and women who had been apprenticed out to wealthy families or jobs far away could return to their homes, see their families, and attend church at “the mother church”-so it was known as “Mothering Sunday”. Popes, traditionally on this Sunday, used to carry a golden rose in their right hand when returning from the celebration of Mass (way back in 1051, Pope Leo IX called this custom an "ancient institution.") Originally it was natural rose, then a single golden rose of natural size, but since the fifteenth century it has consisted of a cluster or branch of roses wrought of pure gold in brilliant workmanship by famous artists. The popes bless one every year, and often confer it upon churches, shrines, cities, or distinguished persons as a token of esteem and paternal affection.
So today is Laetare or Fishes and Loaves or Mothering or Rose Sunday.
Ok, enough church history. How about personal history. Did you ever want to run away from home? Wait a second, let’s try that again, how many times have you wanted to run away from home? I don’t mean when you are 14. It doesn’t matter how old you are, everyone wants to run away from home on occasion-regardless of our age. The idea of escaping, leaving, crosses everyone’s mind from time to time. Just say to your family, “oh, I forgot-it’s Mothering Sunday, I have to go home to the Mother church today. I’ll, uh, see you later”.
Years ago I heard someone start off a sermon on the Prodigal Son by saying “there are two kinds of people in the world-those who identify with the young son-and those
who feel closer to the elder son.” But this is church-where the good people come-that means that about 90% of you are going to feel like the older son was right in this story-and his younger brother should be banished forever. Right?
Every time I bring this story up in Bible studies most of the people tell me that they never liked this parable. The father NEVER EVER SHOULD HAVE FORGIVEN THE YOUNG SON. How many feel like that? For those of you who are the older sons, this is a terrible story. But you know what’s the worst part of this parable? It’s not finished. There is no ending. We never know if the older brother ever accepted the Father’s begging and came into the house at the end or not. We don’t know what happened to the good son.
Kenneth E. Bailey is an active lecturer on Middle Eastern New Testament studies and in an article in Christianity Today 12 years ago listed “14 aspects of the parable need to be rescued from their traditional interpretation”. Let me tell you of 3 of them, briefly
1. The request. The younger son requests his inheritance while his father is still alive and in good health. In traditional Middle Eastern culture, this means, "Father, I am eager for you to die!" If the father is a traditional Middle Eastern father, he will strike the boy across the face and drive him out of the house.
Once, when members of the news media brought up to Prince Charles the prospect of his ascending to the throne of England, he stopped the conversation cold when he said, "Gentlemen, you are speaking of the death of my mother."
2nd. Jewish law of the first century provided for the division of an inheritance (when the father was ready to make such a division), but did not grant the children the right to sell until after the father's death. In a second departure from the expected norm, the father grants the inheritance and the right to sell, knowing that this right will shame the family before the community.
3. The qetsatsah (kweat-sat-sash) ceremony. From the Jerusalem Talmud it is known that the Jews of the time of Jesus had a method of punishing any Jewish boy who lost the family inheritance to Gentiles. It was called the "qetsatsah (kweat-sat-sash) ceremony." Horror at such a loss is also reflected in the Dead Sea Scrolls. Such a violator of community expectations would face the qetsatsah ceremony if he dared to return to his home village. The ceremony was simple. The villagers would bring a large earthenware jar, fill it with burned nuts and burned corn, and break it in front of the guilty individual. While doing this, the community would shout, "So-and-so is cut off from his people." From that point on, the village would have nothing to do with the wayward lad.
From the various references to this ceremony, it appears that the ban was more comprehensive than even the Amish "shun." When shunned, an Amish person can at least eat at a separate table. The first-century Jewish shun appears to have been a total ban on any contact with the violator of the village code of honor.
So, all of you older siblings out there, all of you who stayed home, did the right thing, obeyed your parents, followed the rules, never “really” embarrassed your parents, NEVER ran away (like you wanted)-would you like to go ahead and qetsatsah (kweat-sat-sash) your siblings? Of course we would. This is not a story about fairness. It’s not a story about being good. It’s not a story about living a Christian life. It’s a story that is left unfinished for a reason. It’s a story about how hard it is to follow Jesus.
Do you remember how this story started off? Now all the tax collectors and sinners were coming near to listen to him. And the Pharisees and the scribes were grumbling and saying, “This fellow welcomes sinners and eats with them.” So he told them this parable: Who was he telling this parable to? The Pharisees and the scribes. THE GOOD PEOPLE. The righteous people. He may have been talking about the tax collectors and sinners but he was telling it TO the Pharisees and the scribes. Personally, I think he was telling it ABOUT The Pharisees and the scribes. I think Jesus was telling the story about how hard it is for good people to be forgiven, even more than the prodigal son. I think Jesus was trying to speak to the people who were most resistant to the gospel, the people who had the hardest time with forgiveness-you and I. The good kids. The ones who stayed home and did the right thing, the ones who worked and sacrificed and worked hard at NOT embarrassing our families. One commentator said this parable should be renamed not the Prodigal Son but The Resentful Brother.
‘Fred Craddock writes, "It is that party which is so offensive. The older brother has a point: of course, let the penitent come home. Both Judaism and Christianity provide for the return of sinners, but to bread and water, not fatted calf; to sackcloth, not a new robe; to ashes, not jewelry; to kneeling, not dancing; to tears, not merriment" (Preaching through the Christian Year C).’
Kate Huey, a United Church of Christ commentator who I read every week wrote this, “Barbara Brown Taylor's reflection on the older brother is delightful as she recalls what it felt like to be the oldest child herself, watching younger ones get away with so much more than she had: "There were not extra steps between the younger son's return and his welcome home party, no heart-to-heart with the old man, no extra chores, no go-to-your-room-for-a-week-and-think-about-what-you-have-done, just a clean robe for his back, and a fine ring for his hand, and a pair of new sandals for his feet." It's just not fair, right? "What do you have to do to get a party around here? Do you have to go off and squander your inheritance before you can come home to be embraced, and kissed, and assured that you belong?" Here she poignantly observes the ways that both sons are lost to the father, one "to a life of recklessness," and the other "to a more serious fate, to a life of angry self-righteousness that takes him so far away from his father that he might as well be feeding pigs in a far country." What Taylor does so well is to describe the love of the father who "does not love either of his sons according to what they deserve. He just loves them, more because of who he is than because of who they are." Sooner or later, even those of us "faithful ones," if that's indeed how we imagine ourselves, end up on that doorstep, too, struggling with our own self-righteousness: "It is up to each one of us to decide whether we will stand outside all alone being right, or give up our rights and go inside and take our place at a table full of reckless and righteous saints and scoundrels, brothers and sisters united only by our relationship to one loving father, who refuses to give us the love we deserve but cannot be prevented from giving us the love we need" (Taylor's sermon, "The Prodigal Father," is in The Preaching Life).
This is Laetare Sunday, the day we’re supposed to lighten up, not be so hard on ourselves, the day we begin with the word, “rejoice”. It’s the day we hear how hard it is to be good and righteous and accepting of those who aren’t. This is not an easy parable. One, because it is unfinished. And two, because it’s about all of us. Every great parable always leaves us with a question. Today’s challenge is not “do we forgive our “ne’er-do-well siblings” when they come home (as we usually preach this story); it’s much tougher than that. Do we forgive our Father-even when he’s not fair? Are we willing to come into the house, even when there are people that we don’t believe belong there? Can we believe in a God that doesn’t reward the good or punish the bad? In other words, can we live in a faith where God treats us like we treat our own children-loving them, welcoming them, begging them to come home-especially when they don’t deserve it? That’s why this parable is still unfinished. Everyone has wanted to run away from home one time or another, Jesus is asking us how badly do we want to come back in the house. Amen.