October 2, 2005 - 20th Sunday After Pentecost - Father Andrew Green

FIRST READING: Isaiah 5:1-7
PSALM: 80: 7-14
SECOND READING: Philippians 3: 4b-14
GOSPEL: Matthew 21: 33-46

This is an interesting combination of lessons, and it is one that doesn't help me as a preacher to do the things that I know people really want when they come to Church. Most people, when they come to Church, are looking for some comfort, or maybe some guidance. They are looking to be connected with God in a new way, and I have to tell you that, when we have this Gospel, in particular, and the reading from Isaiah, where there is going to be devastating stuff in the vineyard, and the stone is going to crush anybody it falls on, and anybody who trips over it will be destroyed, it is not necessarily going to be quite as comforting a day as you might have planned! In fact, when I think about this, the vineyard in Isaiah is different than the vineyard in Matthew. I guess maybe it's the same vineyard, but it's a different point. It is almost as if somebody went and googled vineyard in the Bible and decided that we were going to have these two together today, because they both are about the vineyard.

But, nevertheless, that is the task.

In Isaiah, we have the vineyard, which is Israel (and, indeed, the vineyard is still Israel in the Gospel), but, in this one, God is evidently not pleased with how the people of Israel have responded to all that God has done for them, in that they have not brought forth fruit worthy of God's vineyard. So, in Isaiah, God says that he is going to let the vineyard go back to nature, and that He will knock down the hedge and let the wild animals devastate it.

In Matthew, Jesus has a different challenge. Jesus is talking to the religious leaders. This is on the evening of Palm Sunday. Jesus has cleansed the Temple, and He is within five days of being handed over to the authorities to be crucified. So, He is kind of letting His hair down a little bit and giving it to them right between the eyes. He is talking to them and letting them know that the vineyard, which is Israel, who are the People of God, has not been well-served by their leaders. Those leaders were given, by God, a trust. They were invited by God to be stewards, to care for the people of Israel, and to lead them into providing the produce that God desires.

Now, there are two very different scenarios here. In the first one, the vineyard isn't productive. Nothing is coming out, and there is no produce to speak of. But, in the second story, in Jesus' story, there is plenty of produce, evidently, but we have folks who are in leadership positions, the tenant farmers, who really don't understand the contract; and they have decided, after they see the harvest, that they don't like the contract that they made before. So, that is some of the difference here: One, there is no produce, and it's all gone; the other, there is produce, but they don't want to share it.

Now, I got you all excited that this was going to be a really nasty one for you as parishioners, but, if you think about it, it is really nasty for us leaders (later, I will tell you how you are leaders, too). It is really nasty for us leaders, because the people who are being held responsible are the people who are the kings, and the priests, and the prophets, and the Pharisees, and the Scribes, and all of those whom the people look to for guidance, and they are not doing it.

I think, at the heart, there is a wrong orientation that these leaders have that is being brought out by this particular parable. The tenant farmers are renters, which is an honorable kind of institution. People who have land can't farm it all, so they let people rent it. Those people are able to make their own living. They are able to keep some of it, but most of it goes back to the person who owns the land. O.K.? I mean, we all know of those kinds of circumstances. Sometimes, they are more fairly negotiated, and, sometimes, they are not quite as fairly negotiated. But it is a pretty commonplace thing. Now, being a renter isn't all it is cracked up to be. I have just moved out of that rank in the last three months, and Mother Stephanie has just moved out in the last four days, from the ranks of renters, to being owners. That is what is happening in this Gospel, too. These tenant farmers are not liking the idea that they are renters who have a responsibility to the owner to turn over the produce to them, and they have decided that they want an ownership stake in the vineyard. They have decided that it should all be theirs. Can you hear their arguments? "After all, we are the ones that did the work. We are the ones who, by the sweat of our brows, bore the brunt of all of the heat of the day. We are the ones who should be compensated for this, not that lazy landowner in another country". Right? So they decided, "We'll get rid of the messengers. We'll kill them". And then, finally, he sends his son, and they say, "Oh! If we can knock off the son, it will all be ours!"

Well, like a lot of folks who are kind of changing the game in the middle, they hadn't quite thought it through. One of the reasons the owner is in another country is because he has lots of other farms, and he has lots of other people who are now going to come and crush them and destroy the leaders and turn it over to others who will do a better job of caring for the land and providing the owner with what is his.

Now, this is an important thing to understand. Some people have taken this passage and used it, because of the obvious connections between the prophets and the crucifixion of Jesus, as a story that tells us why Christians superceded the Jews, and that, as a result of their turning their backs on Jesus, God has decided to kind of wipe out that group and put in place another group. That is not what this particular Scripture says, even if people try to tell you it is, but there are other reasons to believe that that is not the case, in any event. Did you read in Philippians here, where Paul is describing to a group of non-Jewish Christians his credentials? His credentials are that he is a Jew, that he is a Pharisee, and that he has done everything that will be required to be a faithful person in that faith. If you turn to Acts 15, you will find that, at an apostolic council, they list in attendance Pharisees at the apostolic council. Note; they don't list "former Pharisees, now Christians, who got out just in time"; they list "Pharisees". Somebody pointed out after the 8:00 service that somebody had always told them that Christianity was just a Jewish sect, and, for the first couple of hundred years, it was really pretty hard to determine the difference between Christians and Jews for people outside of the faith.

Here is the deal. The leaders decided that they were owners. The leaders decided that, instead of being responsible to the landowner, they could make their own rules, and this creates some problems.

If we look at the world that is around us, indeed, as a gift from God, one that God has invited us to share in, but one in which God has given us a particular stewardship to care for that world, I think we might understand it better. God has given us, literally, everything that we need for life and has asked us to care for it in a particular way, and to bring forth fruit. What is the fruit that God has asked for us to bring forth? It is really pretty simple, and you can go to the Old Testament and get it. It is in the Book of Micah, and it says, "What does the Lord require? That you do justice, love mercy, and walk humbly with your God". That is the fruit that, in Isaiah, is not coming out of Israel. Read the last line of the Old Testament reading. God wanted justice, but all he heard was a cry - a cry for help by the people who were being treated unjustly.

We are given the same challenge. God has put a world here for us and has put a Church here for us, and desires that we do justice, love mercy, and walk humbly with God, but it has always been a tough row to hoe. Jesus did that, because Jesus understood that justice meant not turning on people who didn't do things exactly the way everybody else did. He understood that justice was inviting people in who were otherwise cut off, and that when people don't do everything exactly right, maybe mercy is the way that we reach out to them and bring them back, not by telling them, "Well, you crossed the line; you're gone!"

That is the challenge that Jesus has for us. When you are tenants, and when you know that you have someone to whom you must give an account, it is easier to work at giving that account in terms of justice, mercy, and worship. But, if you have decided that you are an owner - "I earned everything I have! It is my sweat that has provided me with my clothes, my house, my car, and everything else; and even the check that I put in the plate comes from the hard work that I do!" - it is easier to understand how someone in that boat might, all of a sudden, start looking at other people and saying, "Hmm, they really aren't measuring up. I don't know if I want to be associated with them. I don't think they ought to be allowed in my Church". All of a sudden, I have moved from being a steward, who is caring for something that belongs to God, to "I am protecting my own stuff".

Paul wrestled with these same things. I have to tell you that, in that passage in Philippians, is one of the most beautiful statements of faith that any of us could ever read, but Paul talks about it in this way. He says, "I press on for the goal". I like that imagery. Instead of working out your salvation with fear and trembling, works righteousness, and everything else, I am pressing on; I am moving forward; I am keeping after it. "I am pressing on to make the goal my own", Paul tells us. Why? Because Christ Jesus has already made me His own.

Think about that, as if that was our motto as a Church. Here at St. Paul in the Desert, we press on to make the goal our own, because Christ Jesus has already made us His own. He has already made all those other people His own. We are in this together, working for Christ, because we are stewards. We are renters who are all required to give an account to God, and we are not owners, whom somebody else has to give an account to.

Now, as I said, and as Stephanie pointed out to me, you guys are not off the hook just because you are not wearing a funny collar! Well, O.K., there are a few of you out there who are wearing funny collars! But all of us are on the hook, because God has invited all of us into leadership. God has invited all of us to be stewards of the Good News of salvation. God has invited every one of us to understand that goal we are pressing on to make our own, so that other people can hear about it, too. God has invited every single one of us here to share together, to offer to God the produce of justice, mercy, and grateful, joyful worship. That is the gift that Paul gives us in his letter today, and I think that is something that we can take home and not be worried about the stone crushing us, or about tripping over it and being destroyed, or about hogs rooting through the vines. We can press on - press on today, with justice, mercy, and joyful worship.

AMEN