Sermon Notes for October 8, 2017
Read Matthew 21:33-46, where a man deals with the tenants in his vineyard.We find ourselves in the vineyard again today. Have you noticed that we spend a lot of time in vineyards in the Bible?
Vineyards are a hopeful metaphor a lot of the time. When Noah gets to dry land the first thing he does after God makes a covenant with him is to plant a vineyard. The text doesn't even tell us he built a house, but that vineyard was his first priority. Why is this a hopeful sign? Because it takes a long time to establish a vineyard. Most of them take at least three years before you even begin to get fruit.
So when you read about planting "vineyards" in the Bible, it means "Now we are finding enough peace, stability and hope to work for the long haul." For immediate needs you plant wheat and pray, "Give us this day our daily bread." But when people are longing, hoping and dreaming, whether in the wilderness of Sinai, exile in Babylon, or in the midst of drought, the prophets tell them: "You will plant vineyards again. There will be new wine. We can believe in the future."
Vineyards are used to talk about being productive and producing good fruits. And they are also used to talk about good owners and bad ones, good workers and bad ones. The passage that Jesus is quoting in this parable is from the book of Isaiah.
I wonder how the tenants think they could possibly get away with their behavior. They had to know that eventually the landowner himself would return, with guards and the weight of the law on his side. They had to know that simply killing the son wouldn't get them anything but more trouble. But we never know their motivation, simply that they are crazy enough to think that killing people will result in getting everything for themselves.
But I think they aren't half so crazy as this landowner! Think about it. First he sends servants, and they're beaten, stoned, and killed. Then he sends more, not guards, mind you, or someone else who can defend themselves, just more servants, and unsurprisingly the same thing happens again.So where does the bright idea come from to send his son, his heir, alone, to treat with these proven killers? It's absolutely crazy. Who would do such a thing?
No one. Except this landlord who is so desperate to be in relationship with these tenants that he will do anything, risk anything, to reach out of them. This landowner acts more like a desperate parent, willing to do or say or try anything to reach out to a beloved and wayward child, than he does a businessman. It's crazy, the kind of crazy that comes from being in love.
The violence in this passage doesn't come from an angry and vengeful God. No, all of the violence comes from the tenants. The humans who are greedy to get more. It's interesting to note that Jesus never says that God is going to harm anyone. He asks "what will the owner do to those tenants?" They listeners said to him, "He will put those wretches to a miserable death, and lease the vineyard to other tenants who will give him the produce at the harvest time."
Jesus says nothing about death, but instead asserts that, "The Kingdom of God will be taken away from you." He later changes the metaphor to the cornerstone that the builders rejected from the Psalms, and says "those who fall upon the stone will be broken by it." To me this implies not a violent and vengeful God, but rather that injustice contains the seeds of its own destruction. Live by the sword, die by the sword.
"What will the landlord do when he comes?" Jesus asks, and all they can imagine is violence: "He will put those wretches to a miserable death." The listeners condemn themselves. That's part of Matthew's narrative strategy, I suspect, to have his opponents voice their own condemnation.
And yet it invites us who are reading this parable to consider a different question: not what will that landlord do, but what did that landlord do. And to that question we have Jesus' own answer: the landowner sent his son, Jesus, to treat with all of us who have hoarded God's blessings for ourselves and not given God God's own due. And when we killed him, God raised him the dead, and sent him back to us yet one more time, still bearing the message of God's desperate, crazy love.
What comes across as a parable about violence and vengeance for those who do not care for what they are given, can actually be read as a story about the vastness of the grace of God, who continues to reach out us even when we know we deserve condemnation.
Yes, the parable Jesus offers now offers an extreme image. And yet, it is also so for you and for me. We have to remember that we are simply 'tenants' here. We teach that everything comes from God, and therefore everything we think we 'own' are just on loan to us. These homes, the land, jobs, congregations, children, spouses, communities — even our very bodies — were created by God and given to us for this little span of time on earth that we might be fruitful and enjoy our lives.
And yet, how often do we behave as though it all 'belongs to me?' How often do we live as though we are tenants of what God has given us, caring for our lives as though someone else will hold us accountable for them? How often do we offer gratitude for the things we have been given?
This parable comes directly after last week's text. Jesus is still responding to the chief priests who "By what authority are you doing these things, and who gave you this authority?" Because in their minds, the authority is theirs and he is acting like it is his. The priests have forgotten that all things come from God.
So Jesus is changing the question. Because ultimately, the question is not where or how he got his authority. The question is what role Jesus will play in their lives. Will he become the stumbling block that trips them up and leaves them face down on the ground? Or will he become the cornerstone on which they will build their lives?
This is the question for us as well. What role will Jesus play in our lives? Will he be a source of stumbling for us? An irritation that we can neither understand or embrace? Or will he become the cornerstone on which we will build our lives? Will we remember that we are only tenants here, caring for the world that God has given us.
This is a hard passage at first, hard to read and hard to figure out where we fit. But while it may not seem like it at first, it is also a life-giving word. You and I are here because of God's generosity and God's tender care. God planted the vineyard. And put in the fence. And the wine press. And the watch tower. God has given us all that we need. All we are asked to do is remember that. It is God's Vineyard. It is all gift, because God so desperately wants to be in relationship with us.
So when the servants come, when opportunities arise to reach out to another, to speak up for another, to help another, rather than hoarding what we have, let us offer back freely to the God who has given us everything.
Amen
