Taking Care of the Vineyard: A Sermon for 19A Pentecost

This has been a hard week to get into writing a sermon based on the Gospel of Matthew. We just had our annual Fall Clergy Conference where I spent time getting ready for preaching the Gospel of Mark. And so my mind has been filled with lots of thoughts about Mark. And not as many thoughts about Matthew. I tried a little experimentation with my sermon which my loyal audience (aka my spouse) told me wasn't worth the effort. After tinkering some more, this is where I landed on discussing "vineyards." See if this works for you. 

+++

Texts: Ex. 20:1-4;7-9;12-20 and Matt 21:33-46

 

When I first sat down and read through this morning’s Gospel…I thought, “Wow! This is violent!”

I considered the message of the Ten Commandments we heard earlier.

These are basic rules or law.

All the people in this Gospel… and the community who heard this Gospel…would have known this law.

Presumably…we know this too…although Jesus did give us a simpler way to remember it as, “Love God with all your heart, all your soul, and all your mind, and you should love your neighbor as yourself.”  

And my next thought, “How quickly do we forget the basic rules of how to live and treat one another!”

This story…often called the Wicked Tenants… is telling the sad history of Israel…which isn’t that different than the tale of humanity today.

I think we can all figure out who is who…but just in case we need a refresher…the landowner is God.

God has this lovely vineyard…which in this case… we’re to understand as Israel. We might even broaden that thought to include the whole earth…but Matthew seems to be mostly interested in Israel.

This vineyard is producing fruit…good fruit.

The tenants in this story represent the stiff-necked Israelites who refused to listen to the prophets of the Old Testament.

The prophets in this case are the slaves in Jesus’ parable.

The books of the Old Testament are full of stories about how Israel failed to heed the prophet’s warnings to stick close to God.

That failure was often seen as the reason Israel found itself  conquered and exiled and occupied.

In this Gospel moment… the occupier is the Roman Empire.

We know that the landowner’s son is Jesus.

Because Matthew is writing post-resurrection, post-the second destruction of the temple in Jerusalem…Matthew has Jesus predicting his own fate in this squabble he’s having with the elders and the chief priests.

He even includes the fact that the son gets killed “outside” of the vineyard.

Jesus was killed outside Jerusalem.  

Jesus has been having a LOT of arguments with the religious authorities lately.

If you remember last week…the debate was over why the elders didn’t believe John the Baptist…and questioning by what authority is Jesus making trouble in the Jerusalem temple. 

As background: this chapter of Matthew starts with Jesus’ triumphant entry into the holy city… and then he goes into the Temple and starts flipping over tables and cursing fig trees.

This is a riled-up and ready to rumble Jesus.

Rumble with wit and words not weapons.

The elders, chief priests and later the Pharisees confront him…and this is when Jesus launches into parables that point to their shortcomings.

And he intentionally uses language that his challengers…and Matthew’s community… know very well.

He provokes them with his choice of imagery.

A vineyard that has a fence around it.

One of the common phrases used in rabbinic Judaism is “putting a fence around Torah” or “a fence around the law.”

What would the law be?

Well…it’s the commandments we heard.

Think about this vineyard then producing fruit.

The fruit is what comes from us. The seed of love planted in us with our baptism and watered through scripture and community gathering.

When we follow the very basic concept of loving God and loving our neighbor as ourselves…the vineyard produces beautiful and abundant fruit.

Love builds a better community.

This is an idea that would not have been foreign to the religious authorities engaged with Jesus in this scene.

So when the “tenants” refuse to let the landowner collect

the fruit of this vineyard…it’s an act of defiance and rejection.

They’re refusing to give back to the landowner the fruits. The fruits which have been nurtured by this vineyard.

Jesus quotes Psalm 118, a psalm celebrating God’s mercy that was sung at many a Jewish festival…about rejected stones becoming chief cornerstones.

This was his way of saying:

“Y’all have strayed from your roots…from those basic ideas of love God and love your neighbor. And because you have…don’t be surprised when you find tax collectors and prostitutes and everyone else you think of as the riff-raff occupying your seats.”

This is a harsh Gospel. Not just for them. But for us.

This parable speaks to the ways we can fail to recognize the gifts God has freely given to us…and our refusal to acknowledge and return that favor by giving ourselves back to God.

We can become possessive…greedy and exploitive of those gifts.

And at what cost to us?

 I’ve been thinking a lot about how this parable reflects the current crisis we’re in with our climate.

I listen to a lot of radio shows.

Many of the programs I’ve heard lately are asking the question, “Is it too late to save our planet?”

Everyone now seems to agree that human beings and fossil fuels are the main contributors to climate change.

Seriously, at the Smithsonian Museum of Natural History in DC…there’s a whole exhibit funded by the Koch Brothers…that shows the devastating impacts of humans and our industries have had on the planet.

Farmers are seeing firsthand that climate change affects their growing seasons…and the yields they’re getting at the harvest time.

Because storms are getting more intense… because droughts are happening more frequently… and wildfires are more prevalent…everyone’s insurance rates are on the rise…homeowners…businesses…churches.

So…the older generations are beginning to get antsy about all of this …while the younger generations are clamoring for something to happen right now to move away from fossil fuels and invest in cleaner energy sources.

And it gets me wondering about what our Christian response should be.  

If we truly believe the things we say in the church…if we believe that the earth is the Lord’s for God made it…that “all things come of thee…O Lord…and of thine own we have given thee”…then care for creation… “this fragile earth our island home”… must be a priority.

We only have a relatively short time on the planet.

We can either treat what we have here as a gift that we nurture and take care of…or we exploit and abuse the gift at our own peril.

The landowner in this parable and our planet are the examples of God’s selfless giving…and grace freely bestowed on us.

How we respond to that generosity is what Jesus is driving at in the parable.

God’s desire is for us to enjoy what we have…and live in peace and love for one another and all creation.

In turn…our response needs to be selfless gratitude and love for the gifts of God.

When we view all that is within us and around us as part of God… when we place God at the center and grounding for our lives…our focus shifts away from acting out of self-centeredness.

That’s true love which makes for a better and happier community.

In the name of God…F/S/HS.