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This sermon
has been significantly influenced by two contributors to the Text This Week (textweek.org)
commentary website: David Lose from workingpreacher.org and “Two Bubbas and a
Bible” from lectionarylab.blogspot.com Thanks to them for their always
thought-provoking commentary.
+Sometimes you have to squeeze a scripture reading until the gospel leaks out . This remark, attributed to Martin Luther, certainly fits with today’s reading from Matthew. At this stage of our church year, we hear lots of parables, many difficult to read, to hear and to preach! We’re heading into the home stretch of the lectionary and in our readings the rest of the way, Jesus’ time is running short and his patience with BOTH his followers and his detractors is running thin.
The parable uses today’s Isaiah reading—known in ancient Israel as The Song of the Vineyard-- as a jumping off point. In it God is the landowner and we, God’s beloved, are the vines---God tends to us and we, in response, produce delicious, pleasing fruit. But then the parable shifts, with Jesus reporting that the vines don’t produce as God had hoped. Instead of good and pleasing fruit, the vines—we—produce wild grapes, untamed, unsuitable for making good wine. God looks the situation over and says, “Well, I did the best I could. I’ve done all I can. I can’t pour good money after bad. I’m going to abandon the whole thing and find someplace else where I can be more productive.”
God abandoning God’s people? God giving up on…..us? Where’s the Good News in that?
Like Luther said, sometimes we have to squeeze our scripture to get the gospel—the good news—out.
Remember, all scripture, while divinely inspired, was written at a specific time and focused on a specific audience. The context of our scripture readings is important.
Matthew was writing in a time of great turmoil. The Jerusalem Temple had been destroyed and the Jews needed to re-invent themselves. How could they move forward without the unifying symbol of their Temple? Of THE temple . Furthermore, he and his followers believed the Jesus sect was and should remain a part of Judaism while many other followers of Jesus were breaking away from Judaism altogether. Put all of this under the shadow of the looming, ever dangerous Roman Empire and you had a period of time---roughly 80 BCE-- when the world Matthew knew was disappearing before his very eyes.
It could be easy, in such a situation, to feel abandoned by God, to feel forgotten. So, it’s understandable that the Jesus Matthew portrays is angry at the Temple Leaders, frustrated with the status quo and easily ticked off with the seemingly increasing ignorance of his followers. Matthew was cranky and hence, so was the Jesus of his Gospel.
In today’s parable of the wicked tenants, Jesus begins with a version of the familiar Isaiah vineyard story but, around verse 33, he changes direction and tone. The landowner—God (remember this parable is an allegory, each and every character, landowner, tenants, servants…is representative of someone else)—has trusted the vineyard—God’s creation---to tenants— to us. When it comes time to check out the progress of the vineyard, the owner sends servants/messengers-- the prophets—to check on things. …to collect rent—to see what they –what we--have done with the vineyard—with the creation given over to their to our care.
Of course then the tenants, --us--do an astoundingly cruel and stupid thing: they—we-- beat one of the servants and kill the other.
Yet the owner—God-- being either amazingly tolerant or intensely stupid, sends more servants who get beaten and killed. So then the owner, thinking for sure this will convince the tenants to do the right thing---sends his son….
And sure enough, the tenants beat and kill the son.
Jesus then stops telling the story, looks at his hearers and asks them to finish it.
What should the owner do with those tenants who killed his messengers, who killed his son? “Simple,” the people say, “he’d come with an army and kill the bad tenants and give the vineyard to good tenants.”
Right you are, Jesus says. “And the Kingdom of God, the true vineyard of the Lord, will be taken away from you!” oops. I bet they didn’t see THAT coming.
Remember, parables are tricky, they say a lot and each time we hear them, we’ll hear more, or at least we’ll hear different, because who we were when we last heard this story, isn’t who we are today.
This is where we have to squeeze the words a bit, so we can release the message of Good News.
The true vineyard of God will be taken from us? We’ll be abandoned? We’ll be rejected?
Well yes. And no.
You see the true vineyard---living as the beloved children of God we are, accepting that God is always with us, always providing for us, always ready to help us---is something we abandon, something we let go of, something we reject.
When we forget that all we have is from God, when we try to finagle a way to horde it, sure that if we aren’t clever it will be taken from us; breaks us….we lose our way, we literally fall apart:
As The Rev. Dr. Delmer L. Chilton says:
The Word of God is a powerful stone, it pounds on our hearts, shatters our ego and self-serving pride; leaving us to pick up the pieces and make something altogether new…
As Jesus says in verse 44 “The one who falls on this stone will be broken to pieces . . .”
But –and here’s the Good News— in that very brokenness is the opportunity for new life. You see, the Word of God not only breaks us, it also heals us. Once we have come face to face with the honest truth about ourselves—that we are the one’s who reject God, not the other way around—only then are we able to receive, to accept and to hold onto the good news about God and God’s undying love for us in Christ.
When we really squeeze the Word as found in scripture we discover this Gospel truth: God doesn’t reject, God doesn’t abandon, God doesn’t run away.
We do. God just waits, patiently and lovingly until we realize that the only fruit worth bearing, the only vine worth tending is the one that keeps us firmly rooted in and connected to our landowner: God.
Amen.
