Such an uplifting message from Jesus in today’s Gospel right?
I promise to break that reading open in a bit, but to get there we need to begin with the poetry of the prophet Isaiah.
This story of the vineyard has been interpreted and reinterpreted many times over the generations. It began as a poem to lovemaking gone array and along the way has been used and reused to make a variety of points, probably most famously as the basis of Jesus’ Parable of the wicked tenants and most recently as the lyrics to a Sinead O’Connor song. It has meant a lot of things to a lot of people…..but today what really jumps out at me is the final verse:
God looked for justice, but found bloodshed; for righteousness but found only a cry of suffering .
God looks for justice but instead finds bloodshed, God looks for righteousness yet only finds suffering.
Phew.
This could have been written last week, right?
Perhaps you all are tired of hearing it, of living it. I know I am. More people shot, more children separated from their parents, more hate-filled speech screaming at us from the airwaves, the internet, the newspaper….and sadly sometimes our own minds. How often…how often does God look upon this part of Creation, expecting to see the Divine dream, only to find a human-made nightmare? To find righteousness, only to hear cries of suffering?
How often do we?
It's so unrelenting, the horrors we inflict upon one another, that my heart rises to my throat each time a news alert flashes on my phone with the words shooter or gunman, or wounded and dead. I’m enraged that black teens are targeted for being alive, that migrants, fleeing for their very lives, are rounded up
like the Jews of Germany and Poland in 1940 , where people shopping, dancing, listening, praying or learning are assassinated by young white American men who’ve been given free rein to hate. My breath catches, my heart races, my head throbs, my soul hurts and I lament, “how long Lord, how long?”
Oh how I wish I could just turn it over to God. How I wish I could get by with thoughts and prayers. How I wish a well-written rant on social media would relieve that pain. How I wish all my thoughts, all my prayers and all my turning this over to God would be all it takes.
But those are in and of themselves, incomplete actions.
God made humanity an ongoing, always unfolding, ever-changing creation. A creation that is not finished.
A creation that requires participation. Action. Intention.
A creation imagined and invoked by a God who created us to be partners in the ongoing work of this thing called life.
And this task given to us, this holy and sacred and above all else necessary, vital and urgent task —-is not easy.
It’s not easy at all.
It requires bravery, endurance, commitment, willingness, courage, faithfulness and strength.
It even requires us to stand tall against those we love. To turn away from those we love but whose views and rhetoric we can no longer tolerate. It requires us to say—out loud—-that which may hurt and anger others. It requires us to step up and speak out when our own lives, our own livelihoods, and maybe even our own safety is at risk. It requires much of what was just read to us from Luke’s Gospel. It requires a revolution.
My friends, to follow the way of light and love, to follow the teaching of the prophets, from Isaiah to Jesus, to Martin Luther King, to Maya, to Toni, to those whose voices are crying out now, but to whom we are not listening, to follow that way, the way of God,the way deep into the dream of our Creator, we must take risks. There’s no time to spare, for our world in general and our country most specifically is spinning out of control—the base needs and wants of the forces of darkness at play are winning and it is up to us…each and every single one of us sitting here today to light a fire upon the earth, to say that which is uncomfortable to stand for that which is frightening, to turn away from the darkness, the evil and the hate and turn toward the light and the good and the love. And when we turn away from the dark and walk into the light we must—-and I mean this with every fiber of my being—we must spread this light to every corner of our lives, no longer worrying if it will tick off our boss, or our parent, or our neighbor, or our spouse or our children or our priest, or our Bishop or our very selves—-to spread this light, this goodness this love—-means risking everything—-our comfort, our 401K’s, our relationships , it means picking up the cup Jesus chose, and taking a long deep drink of revolution. The peace of this world will only be achieved when the horror of this world, the horror of this country, the horror of our lives is overcome by, defeated by, disintegrated by, obliterated by us.
Our thoughts, sure, our prayers, yes, but above all else, by our deeds.
It’s time to do the work we’ve been given to do. It’s time to turn away from those who live in darkness, who spew hatred, who live only for themselves. It’s time to see more clearly, love more dearly, follow more nearly,
I’m talking about a revolution, the revolution of Jesus, the revolution of Ghandi, the revolution of Martin, the revolution of Toni., the revolution of light. Of love, of God. I’m talkin bout a revolution. God expects it, our world needs it and You and I can — we must— lead it.
I’m talkin bout a revolution.
Amen.
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