Proper 22, Year A
Isaiah 5:1-7; Psalm 80: 7-14; Philippians 3:4b-14; Matthew 21:33-46
Almighty and everlasting God, you are always more ready to hear than we to pray, and to give more than we either desire or deserve: Pour upon us the abundance of your mercy, forgiving us those things of which our conscience is afraid, and giving us those good things for which we are not worthy to ask, except through the merits and mediation of Jesus Christ our Savior; who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, for ever and ever. Amen.
Once upon a time, a little suburban
church decided to build a community garden. They were proud of their abundant
and fertile and well-located property, and they had great gardening skills, so
they created their garden with care and precision. They chose a lovely site
with just the right exposure to sunlight. They wanted the garden to be close to
the church, so that it could be at the center of their ministries, and so that
it would have access to abundant water. They dug gracious beds by the sweat of
their brows and carefully added the fertilizer that would produce abundant
yields. They even built a little pergola with a few benches inside, a shelter where
visitors could pray and find shade on a hot summer day. Then they invited
neighbors to come and share in their garden. They gave them free plots of fine land
to plant and develop. Their priest was
proud of the parish’s generosity and their hard work, and the parishioners felt
good about themselves. What a fertile spring it was, full of love and growth!
But do you know what those neighbors
did? Those neighbors who were given such a great gift? When the summer heat
bore down, some of them stopped caring for their plots. They let the gorgeous vines
droop and wilt, and they let the weeds take over the soil. The garden looked
just awful! To add insult to injury, some of the neighbors came in and stole
the harvest from the church’s plot, too! Just stripped those zucchini and
tomato plants bare! What lazy and ungrateful neighbors! The church members
fumed. The rector was incensed. How dare people mess up this great parish
program! How dare people dishonor their land and their work!
Tell me, what should those church
members do to those bad neighbors?
Before we decide,
let’s take a closer look at the two stories that Scripture gives us today about
gardens. Usually, when we read both of these stories, we assume that they are
all about Israel. In Isaiah, and in much
of Hebrew Scripture, vineyards stand for God’s chosen people, Israel. God
lavishes love and care on Israel, but the people do not turn out to be very
worthy fruit. Instead of producing glorious wine, the vineyard of God’s people
produces rotten, diseased grapes: grapes of injustice and greed. So God
destroys God’s disappointing work. Isaiah wants the leaders of Israel to hear
this story and to see themselves in the bad fruit. He wants them to change
their ways and to follow God’s commands and to love their neighbors as
themselves.
And then
Matthew clearly builds on Isaiah’s image, right? This time, Israel is not the
vineyard itself but the cruel and obtuse stewards of the vineyard. The Jews,
led by the scribes and the Pharisees, refuse to recognize and honor God’s
messengers the prophets, and especially God’s Son, Jesus. Matthew wants
Christians to see themselves as the new tenants of God’s vineyard and to judge
the errant tenants whom they have replaced.
But Jesus’
stories are always more than lessons for other people. Jesus wants his stories
to speak to our hearts, today, right
now. Despite Matthew’s take on this story, I don’t think that Jesus just wants
to pat us Christians on the back with this parable. First of all, I think that
Jesus wants us to hear, once again, about the amazing love, grace, and
generosity of our God. Just as we lavish care on making our garden, God
lavishes care on every corner of creation. God constantly pours loving energy
into every flower, every creature, just like the sun shines light down into
every living thing, just like the wind caresses the whole world into motion. To
me, the blessing of St. Francis Day, the feast that we celebrate this afternoon
as we bless our pets, is that St. Francis calls on us to see God’s amazing love
in all of creation. Our animal blessings are the recognition that our love for
our pets, and their unconditional love for us, is a mirror of the unconditional
love that flows between God and the whole creation. We don’t really “own” our
pets. They are vulnerable creatures, entrusted to our care by their Creator. When
we care for our animals, and when we lovingly build a garden, we are sharing in
something holy and precious to God. We are sharing in the joy of God’s
life-giving Love.
Oh, but the tenants in Jesus’
parable, these stewards of God’s vineyard. What about them? Clearly, they are
violent and cruel. When you heard the parable, you immediately condemned them,
didn’t you? I sure did. We condemn the bad tenants because of their insolence,
because of their violence, because they don’t respect the owner of the
vineyard whose land they work. Where do they get the idea that they are going
to get an inheritance by killing the son, anyway? They don’t own that land.
They aren’t sons of the landlord. There is no way that they are going to
inherit that vineyard. Their sense of entitlement is so great, their
covetousness so overpowering, that they begin to see themselves as owning the
land that is merely given into their care.[1]
In the same way, when you heard my
story about the community garden, you probably condemned the lazy, ornery neighbors,
too, didn’t you? The church should throw them out, right? They
should close off that garden. No more sharing with these good-for-nothing
neighbors. The church should put a tall fence around their garden, with a big
lock on it, and they should post a big “no trespassing” sign. If you come back,
we’re calling in a lawyer to judge between us, we might well shout!
Oh, but wait a minute—If Jesus’
parable calls the tenants to account in the name of the landlord, who does my
parable call to account? In my parable, we church members are the landowners,
not the tenants! And yet, in the light of scripture, we are not really the
landowners, either, are we? We might have started to see ourselves that way, but
our Church is Jesus’ Church. Our land is God’s land. We are supposed to care
for it, but are we supposed to lock it away? Where does wise stewardship end,
and life-killing possessiveness begin? How often do we forgive our neighbors
for their trespasses? Wasn’t it something like seven times seventy times? How
does that square with “No Trespassing!” signs? How often do we pour ourselves
out into the community around us before we expect anything in return?
It is so easy, isn’t it, to see the
work that we do as a church as “our work?” And to want to control it? Believe
me, it is especially tempting for priests to see it that way, but I think that
it is a temptation for all of us. When we give of our income and of our time
and talent to the parish, we are giving up part of ourselves to this larger
body that we love and see as an extension of our families. The harder we work
to make good things happen here, the easier it is to “take ownership” of our
work. That’s what we ask for in leadership, isn’t it? Stepping up and taking
ownership? When we invite others to use our buildings—to have parties in our
fellowship hall or to hold meetings in our community building—we kind of feel
like they owe us something, right? Maybe not money, but at least respect and a
helping hand? It’s the same for our sports fields, right, or for our eventual
garden?
If only Jesus didn’t keep messing
with our idea of ownership, turning everything upside down, making the first last
and the last first. If only it didn’t keep sounding as if it is OK not to be in
total control. If only cornerstones could look like cornerstones. If only power
weren’t condemned, and humility raised up.
In my parable, I bet that little church
decided not to close down the garden. I bet they even sent their children over to
meet with the lazy neighbors, offering them cold sodas and buckets of ice cream.
I bet the children would have offered to dig weeds with them, to get to know them
and to find out how the church could help them to take better care of their plots.
I bet that’s what Jesus would have done, anyway.
Before you
decide this month what you are going to pledge to St. Thomas, before you decide
in which areas you want to serve, before you decide how you want to give of all
of your gifts, I hope that we can remember two things. I hope that we can
remember the joy of generous creation: how good it feels to join the divine
creativity by pouring oneself into a generative project like a garden, or a
painting, or an act of charity, without expecting anything in return. And I
hope that we can remember that we are mere tenants on this earth, here to serve
and preserve what belongs only to God. We are heirs only through God’s Son. Our
church, our land, our lives, our projects, and the outcome of our creative
efforts belong to God. St. Francis of Assisi directs us today back to our
Gospel lesson with his words:
Brothers, look at
the humility of God,
and pour out your hearts before Him!
Humble yourselves
that you may be exalted by Him!
Hold back nothing of yourselves for yourselves,
that He Who gives Himself totally to you
may receive you totally![2]
and pour out your hearts before Him!
Humble yourselves
that you may be exalted by Him!
Hold back nothing of yourselves for yourselves,
that He Who gives Himself totally to you
may receive you totally![2]
[1]
Bernard Brandon Scott, Hear Then the Parable
(Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 1990), 251.
[2]
St. Francis of Assisi, “A Letter to the Entire Order,” quoted in http://paintedprayerbook.com/2008/10/04/feast-of-st-francis/#.VC7Cu1f6-Hk
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