Sermon for the 19th Sunday after Pentecost
How is our vineyard?
By The Rev. Christie Webb -
You know, I often love parables, but this one Jesus tells today had me deep in the weeds.
Parables are such a gift. Ancient wisdom given to our ancestors. Full of treasures as good as gold, maybe even better. But sometimes it feels like parables are shut away in a box, and sometimes that box opens for you. And other times… it doesn’t. Often when that happens I simply let the parable be. But, I feel like my work this past week has been to take out every tool I could find to pry open the box, and try to figure out what it all can mean.
And once I dug through the weeds. Once I cleared away all the wild grapes. With a clarity I hadn’t expected, what came to me as the heart of this parable was that question: How is the vineyard you are tending?
For you see, I don’t think the point is to gloat about who got it wrong in the past. This parable has been used that way in history, used to condemn of Jewish siblings in humanity, to terrible destructive ends, remembering the Holocaust. Nothing of God is meant for such horrible things.
And I don’t think the point is to strike fear in us of a vengeful God, because that isn’t who God shows God’s self to be, not even in this passage. Consider it with me. The story is told of the vineyard, and the tenants who grew things in that vineyard, and the servants who were sent to collect the portion belonging to the owner, how they were killed, and another set sent, who were killed, and then finally the son was sent, and killed. Jesus asks the question: “Now when the owner of the vineyard comes, what will he do to those tenants?” The religious leaders response is one of expected vengeance: “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.” That answer isn’t Jesus’ answer. That answer is the answer of the religious leaders, the ones who are to know God and God’s ways so well as to be able to lead the people, care for the people, in the ways God would desire. But if their expectation is for death and vengeance, they can’t know God very well. It seems some wild grapes, sour ideas and understandings, have been growing in their vineyards.
I owe my clarity around that to God, but also the wisdom the book we are studying as a congregation, The Book of Forgiving. For you see, when harm is done, like would have been done to the landowner at the death of his son, or will be done to God at the death of his son Jesus, when harm is done, there is a moment of choice. One can choose the path of revenge, reacting to the pain with the choice to harm, moving to revenge and retaliation, which comes out as violent cruelty, causing its own hurt and harm and continuing the cycle. Or one can choose a different way, a way of healing where the story is told, the hurt is named, a new story is spoken, forgiveness is granted and renewing or releasing of relationship is possible. When you consider these two ways, which one is the way we know God to choose? The Forgiveness Cycle. Over and over again. Forgiveness. Forgiveness. Forgiveness.
Forgiveness doesn’t look like killing everyone and taking the land back. It looks like finding a new way forward, a new story. It looks like letting that death of that son be the foundation on which to usher in a new story, a story of resurrection and life. The stone that the builders rejected has become the cornerstone. This is the Lord's doing. It is amazing in our eyes.
So I don’t think the point is fear. I don’t think the point is gloating. I think the point is to witness some people get it wrong on their journey of faith, and choose not to make the same mistake ourselves. It invites us to become reflective, to consider our own vineyards, our own lives and communities that God has given us to tend and grow and produce fruit from. To consider if we are growing good fruit, or have a vineyard of wild grapes. To consider our attachment to the fruits of our lives, and if we want to snatch it all up, horde it as our own (my precious), keep it from the one who gave it to us in the first place, so much so that we are willing to kill those prophets or the son who comes on behalf of God. How is our vineyard? How can we grow more of the good fruit? How can we recognize all we have is a gift from God and give back to God with generosity and thanksgiving?
Today we celebrate the life and ministry of St. Francis, a person whose vineyard yielded good fruit that continues to give the gifts of God to the world. I think some of those gifts help us to do this work of tending to the vineyards God has entrusted us to tend. First, the gift of St. Francis is his love for all of creation, and his seeing all of creation as part of the kingdom of God, worthy of the good news of Christ Jesus. So much so that he is known to have preached to the birds. That speaks to me of the abundant love of God, and is the reason we welcome our beloved animals here today so we may share the good news of God’s love with them and bless them.
Another gift of St. Francis is his famous prayer, which we will sing in just a moment. As I read it to you now, in a way that we can savor it slowly, take it as a time to tend to your vineyard, consider where you can root out the wild grapes and instead sow the good gifts:
Lord, make me an instrument of your peace:
where there is hatred, let me sow love;
where there is injury, pardon;
where there is doubt, faith;
where there is despair, hope;
where there is darkness, light;
where there is sadness, joy.
O divine Master, grant that I may not so much seek
to be consoled as to console,
to be understood as to understand,
to be loved as to love.
For it is in giving that we receive,
it is in pardoning that we are pardoned,
and it is in dying that we are born to eternal life.
Amen.
Friends: how is your vineyard? May it be filled with love, pardon, faith, hope, light and joy. May the fruits of consolation, understanding, and love be abundant. May it be full of life eternal. Amen.
The Rev. Christie Webb
Pastor - Mt. Olive Lutheran Church
Santa Monica, California
Sermon for:
October 7 & 8, 2023
