October 2, 2005 at St Mark Church in Norman, OK
Isaiah 5:1-7 + Philippians 4: 6- + Matthew 21: 33-43
There is no sitting back and pointing the finger of blame and shame allowed here.
This Gospel is not about “them.” If this is the living Word of God, then it is as fresh today as it was on the lips of Jesus. He has just entered Jerusalem in triumph,
entered the temple and “purified” it. The blind and the lame come to him, and children are singing his praises. The comfortable, the secure, the people who have it made and want the status quo to be secure are enraged. Then, he tells a story of man with two sons which you heard last week followed by the one we hear today just in case they don’t get the point. Finally, as if this were not spoken plainly enough, wait till you hear next week’s parable!
It always interests me to notice the location, the place where things are said and done in the Gospels. I believe that an evangelist who goes to the trouble to indicate a place
does so because it is part of the message. This story and those before and after it are told within Jerusalem. Jesus has gone to the heart and center of these people’s lives. Now it is being spoken again, in this church. We are brought face to face with a challenge
to exceed the righteousness of the scribes and Pharisees, and we are facing it in here, together, around the Table of the Lord, just a week before another parable about guests at a wedding feast! We can’t afford to miss the point. Everything we are, and everything we have is at stake here. There is a sense of urgency here. We do not have the luxury of gloating over the plight of the original tenants.
Two weeks ago, we heard a call to get out of the marketplace and into the vineyard.
Those of us who have made the effort and the journey from one place to the other
now realize that we have something to do here, and the owner of the vineyard expects a portion of the harvest we produce. The trouble is too many think this vineyard is theirs,
that they’ve earned it, and have forgotten that God might expect a little more from us than the latest model car, and the biggest flat screen tv or I-pod. The young people who sit here might also pay attention to this parable and consider what it is they are dreaming of and working for in school: a higher paying job so they can have more stuff,
more pleasure, and more friends, more power? If that’s all life is about, we could learn a lesson from a Hurricane. All that stuff can be gone with the wind and the rain. Only those who have found something else in this vineyard survive such loss.
The question is: are we a people who produce the fruits of the kingdom? Good fruit as illustrated throughout the Gospel consists of radical obedience to God; sincere repentance that leads to changes in heart, in words, and in works. Good fruit comes from a willingness to be salt, light, and servant; to be an untiring champion of the poor, the marginalized, like Jesus in the Temple who paid no attention to those secure in their power while the blind and the lame crowded around and got the blessing of his attention. They had nothing to give him, but acknowledgement of his identity
from an awareness of who was in their midst.
He is still in our midst, and we still have time to get it right – at least we have this hour
and if God will be patient we will have another. If we understand Paul correctly today, this is not call to begin to worry and be anxious. It is an invitation to live true and honorably; justly and purely, graciously and in peace.
The other day I was watching the children on the playground at school. They have no worries and they anxious about nothing. We have not taught them that yet. They trust and believe that someone loves them, that someone will come for them at the end of the day, that there will be supper, clean clothes, and that they will be safe. Perhaps this is what he meant when Jesus suggested that we become like little children.
For those who are faithful in the vineyard, for those whose lives here produce something for the Kingdom of God, the prophet will sing again, and the choicest vines we have been given on this fertile hillside will produce not sour wild grapes,but the finest wine, saved till last for the wedding feast to come.