Matthew 12, 1-8

This incident in Matthew’s Gospel is very troubling, and it is the first of two stories unfolding and revealing an important part of the Gospel’s Good News. The second story which comes right after these verses tells of Jesus curing a man with a withered hand in the Synagogue on Sabbath. It is as though Matthew wants to drive home the point. The Pharisees are growing more and more furious and impatient with Jesus. The rhetoric is heating up and the hostility can no longer be disguised as curiosity or interest. This man and his teaching are a direct challenge to their very way of life; he poses a threat to law and order.

Now there is a big difference between external and internal realities. We know this to be true, and we feel it sometimes when they get out synch or do not match up. It causes a lot of dis-ease in us. We like things to be in balance. “What you see is what you get.” This is comfortable and we like it to be so. We do not feel right when the way we look is not the way we feel, unless we are hiding something or living in denial. We do not trust or like to be around others who look good, but somehow do not seem to be good. Most of us like order and the predictability that it provides. We like rules. We make them all the time. We pride ourselves on being a nation that finds consistent stability in the “rule of law.” That is, of course, until that law is inconvenient. Then we begin looking and hoping for loop-holes. The Pharisees were the rule keepers and sometimes the rule makers. They were “church police” who went around teaching the rules and enforcing them. They liked the rules. It was for them, and for that matter, for everyone, the way to be perfect, to be saved, to be holy and to be identified as a good person and a Son of Abraham. The problem was that there were so many rules that hardly anyone who had a real job could keep track of them all; but never mind, the Pharisees could do that for you. Breaking the laws meant you were out. Keeping the laws meant you were in. There were 39 laws or rules about the Sabbath! Moses only had Ten Commandments, but the Pharisees have 39 laws about just one of the ten! This is serious rule inflation, and it was a serious matter that led to a lot of fear and guilt, judgment and probably way too much condemnation. The Joy of the Covenant established by the Commandments of Moses, which revealed so much about God, was reduced to a great deal of anxiety on the part of the people, because of power and threat, fear and control on the part of the Pharisees. Into this steps Jesus of Nazareth.

What the law actually forbids was harvesting on Sabbath. Now you look at this scene and wonder if picking a grain of wheat and chewing on it constitutes the harvest. This is ridiculous, we can say from this distance, but we are not caught up in this system. The Pharisees use the law as a means of judging and condemning others which has become for the people a heavy burden. The Pharisees judge people. It puts a burden of guilt upon the guiltless. Jesus comes along and his judgment is on actions, not people. He is about setting people free, forgiving sins of people who do not keep the rules as the Pharisees see them. This begins to raise an important question: what are the rules for? For Jesus, the law is to be used to establish one’s vocation, to discover what one should do in a specific circumstance in order to fulfill God’s Will. The law, as God intended it, was to help us know who we are and know what God asks of us. From the behavior of Jesus, time after time, and episode after episode, we see that all God wants is mercy.

Here is where the conflict arises between external and internal realities. Jesus did not approve of keeping the law when doing so brought one into conflict with God’s Will and God’s desire for mercy. The scriptures are full of those stories: the man left on the side of the road by robbers, the woman taken in adultery, the next story of a man with a withered hand. During that incident Jesus brings up the example of an ox falling into a pit on the Sabbath. An ox was essential to one’s life and livelihood. By leaving it in the pit, he risks losing the ox. It could die. Without the ox, the man could not cultivate the field and feed his family. Leave it in the pit because the law says so, or get it out. There is the external and internal conflict.

Jesus comes proclaiming mercy. When mercy and keeping the rules collide, which one informs our decision? This is what Matthew is working through at this point of his Gospel. It is an essential issue for the privileged disciples of Jesus. Superficial external compliance to the law makes one pleasing to God is what the Pharisees say. They are always making judgments, and their error is that they judge people instead of actions. Judgments, my friends, must be about acts, never about people. Mercy takes us completely out of the business of judgments which is external. Mercy, on the other hand, is an internal reality requiring a new attitude of mind and heart. It looks to the person not to the rule. Eleos is the Greek word for mercy. It is the same word for “compassion.” Eleos means looking kindly on the sufferings of others. This is exactly what God is, Mercy. God looked upon the misery of our separation from God, saw our sin and its consequences, and sent His only son to become like us, to suffer with us (com-passion), and lift us up into his mercy.

The purpose of the Law was to restore the relationship between God and Man that had been broken by sin. What is revealed in these verses is that Jesus is the new Law. It is Jesus who restores the relationship between God and Man. This is what he means when he says: I have not come to abolish the law, but to fulfill the law. The Temple, until the time of Christ, was the place on earth where the human and the divine met to commune. Now they meet in Jesus Christ. “There is something greater than the Temple here,” he says to them. But they like it the old way. They do not want to think about mercy and compassion, they want the rules. It is a lot easier. It is a quick and easy way to self-justification. “I kept the rules” is all they need to say. Yet we all know deep down inside that just keeping the rules does not really accomplish anything. It’s like the child who says: “I didn’t do anything.” It is almost a self-condemning claim. “I did nothing” is the message!

Now with Jesus, the law is no longer the standard of perfection or the way to holiness. We all know how it is possible to be rule keepers and yet be cruel and selfish, self-justified sorry representatives of God’s mercy and love. Failure comes from what is not done while keeping the law. This is the risk of becoming nothing more than law-keepers. Those called to follow Christ have something more than the law motivating a moral life. They have a constant living awareness of the goodness and the mercy of God, desiring to live a worthy humble response to God’s presence and God’s call. A truly moral person is not someone who keeps the law, but someone who seeks to discover the will of God. “What would you have me do?” This is the question they ask in the face of every decision. These people no longer turn to the rules to determine what is right and what is good, what is just or what is best. They discern what it is that God wills and wishes for creation and for those who live in God’s presence.

We can go wrong by following the rules, but we can’t go wrong be discerning the will of God. The law is not enough. It is not that the law is wrong, it is simply not enough. Without a Spirit filled life that seeks to live in God’s presence and seeks to fulfill God’s will by the decisions of that life, one cannot be good and pleasing and perfect.

One can offer sacrifices all day long and never experience a change of heart, because external actions do not produce internal transformation even if that is their intended purpose. Our behavior must be a sign of an interior love of God and our desire to do God’s will. That brings a merciful heart.

We who live by the Spirit are being transformed. We are not conformed. Being conformed to this age leads us to avoid what is difficult and troublesome, to avoid service and sacrifice. Transformation leads us into Christ, into Christ’s way which was to do and follow the Will of the Father. It is the only way to holiness, asking what God desires. It is the only norm for morality, doing what the Father wills. It becomes then the only way to distinguish those who belong to this age, and those who belong to the age to come. When you do something just because you can that is a suspicious sign that you are conforming to this age, which never considers anything except what it wants to do because we can. However, when we do something because we consider it to be the will of God and what God desires for us, we have begun to discover what it means to be called by Christ.

So what is it to be for us? The easy way to nowhere: keeping the rules and not being troubled by mercy or the suffering of others? This is where Jesus steps in. He troubles the rule-keepers who question his judgment about Levi, a Tax collector, or about disciples picking grains of wheat. What he teaches and how he lives is a morality rooted in mercy, not in law, because the face of God which he reveals is the face of mercy.

This lesson bears frequent repetition until we get it right. In our retelling of these stories of mercy, we find ourselves reliving this behavior. We have no business hiding in the kind of superficial morality that is self-protecting and self-serving. As I just said, it is easier to keep the rules than look past them or look into the face of suffering. Easier to just go to church, get it over with, and go home rather than learn the meaning of mercy. It is easier to lock up drug offenders and single moms than figure out the cause of their misery and suffering that led them to the drugs in the first place. It is easier to say five Our Fathers and five Hail Marys than make a significant change in one’s life, attitude, or thinking. It is easier to throw some pocket change or a couple of bucks in the collection than make a life changing, loving, grateful commitment to stewardship and tithing. It is easier to break up families and deport the so called “illegal” than to do something about the misery, fear, and danger they flee.

The Jesus we find in these Gospels is Mercy incarnate. “Go and learn the meaning of it,” he says to us. To Peter, Andrew, James, John, Levi, you and me, he says: “Follow Me.” It is not an invitation to take a walk. It is an opportunity to learn mercy. What we must learn is that mercy is not a single act. It is a way of life for privileged disciples of Jesus. It gives hope when it seems like there is none. Mercy is not something we ask for nearly as much as something we give and something we become.

We are Levi people, like the man in last night’s story, busy at our jobs, sitting at our desks, moving money around, taking all we can get however we can get it. I think Levi was just waiting for Jesus to come by. He gets up all too quickly, if you remember the story. I think he was ready and waiting for the call, and when invited to follow Jesus it was no invitation to go somewhere, but an invitation to learn the meaning of mercy, which is not an intellectual exercise or a rational argument. It is a matter of following along watching and listening to Jesus in action and then ever so slowly become mercy-filled ourselves. When that day comes, and this could be it, we will never be like those Pharisees standing around a woman, accusing and judging her. We will put down the rocks with which we might righteously stone others. We will stop the laughter that sometimes mocks mercy as “soft”, remembering that we all are in need of mercy and there is plenty to go around if we will just give what we expect and so desire to receive. The harvest we must reap in this vineyard, which we are so privileged to tend, is a harvest of mercy.

As we close tonight, I would ask you to pray with me repeating after me this prayer:

“Divine Savior, do not let me be conformed to this world, but transform me into yourself. May my hands be your hands. May my words be your words. Grant that everything I do may serve to glorify you. Above all, transform my soul and all its powers, that my memory, my will, my affections may be the memory, the will and the affections of you. Open my eyes to see your face beside me, open my home to be your dwelling place, come to my table and feed the hungry. Teach me mercy, and sustain my hope. Take from me all that is not of you. Grant that I may live only in you, by you and for you so that I may say in faith: “I live now, not I, but Christ lives in me.”

MARK 2, 13-17

As last evening’s reflection concluded, I was speaking about “privilege” and the extraordinary gift we have in faith when we recognize and acknowledge who we are as laborers in God’s vineyard. We turn to Saint Mark tonight whose whole Gospel is, what I like to call, a short course in discipleship. It is somewhat like those yellow and black books you can find in book stores (if you can find a book store any more). You may know the series: “Accounting for Dummies”, “Cooking for Dummies”, “Windows 7 for Dummies”, and there is course, “Catholicism for Dummies” which isn’t half bad. When I read it, I thought, “I wish I had written that!”

It is only Chapter Two when we come upon Levi’s encounter with Jesus. Mark skips the business of the nativity. It is not important to him. What is important is the proclamation of the reign of God and that begins with the public ministry of Jesus. According to Mark, Jesus did most of his work in Galilee away from Jerusalem. That place was the center of Judaism, and since Mark was writing to Gentiles, he keeps Jesus out of Jerusalem until the Passion. In a very subtle way he is telling his early church that they do not need to look to the Jerusalem Christian Church as the only or best community.

As Mark’s Gospel unfolds, Jesus is baptized, goes into the desert of his retreat, then returns to call Peter, Andrew, James, and John, his privileged disciples, first. It is not a casual meeting that happens in passing. It is an example of the power Jesus possessed to create disciples. From the way Mark writes about it, you would think that they simply gave up their livelihood and abandoned their families. That silly and uninformed idea is a great excuse for not responding with your whole heart to your privileged call to discipleship. The point is that discipleship means a great change, a question of priorities. For disciples, the reign of God comes first. Then, there in Capernaum, there is quite a scene in the synagogue when an evil spirit is the first one to recognize Jesus as the “Holy One of God.” From the Synagogue Jesus goes directly to Peter’s home where he cures the mother-in-law. You see, in becoming a disciple, Peter does not abandon his family. On the contrary, he brings Jesus Christ into it! Even more interesting to me is that Jesus brings the other privileged ones into that home.

For Peter, before he followed Jesus, his job came first. After the death of Jesus, Peter significantly goes back to fishing. He goes back to putting his job first; he gives up his discipleship. Then when he believes in the Resurrection of Jesus, he once again puts his discipleship first. He becomes a “fisher of men.” Jesus isn’t opposed to fishing. If he were, he would have been hungry and stuck with that big hungry crowd when he worked with five barley loaves and two fish! He never suggested that discipleship and placing the reign of God first means leaving your family to take care of itself. But to be a disciple means we must put the reign of God first regardless of job or family. It means that the reign of God motivates, informs, and guides the decisions and choices one makes at work and at home. That episode also provides another dimension of discipleship: namely, service to others. When Jesus makes a disciple, that person immediately serves others, as did Peter’s mother-in-law.

This event in Capernaum causes quite a stir. The crowds are excited, and the thing is turning into a side-show so, in spite of the fact that Peter probably likes this growing popularity, Jesus splits and heads out early in the morning for a quiet place to pray. Already the crowds are seeing his power, but not the message. So he goes to pray about that, which is a good thing for any of us to do when we’re confused and being pulled in opposite directions. When his prayer time is over, he begins to call other disciples. This now gives us the story of Levi, which is as much about the ongoing conflict with the Pharisees as it is about a man named Levi. Those Pharisees are afraid of Jesus. He is a challenge to their thinking that the only way to avoid sin is to keep every one of the laws exactly. He embarrasses them by playing their own legal game and beats them with a reminder that even David violated the law when circumstances demanded. Law is not unimportant, but faith is more important. The Sabbath is not unimportant; but man is more important. With this, the opposition to Jesus reaches the inevitable outcome as they begin to plot his destruction.

The story of Levi belongs in parallel with the miracle in the synagogue at Capernaum. What is at stake is the presence of one who forgives sin and cures the sick who are, in the mind of the Pharisees, “sinners.” “Sinners” were those who had been expelled from synagogue. The fact that Jesus associates with sinners is a sign not only of the remission of sins but the presence of the one who can forgive sins. When Jesus refers to himself as a “physician” he is using an Old Testament description of God who is the “Healer.” Healing in the Old Testament is a sign of the Messianic Age, so this behavior and this choice of the word Physician is a very important message, one not lost on the Pharisees.

The symbolic sign of the Messianic age is the table fellowship, the banquet, so this description of what happens at Levi’s home is very important to us not only because again, Jesus comes into a home full of sinners,  but because others are invited by Levi to meet this man. I think we should not miss the point that even though each call is by name, the call is always an invitation to enter into a relationship with others.  There is no solo salvation. There is no individualist reign of God. In the calling of Peter, Andrew, James, and John, we are not told whether these fishermen had previously enjoyed their work or detested it, whether they were prosperous or impoverished. We do not know how the two pairs of brothers got along with each other, nor how the sons of Zebedee related to their father. The sun may have been bright and the breeze off the lake fresh, but Mark does not say so. The only thing we know is that he called. They answered and came together. I always imagine that they felt the way we do when the phone rings. It just seems like we have to answer it, and you know what it’s like when you don’t. You begin to imagine what it was about, and before long you wish you had answered.

It must have been like that for Levi. There are no details about where he sat, what kind of taxes he collected, how much money he made or why he followed Jesus. We are told nothing of his identity or of his importance later. His name is never mentioned again in this Gospel. All we know is that he was a sinner and he became a disciple on the basis of an invitation: “Follow me.” So we can get the point: it is not about him as much as it is about Jesus and what happens when he is present. This is an act of forgiveness and a crossing of the boundary that separates a sinner from God. The consequence of this forgiveness, of this reconciliation of an outcast is the table. The one excluded is not only now included, he invites other outsiders to come to the table. That table fellowship is an unmistakable sign of an answered call and of forgiveness at work.

This story was treasured by the early church, those Christians who were violating the kosher laws with their indiscriminate association with those who were not clean, who were sinners, who did not keep the law. The answer of Jesus comes with that common sense proverb about who needs a doctor. The self-righteous are exactly that, self-justified; but the truth is only God can justify and only God can make one righteous. We can’t do it ourselves. When we look at ourselves in the light of this episode, we can hardly miss the fact that we cannot accept Christ as our Savior if we do not recognize our need to be saved.

Back in another age, hundreds of years ago when I was in the seminary, we had assigned seats at table in the refectory. Once every semester there was a new seating chart published, and it was a great moment of excitement gathering around the bulletin board. We had little else to be excited about except another paper to write! If we wanted to eat, we sat where we were assigned. I think that custom is the root cause of my unhealthy habit of eating very fast. It got us out of the place as quickly as possible. The only thing that made it possible and bearable was the fact that we followed the old Benedictine custom of eating in silence while someone read an article chosen by a faculty member. It kept peace. This memory is one that keeps me conscious of what is going on with this story. The most unlikely people are gathered around a table at Levi’s home. They are there because of Levi’s faith in Jesus. Not coming to the table because you do not like who is there does only one thing. It leaves you hungry and alone. It leaves you outside while everyone else is inside.

First Levi is invited to follow. When he does, Levi becomes the one who invites. This sequence is very revealing, and it speaks to us just as powerfully as it did to the early Christians. Everything about our culture and society suggests that we should be selective about who we eat with. It shames me to admit it, but sometimes when I am invited to dinner I wonder who is going to be there. If it is people I would rather not eat with, I don’t want to go. Jesus says to us through this story: “If you want to be with me, you have to learn to be with each other.” But look at how we live these days. Our culture and society is nowhere near becoming a sign of the reign of God. Segregated or gated neighborhoods are a counter sign of accepting the reign of God. They may keep us safe, but they don’t make us saved. They may make us look privileged, but they are not a privilege. The secular world in which we find ourselves struggling to live our faith and bear witness to our faith by bringing the value of our faith into our decisions insists that this is silly. The secular world keeps saying: “It’s mine. I earned it.” The secular world, when confronted with the Gospel and the presence of Jesus Christ says: “I would just as soon do it myself. Thank you very much”.  You see, the secular world wants to save itself. It is always self-justifying, which is why it might be true that there is no justice today for any of us. The system is broken. We downplay difference and we avoid conflict because we have not remembered what it means to be one.

In the center of this unlikely collection of privileged people, Peter, Andrew, James, John, Levi, a leper, and a paralytic stands Jesus Christ. He is the transforming unity for all of them. Levi invites his former “professional” colleagues as the story of the dinner illustrates. Levi’s call to discipleship somehow included the duty to invite others to new integrity and justice. This scene at Levi’s dinner part stands in marked contrast to the way we live way too often, and quite frankly, it frightens me to recognize that it is in contrast to the way we sometimes worship. It offers a totally opposite perspective, a perspective that demands the obliteration of barriers, all barriers: color, language, sexuality, job, and age. This episode compels Jesus’ followers to dialogue with and befriend those who do not share their theological outlook. To refuse to talk is to refuse to throw open the kingdom to less than beautiful people. Believers must recall that the community is always an aggregate of sinners who must reach out to other sinners.

The reason that the Lord mixed so freely with this stratum of society was because their need was so great, because they, unlike the religious, were conscious of their need and thus responsive to His message, and because He desired to change them. It was a constant complaint that the Lord was not particular enough in choosing His friends. “This man welcomes sinners and shares the meal-table with them.” Without a sense of need, there could be no healing for them for they were unwilling to come to him, the sole source of healing and forgiveness.

My friends, relationships are healed when people eat together. It takes nerve and courage, faith and a vision of the Kingdom to pattern our eating habits after those of Jesus, for any challenge to exclusivism still produces controversy as well as healing. There are no snobs among believers. No one looks down upon another. We all simply look up; up to Christ, up to the Kingdom of God. I don’t think that God knows anything about or cares anything about passports or green cards. God only cares about persons, and so must those privileged people entrusted with this vineyard and the mission of the Lord. We are so privileged, and living that privileged call to discipleship never implies that we leave home or family, but simply that we alter the way we live at home, at work and with our family. It means that with every decision we ask first what God would want us to do. It means that we invite God into our homes and that around the table in our homes we experience exactly what we find and experience around the table in this church. What an amazing privilege this is! It leaves me stunned to silence.

LUKE 20, 9-18

God is good! (All the time.) About two months ago, Father Pruett invited me to come for these nights of prayer and reflection, and I said: “Well tell me what you want me to talk about, or we are both in danger of being disappointed.” Then he began to talk to me for about ten minutes and my eyes glazed over. I am certain that he was saying something very important and deeply spiritual, but it was at the end of a long dinner, and I realized I should not have asked the question. Surely you have all been there: that moment when you ask a question and then suddenly realize you should have kept quiet! I think I interrupted him at some point when I realized I should have just said “Yes” or “No”. So when he took a breath I said: “Send a scripture passage for each night, and I’ll work on it.” This seemed to satisfy him, and I went home wondering what I had gotten myself into. A week later we were talking on the phone and I reminded him I was waiting for the scripture texts, and he said: “I’ll call you tomorrow.” He did not call. However, he did send me a text message with the three passages we are going to pray over and reflect upon now through Wednesday. When I looked at them, I began to wish I had said: “No, I’m too busy.” However that would have been a lie because I am retired, and I am not too busy – not too busy to do anything, because God is good!

The next day I called him and I asked why he had chosen the three parables that will form our reflection. That was another mistake. I know he told me a lot of things. I was hoping he would tell me what to say, leaving me nothing to do tonight except reap his wisdom; but I hung up the phone thinking again: “I should have said ‘No’.”

However, after beginning to explore these parables, I began to have a good time, learn something, and pray about what is said to us, and quite frankly expected of us all. This parable from Luke began to be very interesting to me. I had to do a lot of study and reading about it because as I realized early on, I have never preached or studied this parable before. Only the last part of the passage just proclaimed is found in our Sunday readings every third year. At this point, I perked up. Something new! Bring it on! God is good.

Now a few years ago, a family living in a home in West Palm Beach, Florida told a film crew that it was OK to use the front lawn as a set for filming of an episode of a TV series. They knew that cars would be crashing violently in front of the house. While the front yard was being destroyed, the owner of the home was tipped off and called from New York, demanding to know what was happening to his house. It seems that the people living in the house were only tenants who had no right to allow the property to be destroyed while the camera rolled. Some awful mistakes happen when those who are tenants act as if they are owners. The question being raised here is: Who owns the vineyard? If we think that we own the vineyard, there is going to be trouble.

When Luke tells this story, Jesus has entered Jerusalem. It is the first day of his last week. He has just cleansed the Temple, and the authorities are very angry about it. The chief priests and scribes have just had a confrontation with him about this matter and his authority, and they do not like this rabbi coming into the Temple and, in some sense, claiming the Temple for God.

As the parable goes, the situation was quite common. Palestine was a very troubled place. Absentee landlords were many, and it was not at all unusual for a man to leave out his ground and go stay in some place more comfortable and safe. When that was done, there were three ways to pay the rent. It could be either a fixed sum of money, or an agreed proportion of the crop, or a definite amount of produce that had nothing to do with the size of the harvest. There is nothing here to indicate that the landlord was unreasonable or unkind. In fact when Matthew and Mark tell the same story, the landlord has been very generous and careful with improvements which would have made life safer and easier for the tenants by putting a wall and digging a cistern. His patience with the tenants is remarkable, making three attempts to get what was rightly his. When this parable is first proposed, Palestine was a very explosive place, filled with unrest and labor troubles. The situation described could very easily have happened. Tenants did exactly what is suggested. In the absence of the owner, those who stayed and worked often became increasingly protective of the place, and it is not hard to imagine their thinking: “It’s mine. I earned it.” Killing off the only heir was not completely irrational since possession was determined by occupancy and the tenants may hope that the owner will give up after the death of his son.

We would misunderstand the parable if we thought of these tenant farmers as poor sharecroppers who were being abused by a demanding owner. Rather, they were greatly privileged to be able to work in the owner’s vineyard. They did not have to plant it; the owner did that. They simply entered into his vineyard, where they could work and make a sufficient living for themselves and their families. The owner was not a greedy tyrant, who stood over them with a whip, driving them mercilessly. He freely entrusted the vineyard to them and let them work it as they saw fit. But for these privileges, they owed him a certain amount of fruit. When we begin to think about this parable, it would make sense to wonder just who is this about? The traditional title for this parable is “The Wicked Tenants”. However, they are not really the center of attention here. While Jesus may have been speaking to the people, he was telling them about his Father. If you just look at the verbs, which is something I always like to do with the scriptures, the story is filled with verbs that describe the activity of the owner: he let out the vineyard, he sent, he sent, and finally sends his beloved son. Then he disappears and the attention shifts to the tenants. When the owner reappears in the parable his actions are described in the future tense. The action of the owner is what drives the parable. “What will the owner of the vineyard do?” That is the focus of this parable.

It is the owner who acts in a surprising way. Once the tenants beat up the first servant, we get it. It is the owner who holds this story in suspense, and it is the owner who is gradually revealed to the point that at the end of the parable, the question is a good one: “What will he do?” “What kind of person is this?” As the parable comes to a climax, there are two reflections thrown into contrast: the owner’s reflection “Surely they will respect my son” and the tenant’s reflection “the inheritance will be ours.” Suddenly we can get it: this reveals a God who really is merciful and gracious, slow to anger, and abounding in steadfast love and faithfulness as the Old Testament prophets and psalms describe.

Maybe this parable needs a new title: “The Patient Vineyard Owner.” This look at the parable engages us in answering the question of how we think of God rather than seeing this as an attack on those who rejected and killed Jesus. What we get here is an image of God longing for a response, waiting for the harvest from the tenants. Other tenants rejected God’s offer which is a self-judgment, and they are responsible for the consequences of their own behavior. Jesus speaks to the people in the presence of the Chief Priests and the Scribes: the “leaders of the people”. They reject him and forfeit what was a privileged place enjoyed by the Jewish people. Now do not misunderstand me. This is not a condemnation of the Jews. It is a condemnation of the leadership. By failing to accept the beloved Son and failing to produce fruits from the vineyard, the privilege passes on to others. Although not named in this passage, these others were Apostles who were also Jews, and in the words of Jesus they would rule the nations of Israel. Now we are the tenants who have been privileged to find a place in this wonderful, fruitful, vineyard confronted by a God who continually seeks us and waits for the produce of this vineyard.

The parable story for us is not over. One of the supreme tests of life is how we have used our privileges, and they are many. Oscar Wilde has a terrible kind of parable like this one. Jesus was walking through the streets of a city. In an open courtyard, Jesus saw a young man feasting gluttonously and growing drunk with wine. “You man,” said Jesus, “why do you live like that?” “I was a leper,” said the young man, “and you cleansed me. How else should I live?” Jesus went on, and he saw a young girl clad with many jewels, wearing a very revealing skirt and blouse with way too much make-up; and after her came a young man with the eyes of a hunter. “Young man,” said Jesus, “why do you look at that girl like that?” “I was blind,” said the young man, “and you opened my eyes. How else should I look?” “Daughter,” said Jesus to the girl, “why do you live like this?” “I was a sinner,” she said, “and you forgave me. How else should I live?” Here are three people who received priceless gifts from God and used them like this.

We live in an age that has every privilege, and more privilege and opportunity than any generation before us could have ever imagined. We live in an age that has discovered more of the secrets of power than any other age. We have more leisure time than any generation in history, and with it what do we pursue, games and entertainment, or spiritual things that last and have meaning beyond ourselves? How then are we to use these privileges, knowing that we are nothing more than tenants in this vineyard that has been planted by God?

The parable upon which we have reflected tonight is also a parable about freedom. It is significant, at least to me, that after the owner had planted the vineyard, he went away to another country. It is as if he says: “I have given you this job and this responsibility; now I am not going to interfere; run it your own way.” The argument regarding fate and free-will is an old one that continues on and on. It may be that on strictly logical grounds it cannot be solved. The fact remains however that our instinct is to be free. Every time we criticize someone we assume that they might have acted otherwise. Every time we feel regret or remorse it is because we feel that we might have taken some more honorable course of action. There can be no such thing as goodness if we are not free. Goodness lies in the choice between the higher and the lower thing. Some writer once laid down the difference between fate and destiny. Fate is what we are compelled to do; destiny is what we are meant to do.

We have a destiny, we are not fated. What we are meant to do is put ourselves on God’s side in this world and bring forth a harvest from this vineyard so extravagantly planted by a God who has thrown the seeds everywhere. The season in which we find ourselves right now is the season to begin the harvest and the time to remember whose vineyard this is. There is more to come on Tuesday and on Wednesday. God has more to reveal to us, and there is time to pray again, to listen, to wonder, and to grow in holiness and in faith.

Opening Sunday Homily    March 30, 2014    John 9, 1-41

There is a story told about an Indian peasant who had a lifelong passion to visit Bombay. He talked about going there so often that his friends and neighbors decided to take up a collection and pay for the trip. When it was time for his departure the whole community gathered at the edge of town to wish him well. He thanked everyone and started walking down the road to Bombay to fulfill his dream. To everyone’s surprise, he returned much earlier than expected. When they asked him if something had happened to keep him from reaching the city, he answered, “Nothing,” assuring them that the trip had gone well and he had seen Bombay. When someone asked him what Bombay was like, he responded, “It’s quite a sight. About a foot and half high, two feet long, green with yellow letters spelling out B-O-M-B-A Y.” The poor man had gone no further than the sign marking the city limits, read it and returned to his village, content that his lifelong dream had been fulfilled.

Sadly that story describes too many of us who read or hear miracle stories in John’s Gospel without realizing that they point to something else. If we only pay attention to the signs without wondering what John is trying to say to us, we are imitating the peasant. There is always something beyond the sign. So we have to go beyond the sign, push deeper into the story or we will miss the opportunity offered to us every time we read and hear this living and life-giving Word of God. This is no story book. This is revelation. It is alive. This is not history or a book of old tales about what Jesus did way back when. These words speak of what is happening now in this place and of what is happening to you and me. We are always in these stories.

So look at what happens here. We can read a familiar long story about some man born blind and the big controversy that erupts with Pharisees and the man’s parents, and then we can go home and settle down into the usual Sunday afternoon routine. If so, we are like the Indian peasant who thinks he has seen Bombay by reading a sign. There is another option for people of faith, and that option is what I want to propose to you now and will explore with you three evenings this week. There is something more here than an old story told for two thousand years.

If we think that this story is about a miracle and what wonders Jesus worked with a man born blind, we’ve stopped at the sign, and I say to you, “Wait. Don’t turn around and go home.” This not a story told to impress us with the power of Jesus Christ. This is a story told about people who say they see and people who do not see. It is a story told about faith and about light, reminding us that we do not see anything without light.

John’s Gospel is very different from the three earlier Gospels. They all insist that faith is necessary for miracles to happen. When confronted with a lack of faith Jesus is unable to do anything. For John it is just the opposite. He presumes that faith comes after the miracle, not before. It starts early in his Gospel with the very first sign at Cana. Only after he changes water into wine do the disciples begin to believe in him. Jesus does not demand faith first in John’s Gospel. Look at this story. The blind man is just minding his own business when Jesus walks by, spits on mud, puts it on his eyes and sends him off to wash. The blind man never called out to him. He didn’t even know who it was. After all, he was blind! His faith in Jesus is a gradual process, and not an easy one. It comes because he is willing to go beyond the sign. You can see the development in the story. John never uses the word “miracle.” He calls these events: “Signs.” A “sign” is a thing showing that something else exists. It always points to something else.

So when we look at this sign, we can just get on with the weekend or we go beyond it looking for something else. If you want to look for something else, I propose you look at what is said more than what happens, and you look at the response of the people to the sign that is before them. The sign begins with a proclamation from Jesus that reveals what this sign points to: that God’s works are to be seen in people coming to faith like this blind man, and that Jesus Christ is the light of the world. Then if we look at the response of the people in this story, we can begin to question our own response to this sign. There are Pharisees who think they see everything and know everything, but they cannot see God working right in front of them because they did not heal him. They refuse to share the joy and the faith of this man who is himself a sign of something else: a sign of what happens when you listen to Jesus Christ and do what he asks even if it makes no sense. “Go wash in the pool of Siloam,” says Jesus. Why would he do that, and how is going to get there. But he does it. There are his parents, so afraid of the Pharisees, so afraid of what people might say about them or what might happen if they acknowledge the sign and what it means. They are completely left out in the dark. They will go no further than: “All we know is that he could not see, and now he sees.” Well, they’re stuck and will never see what the sign means.

So, here we are at the beginning of a Lenten Mission and most of the way through Lent. I’m not going to tell you what to do the rest of the week or the rest of Lent. I’m not going to tell you what the sign means either. I want simply want to point to the sign. You can stop in front of the sign, or you can go on beyond. You have faith like the blind man; a faith that is moving along, growing stronger, and more refined. You also have the light of Christ by which you can see where you are, and where you want to go. The works of God are made visible through our works, so we might want to pay attention to what our works look like and whether our works are a sign that might tempt people to go further. The words of Jesus Christ at the very beginning of this story are words for our lips: “We must do the deeds of him who sent me while it is day. The night comes on when no one can work. While I am in the world I am the light of the world.”

(The people are invited to repeat these words in conclusion.)