Good
morning. It’s good to be with you on
this World Communion Sunday. It’s a
special day when we pause to recognize in gratitude all the different peoples
and cultures in which Christianity and the fellowship of the table thrive. So you might be wondering what today’s
scripture message does to uphold that notion because on the surface, it just
doesn’t seem to fit.
I
mean here we have this story of gang like violence where the workers of a
vineyard scheme against the owner, selfishly claim their own superiority, and
even brutally kill the owner’s servants and son. So what is up with this passage that it shows
up in the lectionary on World Communion Sunday?
This
passage is one of those parables that stands out from Jesus’ usual teaching
parables. This parable does not use
story telling to reveal something of the nature of God, as do so many others
parables. One of the reasons is that rather than being aimed at the every day folks
of faith, this one is aimed at the religious leaders. So this parable that seems to have been
misnamed “the parable of the wicked tenants" really should be something
else. The tenants, of course, play a major role, because Jesus is pointing to
the way the Pharisees have mistaken their leadership over Israel for outright
ownership of Israel. But the real focus
of the parable is to clarify who Jesus is.
Now
when I started writing this sermon, I thought I’d spend a lot of time talking
about the history of what all the symbols mean and what it’s getting at but I’m
going to do something else instead. So,
I’m going to give as quick an overview of the historical and symbolic
significance and meaning as I can. And
then I’m going to move forward to something more practical. But if you feel like you missed out on some
of the nitty gritty of deciphering this passage, just ask me later and we can
discuss it for hours.
So
we have this cast of characters. The
tenants represent the religious leaders who are more concerned with their own
wealth and status. They want to
“inherit” is rightfully Jesus’. They are
responsible for pointing Israel to God, yet they have instead pointed her to
themselves. The indictment, then, is not against the people Israel per se, or
even against the temple "institution," but rather against God's
appointed leaders. The slaves symbolize
prophets sent by God to call the leaders back to God’s purposes. The son represents Jesus, the son of
God. And the owner represents God.
Well,
the tenants kill the slaves and the son in an attempt to claim the inheritance
from the owner. But then the owner comes
and restores the son that was previously cast off… killed. And all of this points to how amazing the
works of God are.
Who
is Jesus according to this parable? He is the Son who has come to reclaim what
rightfully belongs to his Father. He is the Son whose mission is violently
rejected by the Father's own tenants. He is the Son whose rejection is
vindicated by the Father. And he is the Son whose vindication prompts the final
judgment of the unfaithful tenants.
In
coming to reclaim what rightly belongs to his Father, the Son sets out to
restore the world to its divinely created order. One need only look at Jesus'
ministry to see what this looks like: the sick are made well, sinners are
restored, and God is praised. In short,
Jesus brings wholeness to a broken world, providing glimpses into what he
elsewhere calls "the kingdom of heaven."
So
that is the somewhat quick overview of this passage. But there’s a part I want to zero in on. Verse 40 reads, “Now when the owner of the
vineyard comes, what will he do to those tenants?"
That’s
really the million-dollar question, isn’t it? What will he do to them? What
will the one in charge do to those who have blatantly, flagrantly disobeyed and
violated their roles? They’ve even
committed murder.
Well,
listeners said the owner should kill them all and start fresh. But let’s go back to what all this
symbolizes. Is that what God did to the
Jewish leaders? Is that what God does to
religious leaders today that go awry? Is
that how God deals with any of us in our failings?
No
it is not. Jesus may have been pointing
to himself as the savior but he was also pointing to a God that never gives up on
God’s people. This parable tells us that
the son who has been killed… you know, Jesus will be restored and become the
cornerstone, holding all of this together.
God’s
work is not that of smiting and smacking us down when we fail. God’s work is that of restoring and
reconciling us. God raised up his son
and restored him for the goodness and healing of creation.
This
stands in stark contrast to persons of faith in that time and still today who
act with self serving intentions. They
call for judgment of those around them.
They use the failings of others to feel superior while ignoring the log
in their own eye. They see control and conquest rather than reconciliation and
healing.
But
before we get too carried away with all these “they” do this and “they” do
that’s, we need to be humble enough to see that sometimes we all fall into that
kind of judgmental thinking. We get
focused on our particular ways of doing things and turn those into our
standards instead of using God’s measuring stick of love and mercy.
And
I think that is the real point of this parable today. Jesus was talking to the Pharisees but if
Jesus told us this parable today, and we replied with “kill the tenants,” I
hope we would be able to see that the message of Jesus being a conduit for
restoring the kingdom through peaceful means instead of vengeful ones would
sink into our hearts and minds. I hope
we could see God’s interest in making creation whole rather than clear cutting
the land. And I hope we can receive the
healing of that part in us that calls for retaliation so that we can be
co-creators with God in building the Kingdom.
So
here we are. It’s World Communion Sunday
where we celebrate the way God has reached out with wide arms to the world. We collect the Peacemaking offering that goes
to programs both near and far that work to be beacons of God’s peace, love, and
mercy. And even if those things weren’t
going on, we ourselves need a good bit of God’s love and mercy rather than the
judgment and shame we so often heap upon ourselves and one another.
Sisters
and brothers, we’ve gone all the way from a bizarre parable of gang like
violence to God’s message that healing comes through the peaceful and loving
reconciliation through Christ. That’s
one wild journey. But I think it mirrors
our own experience. We have no trouble
imaging the violence but we have trouble making the leap to peaceful
healing. But that is the point. We don’t
have to make the jump. Christ made the
leap for us. And thanks be to God for
that.
Our charge is to be humble and open to God’s work of healing and
reconciliation. May we be every willing to be part of the Kingdom God is
building with us. Amen.
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