sermon

You are blessed, you are Christ, and you are becoming Christ: trust the One who knows.

Pr. Joseph G. Crippen
All Saints Day, year A
Texts: 1 John 3:1-3; Matthew 5:1-12; Revelation 7:9-17

Beloved in Christ, grace to you, and peace in the name of the Father, and of the + Son, and of the Holy Spirit. Amen

Do you know how much like Christ you already are?

Do you see yourself as God sees you? People in our community, I’ve learned, are ones who can easily name their weaknesses, their flaws. I don’t see people puffed up about themselves here. I do see people who feel that they don’t measure up well to the life of Christ we are called to walk.

The world doesn’t know who we are, the elder of 1 John says, because the world doesn’t know God. But we also don’t know who we are, the elder says. We’re God’s children, but we don’t know fully what that means, or who we are becoming. We don’t know if we are at all like Christ right now.

We’re told today that when Christ is revealed we’ll also be revealed as who we really are, as Christ. And most of us – perhaps especially on All Saints Day – might hear that as happening “when we get to heaven.”

But the thing is, Christ has already been revealed to us. To you. To the world. Through Jesus’ life, teachings, death, and resurrection, and now through the Spirit’s life in you, you already know Christ.

Which means who you are meant to be is being revealed right now. Now is when you look more and more like Christ yourself.

But it’s really hard to see ourselves as God sees. Even as others see.

There’s no mirror you have that can show you the truth about the heart of Christ in you, about how you look like God’s child. You probably don’t have a great sense of how you are living the vulnerable path of love of God and love of neighbor. You see your flaws, your failings, because you know how you think, and how your heart is sometimes, and you can’t see what others see in you.

And on All Saints Day, that vision challenge is complicated by how we think of those we love who have died. When someone we dearly love dies, we often tend to put them on a pedestal as the years go by, remembering only their goodness, the love they showed to us and to others. And that’s good, it’s a holy thing. Would that we all were remembered only for the love we were and did, all our sins and failures forgotten by those who remember us.

But that makes it hard to see yourself clearly in comparison to such goodness. To see your loving heart as God sees it. To see the ways you are God’s love to your family or your neighbor or this world.

So who really knows the truth about who you are?

In Revelation this morning, one of the elders asks John who these white-robed martyrs are who surround God’s throne, this vast multitude from every nation, every tribe, every language, from all peoples of the earth. And John, with great wisdom, says: “Sir, you are the one who knows.” Just as Ezekiel in the valley of dry bones, when God asks if those bones can live, wisely says, “O God, the I-Am, you know.”

There’s your answer. Maybe you can’t see yourself as God’s child the way God does. Maybe you see the ways you fail to be Christ more than the ways you are Christ. But God knows who you are. And Jesus, the face of the Triune God for us, God-with-us, sees you as you are: a blessed child of God who is making a difference as Christ in the world. Ask Jesus, he knows. He knows who you are now, and who you will be, not just in the life to come but in this life here.

This is what Jesus knows.

He knows you can be poor in spirit, despairing over this suffering world, or over your failings, or your fear of the future, that you feel inadequate, weak, in your faith in God, and he blesses that. Jesus doesn’t see that as a failure. Jesus says you are blessed when you are this way, because God’s reign isn’t something you earn by a strong faith, it’s your gift as God’s child.

Jesus knows that you mourn sometimes, and he blesses that. When you feel pain and grief for your neighbors, for children around the world devastated by violence, daily sacrificed to human pride and greed and evil. You are not failing when your heart is breaking, Jesus says. You are blessed because God’s heart is breaking, too. Your heart is one with God’s when you mourn. And God is with you, child of God, to comfort you.

Jesus knows you can be gentle, and show mercy, and he blesses that. Your empathy is a sign that your heart is God’s. The gentleness you show instead of cruelty is a sign that the whole creation belongs to you, matters to you. The mercy you show instead of retribution is a sign that you have received mercy yourself and it has changed your heart, child of God.

Jesus knows that you hunger and thirst for God’s righteousness to fill this world, and he blesses that. When you look at this election and wonder when we can turn toward a society where all are safe and whole and loved, all are fed and sheltered, none are oppressed. All these things God longs for, the things the prophets declare, all that righteousness, when you want that to happen so badly you feel the pain of hunger and thirst, you are blessed, because you share Christ’s hunger and thirst. You will be filled, Jesus says, and see God’s healing come to this world.

And Jesus knows you try to make peace, and he blesses that. Maybe you don’t have influence on the huge wars and violence and hatred raging in our world, but you are blessed when you are a peacemaker in your family. To your neighbors. In your voting. When you choose peace with God’s justice, you are living as God’s child, Jesus says.

You don’t have to see yourself as God sees you. You only have to trust God’s vision.

Trust that God knows what you don’t. Trust that these ways of God Jesus describes, so different from the ways of the world, are signs to you that you are already living as Christ in your world. Whenever you see any of them in you, trust that. Trust that Jesus doesn’t lie, and that you are blessed. Even when you see your failings, the flaws, don’t just trust God’s forgiveness. Trust that God sees your truth beyond the flaws, a truth that is shining a light in the world.

And since we can see others better than we see ourselves, let’s all start saying what we see. When you see Christ in your sibling here, when you see God’s heart in them, when God’s love touches you because of them, let them know what you see. Assume no one really thinks they’re living as Christ calls them to live, and tell them when you see that they are.

You are blessed, child of God. You are a blessing in this world. God sees you. And is with you as you walk as Christ in this world, shining through all you do. Even when, maybe especially when, you don’t know it.

In the name of the Father, and of the + Son, and of the Holy Spirit.  Amen

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When the Pharisees challenged Jesus to name a Greatest Commandment, Jesus advised us to love God and to love our neighbors as ourselves. When loving the neighbor gets difficult, as it sometimes does, refocusing on loving God can make all the difference.

Vicar Emily Hagen
Reformation Sunday, Lect. 30 A
Texts: Leviticus 19:1-2, 15-18; Psalm 1; Matthew 22:34-46

Beloved in Christ, grace to you, and peace in the name of the Father, and of the + Son, and of the Holy Spirit. Amen

It’s a familiar refrain. Love God, and love your neighbor. Two commandments upon which hang all the law and the prophets. We speak them together almost as one commandment, which makes sense, because loving God well leads us into loving our neighbors—all of them.

But sometimes the familiarity makes us forget that just as loving your neighbor as yourself can feel countercultural now, it was also countercultural for the Roman society Jesus’s people lived under, and even in the time of the ancient Israelites. As we have heard recently, when Jesus speaks these words to the Pharisees, he is quoting Torah: combining the Greatest Commandment from Deuteronomy with a lesser law about caring for the neighbor from a section of Leviticus that we have heard read today. When God, through Moses, commanded the Israelites to love their neighbors—in order to become more holy, as God is holy—God also gave some specifics about how to do that: ones that we don’t hear about as often as we hear the commandment itself. These instructions defined a new identity for the ancient Israelites, and they are vital for us today. So for a moment, let’s seriously consider this version of loving our neighbor from Leviticus.

Torah includes a huge number of laws, and many of them are similar to other cultures’ law codes of the time. Many of the Israelites’ neighbors had laws for being honest in business dealings, administering justice, and the like. However, the command to “Love your neighbor as yourself” was unusual. Most societies expected that free people would be responsible to look out for their own interests and not need help from a neighbor… as many people still seem to believe today. But we know in reality life doesn’t often unfold that way. Life is not always fair, people do not always have access to choose what is in their best interest, and we are not all born into circumstances that offer us strong safety nets. In God’s command to Moses and the Israelites, there is an awareness that caring for one another well does more than keep us safe and functioning as individuals. This practice makes communities stronger. It draws us closer to one another and, it would seem, closer to God’s way of holiness.

Fortunately, most of the instructions for loving the neighbor in Leviticus are fairly clear… but they do set the bar high.

We read here that loving our neighbor means being honest with one another and tending to justice—refusing to be partial toward the wealthy because of their wealth and influence, or even toward the poor in ways that would cause injustice. But in reading this, let’s keep in mind that God’s version of justice, in Leviticus and elsewhere, is a restoring justice that makes sure needs are met, especially the needs of the most vulnerable. The same chapter instructs landowners to leave the gleanings of the harvest to feed the poor.

The next instruction particularly hits home in our historical moment. We know what it means to refuse to stand idly by when the life of our neighbor is at stake. We know what it costs. And we have also seen the beautiful things that become possible when we stand together in support of our vulnerable neighbors.

But this coming week in particular, we might benefit most from leaning into the last few instructions in today’s Scripture.

We heard that loving the neighbor means refusing to hate, and it means letting go of our desire to take vengeance or bear a grudge. Once in a while, we can all benefit from reminders to address those tendencies in our personal relationships. Tending to our feelings of anger and resentment is an ongoing practice. But these laws in Leviticus are also concerned with how we all act as a community. When we bear a grudge by harboring bias or prejudice… we stop loving our neighbor. When we blame a whole group for the actions of a few… when we cry out for punishment instead of justice… we stop loving our neighbor. And when we allow scapegoating or dehumanizing language to turn our compassion into indifference or even hate… then we stop loving our neighbor. And in the past months, many of us have felt our compassion being tested or watched our loved ones and our communities be drawn into these divisive narratives. And we know how difficult those conversations can be.

In a moment like ours, with elections looming and emotions running high, reaching out to others with reminders about kindness and being open-minded might seem a little daunting. But hold on to this: the final instruction to “reprove our neighbor” when they are in the wrong, else we incur guilt ourselves, isn’t necessarily commanding us to confront our political opponents and prove them wrong for the sake of the community’s collective righteousness, as satisfying as that might feel. And certainly, as we have just heard, standing up for those who are being treated wrongly is the loving thing to do. But this last instruction about reproving our neighbor is not about that. This one is actually about our own hearts. These words invite us to talk out our disagreements with others not to fix them, but to seek reconciliation—to shut down our own tendency to incur guilt by silently harboring resentment against them in our own hearts. It would seem that loving the neighbor is something that needs to be done both outwardly and inwardly.

We know that none of these tasks are easy.

But on top of that, perhaps you noticed that in Leviticus, the end goal of following these rules and loving the neighbor is to help us to be holy as the Lord our God is holy. Like me, you might be asking: we need to love our neighbors in all of these challenging ways so well that we actually become holy… like God is holy? That sounds impossible.

And it would be… if we were the ones expected to achieve it.

Good news on that front is on the way from Jesus in our Gospel text… along with a little nod to Martin Luther on this Reformation Sunday. Just maybe, like me, when you hear Jesus name the twofold Greatest Commandment, you tend to focus on the second half—“love your neighbor”—and miss out on the incredible gift of the first half: “Love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, and with all your mind.” This is where the transformation of holiness begins—not in showing perfect love for the neighbor, but in our connection with God, the source of both love and holiness.

But what might this look like?

When we love God, as the Greatest Commandment invites, we direct our lives toward God. As we heard last week, we spend time reading and contemplating scripture. We connect with God through prayer. We worship God together and carry our worship out into the world, to love and serve as Christ. These practices help us to abide in God’s presence and experience our own love for God. When we express our love in these ways, we notice God’s holiness, and we are drawn toward it. God’s presence in our lives transforms us—not through our work, but through God’s, as Luther would remind us. Spending time with God helps us to notice that this is already happening.

Part of the beauty of Jesus’ twofold Greatest Commandment lies in the connection between its two parts. The transformation of being made more holy that happens in our lives because of the love we share with God shows up in the ways we live out our faith. Holiness is not about being perfect, and it is not a question of our loving God “enough,” as if there were any way to measureq “enough” love. Instead, it’s a lifelong process of reconnecting with the Triune God whose love for us is endless. When loving others feels exhausting, and it sometimes does, it is God’s love for us inspiring our love for God that leads us to love our neighbors well and gives us strength to persevere, even in challenging times.

When we live this way… loving God, and loving our neighbors… then, as our Psalm proclaims, we begin to delight in the law of the Lord, because we see how it leads us into love. We and our communities become like trees planted by streams of water…and bear fruit in due season…and prosper. Together, we build a society that can weather storms, not be blown away like chaff in the wind. These are the results of loving God so much that we can’t help loving one another with a love that is bigger than we are: a love that comes not from us, but from God… a love that changes us and can change everything.

In the name of the Father, and of the + Son, and of the Holy Spirit.  Amen

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Christ, the Word of God, will lead and guide you deeper into God’s way through the Scriptures (but you’ll have to open the Bible to get that going!)

Pr. Joseph G. Crippen
The feast of St. Luke, Evangelist
Texts: Luke 1:1-4, 24:44-53

Beloved in Christ, grace to you, and peace in the name of the Father, and of the + Son, and of the Holy Spirit. Amen

How do you know that you understand God’s will and God’s ways?

More to the point: how do we know we’re interpreting Scripture correctly as we look at the world today and our role in it, and hear such divergent views from people who all call themselves Christian?

Many of us remember a time when disagreement between Christians was chiefly about doctrinal questions. Catholics arguing with Lutherans over the Eucharist, debates between Christians about the atonement, even denominational splits over questions of justification or other theologies.

But in recent years, certainly on the questions surrounding human sexuality, but now in this past decade over a vast number of things, our differences with other Christians seem more centered on how we live in the world. The despair we feel is profound, when we hear Christians trumpeting hate speech, advocating vigilante attacks on women, cheering on government agents who, without proper legal procedure or process, brutally snatch neighbors from the streets, even kill them. And the bloodthirstiness of Christians supporting war and violence against other nations and against our own citizens based on their theological positions. Disagreeing over a doctrine of faith seems like a pleasant diversion in comparison.

But how do we know we’re right? Can you be confident that your sense of God’s justice and mercy for all people, your abhorrence of so much Christian rhetoric heard in these days, is true to Scripture? Christians with whom we profoundly disagree also argue they’re following Scripture.

What Luke would tell you is simple. Do your homework.

Luke is unique among the Evangelists in giving a purpose statement for his writing.

In the first four verses of his Gospel, Luke says his intent was to write a “well-ordered account” for his friend Theophilus, so he might understand with certainty the words “in which [he had] been instructed.”

Luke’s writing this not for someone who hasn’t heard but for a believer already instructed in the faith who needs to deepen their understanding. And since the name “Theophilus” could mean an actual person Luke knows, or mean what it says, “lover of God,” Luke is writing to you and to me today.

We’ve been instructed in the faith. You know the basics of God’s story, from the Hebrew people through Jesus and the early Church. But Luke believes we’re never done learning. A firmer grasp, a deeper certainty, is always the goal. So as we question our understanding about the way we are called to be Christ in the world, Luke says, “Dig deeper and keep learning.” And let’s assume Luke won’t be offended if we extend the deeper dig into the whole of the Bible.

Because the written Word of God comprises many more books than just Luke’s two.

I heard Biblical scholar Elizabeth Achtemeier once say at a conference that Christians are unique among any who study the books of what we call Scripture. We’re the only ones, she said, who call it all “a Bible.” We don’t see 66 separate books. We say we have just one book holding all within.

So we don’t read Jeremiah solely in his context. We read Jeremiah while talking with the apostle Paul. We read 1 Samuel with Jesus’ words in our minds and heart. Scripture speaks to Scripture That’s a key part of how we deepen our understanding.

This means we don’t take one verse and build our whole theology and way of life off of it. We read each verse, each chapter, in dialog with the whole of Scripture, from Genesis to Revelation. If parts seem to confuse, or live in conflict with each other, we hold that in tension. I’ve lived in some of those tensions for years before receiving God’s insight on what they might mean.

This also means that since Scripture points primarily to God’s work in Christ and what that means for the world, we read all Scripture in the presence of the risen Christ. If there seem to be conflicts of ideas or confusing things in Scripture, it is Christ who will resolve them. However anyone understands what the Triune God is doing in Jesus, the Christ, shapes how they read everything else.

Here’s an example. When we read of Joshua’s conquest of Canaan and the genocide and total war waged by God’s people, claiming God’s command, we are shocked and horrified. Because Christ Jesus whom we know and love has taught us that God’s way is peacemaking, love of enemies, forgiving of persecuters, because of the risen Christ and his teachings, we have to say Joshua’s genocide wasn’t God’s will.

But all of this assumes you and I are actually reading the Bible regularly.

Interpreting difficult passages, understanding more deeply what God is saying in Scripture is hard enough. To do that without reading those Scriptures makes it impossible.

One of the greatest gifts Martin Luther gave the Western Church is the demand to translate Scripture into the vernacular, so that everyone who could read could read the Bible. He wanted Heinrich and Hildegard to be able to do what Luke wanted Theophilus to do: deepen their understanding of God’s Word.

But having a Bible in German makes no difference if Hildegard and Heinrich never pick it up and read it. You and I have the blessing of multiple English translations of Scripture. There are good study Bibles available. Nothing keeps any of us from having a deep familiarity with God’s written word. You can read alone, or study with members of your faith community, and learn and deepen. But to do that, you have to actually open your Bible and read. Often.

And when you do, it is the true Word of God, Christ Jesus, who will guide you.

That’s the second gift Luke gives you today.

Luke says that in the forty days after Jesus rose from the dead until he ascended, he “opened” his followers’ “minds to understand the Scriptures.” So, the risen Christ shapes your reading of Scripture by word and example, as we considered with Joshua. The more you understand Christ’s teaching, his call to love God and neighbor, his self-giving, sacrificial love for you and the universe, and let that shape how you read, the more the Scriptures make sense to you, from beginning to end. Trust me, it’s an amazing thing to discover and learn.

But even more, it is Christ’s Spirit in you that opens your mind to understand the Scriptures, as Luke says, to see how God’s written Word shapes and guides you. It is Christ who deepens your understanding, firms up your grasp of God’s good will. Trust that. Let that be both your promise and your prayer.

And there is a point to all this, Luke says.

Jesus opened their minds to Scripture so that those women and men who followed him would become witnesses to what God is doing. When you know the heart of Christ, are shaped by it through your reading of Scripture, from the prophets’ calls to living lives of justice and mercy to Jesus’ command to care for your neighbor as if you were caring for him, whether hungry, thirsty, naked, sick, in prison, or a stranger, your life becomes a witness to God’s love in Christ. You live in that justice, in that mercy, in that grace to all in need.

That’s how you can be confident you’re reading Scripture aright. When you more and more are shaped by the Spirit into the love of God for all people and for the creation that you read and find over and over in Scripture. When your heart is changed into one that forgives, one that seeks reconciliation, one that is willing to lose for the sake of another, you can be more and more confident that your path is the path Christ has set before you.

And with God’s help, you will witness by your life and love to all who know you, just as Jesus wants.

In the name of the Father, and of the + Son, and of the Holy Spirit.  Amen

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God’s reign is found in the one (and the many) who stand against the world’s power and invite all to God’s feast that will transform even enemies into beloved family.

Pr. Joseph G. Crippen
The Twentieth Sunday after Pentecost, Lect. 28 A
Texts: Matthew 22:1-14; Isaiah 25:1-9; Psalm 23; Philippians 4:1-9

Beloved in Christ, grace to you, and peace in the name of the Father, and of the + Son, and of the Holy Spirit. Amen

“Why are you so angry?” we heard God say to Jonah three weeks ago.

“You’re concerned about the death of a bush you didn’t make, one that lived only 24 hours. Shouldn’t I be concerned about one hundred and twenty thousand people in Nineveh, and also many animals?” (Jonah 4:11)

That is the nature of the Triune God we know from Scripture. This is who God is, Scripture says, full of steadfast love and mercy. Mercy. Even the angriest prophets, who denounce the sins of the people with passion, conclude their words with God’s mercy and love overriding punishment. Ask Isaiah, Jeremiah, Amos. Ask Hosea. God’s wrath is always overcome by God’s mercy, love, compassion, and desire to embrace and restore God’s people.

The God the Bible reveals would never act like the king in this parable. Never. God doesn’t send armies to sinful people’s cities, kill everyone in them, and burn their cities down. If you winced when you heard this, you had good reason. The heart God gave you cried out against those words. Cried out against the terrible end to the parable, a brutal, cruel king berating a wedding guest who isn’t dressed properly and binding him “hand and foot, throwing him into outer darkness, where there’s weeping and gnashing of teeth.”

How can this be a parable about God’s reign when its heart is completely antithetical to the Triune God the Scriptures proclaim?

Well, maybe we’re looking at the parable in the wrong direction.

Jesus’ parables are images and stories meant to open our minds, our imaginations, to grasp complex truths. Like jewels, we hold parables up to the light and see what shines. Then, because these images and stories are meant to inspire us to think deeper, we turn them in the light and see new things. Jesus said this is a parable of the reign of God, in spite of the cruelty we see. So, turn it in the light a little.

And then you notice Jesus is telling this to the chief religious leaders of his people, a story about a cruel king who abuses his power. A capricious ruler who destroys anyone who dares to defy him, who breaks faith with people if they displease him. Something very familiar sounding in these days.

To these powerful people, Jesus describes the way the world works. Powerful people use their power to get what they want, cruelly throw away and destroy people who are no longer useful, and grab anyone else – bad or good, as Jesus says – to fill their roles. They’re furious at any who dare to stand up to them and refuse to dress as they do, that is, act as they do, endorse their way of ruling. At any who refuse to come to their feast at the cost of playing by their rules. At any who stand silent before their accusations.

Who does that sound like? Who refused to follow the world’s way, stood silently before a ruler, not defending himself for going against the world’s way, and was cast out into darkness and killed?

Turn this parable in the light and suddenly Jesus is in it, bravely standing alone, facing death.

This really is a parable about the reign of God.

It’s a parable that doesn’t require us to twist ourselves into pretzel shapes trying to explain why a good, loving God would do half the things in this story. Or ignore the pain we feel in our Christly hearts when we hear it. Seeing it in this light, we find hope: our God has already gone into the outer darkness where there’s weeping and gnashing of teeth. Into death itself. And has broken its power forever.

In this world, it feels like cruel kings still have the upper hand. And they kind of do. But Jesus’ story tells us that you can stand up against them, even if it means death (as Renee Good and Alex Pretti experienced) and that cruel people with power ultimately have no power to stop the resistance of good over evil.

And if more than one person refuses to wear the robes of this culture, if many refuse to come to the world’s feast at the expense of others, at the cost of doing things the world’s way, when more and more join God in the outer darkness, everything changes.

In the power of that Christly resistance, a new feast, prepared by God, is revealed.

Isaiah says God’s preparing a feast of rich food and well-aged wines for all peoples – four times the prophet says “all” – and that God is tearing apart the shroud of death and cruelty and power that covers the world, ending that power forever. And even people the prophet calls “ruthless” will be there. Maybe this is a promise of the end of time, but it’s still a hope worth having. That one day, at the end of all things, all people will come to God’s feast and rejoice with each other. All people.

But King David would like a word. Today’s beloved psalm ends with living in the house of God forever. But it is the life lived here that is the heart of this psalm. Led on right paths, fed in green pastures, walking with God through the valleys of the shadow of death, Psalm 23 revels in the joy of having our Shepherd always at our side through joy and sorrow in this world. And preparing a feast for you and me in the presence of our enemies.

Do you see now? Do you hear? Our enemies are at the table with us, here. God’s feast is for all people right now. And when you sit down at God’s table here with your enemies, they’re no longer enemies; they become beloved family. Even in this life, reconciliation and healing happens at God’s feast.

Maybe that’s hard to hear.

Not just because it doesn’t look like such a healing feast of reconciliation is possible in this broken, violent, suffering world. But also because Jesus’ command to love our enemies is one of the hardest we have. Maybe Isaiah says that ruthless people are welcome to God’s feast, and David says enemies come together in peace there. But we’ve been realizing in these past weeks that maybe we don’t always want that.

But don’t give up so soon. See, part of the feast is here today, at Christ’s table. You’re going to come to this table knowing you’ve done wicked things, thought bad thoughts, acted poorly, and you’re going to receive life and forgiveness and healing of heart. You’ll get a foretaste of God’s true feast where all, no matter who they’ve been, what they’ve done, are welcome to life and wholeness.

And God will change your heart at this table, bit by bit. God is changing hearts at tables all over the world, bit by bit. Inviting all to a feast of love and grace for all, where even cruel kings are invited and transformed. Where enemies are changed into beloved ones.

Rejoice in that, Paul says today. Think of that good, honorable, and true thing. And the peace of God surpassing all understanding will guard your mind and heart in Christ Jesus, until all are together at God’s table. Until all things are healed.

In the name of the Father, and of the + Son, and of the Holy Spirit.  Amen

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We can, with God’s grace, change the story from ingratitude and evil to love of God and neighbor and sharing so all may live.

Pr. Joseph G. Crippen
The Nineteenth Sunday after Pentecost, Lect. 27 A
Texts: Matthew 21:33-46; Isaiah 5:1-7; Psalm 80:7-15 (also referencing John 21)

Beloved in Christ, grace to you, and peace in the name of the Father, and of the + Son, and of the Holy Spirit. Amen

It didn’t have to end this way.

These people wanted to grow grapes but didn’t have land or grapevines, or the capital to build a fence and a watchtower and a wine press. But they found someone who did, and agreed to share some of the harvest as rent. So far, we’re in the same story Jesus tells.

But when the grapes poured into their baskets, the juice flowed out of the winepress, they could have had a celebration. They could have welcomed the owner’s representatives, even the son, shared the owner’s portion of the harvest, and invited all to sit at their tables in joy. What if the story ended that way?

But the “what if” is deeper than that.

This story clearly leads us to consider Jesus’ death on the cross. It evokes the Triune God’s incarnation as one of us, the vineyard standing in as the creation as in Isaiah and the psalm today. The prophets come to the vineyard of God’s people, inviting faithfulness to God, and some are thrown out, some are killed. Finally the son comes, and he is also killed. Little wonder the religious leaders “realize Jesus was speaking about them,” as Matthew says.

But there’s another possibility. Everyone could have followed Jesus’ call to love God and love neighbor. Like the people of Nineveh a couple weeks ago, everyone who heard Jesus could have recognized their brokenness, and rejoiced that the One who provided the richness of the creation out of love, forgave them in love. The whole world could have chosen to love God and love neighbor and have been changed right then, flowing out of Judea. Jesus wouldn’t have had to die on the cross.

It’s hard to imagine that happening, given how humans typically behave, but it could have. Which raises an important question: is there any way we could reverse this story in our own lives? Find the celebration and joy, rather than this alternative? The only way to get there, unfortunately, is by asking Matthew’s statement as a question: “Do we, do you, realize Jesus is talking about us? About you?”

Surely not, we’re tempted to say.

We haven’t killed anyone. We might be stingy with sharing our harvest, but we’re not that bad. Isn’t this parable about the religious leaders of Jesus’ day?

That’s not how Scripture works. God’s Word speaks in every day, and addresses you and me as much as those leaders. And it isn’t clear that our hands are clean.

Every dollar we spend is tied into an economy and a world that is so complex, we have no idea what damage we’re doing. Did the apple we bought come at the cost of migrant workers mistreated or barely paid? What carbon footprint got it to our store? What chemicals making it look pretty leached into the ground?

And any one of us who has a pension or investments has even more to ask. My pension has always been invested in the ELCA’s “social purpose funds,” companies vetted for their good principles. Do I know for sure that they are good? That there aren’t children abused or killed on the other side of the planet because of my investment? Do I know that none of those companies ever oppresses, or pollutes, or supports war and violence, or pays inequitably due to gender or race or other reasons? I do not.

I can’t speak for you. But I most definitely realize that Jesus is talking about me today. And that makes the judgment line sound pretty ominous: “The owner 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.” Ouch.

But hold on a minute.

Jesus doesn’t say that line. Not in Matthew’s telling. Jesus asks: when the owner comes, what will the owner do?” The listeners provide the judgment. Now, Mark and Luke do give the judgment line to Jesus. But Matthew may be suggesting Jesus’ question is open for a different answer.

And that’s exactly what happens in real life. First, the Son of God comes into the vineyard very differently. Jesus willingly risks vulnerable love with God’s people, knowing he might be killed for it. This parable tells of the son as victim. Nothing in the Gospels suggests Jesus is a victim at the cross.

And consider this: what happens to the tenants when the Son rises from the dead? Jesus doesn’t tell that end of the story today.

Well, we know that the risen Christ doesn’t come and wreak vengeance on those who killed him. Not even on those who loved him but betrayed him. No one is put to a miserable death. No one is thrown into outer darkness where there’s weeping and gnashing of teeth, the judgment we’ll hear next week. No doors are slammed in the face of unprepared disciples, no frightened followers who bury their talents are thrown out. After the resurrection, Jesus rejects all those promised judgments.

In fact, the risen Christ goes back to the beginning of this story and asks you and me, “what if it ends differently?”

Christ looks deeply at Peter, who betrayed him, and asks three times, “do you love me?” Three times Peter says he does, with more pain each time Jesus asks.

And instead of saying, as he had every right to do, “depart from me into the outer darkness,” Jesus, risen from the dead, says, “Then feed my lambs. Care for my sheep.” Use the harvest of the creation, the blessings you have received from a loving God, the wealth you have of time and talent and treasure, to care for my beloved children.

Change the end of the story, the risen Christ says. Make it a party. A celebration for all.

And that’s what you and I get to do.

When we, in this faith community, share our wealth together to feed Christ’s lambs, care for God’s children, it’s about as clean a use of our wealth as we can make in our complex world. Our stewardship to do God’s ministry here changes the whole story. We agree to take from the harvest we know we only have because God is generous and good, and share it with each other, using the best wisdom God gives us, to make a difference as Christ here in our neighborhood, in our world.

Instead of clinging to our things, our time, our money, even our talents, or using them only for us, which, as the parable rightly says, leads to death and destruction even if we don’t intend it, we choose a different way.

We look into the eyes of the God whom we love, we hear, “feed my sheep,” and we do just that. We make the harvest in the vineyard a celebration of delight and joy that brings hope and life to others and fulfillment to us.

When you realize that in this story Jesus is talking about you, that can be very good news, indeed. Because Jesus trusts you to do the love he needs done.

This won’t be easy. Human nature is a stubborn thing.

But the other part of the story Jesus doesn’t tell today is how the owner helps the tenants, how God helps you and me, respond with gratitude, sharing, and love.

Paul told us that part last week: “It is God who is at work in you,” he writes to the Philippians, “enabling you both to will and to work for God’s good pleasure.” God empowers your grateful heart, your giving of money and time and talents to our work together here, God changes you into a tenant who rejoices so much at being able to live and work in such a vineyard that the only response you can make is joyful gratitude and giving. God will enable this in you, and in me.

What if you took that seriously? What if you took that joyfully? How might the story go then?

In the name of the Father, and of the + Son, and of the Holy Spirit.  Amen

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Like the vineyard owner’s sons, we sometimes say “yes” but fail to follow through, and we sometimes take a detour on our path to obedience. Either way, we are still beloved and still invited.

Vicar Emily Hagen
The Eighteenth Sunday after Pentecost, Lect. 26 A
Texts: Ezekiel 18:1-4, 25-32; Psalm 25:1-9; Philippians 2:1-13; Matthew 21:23-32

Beloved in Christ, grace to you, and peace in the name of the Father, and of the + Son, and of the Holy Spirit. Amen

At first, the parable of the vineyard owner’s children reads like a teaching moment not for us, but for the chief priests.

When they approach Jesus with a tricky question designed to trap him into claiming divine authority, in a classic rabbinical move, he turns the question back on them. They convict themselves a bit when they answer that it was the first child in the parable that obeyed their parent: the child who rebelled at first, but later got the work done. Now that we have heard Jesus’ response, this child sounds a bit like the tax collectors and sinners who had heard John the Baptist’s call to repentance and chosen to follow him and Christ into a new way of living. We can’t be sure whether these religious leaders recognized those newly reformed sinners as the first children who got it right, who turned from rebellion to obedience… or whether they saw themselves reflected in the second child—the one who obeyed in word only.

But when we begin asking where we see ourselves reflected in this parable, there is a danger that we might walk away with the assumption that only one child turned out to be the good child: that is, the one whose motto is “better late than never.” But for us and for our lives, there is something else worth noticing here… and … spoiler alert… it has to do with grace. But let’s explore what we have in common with the parable’s characters to see why.
We might well identify with one or the other of the vineyard owner’s children.
Just as they both received the same command from their parent… to go to work in the vineyard… we also have all received a central commandment: Love God, and love your neighbor as yourself. We might live out this command in many different ways, but as Jesus points out to the Pharisees in the very next chapter of Matthew, this one sentence sums up the central task of discipleship. And yet it is anything but simple. The world we live in does not make it easy for us to stay focused on our love for God or to love our neighbors as Jesus loves. And that is why we must resist the temptation to take the same lesson the religious leaders may have taken from Jesus’ parable–something like “actions speak louder than words, so go forth and be the first child”–and then just move on. In our everyday lives, there is more to the story than that.

You see, it isn’t simply a question of which child in the parable we are or should be, because the truth is we are all both children.

We are the first child when we see need and suffering around us, and in our hearts, we feel the pull of our call to love our neighbors…but today, right now, we can’t. So we say “no.” We are the first child when we have already said “yes” to so many other obligations that we are running on fumes, and then that one more request comes in, and there is just no way we can make it work, so we say “no.”

We are the first child when we see an opportunity to speak out or do the right thing, but it involves some kind of significant risk… and we hesitate. And sometimes we are just plain mad at God… so we rebel. We all have moments we can identify when we suspect we are receiving an invitation to be part of the simple but not-so-simple work Jesus invited us to do… but for any of a thousand different reasons, we say “no.” And there is no shame in that. Some of them are fantastic reasons, like avoiding burnout, or prioritizing our ability to be there for our loved ones. Those things matter to God, too. This first child… the one that seems to come out as the winner in the parable… also said no. They started out by refusing to obey their parent, and we DO NOT know why. Like us, they might be rebellious, they might have other plans they can’t break, or they might just be overwhelmed. They aren’t perfect, just like we are not perfect. And that’s ok. But in the end, they got it right… as we sometimes do…not because they were the perfect child, but because when the right time came, something moved them.

On the other hand, sometimes we’re the second child. We say “yes” right away out of the very best intentions and then get too busy… conflicts come up… and we forget. Sometimes we say yes at first, but when it actually comes down to it, we are not willing to do the really hard things. Sometimes loving God and loving our neighbors as ourselves can cost us more than we expected. This might be what happened for the religious leaders who tested Jesus: the cost of acknowledging that John and Jesus spoke with authentic prophetic voices simply became too high. And how about this: sometimes it can be much harder than we expect to figure out how to care for one neighbor without unintentionally harming another neighbor. When resources or time run short, figuring out the most loving path forward can become more complicated than we first expected.

With all this said, let’s clarify what the parable might be saying to us… and what it doesn’t say.

Is it a problem to claim that we follow Christ, but act in ways that do not show love for God or our neighbor? Absolutely. That is a problem. In the same way, saying “yes” when we already know we will absolutely not follow through is also a problem. Following Jesus does mean living in honesty, authenticity, and integrity: not just talking the talk, but walking the walk. And we might call that the bottom line of this parable.

But also notice this: neither child in this story is perfect, but both are still God’s beloved children—and so are we.

In speaking to the religious leaders this way, Jesus is not simply shaming us for sometimes being the second child in our everyday lives—the child who said yes, but didn’t quite make it to work. The story is open-ended. Jesus never said that time was up for them. In fact, Jesus didn’t even say that time was up for the leaders who were questioning him. He said that those sinners who had chosen to listen to John, to repent, to follow through would experience the abundant life of God’s reign first… not that the religious leaders’ deceit or fear or hesitation had disqualified them from grace.

The good news for them and for us is that whichever child we might be on a given day, whether we are quick to say “no” or our “yes” turns into a “maybe later,” God’s love for us does not depend on our making it to the vineyard on time… or on anything else. We are all people deeply in need of grace, so receive this word of reassurance: this parable is not telling us that it is wrong to say no to a request that is too much. It also does not say that we are failures if circumstances get in the way of following through with a particular commitment.
Sure, God loves you deeply and completely during your most faithful, purpose-filled moments when you show up, act according to your faith, and do the work. But God loves you just as deeply and completely when you have good intentions, but you sleep through your alarm, feel overwhelmed, or need to take your time figuring out how to respond to someone with love. If there truly is an invitation to deeper discipleship that you have been missing, for whatever reason, that is not the end of the story. At any given moment, you might be about to receive whatever nudge the Holy Spirit sent that first child that caused them to turn around and head for the vineyard. There is always hope for all God’s children… because our hope is in the love of Jesus Christ, who will never stop inviting us.

In the name of the Father, and of the + Son, and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.