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
