Charlotte Collins Reed
Christ Church Episcopal
October 8, 2017
22 Proper A
In a week where violence and the resulting heartbreak,
confusion, and anger have dominated the news, a parable in which people are
beaten, stoned, and killed seems sadly appropriate. How does Jesus’ parable of the vineyard
speak into a world where someone stockpiles deadly weapons and takes the lives
of nearly 60 people and injures hundreds more?
What difference does a story about a landowner who will not give up make
as people hold their dying loved ones? What
difference is made when “the stone that the builders rejected becomes the chief
cornerstone” as people seek to rebuild their lives in the face of this and so
many other disasters?
Jesus’ parable this morning is full of violence that makes
about as much sense as the shooting in Las Vegas. Jesus is speaking to the chief priests and
Pharisees when he begins the parable with "There was a landowner who
planted a vineyard, put a fence around it, dug a wine press in it and built a
watchtower. " The chief priests and Pharisees knew their scriptures and would
have immediately thought of similar words from the prophet Isaiah. "Let me
sing for my beloved a love song concerning his vineyard. My beloved had a vineyard on a very fertile
hill. He dug it and cleared it of
stones, and planted it with choice vines; he built a watchtower in the midst of
it, and he hewed out a wine vat in it."
At
first, Jesus' parable does not appear to be telling us anything Isaiah has not
already said. The vineyard owner is God,
and the vineyard is the community of God’s faithful people, who God loves and
cares for. But in the passage from
Isaiah, God's love song turns very ugly, very quickly. God's vineyard fails to yield anything but
wild grapes, and so God is going to destroy the vineyard and make the land a
waste. God expected justice from God's
people, but saw bloodshed, and God expected righteousness, but heard a
cry. Isaiah warns the people that they
have strayed far from being the people God called them to be, and the
consequences will be disastrous.
So,
when those gathered around Jesus heard him say "There was a landowner who
planted a vineyard" they thought they knew what was coming. Disaster.
Instead, they get a story in which God offers a most peculiar response
to violence. Listen to what the
landowner does. When the harvest comes,
the landowner sends slaves to the tenants to collect his produce. But the
tenants beat, stone, and kill the slaves.
Most people would call the police at this point. But the landowner sends more slaves, thinking,
for some reason, that the second set will be treated better. That line of thinking makes no sense at all. And, indeed, the tenants treat the second
group of slaves just as badly as they did the first group. No big surprise there. At this point, the landowner needs to hire an
attorney. But in an action that
completely defies common sense, the landowner sends his son, thinking the
tenants will respect the son. Seriously?
And what happens? The tenants say "This is the heir. Come let us kill him and get his
inheritance." Now, no one is
thinking straight. The landowner,
willing to go to any lengths to win over the tenants, sends his son. The
tenants think that the prize for murder is the inheritance.
At
the end of the parable, after the tenants have killed the Son, Jesus asks
"Now when the owner of the vineyard comes, what will he do to the
tenants?" The chief priests and
elders display the first bit of logic in the passage as well as their knowledge
Scripture when they answer "He will put those wretches to a miserable
death, and lease the vineyard to other tenants who will give him the produce at
harvest time." However, Jesus says
to them "Have you never read in the scriptures: "The stone that the
builders rejected has become the cornerstone; this was the Lord's doing, and it
is amazing in our eyes?" When the
landowner comes, it will not be to destroy, but to create. Where the tenants have created death and
destruction, the landowner will build something new and create life out of
death.
Does
God love us so much, then, that we can do whatever we like? Does this parable condone violence and the
wanton murder of innocent people since God will create life out of death? Absolutely not. In our reading from Exodus this morning, before
God gives Moses the 10 commandments, God says this: "I am the Lord your
God who brought you out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of
slavery." God begins by telling us who
God is. God is the One who brought the
people out of bondage in Egypt. Then God
goes on to tell the people who they are by telling them how they are to
live. The way of life articulated in the
10 commandments sets God's people apart from other people and reminds the
people continually that they are the people of the God who led them out of
bondage.
This
morning, we have the privilege of baptizing Alice Lucy Anglewicz. Every time we baptize someone, we renew our baptismal
covenant. The baptismal covenant works
the same way as the 10 commandments do.
The promises we make are not a list of rules that we follow. Instead, they describe behaviors that give
us our identity as people who follow Jesus.
As followers of Jesus, we gather faithfully for worship, resist evil,
seek and serve Christ in all people, proclaim the good news with our words and
actions, and work for justice and peace.
We live this way as people who are baptized into the death and
resurrection of Jesus, so that the world around us will know the God who
creates life out of death.
Jesus’ parable of the vineyard calls us to be like the
landowner and live as people of hope, never giving up on God’s call to be
people of life even when violence and death seem to win over and over again. The promise of the gospel is that despite the
power of violence and death, life will have the final victory. The challenge of the gospel is to live our
lives as people who believe with our whole hearts that love is stronger than
hate, that God’s creation is ultimately good, and that by living as people who
seek and serve Christ in all people, our lives will make a difference in this
broken world.
Amen
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