Belong

 Charlotte Collins Reed

Christ Church Episcopal

October 4, 2020

22 Proper A 

          A few weeks ago, Don and I had a Zoom reunion with two of our closest friends from college.  Rock, Beka, Don, and I formed a bond our junior year in college that has lasted over the decades, even when we rarely see each other.  The last time the four of us were together in person was about 10 years ago with occasional emails in between.  The occasion for our Zoom reunion was a surprise for Beka on her 60^th birthday.

          So, one might think that a Zoom reunion after all this time would be rather awkward.  What does one say to friends one hasn’t seen in 10 years? 

          However, we reconnected immediately in the way people do who have the sense that in some way, they belong to each other.  We talked for almost 2 hours, sharing updates on our lives, our children, some of our challenges, our various professional activities, and the time flew by as if we had just chatted like this a few weeks ago.  The time we spent together in college, even though it was long ago in a galaxy far away, was such a formative experience that decades later we still belong to each other, and when we are together, we have a shared identity.

          Belonging and shared identity are at the heart of the Ten Commandments as we hear them from the book of Exodus this morning.  Last week, we heard the people complaining about the lack of water in the wilderness.  Have they been freed from slavery in Egypt in order to die of thirst in the wilderness?  God provided water as God provided manna, protection, and everything else the people needed as they journeyed through the wilderness to the promised land.

          Part of what the Israelites learned as they journeyed through the wilderness is what it means to be a people who belong to God.  Yes, God got them out of Egypt.  Yes, there is a promised land of milk and honey waiting for them.  But what does it mean to actually belong to the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, the God who led them out of Egypt, through the wilderness, and eventually to the Promised Land?

          The 10 commandments tell the people what it means to belong to God and set them apart with an identity as people who live by God’s commandments.  The first four commandments are about the people’s relationship with God.  They are to have no other gods, to worship no idols, to not make wrong use of God’s name, and to remember the Sabbath and keep that day holy.  Their identity is as a people who belong to God and there a specific ways the people are to nurture that relationship.  But belonging to God and being God’s chosen people are not just about the people’s relationship with God.  The people belong to God and because they belong to God, they also belong to each other.  So, the next 6 commandments govern their relationship with each other.  Honor your father and mother, and do not kill, commit adultery, steal, bear false witness, or covet.  The thunder and lightning, the sound of the trumpets, and the smoking mountain all testify to the solemness and sacredness of the relationship between God and God’s people.

          In Matthew’s gospel, Jesus is clear that he has not come to abolish the law and the prophets but to fulfill them.  And when Jesus is asked which is the greatest of the commandments, rather than choose one, Jesus replies “You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your mind.” This is the greatest and first commandment. And a second is like it: “You shall love your neighbor as yourself.”  Rather than enumerating 4 ways we are to be in relationship with God and 6 ways we are to be in relationship with each other, we are to love God with our whole heart, soul, and mind and love our neighbor as ourselves.  If we do that, we will have fulfilled the law and the prophets.  We will truly love God and each other.  We will completely and totally belong to God.  The world will see our actions and know us to be people of God.

          Suppose, then, that the vineyard the tenants are to tend in Jesus’ parable are those relationships.  Suppose that the tenants have been left to water and care for their relationships with and between God and the people.  The fruits of those relationships, when nurtured properly, would be love and respect, a sense of identity as people of God and belonging to God.  But the tenants do not see their job that way.  The fruit of their labor belongs to them and is a commodity to be used for personal gain.  So when the vineyard owner sends his slaves to collect the produce, the slaves are beaten, stoned, and killed.  Such is the love of the landowner for the vineyard that he sends more slaves, thinking for some absurd reason that they will be treated differently.  But they receive the same treatment.  Then, the love of the landowner completely overcomes all rational thought and the landowner sends his son, thinking that the slaves will treat him better.  Predictably, the tenants kill the son.  Jesus’ hearers assume that the landowner will put the tenants to a miserable death.  But instead, the love of the landowner, who we understand to be God, is so great that the landowner will bring new life out of the death of God’s son, a life that will produce the fruits of the Kingdom.

          We belong to that Love.  Our identity as Christians is bound up in the Love that never gives up, Love that is stronger than our selfish, sinful ways, Love that took death and created new life.  We are called to nurture the vineyard of love and life-to love God with all of our heart, mind, and soul and to love our neighbors, all of our neighbors, as ourselves.  The fruits of that vineyard will change the world.

                                                                   Amen.