DON'T LOSE THE PLOT!

Sunday 2nd October 2005

Trinity 19 | Year A | Proper 22 Track 1 | Ordinary Time Week 27

Exodus20.1-4, 7-9, 12-20  |  Philippians 3.4b-14  |  Matthew 21.33-46

10 Commandments; being “in Christ” is what counts; bad tenants in the vineyard

TERRIBLE JOKE

On their way to get married, a young couple are involved in a fatal car accident. The couple find themselves sitting outside the Pearly Gates waiting for St. Peter to process them into Heaven. While waiting, they begin to wonder: Could they possibly get married in Heaven? When St. Peter shows up, they asked him. St. Peter says,

"I don't know. This is the first time anyone has asked. Let me go find out," and he leaves.

The couple sat and waited for an answer...

... for a couple of months. While they waited, they discussed that IF they were allowed to get married in Heaven, SHOULD they get married, what with the eternal aspect of it all.

"What if it doesn't work?" they wondered, "Are we stuck together FOREVER?"

After yet another month, St. Peter finally returns, looking somewhat bedraggled.

"Yes," he informs the couple, "you CAN get married in Heaven."

"Great!" said the couple, "But we were just wondering, what if things don't work out? Could we also get a divorce in Heaven?"

St. Peter, red-faced with anger, slams his clipboard onto the ground.

"What's wrong?" asked the frightened couple.

"OH, COME ON!!" St. Peter shouts, "It took me three months to find a priest up here! Do you have ANY idea how long it'll take me to find a lawyer?"

The gospel today is a story told against the religious establishment of the day...

OH DEAR... IT’S US...

This is another parable of judgement... Last week, this week and next week there are three parables Jesus told against the religious establishment of his day: the main thrust was that they were cheating God... not recognizing his work, demands or messengers in the world.. .they were complacent, self satisfied, proud... they thought they were superior, that they’d arrived... that they had God on tap...

And whenever we hear Jesus speaking words to the religious people of his day we must remember that he’s also speaking to the religious people of today - you and me! So we’re in the middle of three not very comfortable weeks, when we’re forced to look at our own motives, behaviour and attitudes...!

ALLEGORY...

Actually, having said it’s a parable, technically this is an allegory. In a parable there is generally only one main point; in an allegory each character or item has a meaning. (The story of the sower and the seed is an allegory; last week’s story of the two sons was a parable.) So in this story there is meaning in each element:

• God is the landowner;

• the vineyard is God’s kingdom, or God’s favour, or world...

• the tenants are the religious establishment of the day

• The slaves sent are the prophets and messengers sent to remind people of God’s ways, God’s call... (They were ignored, abused and rejected.)

• The son was Jesus - who was murdered - suggesting that the tenants thought they were equal, or could take over from the landowner... pride.

• The result? The tenants are punished - put to death and the vineyard leased to other tenants.

Jesus is the cornerstone - the one on whom the kingdom is established and built on... but a stone can also be something to trip over - or it can destroy people if it falls on them...

FRUITY REQUIREMENTS!

So the story is being told against the religious establishment... They enjoy a favoured position, but they have not fulfilled that trust... they have not been good shepherds of Israel, they have not been accurate watchmen, they have not done what God requires, so the favoured position will pass from those who are proud; whose response to God is inadequate, to anyone who will produce the fruits God requires - those who will do God’s will, who respond to God. There is also an indication, born out in Matthew’s community, that the gospel is being widened to show that it is not just for Jews, but that God’s smile is upon Gentiles too... and those who reject Jesus, who can’t see what God requires, who refuse to acknowledge what God is doing and where God is working, will in turn be rejected, regardless of how religious they might think they are...

The story tells us something about God (3 good Anglican points!):

• That GOD TRUSTS. He doesn’t stand over people like a policeman making sure they do what he wants - he let the workers get on with their task. The owner gave the tenants a task to do (cultivate the vines) and expected them to get on and do it: he gave them freedom. He also gave them everything they needed to do that task! And so God does with us. God gives us live, talents, a direction, guidance, a structure within which to live, a call, a purpose - we are (as we thought last week) to move from the divine image to the divine likeness: learning to love as God loves us. We have a task and we have been given the raw materials we need to fulfil that task. God trusts us.

• That GOD IS PATIENT. He sent many messengers to look for fruit, and overlooked their mistreatment. The cultivators can’t complain that they haven’t been given due warning of what the owner expects. And so God does with us. We know what it is that God wants of us - to love him and to love our neighbours as ourselves. To produce the fruit of the Holy Spirit (Gal 5.22). We’ve been given a lifetime in which to cultivate that fruit. We don’t know how long that life will be, but we do know that the way in which we learn to choose now will shape us for the future: the choices we make in this life will shape what happens to us in the next. God is patient with us.

• That GOD JUDGES. There comes a time when reckoning must be made; when the task set before us is assessed, when the owner must call his cultivators to account. They have known what the owner required, they have wasted the talents and opportunities given them, they have mistreated the Owner’s agents who have come to remind them of the ultimate requirement. In this case the cultivators have deliberately gone against the wishes of the owner.

And so with us: God will want to know what we’ve made of the gifts and talents he’s lent us. There is answerability, make no mistake about it, whether it happens in this life or the next: we will have to answer before God as to how we’ve used those resources. Judgement won’t be black and white - it won’t be on the basis of whether we can tick all the boxes of the Creed, or whether we’ve been to Church every Sunday - it will individual and will be more about how we’ve responded to what we’ve understood about God. God judges us.

The story tells us something about Jesus (2 - therefore not very Anglican - points):

• That JESUS’ CLAIMS WERE QUITE EXPLICIT. If the prophets - the messengers - came to warn people, and to look for and expect fruit - then in the allegory Jesus represented the Owner’s Son. He was not a slave - a messenger - a prophet: he was much more than that. So here Jesus lifts himself out of the line of prophets and makes a greater claim for himself even than the prophets of Israel: he is related to the Owner in an intimate way. People sometimes say that Jesus didn’t make his claims very explicit - but trust me, Jesus didn’t get crucified for being nice, for fitting in or for not ruffling feathers... he presented a real and significant threat to the religious establishment of the day: they knew and understood what he was claiming about himself - both explicitly in his words and implicitly in his actions... That was part of the objection when Pilate had Jesus crucifixion notice read “The King of the Jews” (Jn 19.19) the chief priests wanted it to read “This man claimed he was...” (Jn 19.21) Jesus claims were explicit and understood by his opponents.

• That JESUS KNEW ABOUT THE SACRIFICE AHEAD OF HIM. He knew where he was headed. He knew that Calvary was looming... His death was no accident, no sad act of fate or “just one of those things”. Jesus understood what would happen to him and why... Just as the son in the story was killed, so he knew that to fulfil God’s will he too would be killed, but that his death would not result in vengeance, but in forgiveness for all who turned towards him.

So what of us?

SIGHT...

The religious people in Jesus day had clearly lost perspective: in the allegory they thought that by killing the son the owner would give them the vineyard... they hadn’t thought that killing the son would incur the wrathful vengeance of the Owner... They had lost sight of the true order of things... What of us? Do we sometimes lose sight of the way God works in our world? or what God demands of us? Or the way things work in the Kingdom? Do we sometimes think of the values of the kingdom as being out of touch or not relevant?... For example:

• Forgiveness is over rated... I was in Asda on Friday (queuing to buy the DVD remake of The Italian Job) and the big screen above the desk had a clip from a Playstation Game running about a revenge car race and it said “Forgiveness is for losers!” How do we think God treats us?

• Faithfulness is conditional... when you tire of somebody, or when somebody better comes along, you can forsake them and do whatever you want... Marriages and other relationships can’t be expected to last.... How do we think God treats us?

• Love is OK - as long as you love those you like, or those who respond to your love... but wanting the best - showing love - for those with whom we disagree, or those who have no shown themselves to be worthy of that love is just not on.... How do we think God treats us?

• We make a better job of judgement than God... so we ought to decide how to punish people, who’s acceptable, what is just... Revenge is actually the best way to go... and might is right. Being strong is the best thing. Weakness gets trampled on.... How do we think God treats us?

• We are individuals, not responsible to anybody else. Whacking up the heating thermostat, going on an aeroplane for an exotic holiday, filling the kettle to make one cup of tea, buying food from the supermarket which has been flown round the world - is my decision and nothing to do with anybody else, so I’m not accountable to anybody else. How do we think God treats us?

Ultimately, the way we eat, travel, shop, holiday, treat others reveals our attitude to creation. And our attitude to creation reveals our attitude to each other and to God.

To learn to “think Christianly” - and then behave accordingly - is not easy... it requires us to look at the world through the eyes of Christ...

HERE ARE THE MAIN POINTS AGAIN...

The religious people Jesus attacked were proud and self satisfied. They thought that because they had the position of power - because of their birthright - they were safe and secure whatever they did. They had lost sight of how things really are. They thought that they controlled God... They refused to engage in joined-up thinking... Let’s remember that the words to the religious establishment of his day are Jesus’ words to us in St John’s this morning, and let’s vow that we will respond more positively than Jesus first hearers did...

Fr Andrew J Perry
Rector, St John the Evangelist, Pevensey Rd, St Leonards on Sea