Sunday sermon: Parables - wk 1: Tricky tenants

This week we begin four weeks exploring some of the parables of Jesus.

READINGS: Ps 118:15-29;  Matthew 21:33-46

SERMON
Let’s pray:
May the words of my mouth and the thoughts of all our hearts
be acceptable in your sight, O Lord, our strength and our redeemer. Amen.

A little over two weeks ago, with some pals,
I found myself looking out on an uninterrupted, open horizon.
Limitless.
Here and there, blue herons majestically pushed through the sky,
the occasional hawk hovered on high
looking down for tiny movements and lunch possibilities;
insects cricked and clicked and crept quietly.
Tiny islets with stubby trees and shrubs and delicate, purple orchids
occasionally broke the mile after mile of tall, waving grassland and winding, watery trails.

From the middle of the Everglades, sitting still for a moment on a flying boat,
you suddenly realise just how immense a place it is.
Sure, I’d looked at the map before I headed off for my wee adventure,
and yes, saw the amount of space it took up,
but only when put together –
the overview, and the being in –
truly gave it context.
It was one of the most astonishing places I’d ever been to,
and riding on an airboat with a few friends and a fab guide
was one of the most amazing things I’ve ever had the privilege of doing.

Also giving the place context, was Christian, our guide –
born and brought up in the area.
He held an invisible map of the place in his head,
knew the story of the great, grassy wetland and its creatures –
put them within their context.
A multi-layered story of time and place,
creature and creation.
Limitless in more than just the geographical.
Connected, even, or perhaps because of, the vastness.
...I’ll be thinking of that place for a long time.

And so it is with scripture:
each week, we hear chapters and verses;
hear of people and situations from long ago:
so many layers,
so many stories.
Sometimes it’s easy to take a thing from scripture
and so focus in on a word or a phrase,
that we forget to step back and ask:
how does this fit in with the overall story –
the story of God’s relationship with people,
and of our relationship with God,
and with one another?

In our text from Matthew, we hear of a landowner who decides to plant a vineyard –
a place that will produce fruit in the right time,
with the right conditions,
with the right people.
But within the story are echoes of other stories -
a story of beginnings:
where a garden was made and planted in love
and people placed there to tend and care for it.
A story of rebellion.
The landowner of the parable discovers his tenant farmers are violent, destructive, greedy.
The Creator of the 1st garden finds that the people think they know best,
and perhaps, have an unhealthy desire to become as gods themselves –
there’s a hunger for knowledge.
That’s not bad in and of itself, but what’s the motivation?
Because in this case, the hunger seems unhealthy, unwise.
And, with knowledge comes power, and when knowledge and power
are taken to be used in the wrong way –
that’s a recipe for disaster.
We only have to look around the news to see some of the very current evidence of that.
So much brokenness from so much use of power without responsibility,
or care for consequences.

As we explore scripture with a wide lens,
we see the unfolding story of God’s desire to restore and heal
the broken relationship with humanity –
a relationship rupture that has also broken humanity itself:
people putting themselves above others -
people pitting themselves against others;
fear, greed, and the desire for power
fighting against the way of faith, generosity,
and the desire for peace and harmony and justice –
the common good.
In the midst, at the centre, is God, ever- patient, ever calling.
First, he sends his servants, the prophets, to call humanity back to him.
Some are beaten –
Jeremiah gets thrown down a well;
some are killed.
And in the end, God sends his son among us to call us back,
and to show us how to be more fully human –
a little like the new Gillette ad:
not just to be the best a man can get,
but the best a man can be...
the best a human can be:
the unlimited potential of being fully alive in God.

And, as we explore scripture through the
more focused lens of our parable, we see the great overarching story drawn in microcosm.
Here the landowner is exceptionally patient.
Having created the ideal conditions for growth for the vineyard,
and placed his tenants to tend the place,
they decide to take matters into their own hands –
and forget the one who created the vineyard
and ensured it would flourish,
so that they would also flourish.
Now they want it all –
and the landowner can go hang,
and if they have to use violence to show him they mean business, well, they will.
As with the unfolding history of God’s relationship with humanity,
so we see the unfolding relationship and actions
of these tenants to the landowner.
Servants are sent to gather their master’s share.
Like the prophets, they’re beaten or killed.
The cycle of violence continues when more servants are sent,
until, in the end, the landowner sends his son.
...Wait...
Given what’s happened, that seems totally mad, doesn’t it?
To us, yes.
But actually, no.
We’re looking into a time where status was important:
it’s an honour culture.
While the tenants may have no respect for the servants, they would, normally,
pay some heed to the authority of the landowner’s son.
I did say normally:
however, there doesn’t seem to be much in the way of normal with these particular tenants.
But, hang on to that word, ‘authority’
and let’s look at when and where and why
Jesus is telling this Vineyard story.

The story is told in the temple grounds a couple of days
after Jesus has entered Jerusalem to great acclaim and cheers –
what we refer to on Palm Sunday as ‘the triumphant entry’.
This is the week in which Jesus will die.
And it’s the day after he’s upset the religious authorities by
overturning the tables in the temple grounds where
market stalls selling overpriced doves for sacrifices abound;
where money changers ply their trade because, ordinary money
has to be exchanged for temple money – and at extortionate rates:
so many ways in which to fleece the faithful –
and line the pockets of the less scrupulous of those working at the temple.
In his actions of driving out the stall holders,
Jesus has called out corruption in a big way –
actually, he’s been doing that all through his ministry.
And every step of the way, his own authority has been questioned by...
the religious authorities.

Just before our text, he’s been challenged again –
and the parable is part of his response to this challenge:
a parable about thinly disguised authorities acting as stumbling blocks,
in fact, rejecting the very cornerstone of the faith.
In the parable, the son, who should be honoured, is killed.
In the temple, the Son, who should be honoured, is marked for death.
In the parable, the son is taken outside the walls of the vineyard and killed.
In the day of reckoning, Jesus is taken outside the walls of Jerusalem and killed.
Both parable, and parallel.
Both within, and without the parable,
we see the cycle of violence continue.
But if we focus only on the parable,
and don’t pull back to reveal the bigger picture, the more open horizon,
that’s all we’re left with:
rebellion, violence, death –
rinse, wash, repeat.
Jesus asks his listeners:
‘So, what do you think that landowner will do?’
You can almost hear his listeners going:
‘Destroy the miserable wretches.’
Well, that’s what you do, isn’t it?
That’s the way of things.
That’s the parable and on you go.

However, by putting the parable into its place in the bigger story,
we find something startling,
something different happening.
‘So, what do you think that landowner will do?’
Not meet violence with violence,
but meet it with love.
Not end with death,
but with life.
God rewrites the story
for God can see beyond the horizon
and has limitless possibilities and imagination to draw upon
in his desire to call humanity back into relationship with him.
In Jesus,
God, the creator of the world –
God, the maker of the vineyard –
breaks the cycle of violence and death.
No more.
Enough.
In the bigger story of God’s eternal, ongoing love for us,
even death can be overcome by love.
‘Rather than return violence for violence, ...in the crucifixion of Jesus, 
God absorbs our violence and responds with life,
with...resurrection,
with Jesus triumphant over death and offering not retribution, but peace.’ [David Lose]

This is less a parable about some tricky tenants,
and more the wider story of Jesus authority,
and of God’s love,
and of the invitation to follow –
to walk into freedom and life,
and to flourish –
to give the world a little foretaste of heaven by producing the fruit of the kingdom –
even here, even now:
kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness...
love that seeks peace and restoration and healing,
and which brings light and life to the world –
and the joy of limitless horizons –
even beyond the seemingly limitless horizons of the Everglades.

What kind of fruit do you want to produce:
a bitter harvest
or the better harvest?
If you’ve been putting God a little to the side in your life,
if you feel you’ve been a little complacent in your walk of faith
then perhaps today is a great day
to taste and see that the Lord is good,
to get reacquainted with God,
and to grow in him.
Amen.