24 Pentecost, Year A

“LOVE GIVEN, LOVE RETURNED”
Proper 25 --Exodus 22:21–27; Psalm 1; I Thessalonians 2:1–8; Matthew 22:34–46
A sermon by The Rev. Gene Tucker, given at Trinity Church, Mt. Vernon, IL; Sunday, October 26th, 2008

“Class, it’s a pleasure to do theology!”

You’ve heard me say before that that was the way one of my theology professors in seminary started every class session….A distinguished-looking man, always impeccably dressed in black, with a broad clerical collar, a pressed handkerchief in his left outside pocket, and often wearing a Homberg hat, he would grin widely at us as he said these words, “Class, it’s a pleasure to do theology!”

So, let’s do some theology this morning….

Theology that has to do with love, and particularly that part of the matter of love that shows us who God is, how God loves us (because we’re worth it), and how we can imitate that love by giving that love back to God, and to others.

For that is the subject of the first part of today’s Gospel reading….Having silenced the Sadducees, the Pharisees now step forward one more time, seeking to test Jesus. They ask him, “Teacher, which is the greatest commandment in the law?”

In response, Jesus summarizes the whole of the Law of Moses in these very familiar words (which we hear at the beginning of our service of Holy Communion),[1] “You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your mind. This is the great and first commandment. And a second is like it, you shall love your neighbor as yourself. On these two commandments depend all the law and the prophets.”

In essence, what Jesus is doing by responding in this way is to summarize the Ten Commandments. For the first four of those ten commandments have to do with the way we behave toward and regard God. The remaining six commandments have to do with the way we behave toward and regard our neighbors.

So, Jesus says, there are three objects of our love: God, others, and ourselves.

But, we must acknowledge that many people do not love God, do not love their neighbors, and certainly don’t love themselves. In connection with this point, we also ought to admit that unless a person has a healthy love of self (as distinguished from an unhealthy preoccupation with self), it’s nearly impossible to love God or to love others.

So, let’s begin our study of the theology of love by looking at the bonds of love that tie together the three Persons of the Holy Trinity. Then, let’s look at the ways we know God’s love for us, so that we can imitate God’s love by loving God in return, by loving our neighbors, and by loving ourselves.

We begin with the Holy Trinity….Theologians often describe the three Persons of the Trinity, Father, Son and Holy Spirit, in terms of love: They say that the Trinity is bound together by the forces of pure love….That is, the Father loves the Son perfectly, the Son loves the Father perfectly, the Holy Spirit loves the Father, and loves the Son, and so forth. It is love that binds the three persons of the Godhead together.

I must say, I don’t often think of God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Spirit, the Trinity, in those terms.

But I like the description very much…..Perfect love, which is surely the most powerful force in the universe.

But the Holy Trinity’s love relationship isn’t simply focused on itself.

No, the Father doesn’t just love the Father, and doesn’t just love the Son and the Holy Spirit (and so forth). The Father also loves us!

We are folded into the relationship of love, taken up into the divine life (as theologians often describe it). God seeks to wrap us up into the life of love that the Father shares with the Son, and which the other two Persons of the Trinity share with each other.

How can we know that this is so?

By the ways in which God acts (which is, by the way, the way in which we get to know anything and anyone, by the actions we witness[2]).

God has created and given to us this wonderful world. Though it is marred now by the presence of sin and wickedness, it remains a wonderful place, a place that God called “good”.[3]

But God also has a wonderful habit of saving people….Again and again, God saves people….The Old Testament is full of such examples: Think of Noah and the Great Flood, for example. Consider the leadership of Moses, who led God’s Chosen People out of bondage in Egypt into freedom in the Promised Land. Remember the great prophets of old who, time and again, warned God’s people to return to a genuine love of Him, and to turn away from idols.

In the fullness of time, God the Father sent God the Son to save us. Here, we see the perfect image of God the Father, in Jesus Christ, His Son and our Lord. Jesus says in John 14: 8, “If you have seen me, you have seen the Father.”

God’s love is most perfectly seen in Jesus Christ, His person and His work. From Jesus’ work and Jesus’ character, we can see that God’s love is a self-giving, self-emptying sort of love. The sort of love that the Greeks would describe with the word agape, that sort of love which seeks the welfare of others, even to the detriment of self.

We see agape love most clearly in the image of the cross….Here, Jesus empties Himself of everything, and does so out of love for us.

So, God’s love is always moving outward, toward others, seeking the other. God could have turned His back on us, and simply walked away from the human race. But God doesn’t do that. He constantly, again and again, reaches out to us, reaches out of love for the human beings He created.

How might we then, respond to God’s love?

We should begin with a healthy love of ourselves….You see, God loved us, even in our sinful and fallen state….In truth, none of us, by virtue of our inability to live the way God intended us to live, are worthy of God’s love.

But Holy Scripture says that “God shows His love for us in that while we were yet sinners Christ died for us.”[4]

You see, God’s love bridges the gap between His holiness and our un-holiness.

For the God we love and worship is a God who is more holy than we can ever imagine, yet more willing to love us in spite of our sinfulness and waywardness, and all at the same time!

Moreover, nothing can separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus. That’s St. Paul’s point as he writes in Romans 8: 38, which chronicles a whole list of awful things that we might think would separate us from God and God’s love. But, Paul concludes, “Nothing in all creation will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord.”
God’s love for us is perfect, and it is a love that casts out fear entirely. Hear what we read in I John 4: 18, which says, “There is no fear in love, but perfect love casts out fear. For fear has to do with punishment, and he who fears is not perfected in love.”

If we understand and accept at the deepest levels of our hearts the reality that God loves us, not because we deserve it, but because God made each of us intentionally to be in a love relationship with Him, we can begin to love ourselves because God loves us.

We are of infinite value to God! Each one of us is worth more than we could ever describe to God!

And so, we respond to God’s love. We return to I John 4: 19, where we read, “We love, because God first loved us.”

Today’s text calls us to a critical and deep self-evaluation:

• Do we love ourselves? (I am not talking about self-absorption, but a healthy love of self with affects how we regard ourselves and our individual self-worth.)
  
  
• Are we then able to love others? (For if we do not have a healthy understanding of our own value in God’s eyes, then we cannot love others.)
  
  
• Do we love God with all our hearts, with all our souls, with all our minds?

For, you see, God’s love is the sort of love that reaches out to others, seeks an object for that sort of love. God seeks us out, in order to fold us into the equation of love that holds the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit together in perfect unity.

May we come to the place where we accept God’s self-giving love for us more and more, that we may, in turn, love ourselves, love others, and love God.

AMEN.

_______________________________________________

[1] Known as the Summary of the Law, Book of Common Prayer, 1979, p. 324
[2] Think, for example, of a person who is applying for a job….the person offers references who can verify the past actions they have taken which witness to the person’s character and the person’s ability to do the work being applied for.
[3] Genesis 1: 31
[4] Romans 5: 8

23 Pentecost, Year A

“WHOSE LIKENESS AND INSCRIPTION?”
A sermon by The Rev. Gene Tucker, given at Trinity Church, Mt. Vernon, IL; Sunday, October 19th, 2008
Proper 24 -- Isaiah 45: 1–7; Psalm 96: 1–9; I Thessalonians 1: 1–10; Matthew 22: 15-22

“Whose likeness and inscription is this?”

Today’s Gospel text is all about likeness, all about the indelible marks (inscription) that we exhibit to those around us, and to the world at large.

Today’s Gospel is directed squarely at the Pharisees, that group of lay persons who were concerned to an extreme degree with the proper application of the Law of Moses to every detail, every aspect of daily life.

Today’s Gospel is the next-to-last battle between Jesus and His opponents….For the past three weeks, we have been reading and studying Jesus’ encounter with the chief priests and the elders of the people. These encounters took place within the Temple courts themselves, during the last week of Jesus’ earthly life, or – as we know it today – Holy Week.

Having dealt effectively with the first group of opponents, the chief priests and the elders, Jesus now deals with the Pharisees, silencing them, as we read in the final verse of today’s passage. Next week, the Sadducees, the priestly group, will come forward, testing Jesus as a means of finding some grounds upon which to condemn Him and to rid themselves of this troublemaker from Galilee.

So, we turn now to the Pharisees, and to the Herodians, who were a group of Jews who supported the puppet king, Herod Agrippa. (This group had arisen during the time of Herod the Great. It was composed of Jews who supported the monarchy and the power structure that Roman occupation made possible.)

And the issue these two groups have seized upon to catch Jesus in His words is the payment of a Roman tax. The tax in question was levied beginning in the year 6 AD. It consisted of the payment in Roman coinage (a denarius) of one denarius/year for every man and woman, slaves and free persons, 12 years of age to age 65. In essence, it is a “poll tax”[2] or a “head tax”.

As an institution of the Roman occupation, it was regarded in varying ways by the Jews who had to pay it….The Herodians would have supported payment of it, since King Herod would have benefitted from it, at least indirectly. The Pharisees would have resisted paying the tax, at least quietly. Meanwhile, other groups would have opposed paying it, and such opposition eventually came together to form the party of the Zealots, who advocated violent overthrow of the Roman occupation.

So the alliance of the Pharisees and the Herodians is a classic case of “strange bedfellows”, since their position on the tax was somewhat different.

However, as is common with alliances, the difference between these two groups was outweighed by the expediency of ridding the ruling structures of Judaism 2,000 years ago of this troubling prophet from Galilee, Jesus of Nazareth.

Likewise, the coin used to pay the tax figured prominently in the test that is presented to Jesus today: The denarius was a coin which bore the image of the Emperor, Tiberius, along with an inscription which read, “Tiberius Caesar, Son of the Divine Augustus”. Since the coin bore an image,[3] its use within the Temple itself was forbidden.[4] That allowed the moneychangers (whom Jesus had driven out of the Temple earlier in Holy Week) to ply their trade, exchanging Roman coinage for currency which was acceptable for use within the Temple.[5]

So, then, this is the “lay of the land” which forms the background of the encounter we read today.

But what about Jesus’ response?

Essentially, Jesus’ masterful handling of the matter poses this meaning to what He said…. In effect, Jesus is telling the Pharisees to “tend to the matters which pertain to Caesar”, and to “tend to the things that pertain to God”.

How did the Pharisees “tend to the things that pertain to God?”

The short answer is: Not very well.

The Gospels paint a bleak picture of this group….That portrait is uniformly one of outward observance of the rules and regulations that the Law of Moses prescribed, but one of inward spiritual deadness. At one point, in Matthew 23: 37, Jesus calls them (and the other leaders of His day) “whitewashed tombs”, which look good on the outside, but inside, are “full of dead men’s bones.” Speaking about their spiritual poverty, Jesus says, “They do everything to be seen by others.”[6] Jesus outlines their alienation from God in the seven woes that He pronounces upon them in Matthew chapter 23. The Pharisees and the “teachers of the law”[7] “do not practice what they preach.”[8]

“Tending to the things of God”, that was the way we paraphrased Jesus’ teaching when He said, “Render to God the things that are God’s.”

How might we “tend to the things of God?”

How might we avoid the pitfalls into which the Pharisees and their allies fell?

We might begin with an honest appraisal of our situation, recognizing that, as human beings, we are prone to the same mistakes that the Pharisees made.

We should admit that we are prone to put a great deal of reliance on outward appearances. We can “go through the motions” just as they did. We can “make our phylacteries[9] wide and the tassels of our prayer shawls”[10] long, just as Jesus accused the Pharisees and their allies of doing.

But we are called to an inner and an outer transformation, into a process in which God can unite the two.

For an insight into this process, we return to the image of the coin, the denarius.

The process of transformation that silver or other precious metal goes through in its journey from a block of metal into a coin is useful for understanding the process of spiritual refinement and recasting of the image of God we bear that makes us the valuable witness that we become. So, we compare the process of refinement and recasting, both of coins and of our spiritual selves:

Refinement: Before silver or another metal can be used, it must be refined, going through the fires of purification to remove the impurities that are found in it. Similarly, we Christian believers must undergo a process of spiritual refinement. The fires we endure are those difficulties and mistakes which God uses to bring us to the point of recognizing that His purity is preferable to our sinful, impure thoughts, motives and desires.

Image-making: The design of the image the die maker creates is then stamped into the metal. But the metal must be soft enough to receive the image, yet hard enough to retain it through the journey it will make as it changes hands over and over again. Likewise, we Christians must be flexible enough to receive God’s divine image, yet firm enough to retain that image as we make our way through this life, encountering the forces of culture and temptation that would seek to deform the image of Jesus Christ we are called to bear.

So, we end with these questions:

• Has the process of spiritual refinement made us ready to receive God’s image? Are we in need of some recasting, spiritually?
  
  
• Are we flexible enough to receive the image of God, that we may show that image to the world? Yet, are we firm enough to retain that image as the difficulties of this life’s journey might seek to erode it?

May God’s Holy Spirit enable us to undergo periodic refinement and reforming, that we might receive and retain the image of God we are called to bear.

AMEN.

_______________________________________________________

[1] Normally, we would read Matthew 23: 1 – 12 for Proper 26 (this year on November 2nd). But since All Saints Sunday falls on November 2nd, we do not read this part of Jesus’ summation of the condition of His adversaries. The entire chapter (23: 1 – 36) is well worth reading, for it is the culmination of the entire struggle Jesus has had with His opponents since His Triumphal Entry into Jerusalem at the beginning of Holy Week.
[2] The name of this tax in Greek is kensus, from which we derive the term, “census”.
[3] The coin’s motto was also offensive to Jews, since it referred to Augustus as a divine personage.
[4] Because of the third of the Ten Commandments, which forbade “graven images.”
[5] It is interesting to note that the families of the High Priests, Caiaphas and Annanias, profited from this exchange of money, and from the sale of animals which were used in the Temple sacrifices.
[6] Matthew 23: 5
[7] Jesus apparently lumps together all of his adversaries, the chief priests, the elders and the Sadducees by His use of this phrase.
[8] Matthew 23: 3
[9] Phylacteries are small boxes which contain verses of Scripture, and which are worn on the forehead. One can see them still in use today among Orthodox Jews in Jerusalem, for example.
[10] Matthew 23: 5

22 Pentecost, Year A

“BE THERE AND BE SQUARE!”
Proper 23 -- Isaiah 25: 1–9; Psalm 23; Philippians 4: 4–13; Matthew 22: 1–14
A sermon by The Rev. Gene Tucker, given at Trinity Church, Mt. Vernon, IL; Sunday, October 12th, 2008

“Be there and be square!”

That’s an old Army phrase we used to use to get the troops to do two things:

• Be present and on time, and
  
  
• Be prepared by bringing everything (including a good attitude) for the task at hand.

“Be there and be square!” Essentially, it means, “show up” and “be squared away”.

That’s what today’s parable is all about: “Be there and be square.” In other words, “Accept the Lord’s invitation to the banquet, and do everything necessary to not only ‘show up’, but honor the Lord in the process by preparing for the banquet.”

Today’s parable follows on two others, which we have read and studied in the past two weeks. All three are directed at the chief priests and the elders of the Jewish people, and take place within the Temple courts early in Holy Week, that is, the last week of Our Lord’s earthly life.

Similarities exist, as well, between the subject matter of this parable and the parable we heard last week: Last week, we heard Jesus tell His audience that the owner of a vineyard had sent servant after servant to the tenants of the vineyard, seeking the fruits of his vineyard, but those servants who’d been sent were mistreated by the tenants. This week, the same message is couched in the symbolism of the first group of invitees who’d spurned the kings’ invitation to come to the banquet which honors the marriage of the kings’ son.

The similarities continue as the king issues new invitations to anyone who could be found in this week’s parable. In last week’s parable, Jesus tells the chief priests and the “the kingdom will be taken away from you, and given to a nation that produces the fruits of it.”

But now, Jesus advances the argument a step further, as He now outlines the responsibilities that fall to this new group, those who had responded to the king’s second invitation….

In essence, Jesus tells this new group of invitees, those who had been rounded up in the thoroughfares, that they are not only to accept his invitation (in Army terms, to “be there”), but they have some work to do to be prepared to remain at the banquet: he asks one of them how they got into the banquet without a wedding garment…in Army terms, the king asks why the individual isn’t “squared away”.

Let’s look briefly, then, at this part of Jesus’ parable:

• Good and bad present at the same time: The first thing we notice is that the king issues the invitation, and the ingathering begins,[1] with both good and bad persons being brought to the banquet. We might pause here for a moment…..Matthew records another similar teaching of Jesus in the Parable of the Wheat and the Tares (Matthew 13: 24 – 30), in which the Church is described as a field which has both good and bad (wheat and tares/weeds) in it. In the case of the parable before us today, and the Parable of the Wheat and the Tares, both good and bad elements remain until the owner of the field/the king come and separate the bad out from the good. Matthew apparently has a very realistic view of the Church, recognizing that it is composed of persons who are “walking the walk” of God, and those who are not. Furthermore, Matthew seems content to allow both elements to remain in the Church until the time that God chooses to remove the impure elements from it.
  
  
• “Being there” isn’t enough: “Friend, how did you get in here without a wedding garment?” the king asks. The implication is clear: being invited to the king’s banquet requires some sort of a response. After all, being properly attired is a sign of respect – respect that was entirely lacking from the original group of invitees, by the way, as they treated the king’s invitation casually and with disrespect – for the king’s person and office.

As we consider how we might be “squared away,” what steps might we take in response to God’s invitation to enter into a relationship with Him?

After all, Jesus’ parable makes clear that simply “being there” isn’t enough to stay in that relationship…..we have work to do!

What work might that be? How can we honor God, doing our part to cement the relationship between God and us?

For an answer, we turn to the Baptismal Covenant[2], and I offer a list of ideas which suggest some responses we can make to God’s invitation to become a part of His family, that is, the Church. We begin with Baptism itself, which is our response to God’s invitation to come into His family, and we continue with a key question from the Baptismal Covenant….

Baptism: “Friend, how did you get in here without a wedding garment?” the king asks…..Recall the process of baptism itself: It is the separating point between our old selves and our new self in Christ….. “We are buried with Christ in His death,” St. Paul writes in Romans, chapter six. Indeed, the early Church carried out the Sacrament of Holy Baptism in very graphic ways: the person to be baptized entered into a body of water (lake, pond or stream), was immersed completely under the water, and was raised out of the water, only to leave the water by another route (on the other side, if at all possible), and was then clothed in a new, white garment.[3] The white garment was the symbol of purity in Christ. “Friend, how did you get in here without a wedding garment?” Our “wedding garment” is the purity of baptism!

“Will you continue in the Apostles’ teaching and fellowship, in the breaking of the bread, and the prayers?: This key question is one of those that are asked of persons who are to be baptized. The question assumes several things, all of which are our response to God’s invitation:

• Baptism is an ongoing process: Yes, we are baptized once. Baptism is a Sacrament which cannot be repeated. However, we cannot assume the posture that says, “I’ve was baptized on such-and-such a date, and that’s ‘old history’ now.” No, the question asks, “Will you continue…” In other words, will you “keep on keeping on” by learning more and more about the Lord, and about what it means to be a child of God through baptism, which buries us with Christ in His death, only to be raised to new life with Him.
  
  
• The Apostles’ teaching and fellowship: How can we know what the Apostles’ teaching is, if we don’t study and learn what it is? Hence, an ongoing learning process is absolutely necessary: individual Bible study, Sunday School, Sunday group Bible study, learning sessions such as our midweek gatherings, and diocesan training sessions, all of these offer opportunities for Christian growth and maturity. And, oh yes, lest I forget, let me acknowledge that my sermons have a deliberate teaching element to them! Regular engagement with all of these is absolutely mandatory for responding to God’s invitation.
  
  
• The breaking of bread and the prayers: This question has to do with worship…. “The breaking of bread” refers to Holy Communion, of course. And “the prayers” has to do with our regular gatherings for prayer, which forms a large part of what we do together on Sunday mornings when we gather for worship. The Christian faith has always been carried out and nurtured in community. It cannot be a “one man” or “one woman” undertaking.

“Be there and be square!” we used to tell our young troops. Today, God calls us not only to respond to Him by following the Lord into the waters of Baptism, in Army terms, “Be there,” but to undertake an ongoing response by preparing to meet Him again and again in the pages of Holy Scripture, in a deliberate and committed regimen of study, and in the faces of other Christians. By these measures, may we “be square”.

AMEN.

______________________________________

[1] Remember that Matthew always has the final sorting-out of the good and the bad at the end of time in view. This focus permeates all of Matthew’s Gospel account.
[2] Book of Common Prayer, 1979, pp. 304 - 305
[3] This white garment survives as our modern-day alb.

21 Pentecost, Year A

“LOSING WHAT WAS NEVER THEIRS”
Proper 22 -- Isaiah 5:1–7; Psalm 80:7–14; Philippians 3:14–21; Matthew 21:33–43
A sermon by The Rev. Gene Tucker, given at Trinity Church, Mt. Vernon, IL, on Sunday, October 5th, 2008

Ever lose something?

(I have to admit, I do, on a regular basis!)

Ever lose something that wasn’t even yours in the first place?

I had just such an experience – losing something that had been entrusted to me, something that wasn’t mine – back when I was a bike messenger in New York City over 30 years ago. For about two months, I was one of those bike messengers who carried packages and letters around town on my two wheels. I rode all over the island of Manhattan, from the very southern tip down near the Battery, all the way up to Harlem in the north.

One day, I lost an envelope I’d picked up at one location, and couldn’t find it when I got to the other end, to the place where I was to deliver it. It simply wasn’t there, and I couldn’t figure out what had happened to it.

So, I had to call into the office and tell them I’d lost this envelope. It was a humbling experience, one that I remember to this day. As I entered the office, I thought to myself, “Well, this is the end of my fledgling bike messenger career.” (As it turned out, the manager was quite understanding, as was the messenger service’s client….they agreed to generate another copy of whatever it was I was to deliver, I went and picked it up, and eventually got it to its destination in good order.)

Imagine, then, the embarrassing reaction of the chief priests and the elders, who are Jesus’ target in the parable we hear in our Gospel reading for today, as Jesus’ words, “Therefore, I tell you, the kingdom of God will be taken away from you and given to a nation producing the fruits of it,” land on their ears. In essence, what Jesus is saying to these proud, self-consumed leaders of the nation of Israel 2,000 years ago is, “You’re fired!”

“What you thought you owned, you chief priests and elders, what you thought was your private possession – the kingdom of God – is being torn out of your hands, and will be given to others,”, seems to be the “bottom line” of what Jesus is saying.

“You blew it!” might be another way we could summarize the meaning of Jesus’ harsh rebuke, putting it in today’s terms.

But the chief priests and elders ought to have known better….For, you see, our Old Testament reading from Isaiah 5: 1 – 7 parallels Jesus’ parable, heard today. Both Isaiah’s terms and Jesus’ terms are identical: “vineyard”, “hedge”, “tower”, “wine press”.

Moreover, the “bottom line” of both passages is also the same: The lack of fruitfulness leads directly to the removal of those who were supposed to tend the vineyard.

You see, both Isaiah and Jesus target their words to a proud-but-ignorant people, the Chosen People of God. For these stiff-necked people – both those who lived in the 8th century BC and those who lived in the 1st century AD - are proud of their heritage as children of Abraham, inheritors of the Covenant between God and His people.

Isaiah, writing in the eighth century BC, addresses the people of the Northern Kingdom of Israel just as the Assyrians are poised to invade and destroy those 10 tribes who had separated from the southern two tribes[1] two hundred or so years before.

God’s judgment swoops down on these Northern Kingdom people, who remain ignorant of their own lack of justice, their own barren conduct which yields no fruit for the kingdom of God. In direct consequence of their ignorance, God’s judgment comes in the form of the Assyrian invasion, and the vineyard, God’s pleasant planting, is destroyed. Those who had been appointed to be caretakers of that vineyard are removed from its planting, from its tending, and from the enjoyment of the fruits of its abundance, forever.

Likewise, Jesus addresses the leaders of the people of Israel some 800 years later. Ah, how little had changed from Isaiah’s time to His….

Lack of righteousness, seen most clearly in the machinations that these same chief priests and elders will engage in only a few days hence, as they plot to murder Jesus in the cause of political and religious expediency, shows the barrenness of the vines they had been charged with tending. There is no fruit of righteousness, no evidence of the justice that God demands.

Jesus seems to connect Isaiah’s time with His own in the parable He spins out before them: for He chronicles the sad history of the persecution of the prophets by God’s Chosen People as he substitutes “servants” for “prophets”…. “When the season of fruit drew near, he sent his servants to the tenants, to get his fruit; and the tenants took his servants and beat one, killed another, and stoned another,” He says.

Perhaps these chief priests and elders had forgotten that they were merely tenants, not owners, of the vineyard. Maybe because the magnificent Temple – a Temple that was being built with human ingenuity and human toil - that was all around them deluded them into thinking that they were the owners of all they could see around them, titleholders to the vineyard.

But Jesus makes clear that they didn’t create the vineyard, nor did they set up a hedge to protect it, nor did they build the tower, nor dig its wine press.

They were merely appointed as its caretakers, its stewards.

Somehow, they must’ve mistaken their presence in the vineyard with ownership of it.

Or perhaps they knew they were merely tenants, but thought they could get away with a “fast one”, much the same way the people of Isaiah’s time might have thought they could fail to produce the fruits of God’s righteousness and justice, but maintain their status as caretakers of the vineyard.

As we reflect on the meaning and the applicability for us as 21st century believers, what lessons might we draw from Isaiah’s warning, and from Jesus’ parable, both of which are linked by symbolism and by circumstance? May I offer these two as suggestions to prompt our reflection:

• There is no “lease-with-option-to-buy” in the kingdom: We remain, by God’s design, stewards and caretakers of the kingdom that God has established, that God has provided for. We will never be owners of that kingdom, no matter how hard we work. As a result, we are called to operate within the rules God has established for the care of what belongs, ultimately, to Him.
  
  
• If God can’t work with us, He will work around us: The ancient Kingdom of Israel was destroyed, and much of its population deported, as the Assyrians swept in from the north and the east in 722 BC. Similarly, the people of Israel and their beloved Temple suffered defeat and destruction in 70 AD as the Roman army conquered Palestine at the end of the Jewish-Roman War.[2] (Perhaps Jesus’ warnings rang in the ears of the early Christian believers as they read Matthew’s accounting of Jesus’ parable….perhaps they drew parallels between Jesus’ parable and the events of 70 AD.) If we fail to produce the fruits of God’s righteousness and justice, God will remove us as tenants of His kingdom, and He will find others to carry out His work in the kingdom He has created.

May we, by the power of the Holy Spirit, recognize that we are appointed as stewards of God’s riches, not owners of them.

May we, by the power of the Holy Spirit, be faithful stewards of God’s kingdom.

May we, by the power of the Holy Spirit, not lose our place as tenants of the vineyard God has created and entrusted to us to care for.

AMEN.

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[1] Which had formed the Southern Kingdom of Judah.
[2] 66 – 70 AD