Sermon – October 6, 2002 – Merrill Wade

Jesus is in the temple in Jerusalem. It is the last week of his life and he is having yet another tense encounter with the leaders of Israel. They are deeply suspicious of him. He seems to be challenging their religious authority and social standing at every turn. Jesus tells them this story.

In the parable Jesus tells a landowner invests money in land. Then he plants a vineyard to grow grapes for consumption and wine making. Then he invests money in building a watchtower and a wall, and in digging a wine press. Even in Ancient Israel this was an expensive investment. We are to assume the landowner cares deeply about receiving his share of the revenues.

The landowner strikes a deal with tenants. All seems well. Until things are not well. Inevitably, enough is not enough. The tenants are working and they are working hard. They want more. They deserve more. Deep in their psyche a new deal is struck.

They rationalize to themselves that the landowner is rich. He remains rich without spilling one bead of sweat. Their irritation festers and turns to red-hot resentment, even hate.

The time comes for the landowner to send an emissary of slaves to come and collect his share of the revenues. But they do not return home with the money. They were murdered. He sends a second set of slaves, assuming that they will collect his money. They were murdered as well. Insanity has been defined as doing the same thing, over and over again, and magically expecting different results. Apparently this landowner is insane. After the death of all these servants, he sends his son, imagining aloud, "They will respect my son." When the tenants saw the son, they whispered to each other, "Apparently the landowner is dead. This is his son the heir. Let’s kill him and it will all be ours. Nothing can stand in our way!" And they killed the son.

Having heard this graphic and violent story, Jesus asks aloud to the religious authorities, "what will the owner of the vineyard do to the tenants?"

And here we are drawn onto the scene. There is an unconscionable amount of greed, violence and murder in the modern world. In Jesus’ story we have a case of serial murder in order to violate a contract and steal.

This kind of illegal and chaotic viciousness leaves so many of us fearful and angry and hopeless. In Maryland this week someone was driving around in a car and, it appears at this point, to be randomly killing. Just shooting and killing. Jesus says, "what should the owner do?"

And suddenly a raw sense of hope surges through us and we join with the chief priests and elders, the religious authorities, and we shout, " the landowner will bring those wretches to a wretched end." An eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth. Kill ‘em.

Now this parable, this story, is really an allegory. It’s quite obvious. God is the landowner. The vineyard is Israel. The produce is faithfulness to the Jewish covenant with God. The tenants are the religious authorities of every generation.

The slaves are the prophets and righteous ones seeking to renew and reform Israel in every generation. They are sent by God to rectify the tenants rebellion and sinfulness. Jesus is, of course, the Son sent as a last resort, "they will respect my Son". In this story, God, the landowner, seems to be insane. He does the same thing over and over. He doesn’t learn. As we know, the rest of the story is Good Friday. The son is murdered.

By all rights, Jesus’s death must be avenged. His death and the deaths of the prophets and the other righteous ones must be avenged.

Where is the Good News in this story? Is it that the wicked tenants might receive the death penalty? Friends, how do we, ultimately and finally, want God to answer human sin? Are any of us sinless? Like Jesus, we face the question, "can anyone really be called good but God?"

Put the wretched sinners to death. Where do we find the Good News in this story? The Good News is left for the "rest of the story".

This is why, as Episcopalians, we insist on resisting what is called proof-texting. We insist on looking at the whole story instead of lifting one passage from the Bible and saying, "God says this."

For it is in the rest of the story that we find God’s answer to sin and rebellion and violence and murder and greed and the exercise of raw human power. Finally, the wicked tenants do not receive an eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth. Finally, those wretches are not brought to a wretched end.

Ultimately and finally, our sin, our faithlessness and rebellion is answered by God in a quite insane way. We don’t receive what we deserve in response to Good Friday. We don’t receive retribution. We receive resurrection.

We in the human race don’t get what we deserve. Instead, we get the surprising, insane, free, and unconditional resurrection love of Jesus Christ.

We get Easter. We are forgiven. Again, again and again.

Scott Peck said somewhere that "we do not come to grace; grace comes to us." Ponder just how many times you have deserved punishment – just plain strict retribution. And then, imagine that you are worthy of the very same love, or insanity, the landowner expresses by sending slaves, once, twice and again, and then his Son, to you -- regardless of the consequences and personal cost to him.

God has made himself quite vulnerable to us. God reaches out to us, loving us in an almost insane fashion, trusting in us despite the rebellion and disinterest that seems to be manifest in the human heart. Frederick Buechner, discussing love in his famous book, "Wishful Thinking", wrote, "Of all powers, love is the most powerful and the most powerless. It is the most powerful because love alone can conquer that final and most impregnable stronghold which is the human heart. It is the most powerless because it can do nothing except by consent."

Yes, Love comes to us. Indeed, over and over Jesus preaches peace to us. One of the central motifs of this Holy Eucharist is that each time we receive the Holy Communion we are reminded of Jesus death, and indeed, we are blessed and empowered by his resurrection presence in the consecrated bread and wine, his Body and Blood. Every Holy Eucharist is a miracle. A miracle of hope and forgiveness offered to a world torn apart by sin and death.

We who are here fed and insanely loved by God have a world-changing story to tell. God is love and as it says in 1^st John, " we love because God first loved us."

And this insane love for us simply transforms us, however subtly, day by day to love as God loves. We learn to value forgiveness as a power that changes the world, beginning with me.

Stewardship is what we do when we find out, and really know, that we are loved by God. God insanely loves you. Does that love cause you to shudder?

Please do not fill out a pledge card for 2003 begrudgingly with your duty and obligation in mind. When you fill out your pledge card for the year 2003 at St. Matthew’s, ask yourself how this commitment, and this church, can help you joyously scream yes, every time our Lord Jesus insanely forgives you and calls you to a new life in his name. Give magnificently because you are loved with a magnificent love. Give sacrificially because you are loved with a sacrificial love. Give gratefully because you are loved with an insane love. AMEN.