October 5, 2008

Giving to God
Matthew 21:33-46
Pentecost + 21 – October 5, 2008

“Listen to another parable,” Jesus says. Once upon a time, there was a landowner. He took some of his land and planted a vineyard. He put a fence around it to protect it. He dug a wine press for when harvest time came, and he built a watchtower. Then he leased the land to tenants, and left the vineyard in their hands: to water and to weed, to prune and to protect, to help and to harvest. And those tenants by all accounts took their work seriously. They worked hard. They cared for the vineyard as if it was their own – which was a good thing, until the harvest time came and the vineyard's owner sent along some of his servants to pick up the crop. Because by that time, the tenants had forgotten that they were tenants. They had gotten greedy! They wanted to keep all of the grapes for themselves. And not just the grapes – they wanted to take over the land too! So when the 1st round of slaves came, they refused to hand over the harvest. Instead, they beat one, and killed another, and stoned another! Fair warning to the true owner that the tenants weren't going down without a fight. But the owner, not to be daunted, sends off a second group of slaves, more than the first time. But the tenants attacked them too. Finally, the owner sends his son, hoping they'll respect him. But in the son, the tenants see their chance to rid of the heir and gain the land once and for all, so they grab him and they murder him. All because they forgot that they were not the owners; they forgot whose vineyard it really was.

Now this story was directed at the chief priests and the elders and the Pharisees who had been giving Jesus such a hard time. They were like the tenants, who had been entrusted with God's vineyard – the people of Israel. They had worked hard to tend the vineyard; they had cared for it as if it was their own! But somewhere along the line, they forgot that they were hired hands. Their job was to guide and direct people to God, but they ended up pointing people towards themselves as the leaders. They stopped giving to God what belongs to God.

If Jesus were to tell this parable today, he might compare the chief priests & Pharisees to the financial leaders of our time, who seemingly followed the voice of greed for easy money, forgetting that they were not the owners of the resources they were risking, who misused the trust and responsibility that was given to them. And we might find ourselves chiming in with Jesus' audience when he asked, “When the owner comes, what will he do to those tenants?” “Destroy them all,” they replied, “and lease the vineyard (or the stock market) to people who will give the owner the fruits at harvest time.” And we may feel a bit gleeful, rejoicing that those wicked tenants will get their comeuppance.

Until we realize that this story is directed at us too. For we have all been put in charge of a part of God's vineyard. God planted it and fenced it in, prepared for the harvest, and built a watchtower, and then handed it over to us to take care of, fully expecting to get a good harvest at harvest time. That vineyard is our whole life – our relationships, our time, our possessions. And we value everything we have, we treat our lives as if they belong to us. But the problem is, we all have a strong tendency, overpowering sometimes, to act as if that's true – to act as if our lives and our time and our things belong solely to us, & when we do that, we forget that God is the true owner of everything we have. We are tenants, stewards, managers – given wonderful opportunities by God to produce great harvests of bountiful fruit.

My question for all of us this morning is: Are we using those opportunities? Are we giving God the harvest that God is due as the rightful owner of the vineyard? Or are we withholding the harvest because we think it should belong to us? What parts of our lives are we resisting handing over? Is it our money? Our gifts for serving? Time spent with God each day? Before we point fingers at the tenants in the gospel, we would do well to look at ourselves, because this story is about us – and the way we live shows what we really believe about God & God's place in our lives.

This parable gives us a good chance to step back and look at the vineyard of our lives and to consider what kind of a harvest we have been giving back to God. But the story isn't just about us. It is also a powerful story about the patience and graciousness of the vineyard's owner. For we see in this story that God, the landowner, cares deeply for the vineyard. The landowner surveys the land, prepares the soil, chooses the best vines, and carefully plants the vineyard. He puts up a fence for protection, builds a wine press in anticipation of a good harvest, so that the harvest will be put to use, and builds a watchtower in the midst of it. This is not just some absentee landlord who leaves the place in disrepair and then expects somehow to get a good return on his investment down the road. The landowner gives it the best chance possible – and then hands it over to humans to take care of.

And when those humans in the parable resist and rebel against the landowner, refusing to give him what rightfully belongs to him, beating and killing his representatives in the process, the landowner doesn't do what you or I would do. After the 1st round, I would've come with police & lawyers to get my harvest & evict the tenants & send them to jail. But the landowner gives them another chance, and then another – in the end, sending his son, hoping against hope that this time they'll listen.

God does expect a harvest from the vineyards that are our lives. But for every time that we resist, God offers us another chance, and another, and another, even to the point of sending the Son. God sent Jesus, and Jesus came, even seeing what happened to the servants, the prophets, who had gone before him. He knew the reception he would get & he came anyway, came so that we would hear God's call in a new voice, in a new way. He came to show us what it means to give everything back to the owner – even to the point of giving his life.

We fear doing that; we worry that giving everything we have to God will leave us with nothing. But when Jesus gave it all, God vindicated him. The stone that was rejected becomes the cornerstone. Jesus gave his life & in return, God raised him from the dead and gave him new life! God does not ask for everything so that we'll be left with nothing. God takes what we offer, and multiplies it in ways we can never imagine, giving us something new, even better than what we had before! Paul put it this way in his letter to the Phillippian church: “Yet whatever gains I had, these I have come to regard as loss because of Christ. More than that, I regard everything as loss because of the surpassing value of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord.” (Phil. 3:7-8) Knowing Jesus makes up for everything else he once held dear; knowing Jesus changes everything. This parable is a call to give our lives to God. So let's not hold back from giving God the harvest God is expecting. Give yourself away to God, and find your true self, true life, the harvest God wants for us to have. Amen.