Seminary Conclusions.

Sermon for Matthew 21:33-45

May the words of my mouth and the meditations of our hearts
be acceptable in your sight, O Lord, our Strength and our Redeemer.
Amen.


Jesus tells a powerful story through the parable of the wicked servants. The story parallels both the Pharisees and Sadducees, whom Jesus was speaking to, and our selves. Making us uncomfortable in the truth it speaks, while causing us to fear the repercussions of judgment as the Pharisees point out.

Jesus shares the story of a Land owner, who carefully and painstakingly plants his vineyard, protects it by building a fence and watchtower, and digs a wine press so that it is able to sustain it’s own business. God, our careful caring creator, is this landowner. Planning out all the details, and entrusting God’s creation to the tenants.

Tenants who are entrusted with the care and upkeep of God’s creation. Instead of valuing and being thankful to the landowner, these tenants get greedy. They see God sending many prophets at different times, and they think, “hey, we could own this. Why should we give the landowner anything?”

They plot and decide that hurting and killing the servants that God sent to collect the bounty, would be a great way to keep the vineyard’s goods. I can imagine them thinking that if they scare away and hurt the servants, that the owner would either give up or be too scared to come and collect the bounty.

These tenants are deluded. They are living so deeply within their deception and perception of reality, that they can’t see that the land they are on is not their own. They have no rightful stake to the land, or the bounty of the land. But yet, they are consumed with owning it. They are so insatiable, that they can even justify killing the son, in order to become the new heir of the land.

I’m here to tell you, we are those tenants. We as a society have become so consumed with greed, that we can’t see the wrong that surrounds us. There are people in the United states that are poverty stricken, some worse then third world countries, and yet there are also people exploiting resources. We see it daily around us, consumerism is rampant. We as the tenants, are abusing our role.

We allow racism, sexism, ageism, ableism, homophobia, classism, crisis, confusion and collusion to strip us of our compassion. We have embedded ourselves so deeply within our want for commercial goods that our financial market is in a crisis.

Although there are some individuals to blame for the current mortgage crisis, we as a society are also to blame. We have built up the idea of ‘bigger is better.’ Striving to own as much as we can, to ‘keep up with the Jones’.” We have forgotten that we are not the landowners, but that we are tenants on God’s creation. Instead of caring for others, we build up our own wealth, we get disillusioned, we get lost in schemes to promote ourselves. Instead of distributing our bounty, we get fearful of loss. So in a frenzied fit, we hoard. We take our power as tenants for granted, and instead of sharing, we fight for full control.

However, the Gospel story has a twist. Jesus is trying to establish with the Pharisees that they are these tenants, that he is the Son, and that God is the land owner. Just as Jesus tells in the parable, the Pharisees react as the disillusioned tenants. They know that Jesus is trying to establish himself as the Son of God, however they reject this reality. They are blind to what Jesus is trying to reveal to them, and instead they jump into the idea that although they are God’s tenants, they could not possibly be THESE tenants. Instead they hypothesize about what will happen to those tenants, the ‘others.’ They lay down a harsh vision of what God would do to these unruly and incredulous tenants.

It is important to remember however, that Jesus does not condemn the tenants, but the Pharisee and Sadducees do. Jesus points them in another direction however. He states, “Have you never read in the Scriptures: ‘The stone that the builders have rejected has become the cornerstone, this was the Lord’s doing and it is amazing in our eyes.”

Jesus is pointing the Pharisees and Sadducees toward a new vision, a vision that they are blind to. He wants them to see that God mixes things up, and that with Jesus’ death, comes forgiveness and grace. Jesus tells them that the kingdom of God will be taken away from them, and instead be given to a people who can produce the fruits of the kingdom and those that oppose this vision, will encounter difficulty.

The Pharisees realize that Jesus is speaking about them, and are thrown into a fit of rage, however they are fearful of the crowd that supports Jesus, and therefore take no action against him yet. What the Pharisee’s don’t realize is that Jesus is predicting their future. He knows they cannot accept him, and that they must play out their part, in order for his death to redeem them and us.

Jesus is telling them that without the fruit of justice, without the fruit of righteousness, we produce wild fruits, as the reading from Isaiah mentions, fruits of violence and oppression. The kingdom of heaven cannot be full of these ‘wild’ fruits.

But Jesus offers hope, telling them of the cornerstone. He shows that although there is a humanly perception that someone is an unusable stone, the builder God, will make that stone the cornerstone. The cornerstone, which is the visible recording and example of God’s love. There have been many cornerstone stories within the bible, and within the world. There is the story of David and Bathsheba, which shows that God holds up and utilizes even sinners to do God’s will and to save God’s people. Adam and Eve are also an example of tenants who have made mistakes, but have been redeemed by God’s loving grace.

Jesus offers us this same message of hope. We are Children of this message of hope. Jesus died for each and every one of us, and saved us from our sin. Jesus endured being the son that was sent to bring a message to the tenants, and was killed by a greedy people. We are given an opportunity to share the fruits of the kingdom, to share and practice justice, to share and practice righteousness.
We don’t have to be a greedy people, we don’t have to be like the Pharisees and Sadducees, we can take comfort in the words of Jesus, knowing that we are redeemed through his death. We don’t have to be afraid of the financial crisis, and instead be confident in God’s grace, and share with others our resources. We can equalize distribution, sharing the power of goods. Because we were given the vineyard, even though we didn’t deserve it, because God loves us enough to send God’s only Son, to die for our transgressions and disillusionment.

We are a cornerstone people. Although we have imperfections, we are a visible recording and example of God’s love. So let us stand proud and tall, visibly marked as a cornerstone of God, sharing with others the fruits of the kingdom.

Amen.

posted by Dana @ 8:30 AM