Wicked Tenants

October 8^th, 2017         “Wicked Tenants”       Rev. Heather Jepsen

Matthew 21:33-46

          This morning’s parable continues where we left off last week.  Those that were here last Sunday will remember that Jesus is in his final days in Matthew’s gospel.  He has entered Jerusalem riding on a donkey, he has flipped the tables of the money changers, and he has been engaged in verbal conflict with the religious establishment.  Last Sunday they questioned Jesus’ authority to be preaching, teaching, and generally causing mayhem.  He replied with a parable questioning their authority reminding the religious leaders that it is not what you say that matters; rather it is how you actually live your life.  Jesus immediately follows that parable with this one.

          I see three levels of interpretation in this parable today.  The first is what I will consider the surface level of this text.  This parable is an allegory, and Jesus is using it to condemn the religious leaders of his time, and even times before.  The landowner at the center of the parable is God, and the tenants are the religious establishment.  God has created the world, like a vineyard, and has asked the tenants, or the church, to help look after the place. 

          Over and over God sends messengers to collect a harvest from the tenants and over and over again these messengers are rejected and even beaten.  In Jesus’ parable, these messengers are meant to be the prophets.  Throughout the Old Testament God sent prophets calling the people back to God’s ways.  But the people and the religious establishment repeatedly rejected these messengers from God, often killing them violently. 

          I am sure you can imagine where Jesus is going towards the end of the parable when finally the vineyard owner sends his very son to try to convince the wicked tenants to reform their ways.  This of course, is Jesus himself.  The writer of Matthew’s gospel then has Jesus foreshadow his own death by declaring that even this son will be killed.       

          In the story that Jesus is telling, he asks what should be done with these wicked tenants.  The religious leaders condemn the wicked tenants and in turn condemn themselves.  They declare that these tenants should be killed and that new tenants should be found.  Jesus once again has gained the upper hand as they begin to realize he is speaking about them and their religious authority.

          That is what I consider the surface reading of this parable; that is what Jesus is talking about in his context.  But, if we expand the frame a bit, we can begin to apply the parable to our own lives.  One way to look at this is as if the vineyard is the church and the tenants are the religious leaders and church authorities of today.  When we do this, we have to ask ourselves if the modern church have been good tenants or wicked tenants.

          How have we welcomed folks who bring the message of God into our midst?  Are we harvesting a good crop for the Lord?  Have we been responsible with the resources of the vineyard that the Lord has entrusted to our care?  A scripture reading like this asks the church to take into account every aspect of its life.  Are the sermons true to the message of Jesus Christ?  Is the welcome of strangers genuine or strained?  And how does the church’s budget reflect the values that Jesus encourages us to hold?

          The religious authorities in Jesus’ day missed the mark.  They had become people of the world, and had lost their ability to hear and recognize the word of God within their midst.  We too are in danger of such a fate.  And as Jesus warns, it is possible that God will remove us from our position as tenants, and install someone else who will better follow the will of God in our place.  This parable calls the church to some pretty serious self-reflection.

          A third way to read this parable is to expand the frame even further.  Beyond Jesus and his conflict with the temple, beyond the church and its responsibilities in the world, we can expand the frame to the whole of humanity.  The vineyard is the whole world created by God and the tenants are all of us together, who are asked to care for creation and for our neighbors.  Throughout history God has sent messengers to God’s people, requesting a harvest of love, and throughout history, the people have rejected these messengers. 

          When we look at things on this grand scale we are all condemned.  As tenants, the Lord placed us in creation to care for this planet.  And like wicked tenants we have soiled our very home in our continued desire to make money off the resources of the earth.  Like wicked tenants, we threaten death to the very vineyard we have been hired to care for.

          As tenants, the Lord placed us on this planet to love and care for each other.  Like wicked tenants, we have not produced a harvest of peace; rather we have produced a harvest of death and destruction.  From our continued war mongering between nations, to our inability to break down the barriers of racism and sexism we have been like wicked tenants.  When over 500 people are shot and we still cannot have a conversation about gun laws, we must admit that we are like wicked tenants in the Lord’s vineyard.  We do not value the life of this planet or the lives of the people of this planet as we are called to.

          In the parable that Jesus tells, God reaches out to the wicked tenants over and over again, attempting to get them to pay attention and reform their ways.  I believe that God continues to reach out to us as well.  There are always opportunities to act for justice, there are always opportunities to harvest righteousness and peace, and there are always opportunities to once again welcome the son into the vineyard.

          Jesus points out to the religious authorities of his day that what trips them up is the foundation stone.  Jesus compares himself, his model of love and self-sacrifice to the very stone that holds a building together, the cornerstone.  When the religious authorities and the people of the world reject Jesus and his message, they reject the very foundation of the building.  Without Jesus the building will not hold, without Jesus the foundation will fail, without Jesus we simply cannot stand.

          And yet Jesus is the very one that trips us up.  Like stubbing our toe on a rock, Jesus comes to us in unexpected and painful ways.  We get tripped up, when someone makes us nervous and we aren’t able to show the welcome we know we should.  We get tripped up when we try to call someone on a racist statement, but then end up in an argument instead.  We get tripped up when we mention putting some restrictions on gun purchases in this country, and suddenly we are in a place of all guns or no guns.  We get tripped up when we try to do the right thing, but it is so hard to stick your neck out there, and so we just sit back and be quiet instead.  We want to be good people and to do the right thing, but we get tripped up in the mess of our world, and so sometimes it’s easier to do nothing at all, and in doing so, we are like wicked tenants.

          In the story that Matthew is telling, the chief priests realize that they are the wicked tenants.  That realization makes them angry and afraid.  I think it can make us angry and afraid too.  In the story that Matthew is telling, the wicked tenants don’t reform their ways.  They are worried about the crowds but they are determined to shut Jesus up.  And so they begin to plot his demise.  They will live fully into the wicked tenant parable, by devising a strategy to get the crowds to support the murder of Jesus.  These wicked tenants are wicked to the end.

          We, on the other hand, are not the wicked tenants in Matthew’s gospel.  We still have a chance to work toward a proper harvest of justice and peace.  When the messengers of God come our way, we can continue to strive to welcome them with love.  When the spirit of Jesus calls us to stand up for what is right, to protect the dignity of all people of creation, then we have that chance to stand up.  We still have the chance to stand on the foundation stone and act in ways of faith and love in our world, even if it is scary and difficult.  And through God’s wondrous grace, we have the chance to be forgiven for all the times we may have messed up, all the times we got tripped up, and all the times we didn’t act the way we knew we should have.

          This week, as you go out into the world, I want to challenge you to consider yourself as a tenant.  God has created this good world for us to live in.  God has placed us here to care for creation and for each other.  God has told us through the scriptures, through the life of Jesus Christ, and through the work of the Holy Spirit, what is good.  We know what that foundation stone is and we can stand on it in strength together.  This week, survey the vineyard you live in, and consider the messengers God sends your way.  What kind of tenant will you be when the time of harvest comes?  Amen.

               

Just Do It!

October 1^st, 2017       “Just do it!”          Rev. Heather Jepsen

Matthew 21:23-32 and Philippians 2:1-13

          We will begin with our gospel reading and we can’t really jump into it this morning without going back a bit.  At this point in Matthew’s narrative Jesus is preparing for his death.  He has ridden into Jerusalem on a donkey and has been busy in the temple square.  He has overturned the tables of the money changers and has preached against the temple system.  He has been healing folks inside the grounds of the temple and has aroused cries of “Hosanna!” from among the people.  Basically, in the eyes of the temple authorities Jesus is causing some real trouble so when he enters the grounds for yet another day of holy mayhem they try to stop him with a question.

          “By what authority are you doing these things?” they ask.  How come you are making such a ruckus and who are you to be attracting so much attention?  Well, one should know better than to try to question Jesus.  There is no one more skilled at controlling a conversation and upending our line of thought than him.  Jesus refuses to answer their question, and in true rabbinical fashion he asks a question of his own.  “Did the baptism of John come from heaven or of human origin?”

          Ah, the trap is sprung and there is no escape now.  If the chief priests say John’s baptism was from heaven then they say John is legitimate and by proxy so is Jesus.  If they say it was from man they will surely lose the respect of the crowds who have grown quite fond of both the ministry of Jesus and John.  There is no winning, there is no way out, they are done for.  “We don’t know” they mumble under their breath.

          Now that he has secured the upper hand, Jesus uses this opportunity to needle them a bit further by telling a parable.  He takes us back to the metaphor of working in the vineyard by telling a story of a man with two sons.  He asks both to work in the vineyard for the day.  One says he will work but doesn’t go and work, by contrast the other says he won’t work but then in the end he does go and work.  I will forever think of this as the “Pig Will” and “Pig Won’t” parable.

          Jesus asks which one does the will of the Father and of course it was the one who went to work, rather than the one who simply said he would go and work.  Jesus teaches that when it comes to serving the Lord, what matters is not what you say but what you do.  Jesus then says that the tax collectors and prostitutes are headed into heaven before the religious leaders because they are the ones who believed the preaching of John and who also then believe in Jesus as the Messiah.  The temple authorities are stunned.  Prostitutes in heaven before them, that hurts!

          Jesus’ encounter with these guys reminds us that our faith is not about what we say; it is about what we do.  Our faith is not about reciting the proper creeds or having the proper belief system.  It’s not about who reads the Bible right or how exactly our church polity works.  No, our faith is only ever about how we live our lives, not just on Sunday mornings but all the other days of the week. 

          If we are followers of Christ, it will be shown by our actions, not by our professions of faith.  The temple authorities spent days on end professing the correct faith, but their actions showed that they didn’t really believe in what they were saying.  In the end, it is not what we say that matters, it is what we do.  Which makes me think of that old Nike slogan: when it comes to our faith don’t just say it, “Just do it!”

          So what should we do, what does Christian living look like?  Let’s turn to Paul.  Here we are jumping into Paul’s letter to the church in Philippi.  This is widely considered to be Paul’s most affectionate letter.  He is writing it as an expression of friendship to a church he truly loves.  And yet, like any church then or now, there is a bit of conflict in the ranks and it is this that Paul seeks to address.

          The “if” in verse one can also be translated as “since” which might make this a better reading.  “Since there is encouragement in Christ, consolation from love, sharing in the Spirit, compassion and sympathy” since there are all these forms of love and unity “then make my joy complete by being of one mind in Christ.” 

          Paul encourages the Philippians to be of one mind as a church.  Coming to a common mind is about letting go of the importance of our own opinions as an act of selflessness for the sake of unity in Christ.  They should let go of selfish ambition and conceit, and instead regard others as better than themselves.  He asks them to look not to their own individual interests, but to look to the interests of others.  Don’t do what’s best for you or what you think is right, he says, instead do what is best for the group. It’s not what you say that matters, it’s what you do, and what you should do is work toward the building up of others.

          Where did Paul get such a kooky idea?  From Christ of course!  “Let the same mind be in you that was in Christ Jesus,” he tells them.  He then launches into what appears to be a long poem but which scholars actually think was a hymn.  In fact, it is commonly thought that Paul is quoting one of the favorite hymns of the Philippian church.  This is a great tool to get the Philippians’ attention and make his point.  It would be as if I started quoted the words from “Amazing Grace” in a sermon of mine.  That would certainly stir the song in your heart and wake you up to my message.  Paul wants to wake the people of Philippi up to the message that they should be imitators of Christ, who though he was in the form of God, emptied himself and became a slave. 

          As believers, we understand who God is from God’s self-revelation to us.  Throughout the scriptures we read of God’s acts on behalf of others.  From the days of creation to bringing the exiles out of Egypt, from sending the prophets to sending John to baptize in the Jordan, from Christ’s work of healing to his death on a cross, all of God’s acts are done on behalf of others.  If the same mind is to be in us that was in Christ Jesus, than that should be a mind of servitude, a mind of self-sacrifice, a mind that is focused on the good of the other rather than the self. 

          This is World Communion Sunday, one of my favorite Sunday’s in the life of the church.  Today we remember that while we physically gather as Christians in Warrensburg Missouri, we spiritually gather with Christians all over the world.  As our country continues to struggle over issues of patriotism and nationalism, as well as our promise of liberty and justice for all, it is good to be reminded that at this table, in this church, our focus shouldn’t be on being American.  Rather, our focus should be on our status as citizens of the world, part of God’s big family of humanity. 

          As Christians we are called to work for peace in our world, recognizing that all God’s children have a right to peace and safety.  This call necessitates the self-emptying love of Christ.  We cannot be a people of peace, and we cannot be a nation of peace, if we are constantly pushing our own beliefs and desires ahead of the basic needs of other people.  We cannot be a people of peace if we are a nation that threatens violence to those who disagree with us.

          When we gather at the table we remember that Christ is our model.  Christ, though in the form of God, emptied himself and was born into human likeness.  Christ humbled himself to the point of death on a cross.  God lifted Christ high in exaltation through the resurrection.  And God promises that one day all will confess that this one, this suffering servant, this Jesus Christ, is Lord. 

          As you move out from this worship service today and into the world around you I want to encourage you to think about these lessons from Jesus and Paul.  In a nation that is struggling to find the balance between nationalism and justice, how can we act in ways that promote the shared dignity of all people as children of God?  In a nation that continues to threaten violence, how can we act in ways that promote peace in our community and in our world?  Instead of just professing our faith, how can we live out our faith by lifting up the needs of others above our own?  Jesus tells us that it in the end it is not what we say that matters, it is what we do.  My prayer for us this week is that we would live lives worthy of his name and “just do it!”  Amen.