"In a world where God planted a vineyard, but where the tenants
harvest terror, (insert here a dramatic pause for quick takes of mayhem and destruction)
there seems to be no hope. But they can’t imagine what’s in store for them…when
the Master returns!"
Jesus loved to use
images that people could relate to. He talked of shepherds and sheep, women
baking bread and cleaning house, builders building and travelers on the road.
And vineyards! He loves images of vineyards like the ones in the Gospel of
Matthew. Today’s lesson is a simple story but there’s a whole lot going on, so
let’s look at the story one piece at a time:
This vineyard represents
the world God made. It is the place where we are and where we live our lives. The
question is what are we going to do with the vineyard we’ve been given?
We are the tenants of
creation, and the stewards of God’s farmland, just like how in Jesus’ day, the
job of the tenant of the vineyard was to work the land on behalf of the owner.
In today’s Gospel, we
hear that these particular tenants do a decent job. They took good care of the
land. They enjoy it. The rub comes when they decide not to share, but to keep everything
they harvest for themselves. They forgot whose vineyard it is and who they work
for.
So, the landowner sent
servants to collect what the vineyard has earned. This is like God who sent his
holy prophets to his people. And yet the people didn’t listen. They rebelled,
and sinned, and transgressed the law – again and again and again.
At last, the owner sends
his son, saying, “They will respect my son.” Of course, they don’t. In their
greed and pride, they kill the heir. Having done that, they have finally
incurred enough of the owner’s wrath that he sends in the police—or more
precisely the army—to evict the tenants. After kicking them out (cue the quick
takes of the hero taking on the thugs), he hires new stewards to care for, and
probably repair, the vineyard.
Clearly, this whole
story is an allegory written to help a young church, a generation or three
removed from the actual ministry of Jesus, understand the how and why of God’s
salvation. They are making a case for not only why the covenant with the Jews
is now extended to Gentiles, but it’s also making a case that, if we’re not careful,
we could just as easily lose it all.
Ever since this Gospel
story was first recorded two millennia ago, a debate has raged in the church:
which is more important, charisma or order? Which would we rather have, the
discipline of order—knowing the rules and who’s boss—or openness to the charism
of the Spirit of God? Sometimes the battle has been my kind of order is better
than yours, and I know it because God told me so (nyah)! Matthew seems to be
landing on the side of order (unlike Luke who is All Spirit All the Time), and,
frankly, I think that this time Matthew is on the wrong side of the argument.
Let’s go back to the
story and I’ll show you why.
The landowner’s son in
today’s Gospel represents, of course, Jesus. And Matthew has Jesus telling this
story on his journey to the cross. Jesus is in Jerusalem and Matthew shows him teaching
in the temple, where he’s overturned the seller’s tables and thrown the
moneychangers out on their ears. The bad guys are incensed and, twirling their
mustaches and looking evil, are plotting Jesus’ demise. Matthew’s church
remembers Jesus’ story not just for the melodrama but mainly to describe what
God has been up to in Jesus and in building up his church.
And then we hear Jesus
changing metaphors and calling himself a stone…a stone tossed in the trash hear
because it isn’t the right shape…but instead becomes the keystone, the
cornerstone of something entirely new. Again, Matthew is not only describing
Jesus but the whole church. It is not just Jesus who was rejected given up for
dead, but lots of people. And all of them are being used by God for something
new.
The early church liked the
image of the rejected stone winning out, because it appears in the Gospels and
in 2 Peter, in other words from very early in the church’s life and for a long
time after. And we’ve heard it, too, over and over again – in stories, in
sermons, in the examples of faithful people in our lives and in our everyday
experiences. And yet, despite the repetition, we go right on doing what we’ve
always done! The good news is that God never gives up on us.
In Christ, God comes to
broken, stubborn and ignorant humanity, and gives us forgiveness, direction,
hope, power, and strength to keep on learning, growing, and trying anew. The rejection and apparent defeat of the cross
is not the end of the story. Jesus’ resurrection and the gift of the Holy
Spirit God shows us that we are still writing this Gospel story. God’s story
and ours are not over yet. There is still time for change, still time for new
plot lines, still time to introduce new characters.
Today is the 800th anniversary of the death of St. Francis of Assisi, and his feast is observed in several traditions besides Catholicism, including, among others, the Old Catholic Churches, the Evangelical Lutheran Churches, the Church of England, the Anglican Church of Canada, and the Episcopal Church. Pope Leo XIV wrote of Francis: “His life was one of continuous self-emptying: from the palace to the leper, from eloquence to silence, from possession to total gift…. In the poor, he saw brothers and sisters, living images of the Lord. His mission was to be with them, and he did so through a solidarity that overcame distances and a compassionate love.” Francis’ poverty was both intentional and relational: he chose to live with the poor, his intentional poverty convicting society of the sins of unintentional poverty imposed on our neighbors. “His holiness,” Leo wrote, “sprang from the conviction that Christ can only be truly received by giving oneself generously to one’s brothers and sisters.”
Another example happened during the Nazi occupation of Denmark more than eight-five years ago. Every day, the Danish king, King Christian the Tenth, rode his horse through the streets of Copenhagen, surrounded by applauding crowds. The occupation forces told him to stop, but he told the Germans that he would risk death to keep the swastika from flying over his castle, and they relented from displaying their flag there. They apparently did not want to provoke an uprising by arresting or killing their king. So, while they flew the Nazi flag from as many flagpoles as they could, it was never raised over the King’s palace. His defiance turned the king into the cornerstone of the remarkably successful Danish resistance.
The Danish resistance
movement featured school children, amateur saboteurs, and clergy working with underground
networks who kept the Nazi killing machine off balance for years. The Germans
wanted normalcy in Denmark, even as the resistance movement worked through not
only their refusal to fly flags, but also though strikes, work slowdowns, and
all kinds of passive civil disobedience—as well as blowing up something every
now and then, and helping downed Allied fliers—to deny them that. How
successful were they? Well, one indicator of their success was how relatively
few Danish Jews ended up in the Nazi killing machine because a significant
number were hidden or transported to safety in neutral Sweden through the help
of their fellow citizens.
Today, we live in a world that thrives on division and rage. Even
Christian preachers, I am sad to say, will traffic in this kind of stuff
because they think it will fill up auditoriums and eyeballs to their broadcasts
and social media sites (and dollars in their pockets!). But these characters
are forgetting something as they build their measly empires. They are
forgetting the One who brings us together, holds us together, and how God really
works in constructing his house and planting his vineyard.
You see, a cornerstone
is not just a pretty brick decorative sometimes installed with great ceremony
but functions by balancing the weight of
two adjacent walls, so that together they hold up the structure instead of
falling over under their own weight or when the wind blows hard. Similarly, an
arch stands up because the pressure of two stacks of stones meet at the
keystone, which turns what otherwise would be the momentum to collapse into the
strength to hold up a wall even when we punch a hole in it for a doorway or a
window. Just so, sometimes two oppressed or conflicted groups, or a seemingly
unorganized group like a congregation, achieves unity because they want to
realize the same audacious vision because Christ is the keystone and their solid
foundation.
Jesus ups the ante when he reminds us that this keystone was plucked out of the rock pile. Discarded but now essential.
So, what’s your story? How has God turned the pressure points in
your life into the building blocks of a renewed life? How has God flipped over
your heart and turned loss, chaos, worry, or hopelessness into an everyday holiness
that undergirds your life, however slight it may appear? Who in your life of
faith has built you up and helped you stand even when things seemed to be
falling apart around you? Over and over again, just like today’s Gospel images
of vineyards and cornerstones, Jesus shows us that God takes what has been cast
aside, trashed, stolen, or ridiculed and turns it into a lively, growing,
transforming life of faith. All of us are invited—called—to take part in God’s
work in God’s world, in God’s vineyard. But most important of all, it turns out
that we are the very harvest we work for.
This is the Bulletin for Worship for The Nineteenth Sunday after Pentecost: October 4, 2026 at St. Chad's, Tampa, Florida.
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