Hear this sermon by clicking here. (It is pretty different than written. The Spirit takes over at times!)
Our first reading is Matthew 21:22-46. Jesus alludes to Isaiah 5:1-7. In Isaiah, the vineyard is the people of God. God cares for the people. But the grapes only were wild, sour grapes. Today, Jesus brings this story to our mind, but says the grapes are fine… rather, the people protecting the vineyard — us. Religious people. They’re ignoring those God sends to collect the good fruits / good deeds of the faithful people. Matthew 21:33-46
In our next reading, Paul writes in the letter to the church at Philippi about how amazing his claim to Jewish-ness is… much like we could brag our claim to Christianity. But these bragging rights mean nothing if they don’t lead us to live and die producing the fruit of Heaven. Philippians 3:4b-14
Sermon: Bragging Rights
Parables are meant to be normal… until they take a weird veer and then they are super not normal. THAT is where they ask us to think. Today’s parable starts off normal. There was landlord. He fixed up the place, rented it out, and went on to his next investment. Pretty normal, huh? When rent came due, his renters beat, stoned, and killed the person he sent to collect rent. Rather than giving his renters an eviction notice, or calling the cops, this landlord sent another three people to get the rent. Weird, huh! The second set of three were also beat, stoned, and killed. Yet again, this weird, weird, landlord doesn’t issue an eviction notice. Now he sends his own son figuring the renters will respect his son. Maybe the renters have issues with other hired employees or something. But the renters saw the son and said, “Hey… there’s our landlord’s son. Let’s kill him and then we’ll own this place we’re renting!” And so they did.
Now, when the landlord comes, what’s going to happen?
Jesus’ listeners said – obviously! The landlord is going to kill the renters! And then get new renters who will pay their rent.
But Jesus doesn’t confirm they are right or wrong. He leaves it open ended. What do you think will happen next? Jesus then tells them how the stone that was rejected is now the most important stone by which the entire building is aligned and built.
He weaves cornerstone and landlords together to say, “The kin-dom of God will be taken from you and given to people who produce the fruit of the kin-dom. The people who can’t abide this will fall apart to pieces and be crushed by the rejection.”
Jesus was speaking to the religious folk. The people who controlled the places of worship, and set the standards. Today, the people who control the Christian radio stations and still control places for worship. People like us.
And the message is… if we are God’s vineyard, as it says in Isaiah… then we ought to be producing God’s kind of fruit AND ALSO sharing it. If we just keep that goodness inside our church communities, we’re failing at being the abundant vineyard God planned.
We’re just renting our time here on earth. The Earth is God’s creation. Each other are God’s creation. We owe goodness. But instead of paying back that rent, sometime we like to kill the people God sends us. Kill the prophets. Kill the inconvenient truths or people we’d rather not help out.
How will God react? Jesus lets us imagine. Maybe God will send more and more people to urge us to produce good fruits. Maybe God will forgive. Maybe God will be angry, as Jesus’ crowd suggested.
But eventually, we all know, God comes Godself.
That is when Jesus says the those who are cruel, greedy, or are trying to steal heaven for themselves, are kicked out and the exiled, the meek, those bend on doing God’s will here on earth as it is in Heaven… are brought in.
This scary message is for us. The religious folk. Are we bragging about the goodness of God and throwing open our larders, our hearts, our communities for all the rejected stones… Or are we bragging about our own goodness and refusing to share our resources, steeling our hearts, and making our communities hostile?
Paul speaks on the same topic. He, too, is religious folk like us. He lists his impressive claim to religious fame. Born and raised in the church from parents born and raised in the church as far back as anyone can remember. He went through every rite right on time – for us, it would be he had a perfectly timed baptism, and confirmation. He went on to seminary where he got straight A’s and he’s a regular on news channels preaching. But… Paul considers all these claims to fame rubbish when compared with the bragging rights of knowing Jesus.
In order to follow Jesus Paul has had to give up all his bragging rights about himself. He’s an embarrassment back home now. His faith has led him to examine what he values and it gave him a radical change of perspective.
And in this liberty of a new mind, a new perspective, he is free to seek the goal – seek the future – seek what lies ahead: the heavenly call of God in Christ Jesus. He is free to hear God calling his name, calling him to the work of the kin-dom of God, calling him to the side of Jesus.
But it means Paul isn’t respectable anymore. He’s lost all his followers. He’s given up bragging about himself… and is sitting with the rejected stones. For it’s these little ones who are living into the kin-dom of God now. Its the meek who inherit the vineyard.
What’s that mean for us here? We’re respectable. We’re religious folk. But to do God’s good work of sharing the goodness of God… we might have to be an embarrassment to our families and friends at time. To really sit with the meek and down and out means actually sitting with the down and out. We have a plentiful harvest of good deeds here, of time and talent and treasured shared… but it is supposed to be shared! And God sends us people to share it with.
Paul also means there is no rank among us. People who grew up in the church and people who just walked in for the first time are equally beloved of God. It means we’re only renting the name of God, per se. By calling ourselves Christian and follows of God, we owe rent. We owe good deeds to God. We owe producing good and wonderful fruit. What’s more, we owe not blocking anyone from receiving these gifts of God. We’re just caretakers. Tenants. The helpers of God. We don’t get to pick who is, or isn’t, another helper of God. We don’t get to pick who is, or isn’t, worthy of God’s love.
And that is why we have days like today – World Communion Sunday. World Communion. Communion with all churches in the world – purposefully remembering we don’t get to pick who is or isn’t Christian. We don’t get to pick who is or isn’t God’s own. Who is or isn’t a real church. We don’t even get to pick who is or isn’t sinful.
God alone judges.
In communion we sit with Jesus, and eat with him. But we also sit with Judas, and we eat with Judas. We sit and eat with the followers of Jesus across all time, and in every place. We sit and eat with people we call saints and holy. And we sit and eat with people we call sinners and damned. In communion we are all brothers and sisters. We are united. We are one. We are the body of Jesus – full of wonders and horrors. And ever striving to be more and more like our head, our Lord.
Merciful.
Forgiving.
Inclusive.
Making room for all people to affirm… we are one. One humanity made in the image of One God.
Let us go to communion today with the best bragging rights of all – God loves us. God loves our friends and family. God loves our enemies and rivals. God loves everyone. Amen!
Pastor Whitney Bruno Sermons 