October 5th: Matthew 21:33-46

More Trouble in the Vineyard
A Sermon by Carrie Finch for Cheyarha Presbyterian
October 5, 2008

So here’s a question for you this morning- if you know the end of the story does that change things? What I mean is, if you know how the book is going to end, how the movie is going to come out- do you stick with it until the end or do you say- well there you go- I don’t need to invest my time in that anymore. Or, if you know the ending, does that give you a sense of comfort or maybe excitement as you anticipate just how the story will unfold to get to the said ending? JK Rowling, the author of the Harry Potter books, said that she wrote the last chapter of the last book before she wrote any other part of the book series. She knew the fate of Harry and his friends before she had nuanced their characters- before Harry had even gone off to wizarding school. And I think, for Mrs. Rowling, knowing the fate of this young hero, probably shaped a lot of the choices she made about him and the people he interacted with.
It has also been said there are always two sides to every story and that usually it’s the ones who won the fight that get their version of the story told- history is written by the victors- by the ones who came out ahead. That is of course, unless you are from the south like I am. There, we still talk about the war of Northern aggression and how the south really didn’t loose that civil war. But I digress.
You see, one of the things that we sometimes forget- or maybe we don’t even realize- is that the gospel writers didn’t write their books until after they knew the end of the story. Matthew, Mark, Luke and John were all written after Jesus had already lived, after Jesus had already been betrayed, arrested, beaten, and hung on a cross. Their stories are told after the resurrection. They knew the ending. They were writing on the winning side- on the side of grace and redemption yes- but they were writing in a time where the battles with the Pharisees and chief priests were still being wrought. They were still being persecuted by the established religion and the established government of their time. Our gospel writers- even though they were on the winning side, were still on the fringes of society and were trying to keep their little churches afloat, were trying to keep this new founded Christianity in existence, to inspire and encourage the believers. So my question is- do you think, knowing as they did, the proverbial end to Jesus’ life on earth story- and knowing that their followers were still suffering- that all of this made a difference in their writing of the accounts of the stories and actions of our Savior?
In the text that we are presented with today I think it does. This parable that Matthew tells us about is an allegory of Israel’s relationship to God. The vineyard is to be understood as the Israelites- or the people of God. The master of the vineyard is understood to be God. The slaves of the master who come to collect the produce are understood to be the prophets that we read about in the Old Testament. The tenants of the field are understood as the leaders of the Jewish temple- the Pharisees- and the son, well, the son in this story is the Son, Jesus. So, we are left then, with trying to figure out what this all means. What this meant to the people of Matthew’s church and what it means to us today. Are we, the modern day church truly the “people that produces the fruits of the kingdom” that Jesus says in verse 43 that is being taken away from the tenants of the vineyard? And if we are, are we living into that reality- into that charge?
When we start digging into this parable we find ourselves with more trouble in the vineyard. This image of a vineyard is prevalent in both the Old and New Testaments. Many parables and stories take place in or around or about a vineyard. Why do you think that is? Well, on one hand, what it does is tell us something about the environment and the economy. It tells us something about the way of life for many people- what jobs might be like… All those things you can tell about from our own experiences with agriculture and farming. Have you ever been out to a vineyard before?
I remember the first time I saw one. I was fourteen and my mom, brother and I had flown out to San Frisco, California to visit some family and we decided one day to drive up north and see the wine country. Napa Valley’s beauty, the rolling lush hills, the lined rows upon rows of grapes on both sides of the road that seemed to go on forever left a deep impression on me. As we toured one of the wineries, we learned about the process of making wine, about how long it takes for the vines to mature to produce good grapes fit for pressing. We learned how much work went into making just one bottle of wine. It’s a process that takes years of hard work and commitment. And this is with all our modern day advances and modern day machinery. To labor in a vineyard back then, well, I imagine, was an almost back-breaking experience. From tilling the soil, to pruning the vines, to plucking the grapes and pressing them, all in the hot, hot sun, well, it’s hard work- but it’s a labor of love- which brings us to the second thing I think we can learn from this image of the vineyard itself. If you ever talk to a farmer, a craftsman, or anyone who grows crops, animals or uses his or her hands to make a living- the one thing I find that all these people have in common is the way they speak of their fields and cattle, or of their material they shape in their hands, they speak about these things with love and passion of something they truly care about and for. You see, I think the image of a vineyard is used because we know, as did the first followers of Christ knew, that it takes a lot of work to maintain and even prosper a vineyard and that the one who owns a vineyard loves his vineyard, is passionate about it even.
And in this vineyard in particular- the one that Matthew is writing about- you know- this one where the vineyard is actually the people of God and the fruit being produced is the fruit of the Spirit- the fruit of God’s good intentions for us- what sort of trouble do we find? Well, we find ourselves in a story where there is persecution. We find the ones who have been charged with caring for and tending to the crop being greedy and wanting all the inheritance for themselves. We find that when the Master sends his servants to come and reap the fruit that the tenants decide to beat and kill them so that they can take what is not theirs. Then, when the master sends his son, truly, he thinks, they will respect the son, and what happens, do the tenants then give peacefully to the son the fruit that is due? No, they seized him, threw him out of the vineyard and killed him.
That part sounds a little too familiar don’t you think? On the night of Jesus’ arrest- what happened? The Jewish leaders beat Jesus, spit on him and challenged him- and then, because they didn’t want to kill him themselves, they turned him over to Pontius Pilot. And, well, we know how the story goes, it’s an awful lot like this parable here.
And yet, after Jesus tells this parable, he asks the question, “Now when the owner of the vineyard comes, what will he do to those tenants?" And what is the reply? “They said to him, "He will put those wretches to a miserable death, and lease the vineyard to other tenants who will give him the produce at the harvest time." The interesting thing here is that Jesus doesn’t immediately say to them that they are right or that they are wrong, instead, he quotes to them a verse from Isaiah. He says "Have you never read in the scriptures: 'The stone that the builders rejected has become the cornerstone; this was the Lord's doing, and it is amazing in our eyes'? 43 And then Jesus adds, “Therefore I tell you, the kingdom of God will be taken away from you and given to a people that produces the fruits of the kingdom. 44 The one who falls on this stone will be broken to pieces; and it will crush anyone on whom it falls." The story in Matthew then goes on to say that the chief priests and the Pharisees who were listening to Jesus, realized that Jesus was talking about them and were scared, because they realized that Jesus was a prophet and he sought to destroy their way of life and understanding. They were scared of losing their power and authority.
What we know now, and what Matthew knew then, is that the Pharisees and the chief priests never got it. They did not heed the warnings from Jesus- they did not recognize that all power and authority rested in Jesus, in God alone. And even those these people succeeding in having Jesus arrested and killed, that they were not victorious in crushing him and crushing his message. No, in the end, we find that the kingdom of God became entrusted in others- that the love God has for the people of God was to be shepherded by others. No longer are we guided by chief priests and Pharisees. No, the kingdom of God was given to people from all nations, to the gentiles and Jews alike- and we were given a new covenant with Jesus as the head of the church, as the rock that we build our hope and trust on. So what then does this mean to us here today in Cheyarha- what are we to learn from all this trouble in the vineyard?- If the vineyard has been given to us too- are we tending to it? Are we taking care of this land of God’s, are we producing good fruit- worthy of the Master? Because that is what it comes down to isn’t it? The thing is, we know the end of our story too. We may not realize it, but we do. And the end begins with the table before us today. The end begins with the past, present and future reality of Jesus Christ who has saved us from ourselves and from our sins and promised us a life eternal in Him. We know that we are bound to God through the waters of our baptism and through the bread and cup of Jesus’ body. And if we can just remember that, then I think, we will produce good fruits, if we can just remember that we are the kingdom of God- that we are loved and tended, pruned and cared for by a master who is passionate about us, then we can take comfort in that, and maybe even, be excited about how our story will unfold as we get to the end of it. Even though we know how our story will end, with eternal grace of Christ the Son, it’s how we live out the chapters in between that make the difference. The time for harvesting is upon us. Let us bear good fruit, and take care of the kingdom of God while the Kingdom of God is before us and within us.