Vineyard (homily)

Lighten our spiritual darkness we beseech thee, O Lord, and by thy great mercy defend us from all perils and dangers of this night of the soul; for the love of thy only Son, our Savior Jesus Christ. 

You may be seated.

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Jesus often calls on Scripture in his teaching, and the parable he told here has its origin with the beloved’s vineyard at Isaiah 5*, an alternate OT reading for today. Regardless of the gospel introduction though, Matthew’s allegory of “The Wicked Tenants in the Vineyard” is not the clean, simple parable that Jesus told (which you can read in the non-canonical Gospel of Thomas, and I shall read at my ending this morning). Matthew’s allegory is a figuration in which we can do our favorite exercise of assigning names to characters and symbols, a trick that is never valid with a parable; because a parable is about you. 

So that you understand (and I’ll come back to it), the parable Jesus told was allegorized by Mark, Matthew, Luke and the early Christian church more than half a century after Jesus died, at a time when the Church had begun derogating Jews as enemies, perhaps even “Christ-Killers” already, and seeing Christianity as God’s successor to Judaism.

Allegorized as Jesus never intended, Matthew's story has Jesus retrospectively prophesying his own torture and death, to the everlasting damnation of the Jewish people. Matthew’s agenda does this pointedly, to put the “fear of God” in Jewish Christians, who are abandoning Christ and the church for reasons that will see the original Jewish-Christian church disappear before another century passes.

If my seeming criticism concerns you, a scholarly look at Matthew’s gospel is not new to Episcopalians, and if it is new to you, consider Sewanee’s excellent EfM course, where you may become as educated in the Bible as any seminary student. Our church’s theology stands on Scripture, Tradition, and Reason, in which intelligently to study God’s Word is a call not only of clergy but of every baptized Christian. 

The original parable that Jesus told before Good Friday and Easter was not adorned by Mark’s later setting of Jesus in Jerusalem confronting hostile Temple authorities; or still later by Matthew’s complete allegorization to make Christians the good guys and Matthew’s Jewish opposition the evil ones (though throughout history we humans do relish self-righteous indignation and outrage against those who differ from us). Jesus, on the other hand, never resorts to vicious threats of capital punishment unto death, and he tells a parable and abruptly stops so you the listener can contemplate how it applies to you - - not how it applies to someone else, but how it applies to you. 

Here, you see, you are to discover yourself: the tenants in Jesus’ parable are you. Or you might find yourself in the hated unscrupulous landlord. Or in the naive father. Or the son. Or in the parable’s condemnation of evil on both sides. Jesus does not intend you to look across the aisle and shake your head at them or your fist at them, because it’s not about them, it’s to, for, and about you. In fact, Jesus’ parable could be read and heard to begin Lent as we pray our Ash Wednesday liturgy:

We confess to you, Lord, our past unfaithfulness: the pride, hypocrisy, and impatience of our lives,
We confess to you, Lord.

Our self-indulgent appetites and ways, and our exploitation of other people,
We confess to you, Lord.

Our anger at our own frustration, and our envy of those more fortunate than ourselves,
We confess to you, Lord.

Our intemperate love of worldly goods and comforts, and our dishonesty in daily life and work,
We confess to you, Lord.

Accept our repentance, Lord, for the wrongs we have done: for our blindness to human need and suffering, and our indifference to injustice and cruelty,
Accept our repentance, Lord.

For all false judgments, for uncharitable thoughts toward our neighbors, and for our prejudice and contempt toward those who differ from us,
Accept our repentance, Lord.

For our waste and pollution of your creation, and our lack of concern for those who come after us,
Accept our repentance, Lord.

Unfortunately, those Ash Wednesday prayers become mindless rote, uttered and forgotten while the taste of pancakes, butter, sweet syrup and fat sausage still lingers on our tongues. 

Jesus’ story is not about long ago, it’s about human life today. It’s about our national darkness. It’s about a peaceful morning for beautiful, innocent little children at Sandy Hook School. It’s about a nation divided. It’s about an evening concert in Las Vegas. It’s about Americans after a storm, suffering in Puerto Rico and feeling hopeless. It’s not against foreigners and some strange religion, it’s about you, it’s about me, it’s about us, mindlessly oblivious to ourselves and our selfishness that is antithetical to the Love Commandment of Jesus; selfish, greedy, covetous, grabbing and murdering the Son. Where are we going as a people of God! How can we still see ourselves as God’s chosen! What is becoming of us? Are we so absent to the Love of God and our Baptismal Covenant?

Looking at the gospel reading again - - fifty years after Good Friday & Easter Sunday, Matthew’s church of Jewish Christians faces a theological and leadership crisis that is causing Jewish members to abandon the church and return home to basic Judaism. Matthew’s agenda is to fight that crisis. But, erringly, Matthew recasts Jesus’ parable so that instead of examining ourselves as Jesus always means with a parable, Matthew enflames indignant outrage and pointing fingers at Jews, stirring generations and centuries of ethnic hatred. But no indeed, Jesus' parable is about us!

This week, our bishop was so overwhelmed by horrendous national news, so swallowed up in the darkness, the shooting of innocent human beings by sheer evil, that in place of our post-Communion prayer, he offered the Prayer of St. Francis. It’s at page 833 in the Book of Common Prayer, and, following our bishop, we also shall do that this morning. I remind you:

Lord, make us instruments of your peace.

Where there is hatred, let us sow love;

where there is injury, pardon;

where there is discord, union;

where there is doubt, faith;

where there is despair, hope;

where there is darkness, light;

where there is sadness, joy.

Grant that we may not so much seek to be consoled as to console;

to be understood as to understand;

to be loved as to love.

For it is in giving that we receive;

it is in pardoning that we are pardoned;

and it is in dying that we are born to eternal life.

So now finally, hear the parable that Jesus most likely told (GThomas65):

(Jesus said) Someone owned a vineyard and rented it to some tenants, so they could work it and he could collect its crop from them. He sent his slave so the tenants would give him the vineyard's crop. They grabbed him, beat him, and almost killed him, and the slave returned and told his master. His master said, "Perhaps he didn't know them." He sent another slave, and the tenants beat that one as well. Then the master sent his son and said, "Perhaps they'll show my son some respect." Because the tenants knew that he was the heir to the vineyard, they grabbed him and killed him. Anyone here with two ears had better listen!

Jesus’ parable is not about wicked Judean tenants, or greedy absentee landlords, or vicious evil two thousand years ago: this parable is about us, you today, here, now, this morning. Anyone here with two ears had better listen.

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Homily in StJamesEpiscopalChurch PortStJoe, Florida on Sunday, Pr22A, 08Oct2017. Text Matthew 21:33-46. The Rev. Tom Weller

* Isaiah 5:1-7

Let me sing for my beloved

my love-song concerning his vineyard:

My beloved had a vineyard

on a very fertile hill.

He dug it and cleared it of stones,

and planted it with choice vines;

he built a watchtower in the midst of it,

and hewed out a wine vat in it;

he expected it to yield grapes,

but it yielded wild grapes.

and now, inhabitants of Jerusalem

and people of Judah,

judge between me

and my vineyard.

What more was there to do for my vineyard

that I have not done in it?

When I expected it to yield grapes,

why did it yield wild grapes?

And now I will tell you

what I will do to my vineyard.

I will remove its hedge,

and it shall be devoured;

I will break down its wall,

and it shall be trampled down.

I will make it a waste;

it shall not be pruned or hoed,

and it shall be overgrown with briers and thorns;

I will also command the clouds

that they rain no rain upon it.

For the vineyard of the LORD of hosts

is the house of Israel,

and the people of Judah

are his pleasant planting;

he expected justice,

but saw bloodshed;

righteousness,

but heard a cry!