Thursday night we had a harvest moon. For me it’s the same
moon Linus sits under while he waits for the great pumkin, but the big, bright
moon really earned its name because it aided farmers bringing in their field crops
when the days were getting shorter. Tobacco, cotton, soybeans, hay and corn all
come in this time of year, and, despite modern advances, crops are still
vulnerable to weather, pests, and contaminants. A successful harvest is never assured
until it’s completed.
Throughout time, farmers have faced similar risks, working
all year-round preparing furrows, digging out stones and rocks, amending soil
and planting seeds and choice vines. And when planting is finished, persisting
at the work of weeding and watering, plucking off bollworms and hornworms, and
waiting for tender shoots to mature, and yield their firstfruits.
In today’s gospel Jesus tells us about one landowner who had
planted a vineyard, and then entrusted it to tenants who would tend the land
and gather the harvest.
There’s so much the text doesn’t tell us though. Remembering
to listen for the questions the text asks, I wonder whether the tenants
originally agreed to share the harvest by giving the owner a portion of the
crops that were harvested. When a harvest is meager, the share owed to the
owner doesn’t change. Perhaps a fear of scarcity set in and instead of offering
the first fruits, the tenants did the math and decided they couldn’t afford to
give anything.
Or perhaps they were simply human, susceptible to
selfishness and greed. Having worked hard to make the land produce, they wanted
now to keep it for themselves. They failed to remember that neither the land or
the vineyard ever belonged to them. They simply had been entrusted with its
care.
Another reading questions the actions of the landowner. Was
he the greedy one? Did he hear the tenants had been successful and now he thought
he deserved a share? But wouldn’t it be in the owner’s interest to have hardworking
tenants tending to the vineyard and earning a bountiful harvest? Why would he
trick them or deceive them?
Living with these questions, our reading of the parable
continues.
Expected to share their abundance, the tenants beat, kill
and stone the slaves and even the son of the owner. The parable says that,
taking matters into their own hands, they sought to inherit the vineyard , as
if by their actions they could change their position.
While this parable is often called the “parable of the
wicked tenants” I think it could be named the “parable of the faithful owner.” As
with all of Scripture, its story tells us some things about God, the One who
creates all living things, owns the land and gives the harvest.
The parable echoes the beginning of the passage in Isaiah
that is paired with it in the lectionary this morning. Isaiah 5 begins as a
love song from the God of Israel, Yahweh who is deeply devoted to the vineyard,
and showers upon it attentiveness and hard work. As its owner and creator, he
exhibits complete devotion to it and waits expectantly for it to become
fruitful.[i]
On the earth, God has created all living things and eagerly
anticipates that we will bear fruit, but
instead of opening our hands and meeting the needs of our
neighbors, we become hard-hearted or tight-fisted, only serving others when it
is convenient;
instead of welcoming the stranger, we become fearful and fall
prey to an attitude of scarcity, convinced that we must act in our own interest
to protect what is “ours”; and
instead of praying for our enemies and seeking peace, we respond
to threats of violence with violence, escalating words and arsenals, punishing
murder with murder.
Like the tenants in the parable, we confess our faith in a
living and loving God but by our actions and our words, we live as if there is
no God. Here, sin is clearly our rejection of God, in “an attitude of
selfishness that has no need for God.”[ii]
We disappoint God in small and big ways all the time, and
God weeps at our rejection.
God weeps when bullets rain on a crowd, killing 58 people
and injuring five hundred and twenty seven.
God weeps when his children are cut off from family and
basic necessities by impassable roads and disrupted telephones and electricity.
God weeps when hatred and bigotry is ignored because it is
never the “right time” to address injustice and to confess our complicity in
perpetuating evil.
The Good News is that, unlike the vineyard owner in Isaiah
who destroys the vineyard and allows it to be devoured and trampled,
Or the landowner in the parable who predictably seizes his vineyard
from the tenants, our loving God does
not give up on us.
God remains devoted to us, even to the cross where God
suffered the death of his only Son,
where Jesus was beaten and tortured by his enemies but death
was defeated by love.
And God remains expectant, confident that we are redeemed
and made holy by His grace.
Forgiven by our merciful God, the expectation is that we
will respond with grace to the brokenness we meet in the world.
The fruit that God expects from us is love:
Love for our neighbor, meeting the needs of others and
loving them as we love ourselves.
Love for the stranger, remembering that we and our ancestors
in faith before us have all been exiles and strangers.
Love for our enemies, leaving vengeance and judgment to God,
and seeing each person as wholly human and loved by God.
This love mirrors what we see on the cross when God gives
his only Son that the whole world would not perish, but be saved through him.
Like farmers hoping for a good harvest, the Gospel calls us
to remember that God is the creator and owner of all things, we are here as
caretakers and stewards of what God provides, and our hope is grounded in who
God is, and what God can do, and not in our own efforts.
Let us pray…
Good and gracious God,
who sees our rejection and our selfishness, and remains
steadfast in merciful love for your children,
teach us to remember that you have entrusted us with care
for creation and all living things,
that we would embrace Your forgiveness,
and reject suffering and evil, mirroring your love in a
hurting world.
We pray in the name of your Son Jesus,
Amen.
[i] Walter
Brueggemann. Isaiah 1-39.
[ii] Brian
Stoffregen.
No comments:
Post a Comment