Sermon preached by the Rev. Joseph Scalisi
The Church of the Redeemer / Sarasota, Florida
5 October, 2008
“What more was there to do for my vineyard that I have not done in it?”
Most of you have by now met or know about our daughter Katie, who is now two and a half years old. This past Wednesday morning we got up as usual and started on our regular morning routine. Getting her ready for her day while I feel half asleep is usually a challenge and Wednesday morning proved to be no different. Beginning the routine, we fed the dog and I asked her what she was going to do at school today. She asked me for chocolate milk and I asked her what she wanted to eat. So far, everything seemed to be going fairly well. She said, “I want to eat grapes, Daddy”. This was an unusual request for breakfast, but seeing no harm in it, I prepared a bowl full of grapes for her. Everything seemed to be going so well when the bottom fell out. She threw the bowl of grapes on the floor and began to cry.
As she began to melt down, I just stood there completely confused. And, almost as lifted directly out of the text of our first reading, I asked myself “what more was there to do to get your morning off to a good start that I have not done”. The answer is…nothing. She had been given love, some responsibility, some playtime, her favorite drink, and the food that she asked for. So what was the problem? The problem, it seemed, was that she was still sleepy, and, being unable to articulate it, she simply cried.
However, there is an important difference between the cry of a two year old, who cannot articulate her feelings and the cry of violence being spoken against in our first reading. Jesus illustrates it well when he uses the same imagery from Isaiah against the religious leaders that were continually confronting him.
He speaks of the vineyard planted by the householder, who we are to understand to be God. He provides everything for the vineyard that is necessary to produce the fruit that he wants: the hedge, the winepress, the tower, and of course the good land. All that is required to produce this fruit is for the people to take care of the vineyard. It should take care of itself as long as they simply follow the “Growing Grapes for Dummies” handbook.
The difference between the cry of a sleepy two year old reacting out of instinct and the cry that arises from the vineyard can be summed up in this statement that comes from the vineyard tenants: “This is the heir; come, let us kill him and have his inheritance.” That, ladies and gentlemen is malice and forethought.
Our Lord is convicting the tenants not only of taking the blessings that have been provided and using them for their own ends rather than the purposes for which they were intended…but of deliberately and maliciously striking out against true faithfulness in favor of comfort and self-interest.
Jesus is saying that these tenants will stop at nothing, including murder, to keep what they have and to get more of what they want. The very next sentence after the end of today’s reading says “When the chief priests and the Pharisees heard his parables, they perceived that he was speaking about them”. Indeed he was. Jesus was telling them that they had received the blessings of God’s promises as well as the messages, warnings, and comforts of the prophets and because of these things, they had been entrusted with the mission of producing the fruits of justice and righteousness demanded by God. However, instead of seeking first the kingdom of God, they built and maintained institutional systems that elevated the system over the mission with which they had been entrusted.
Of course, as Jesus said in the parable, the tenants, otherwise known as the chief priests and Pharisees did indeed cast Jesus out of the vineyard, putting Jesus to death outside the gates of Jerusalem. There are certainly many reasons why they did this, and one person’s reason may not have been the same as someone else’s reason. But, as Jesus spoke in the parable, the underlying reason for the behavior of the tenants was the comfort of maintaining a system built on their own self-interest.
And though we should feel a sense of anger towards them for the actions they took in order to maintain a system, we should also be careful that we do not pat ourselves on the back too hard for not being like them. After all, have you ever heard the phrase, “it’s never been done that way before”? Usually, when we hear that, it has something to do with maintaining a system or a way of doing things in which we have become comfortable. Although there is nothing wrong with feeling comfortable, we all have a responsibility to be vigilant against allowing our comfort zones to overrule the mission of producing the fruits of the kingdom of God. If we are not careful, we are no different from the tenants in the vineyard or the chief priests and Pharisees that they represent.
As I’ve said before, we all have reasons for doing what we do… our dear daughter had a reason for reacting in the way that she did, even if she is not old enough to understand it or articulate it. However, we aren’t 2 years old anymore, and by now we should know what our reasons are. God expects fruit from us. He expects anyone living in the vineyard to produce results for him…not just results…but results for HIM. If we don’t…if we keep the benefits to ourselves, or if we are armchair Christians then he asks, “What more was there to do for my vineyard that I have not done in it?” The answer, of course, is nothing. He has given everything necessary for growth.
When we consider what bearing fruit for the kingdom of God means, we often get overwhelmed by thinking that we don’t have what it takes to be a superhero for Christ. But God has already said that he has given us everything necessary, not to be a superhero…but simply to be faithful. Faithfulness produces its own fruit. The question we have before us is this…do we care more about being faithful or being comfortable?