21:33 "Listen to another parable. There was a landowner who planted a
vineyard, put a fence around it, dug a wine press in it, and built a watchtower. Then he
leased it to tenants and went to another country.
21:34 When the harvest time had come, he sent his slaves to the tenants to
collect his produce.
21:35 But the tenants seized his slaves and beat one, killed another, and
stoned another.
21:36 Again he sent other slaves, more than the first; and they treated them in
the same way.
21:37 Finally he sent his son to them, saying, 'They will respect my son.'
21:38 But when the tenants saw the son, they said to themselves, 'This is the
heir; come, let us kill him and get his inheritance."
21:39 So they seized him, threw him out of the vineyard, and killed him.
21:40 Now when the owner of the vineyard comes, what will he do to those
tenants?"
21:41 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."
21:42 Jesus said to them, "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'?
21:43 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.
21:44 The one who falls on this stone will be broken to pieces; and it will
crush anyone on whom it falls."
21:45 When the chief priests and the Pharisees heard his parables, they
realized that he was speaking about them.
21:46 They wanted to arrest him, but they feared the crowds, because they
regarded him as a prophet.
Does our USA need a prophet today? A person who will speak a word of peace to those who only want violence. A person who will say the truth in love and announce the futility of war as a way to solve our problems. When will we ever learn.... How can we ministers help to announce the fruit of the Kingdom like Jesus when so many want to be quiet and let war go on? Who will listen? Who will speak?
Pax Christi
We had St. Michael and all angels in our congregation last Sunday, so dealt with our desire to be the same as God. I used a story that would also work with this text, for the tenants want to be the owners, so I'll share it with you, I can't use it again (at least not two weeks in a row).
A group of scientists decided it was time for God to take a vacation, because science could do everything that God could do, and after all those millennia, the scientists thought God should rest for a while. (Maybe they forgot that God also invented the Sabboth.) So they chose one of their number to go before God with their proposal. The scientist laid it all out, and challenged God to come up with something, anything the scientist couldn’t do just as well as God.
First of all, God make it rather easy, gathering together a cloud to shower rain upon the earth. The scientist got into an airplane with a bunch of chemicals, spread them into the atmosphere, and sure enough, it rained. Then God caused a seed to sprout and grow before the eyes of the scientist. The scientist donned a smirk, and with special fertilizers and lights, did the same. Finally, God gathered together some dirt from the ground, formed it into a new being, and breathed life into it. Really smug now, the scientist began to do the same, but God said, “You’ve used my creation enough for your other demonstrations, that’s the dirt I created. You get your own.”
Michelle
The word “Gethsemane” means winepress, does anyone think this parable is a deliberate reference to Jesus arrest in the garden?
Pr.del in IA
OK, OK, I know it is only Sunday night but I have no idea how to sqeeze the good news from this passage on World Communion Sunday. I want this Sunday to be a big day as my tiny little "dying" (according to some reports) congregation is in a way a mircocosm of the world. On Sunday mornings we can have six nationalities represented (with only 45-50 people present) and in the evening service, which is in Spanish, we can have as many, though we number only 12-20. I can't find the heart of this passage in this context. Give me some leads if you can think of them.
Avis in KY
"World Communion Sunday" is not on the Episcopal Church calendar, but I usually make reference to the event when it happens.
I do so in the context of other lessons -- our parish patron is St. Francis of Assisi, who's feast day is Oct. 4. So we celebrate "St. Francis Sunday" on the first Sunday of October and use the propers of his feast day. The assigned lessons in our lectionary are Galatians 6:14-18, Matthew 11:25-30 and Psalm 121, to which we had a lesson from the Hebrew Scriptures, Micah 6:6-8 (which seems so appropriate for Francis).
Anyway, I won't have much to offer to this week's discussion since I'll be working with different lessons.
By the way, my "serious sermon" on ageing humans and ageless angels was disrupted by a surprise birthday event instigated by my wife and daughter. The congregation threw 50 "smiley face" yellow balls at me as I began preaching! So much for Anglican decorum....
Blessings,
Eric in KS
Here's my World Communion Sunday tie-in:
Jesus show that the kingdom belongs to those who produce the fruits of the kingdom. God's true followers are united by Christ and united in seeking to produce the fruit of the kingdom.
Mouthy Preacher
Eric in KS, I feel a dangerous pin-prick in my World Wide Communion Sunday baloon if its not on your calendar.
Im thinking of talking about being "unseated" as Paul was, as tenents eventually shall be, as we as a nation must be unseated from our high horse if we are to be faithful.
A vision of God's demand for our faithfulness must make us a bit uncomfortable with the places of arrogance.
Qs
Pastor Rick,
You appear to be in a place for possible growth if you are open to it. I have found that my preaching does very little to change the congergation and the impact is usually on me when I'm honest with myself. It appears that those who benifit most from the freedoms that we have in the USA are those that least want to protect it. I am struck by the fact that those most opposed to war are those that promote the "right" of a woman to kill an unborn child. We will not raise our voice or our hand to stop the killing of the most inocent. But when it comes time to go after the evil people in the world people can't handle killing. The land owner kept sending people to try to reason with evil people, but there was no reasoning to be had. It comes down to finally kicking them out of the vineyard. We have a God fearing president, not a perfect president. The only time there has been peace it has come through strength, not weakness. History tells us that we make friends of our enemies because of our strength and compassion.
BT IND
I posted the following on the Isaiah page, but many of you won't be using that text, and there is very little commentary on that page. However, I wanted to share it with you all as well.
Wow. I've read Isaiah 5:1-7 before, but always before it has been in the context of the failure of Israel to be God's people.
Today, I see it as our failure to be God's people. It's so easy to point the finger of blame at others, but not so easy to see it in ourselves.
On the other hand...
Maybe we need to remember that we are not the first generation of vines planted in good soil. We are the inheritors of the wild grapes. We live in a world overgrown with briers (briars?) and thorns.
Pure justice is not possible in this world of thorns and drought. We can work for justice as far as we are able, but we can not obtain it on our own, and probably will not until all creation is renewed in the resurrection.
Bloodshed, sometimes our own, spread out on the ground of an unjust world... and God sees it.
Michelle
Hey Michelle and others,
The Isaiah passage relates directly to this passage in Matthew. Jesus is essentially telling the same story from Isaiah, but in his own context and with his own insights. The people listening, the Pharisees and religious leaders especially would be familiar with the language Jesus uses in this parable...a vineyard, a watchtower, leased to others.....what was given in return was not justice, but bloodshed (killing the servants and son) not righteousness but a cry (a cry of the oppressed with whom the tenants would not share their produce)
BT IND I must disagree that peace comes in our strength, for as Christians we are called to be weak and foolish especially in the eyes of the world. Peace comes not when we keep the vineyard to ourselves...that only causes war..because we want to stop anyone from trying to take it from us...peace comes when we give our produce away...trusting God that we are not the owners of the world in the first place.
It's ironic in the story that the tenants kill the son to keep the land, but the one's who keep the land are not the ones who kill him, but the ones who follow him.
RB
BT IND
Nice to see a dissenting voice on the site, if only to keep some of the rest of us honest, but still . . .
Do you really see the owner of the vineyard in the parable as being the USA? I know that interpreting parables is dicey sometimes, but I really thought I had this one nailed down by seeing the vineyard as belonging to God. And I'm not prepared to assign to myself the role of cleaning the evildoers out of God's vineyard.
By the way, if you're not packing up the old ditty bag for active duty in Iraq when the bombs start to fall, it's a bit tasteless to suggest that the rest of us are guilty of cowardice (not prepared to defend our freedoms) because we may have some hesitation about having our tax dollars spent on killing conscripted soldiers and the inevitable "collateral damage." What role exactly are you planning to play in the (likely) coming war? Call us unrealistic if you like. But to believe that those who are thinking about standing up before a hostile congregation to share a message of reconciliation that may not be acceptable to their listeners (in many cases their employers) are somehow taking the easy path is a bit divorced from reality as well.
Oh, and by the way, I'll raise my voice against abortion as well. I'm just not sure that I'm ready to accept the killing of Iraqi children who've made it out of the womb. And I'd at least like to believe that the President has come to the decision with great reluctance. But I fear that would be as much a denial of reality as anything else.
Touched a sour chord here, I suppose. Not sure what it has to do with the passage. Except perhaps we all should be a little less certain that we are the newcomers in the vineyard, instead of the ones who just wouldn't listen and continued to see and do things they way the thought they should be done.
MDWELPIS in Washington State
In the past I have always assoicated this reading with stewardship and the lack of response. But now that we have lived through September 11th (2001) it raises the whole question of violence and the different languages being expressed by the landlord, the tennants, and Jesus.
What is it that causes violence in this parable?
What do the tennants see that the landlord doesn't see himself?
Why is there so much hatred?
We don't have to discuss the politcal world, there is enough hatred and violence to go around in every sphere of our lives. How do we begin to make sense out of it all? What is the role of our faith and life in Christ?
tom in ga
I am using the Spirit tape from Igniting ministries. It is Tex Samplers conversion experience as a basis for my sermon so I don't think I will be on this passage this week. If any of you have the Spirit tape for the lent/Easter this past spring, there is a really good video about the body of Christ on it too. Two version one sung and one spoken. I was thinking about opening with the ten commandments, just for the do not kill commandment. I believe that the thought of a communion table stretching for as far as the mind can imagine is totally awesome feeling. Nancy-Wi
I am just thinking about some of the posts here. there seems to be a bit of controversy about Iraq. I am in th emidst of the tragedy in Norfolk NE. bank robbery botched 5 left dead one wounded. Norfolk is a couple of hours from me but there were three or four of the victims from this area or with close family ties. it is a difficult thing to understand with love and forgivness but if all is lost for Christ as Paul would suggest in Pilipians then what about Iraq. how much would we lose/gain in a war. Jesus was not weak he was meek seems a difference to me. Strength for me has avoided many a fight (from the old days) and runnign or being passive allowed for bullying. I haven't gotten to the place I am sure of anything but also responded to Dan Betzer this am with conservationist verses ev=nvironmentalist. one seems to be radical fundamental the other concerned informed?? just some thoughts about posts and personal things. Love the thought of all believers communing and contmeplating forgivness WaynO in NE
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.>>
For me the centrality of this pericope is the question, "are we the ones bearing fruit?". World Communion Sunday reminds me that this is not a local question, but a global ones.
What fruits do we bear if we go to war?
The question the passage is asking is "Are the fruits of the Kingdom being nurtured in the vineyard?" and "What are we able to present to the vineyard owner?"
Jesus could have condemned Rome and/or the zealots; but he wasn't doing that here, this was a probing commentary about the religious establishment.
We'll use the opportunity to look at how the tenants here are developing the resources God has devoted to us.
Any thoughts along this line?
Larry in Indy
Michelle, RB, bravo MDWELPIS in Washington State, Wayne O in NE... I say, bring in those dusty laves from the closets and behind the buffet... for ALL are invited to a dinner...
I like how a college student said in a sermon I heard her preach at the Walk to Emmaus last spring put it... she said, "Peace without justice is not peace, and justice without peace is not justice!"
Peace is sharing the cup with your neighbor, and justice is sharing Christ's cup with the world. Justice is keeping one innocent Iraqi child from senseless death, and peace is when an Iraqi mother and father don't have to worry whether or not we're going to RAIN our justice on their family... you can add your own image... one can recycled is peace... implementing a recycle drive in your community is justice... etc. etc.
Last week, I held up a red cell phone during my sermon... pretending to be Moses... "God? Say, the people are about ready to stone me!" Well, DUCK MOSES! bobbin' and weavin' the gospel with the OT lesson... (Thanks to Pastor Dave Russel, Ames - Iowa for this image)
With courage under fire,
pulpitt in ND
