Monday, October 9, 2023

Am I in Trouble? Sermon from Grace and St Stephen's 10/8/23

Matthew 21:33-46

          It all happened so fast. I was standing there in the kitchen talking to Jeremiah when I heard the awful sound of glass shattering. The room fell silent. We rushed over to find two boys with a dirty old football in their hands and a broken glass pane on the front door of our house. Chaos ensued … I started desperately shooing the dog away from the broken bits, Jeremiah was checking to see if anyone was hurt and the boys quickly began with explanations, “he threw it too hard” “he threw it the wrong way” “he was supposed to catch it” “I told him not to throw it” “he told me to do it.” And from the parents, “You know you aren’t allowed to throw an outdoor football indoors” “go to your rooms” “we have rules and you broke them.” We ordered a new door, but it was back ordered, which meant we had two months to look at the broken door that was soon patched up with cardboard. During that time, I heard more accusations like, “we didn’t know we couldn’t throw it in that room” “mom was standing there and didn’t stop us” “that door is old and flimsy.” Whatever the reason, whatever the fault … one thing is for sure … we all went to bed grumpy that night and we all felt grumpy when we walked by that patched up door.  In our attempts to place blame, in our justifications, anger and frustration, we all felt bad and defensive and didn’t want to deal with the consequences.

 

          As soon as the glass cracked, the faces of all involved asked an age old question, “am I in trouble?” I hate that feeling. As hard as I try to be perfect, to please everyone and to completely transcend my human-ness … I mess up and I know it and I hate when it shows and I hate when I wonder “am I in trouble?”

          I found myself asking this same question when I read the Gospel reading for today. It is a parable about a vineyard. The main characters are: the owner, the tenants, the servants and the son of the owner. The tenants do not come off looking good in this parable. As I read through several commentaries on this passage, I found many opinions (and some arguing with the others) about what each of these characters represent. It is generally agreed upon that the servants that were sent to collect the harvest for the owner are meant to represent the prophets and the owner of the vineyard is meant to represent God. Over the course of the Bible we find a repeated pattern where God sends a prophet and that prophet is treated terribly: rejected, beaten or sometimes even killed. Then, God sends God’s own son as the land owner sent his own son to collect the harvest and that son is killed. Most people believe that this represents God’s son Jesus. At the time of the original hearing of this parable, it would be a foreshadowing or a warning as the crucifixion had not yet happened, but we of course know that Jesus was rejected and killed.

 

          So what does the vineyard represent and who are the tenants? At this point, perhaps you, like me, are wondering “am I in trouble?” and hoping you aren’t the violent tenants. But who the tenants are meant to represent is where there is a difference of opinion. There are many references to Israel as a vineyard, particularly in the book of Isaiah. Some think that the vineyard then represents Israel and the tenants are the people of Israel and so they are the ones in trouble. The ones about whom the audience in the text says, “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.” This thinking has contributed to really harmful ideologies and actions over the years that say the people of Israel, or Jewish people are the ones who rejected God’s son and so the Christian church is the new land owner. The answer then for many of us to the question of “am I in trouble?” is “no, blame them.”

          Others point to verse 45 when it says, “When the chief priests and the Pharisees heard his parables, they realized he was speaking about them. They wanted to arrest him, but they feared the crowds, because they regarded him as a prophet.” So, the tenants then would not be the whole people of Israel but rather the chief priests and Pharisees Jesus was talking to at that time. And since I don’t think we have any ancient Israelite chief priests or Pharisees here today, we would all then say together in response to the question “Am I in trouble?” … “no, it was them.” That feels pretty good. An ancient text for a particular situation and a particular people. We aren’t in trouble.

 

          Except … verse 42 says, “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’? 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.” Uh oh … it says “you.” Does that mean all listeners and readers … Am I in trouble?

          We might be. Yes, this was spoken at a particular time to a particular audience but let’s look at that audience. It says that the chief priests and Pharisees didn’t arrest him because they were afraid of the crowds who regarded Jesus as a prophet. But … what happened to that crowd? It isn’t too long until they start shouting “crucify him.” They quickly shift from thinking he is a prophet to rejecting him.

          And this parable was shared and passed down and written down and is here before us because the pattern gets repeated- God sends a prophet and that prophet is rejected, God sends God’s own son and that son is rejected. The “you” in this passage is timeless. And … we might be in trouble.

 

          But surely there is someone else to blame. Have we rejected Jesus? When God sends the prophets it is to have a relationship with the people. It is because of God’s repeated attempt to be their God and be connected to them. And then God sends God’s own son, to save the world, to preach and teach love, to model forgiveness and mercy and to offer himself in relationship. And he is rejected.

 

          Have you rejected the unconditional love of God and lived as though your life is only worth something if you can prove it, earn it or meet some ideal? Have you rejected God’s mercy in a cycle of blame and shame, condemning others, judging others, living in a well of self-blame? Together each Sunday we confess in unison with these words “we have sinned against you in thought, word, and deed, by what we have done, and by what we have left undone. We have not loved you with our whole heart; we have not loved our neighbors as ourselves. We are truly sorry and we humbly repent.” It’s as if … we know we are in trouble.

 

          I think most people walk around thinking they are in trouble. The world is happy to blame us for a lot of things. From a young age we learn to tell ourselves we have messed up, we are bad, we have failed, we aren’t good enough. And so we build up defenses. I know for myself, when I am overly stressed, tired or broken down- I get more defensive which then pushes people further away at times when I want them closer. The tenants were trying to take matters into their own hands. They had done bad things when the owner sent his servants and now here comes the son. They were in deep at this point and they knew they were wrong. So they built up their defenses and they killed the son. The text says they said to each other “let us kill him and get his inheritance.” Which is ridiculous because you can’t get an inheritance when the father, the owner, is still around. What a mess they were in.

 

          Jesus then says the part about the stone that the builders rejected becoming the cornerstone. What does a cornerstone do? It holds everything together, and if you reject it … it all falls apart. Everything fell apart for those tenants.

 

          But here’s the thing … Jesus knows this and still keeps preaching, teaching, loving, healing, praying all the way until he is crucified. Prophet after prophet is rejected and God keeps at it. We build up our walls, we trade blame, we wallow in self-hatred, we keep trying to kick out that cornerstone and yet, God stays steady. And the son that was killed is resurrected. Showing us that no matter how deep the mess we have created … salvation is here.  The question is not “am I in trouble” but “am I forgiven?” and the answer is yes. And if there wasn’t some part of us that believed that, we wouldn’t make that confession. When we confess, we stop placing blame on others and we come before God, relinquishing our futile attempts at control and we fall into God’s unending grace, knowing that the cornerstone is strong and eternal.

 

          In case you are wondering, we got a new door. The kids are still paying off the door debt in the form of extra weekly chores. But the funny part is, I keep asking the trash company to do a large item pick up but they haven’t gotten back to me. So the old door is still hanging around, our ongoing reminder of the grumpiness we share. I hope though that it has at some point transformed into a reminder that we all mess up, it’s all ok, our mistakes never outweigh our love and … do not throw footballs in the house!



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