Matthew 21:33--46 (Philippians 3:4b-14; Exodus 20:1-20)
If I had ever wanted to own a vineyard, these last couple of Jesus stories – what we’ve heard these last couple of Sundays – would have convinced me to re-think it. From the vineyard stories Jesus tells, I’ve gathered that labor practices are highly complicated, your family dynamics are your business dynamics, and now… well, apparently vineyard rent disputes are rough and full of violence.
Today Jesus tells a story of unprovoked, repeated abuse and murder. And the Temple elders and chief priests he tells this story to have no doubt it’s going to lead to an equally violent eviction. This is not a morality tale for kids.
But there’s no doubt that the Temple elders and chief priests get the point Jesus is making: If you leaders are hoarding what God has entrusted to you, and rejecting God’s messengers of accountability, it’s going to go very badly for you when you’re replaced.
Nobody has to explain to the Temple leaders that Jesus is talking about God, not grapes. The vineyard’s been a scriptural metaphor for God’s people, God’s kingdom, for centuries.
Jesus assumes you and I will also understand that, and that we’ll hear how this story applies to us, too, as we listen in. That we’ll know that being greedy or selfish with what God has entrusted to us – refusing when it’s time to share the benefits of our gifts and labor – will have dreadful consequences.
But that warning is not the only thing Jesus is saying to us as we listen to his conversation with the Temple leaders. Jesus is also pointing out to the crowds in the Temple that no one can keep God’s kingdom and God’s blessings all to themselves, and away from others, no matter how hard or violently they try.
No doubt those imaginary tenants feel that they’ve worked hard for the produce of the vineyard; that they’ve earned the right to keep the fruit of their labor – even the vineyard itself. After all, that landlord is never around while they’ve been working.
(They have to discount the fact that the landlord made all the initial investments, and the infrastructure, but that’s easy enough to do when you feel the work in your own muscles and sweat and don’t see someone else working.)
But no matter what they think, or what we do, God is absolutely, positively not going to let anyone keep God’s gifts to themselves, or claim ownership of God’s abundance – even if they are the people God has chosen to be in charge, to lead. God is going to offer plenty of chances to do the right thing, but ultimately God will not let anyone keep God’s gifts to themselves.
That’s good news for the crowds in the Temple, and it’s news Jesus wants us to hear, too. The gifts God intends for all to share cannot and will not be kept from us by anyone else.
Grapes or grace, food or faith, money, skills and talents, time, place, salvation, life itself – no gift of God can belong to one person, or one group, alone. No matter how much time and effort we ourselves put in, we can’t keep it for ourselves alone. And no matter how strong or smart or selfish or violent they may be, no one else can keep God’s gifts away from us, either.
This is great news. But it can get a bit uncomfortable in practice.
Sometimes we don’t really want ALL that God wants to give us. The people of Israel actually asked Moses to keep the gift of God’s immensely powerful presence away from them. We heard them today: You keep all that God-glory, Moses. We don’t want that much awe.
There are times when what God wants to give you or me can feel like too much, too.
But I suspect it’s more often uncomfortable when God demands the sharing of our (metaphorical) vineyards.
Think, for a minute, of all the things you’ve earned in your lifetime. Income, a comfortable home, success at work or school, in athletics or arts? Maybe your reputation feels well-earned, or a treat you give yourself to reward hard work.
Think about whatever it is, big or small, that you’ve earned the right to enjoy and resent having taken away from you.
I know I’m telling myself I’ve “earned” my good night’s sleep when I find myself resenting a family celebration or a major league baseball game scheduled to run past my chosen bedtime. Or that I’ve gotten the idea that time, work, and rest is mine to control, when I get cranky about the time the sun comes up or goes down.
Imagine what that is for you. Then imagine God inviting you to hand over half your home or a big chunk of your income to strangers; let someone else present your work without credit; give up your place on the team so someone else with less experience and success can try it. To give away the comfort or success or rest or reputation that you’ve earned, to someone who doesn’t seem to have worked for it.
When we get into that place in our hearts and lives, we’ve become the tenants in the vineyard. Every time you want to hold on to what you’ve earned; every time I say no or ignore the summons to share, we’re – on purpose or by accident – rejecting the accounting for God’s gifts and God’s abundance that God regularly invites.
It’s very easy to become the tenants in this story, even when we don’t want to. We live in a world where we’re constantly taught to value our own efforts, to earn, keep, and hold all that we can. The alternative way of life is an overwhelming, risky leap of faith: to claim and hold the conviction that nothing at all is ours, and all that matters is that we are God’s.
That’s the story Paul tells today: of his own justifiable pride in the righteousness he worked so hard to practice before Jesus found him, and the way that God’s claim on him means that now none of that matters. All he longs for now is God’s gift of faith, that keeps bringing him closer to Christ, “because Christ Jesus has made me his own.”
And it’s the story of God’s people, gathered at Mount Sinai, being claimed by God with the thundering words, “I am the Lord your God, who brought you out of Egypt…you shall have no other gods before me.”
Those stories of God’s claim on us – those leaps of faith into the conviction that we are entirely God’s, and that is all that matters – that’s how the story of the vineyard becomes a story of tenants who send out the fruits of the harvest – to God, and to others – before ever being asked. A story where the violence disappears as God’s messengers of accountability are welcomed as friends, and the summons to share is seen as good news.
Those leaps of faith, leaps into belonging to God and not ourselves, are what create a world where we know without doubt that no one can keep God’s gifts from us.
A world where we take great joy in knowing that nothing is ours to hold and defend and hoard, so we are free to share every bit of comfort or success, every bit of achievement and privilege, without fear or loss.
A world where every grape and grain and breath is a gift, and every bit of hope, love, and peace is shared freely with all.
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