Grapes and Vineyards
Rev. Mark Schaefer
Kay Spiritual Life Center
October 2, 2005
Exodus 20:1-20; Philippians 3:4b-14; Matthew 21:33-46
Exodus 20 1 ¶ Then God spoke all these words:
2 ¶ I am the LORD your God, who brought you out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of slavery; 3 you shall have no other gods before me.
4 ¶ You shall not make for yourself an idol, whether in the form of anything that is in heaven above, or that is on the earth beneath, or that is in the water under the earth. 5 You shall not bow down to them or worship them; for I the LORD your God am a jealous God, punishing children for the iniquity of parents, to the third and the fourth generation of those who reject me, 6 but showing steadfast love to the thousandth generation of those who love me and keep my commandments.
7 ¶ You shall not make wrongful use of the name of the LORD your God, for the LORD will not acquit anyone who misuses his name.
8 ¶ Remember the sabbath day, and keep it holy. 9 Six days you shall labor and do all your work. 10 But the seventh day is a sabbath to the LORD your God; you shall not do any work — you, your son or your daughter, your male or female slave, your livestock, or the alien resident in your towns. 11 For in six days the LORD made heaven and earth, the sea, and all that is in them, but rested the seventh day; therefore the LORD blessed the sabbath day and consecrated it.
12 ¶ Honor your father and your mother, so that your days may be long in the land that the LORD your God is giving you.
13 ¶ You shall not murder.
14 ¶ You shall not commit adultery.
15 ¶ You shall not steal.
16 ¶ You shall not bear false witness against your neighbor.
17 ¶ You shall not covet your neighbor’s house; you shall not covet your neighbor’s wife, or male or female slave, or ox, or donkey, or anything that belongs to your neighbor.
18 ¶ When all the people witnessed the thunder and lightning, the sound of the trumpet, and the mountain smoking, they were afraid and trembled and stood at a distance, 19 and said to Moses, “You speak to us, and we will listen; but do not let God speak to us, or we will die.” 20 Moses said to the people, “Do not be afraid; for God has come only to test you and to put the fear of him upon you so that you do not sin.”
Philippians 3 4 … ¶ If anyone else has reason to be confident in the flesh, I have more: 5 circumcised on the eighth day, a member of the people of Israel, of the tribe of Benjamin, a Hebrew born of Hebrews; as to the law, a Pharisee; 6 as to zeal, a persecutor of the church; as to righteousness under the law, blameless.
7 ¶ Yet whatever gains I had, these I have come to regard as loss because of Christ. 8 More than that, I regard everything as loss because of the surpassing value of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord. For his sake I have suffered the loss of all things, and I regard them as rubbish, in order that I may gain Christ 9 and be found in him, not having a righteousness of my own that comes from the law, but one that comes through faith in Christ, the righteousness from God based on faith. 10 I want to know Christ and the power of his resurrection and the sharing of his sufferings by becoming like him in his death, 11 if somehow I may attain the resurrection from the dead.
12 ¶ Not that I have already obtained this or have already reached the goal; but I press on to make it my own, because Christ Jesus has made me his own. 13 Beloved, I do not consider that I have made it my own; but this one thing I do: forgetting what lies behind and straining forward to what lies ahead, 14 I press on toward the goal for the prize of the heavenly call of God in Christ Jesus.
Matthew 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. 34 When the harvest time had come, he sent his slaves to the tenants to collect his produce. 35 But the tenants seized his slaves and beat one, killed another, and stoned another. 36 Again he sent other slaves, more than the first; and they treated them in the same way. 37 Finally he sent his son to them, saying, ‘They will respect my son.’ 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.’ 39 So they seized him, threw him out of the vineyard, and killed him. 40 Now when the owner of the vineyard comes, what will he do to those tenants?” 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.” 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’? 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. 44 The one who falls on this stone will be broken to pieces; and it will crush anyone on whom it falls.”
45 ¶ When the chief priests and the Pharisees heard his parables, they realized that he was speaking about them. 46 They wanted to arrest him, but they feared the crowds, because they regarded him as a prophet.
I. BEGINNING
You know, there is a trust clause in the founding articles of American University that states that if ever the University ceases in its mission to educate, all the property of the University reverts to The United Methodist Church. It is little facts like that that have had me daydreaming a lot lately: what would it be like if as a result of all the scandal with the university president and the Board of Trustees the United Methodist Church just swooped down, dissolved the board, and started over? How cool would that be?
It would kind of be like that very first episode of The West Wing, when after about an hour of the regulars arguing back and forth over some issue, in walks President Bartlett, ending the debate and bringing closure. (This was back before Bartlett was such a featured character and the show was really about his staff). The long absent master returns home and sets things right—like Odysseus returning home at the end of the Odyssey. That kind of scenario has a certain appeal—unless of course you’re the people he’s come to settle accounts with.
II. TEXT
For that is the scenario that Jesus presents in his parable of the vineyard. In it we read of a man who owns a vineyard and leases it to tenants. When he sends his servants to collect the produce of the vineyard they are killed one by one. When finally he sends his son to the tenants, he, too is killed. The result: the master puts the tenants to death and gives the vineyard to a people that produces fruit.
The parable gets quite a reaction from the religious leaders who, we are told, “realized that he was speaking against them.” And it should. For the vineyard in Biblical tradition always refers to Israel, and the watchtower refers to the God who “guards Israel, [who] neither slumbers nor sleeps.” The servants of the master are the prophets, who had been martyred. And of course, we understand who the son is supposed to be. What upsets the Chief Priests so much is that Jesus seems to be saying that unless the vineyard bear fruits for its master, it will be taken away from them and given to a people who will bear fruit. It’s a pretty strong statement: can you imagine if someone were to say to us that unless we bore the fruits of our freedoms in this country they would be taken away and given to a people who would make better use of them? I imagine there would be a few people who would be upset.
Now, a word of caution. This text has often been viewed by some as Jesus declaring that Israel is no longer the chosen people—that the gentile Church now occupies that place. This text has been used to back up what is called a “supersessionist” theology—the idea that Christianity superseded Judaism as the religion of blessing and promise. I don’t think the text can be stretched that far, especially since Matthew makes it clear that it was the religious leaders who were upset, not the ordinary Jew on the street.
Secondly, from what we know about Matthew’s gospel, it was written primarily for a community of Jewish Christians, probably in Antioch—and therefore is not likely to take such a strong stance against all Judaism.
Thirdly, this Gospel was composed in a very difficult time in the life of the church, when it was struggling to come up with an identity apart from its life in Judaism. Matthew’s gospel was composed sometime in the late 70’s or early 80’s and bears all the evidence of a struggle between the two major Judaic groups that survived the Jewish Revolt against Rome.
In AD 68, the Jews rebelled against the Roman Empire and were soundly defeated. Jerusalem was sacked, the Temple was destroyed and with it the priesthood. When the dust settled there were two groups out of a previous four or five claiming to be the heirs of the religion of Israel: the Pharisees—who would become Rabbinic Judaism—and the Nazarenes: the Christians. And during the 70’s and 80’s these two groups contended with one another for the mantle of the religion of Israel, finally going their separate ways. Matthew’s gospel, written during this period, often uses polemical language against the Pharisees for exactly this reason. In Mark’s version of the story, Jesus’ audience is chief priests and scribes. In Matthew’s, it is chief priests and Pharisees.
But fourthly, and most important to remember, we make a critical error when we read the parables of Jesus and assume that they are aboutsomeone else. This parable is about us—not the Jews. We are the tenants of the vineyard. We are the ones who are expected to produce fruit. We are the ones who kill the prophets and we are the ones who murder the son and try to claim his inheritance.
III. THE FRUITS OF THE KINGDOM
We are the ones who are expected to produce the fruit of the kingdom. But what are those fruits?
A. Law
In the lesson we read from Exodus earlier, we hear those very familiar fruits of righteousness: the Ten Commandments—the most famous of all the 613 commandments that make up the Old Testament Law. Commandments to worship God, to refrain from idolatry, to refrain from misusing God’s name, to keep the Sabbath, to honor parents; commandments not to murder, not to steal, not to commit adultery, not to bear false witness, and not to covet the possessions of another. When Jesus is asked what a person must do to inherit eternal life, he quotes several of these commandments. And indeed the fruits of the kingdom are in righteous living—in living in right relationship with God and with one another.
These are the fruits of a people who had already experienced God’s deliverance from bondage in Egypt and had received grace. The law was the fruit of Israel’s covenant with God. Included in it are acts not only of personal holiness but acts of social holiness—requiring actions of mercy and compassion, of justice and peace.
But there is more.
B. Faith
In the lesson we heard from Philippians earlier Paul says,
“Yet whatever gains I had, these I have come to regard as loss because of Christ. 8 More than that, I regard everything as loss because of the surpassing value of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord. For his sake I have suffered the loss of all things, and I regard them as rubbish, in order that I may gain Christ 9 and be found in him, not having a righteousness of my own that comes from the law, but one that comes through faith in Christ, the righteousness from God based on faith.”
He talks about a righteousness that comes through faith, not through works of the law. He does not dismiss the righteousness based on the law, but he reminds the Christian that we cannot simply be content with lives that conform to norms and standards. What Paul is talking about is a righteousness that God imparts to the believer through faith.
John Wesley would have called this sanctifying grace—that grace that allows the believer to grow in holiness—that builds up the Christian and helps them to produce the fruits of the kingdom. Wesley believed that faith itself was a gift. Faith was not something that we did, but something that God, through God’s grace, gave to those who opened their hearts to it. In this way, faith itself becomes a fruit of the kingdom, —a seed fruit that produces more fruit, and that more abundantly.
C. Grapes
And there is yet one more fruit of the vineyard: grapes. Perhaps that is too obvious. We are inclined to forget the obvious fruit of the vineyard and yet for us as Christians, grapes hold a powerful significance. For grapes are pressed into grape juice which eventually ferments into wine (until a Methodist by the name of Welch came along and figured out how to stop that from happening, that is). Wine was the common beverage of the ancient world and the central beverage of the church in its central sacrament: the sacrament of Holy Communion.
Today is World Communion Sunday—a Sunday on which we celebrate our interconnected as a church through the sacrament of Holy Communion. We join in this sacrament with literally billions of Christians around the world. It is a sacrament that has been variously interpreted by different Christian groups over the ages, but has always remained central. It is a sacrament in which we memorialize the things that God has done for us in Christ, and in which we celebrate all that God will continue to do for us through the Spirit.
When we consecrate the bread and the wine (or in our case, grape juice, too) we utter the following words of the liturgy: “Make them be for us the body and blood of Christ, that we may be for the world the body of Christ redeemed by his blood.” In this we understand that when we partake of the sacrament of holy communion we remind ourselves what it means to be Church: that we are the body of Christ, redeemed by his blood. That that blood, the symbolized for us by the fruit of the vine, fills us with the spirit in order that we might bear the fruits of the kingdom. That is who we are as a people, that is what Holy Communion calls us to remember.
(And too, the image of a vineyard is an appropriate one for the church—unending rows of intertwined grape vines—reminding us of our interconnectedness, our common identity and mission.)
IV. THE GOOD NEWS
As we noted earlier, the parable of the vineyard is about us. We kill the prophets. We murder the son. We fail to produce the fruits of the kingdom. And yet, we remain God’s good planting. We remain God’s vineyard because of the love of Christ for us. When we celebrate that mystery that is holy communion, we are reminded that ‘while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us’—a statement that God’s grace is so much greater than our failings. That God’s grace gives us the power to till the soil of our faith.
We are ultimately unworthy of the vineyard we tend. But through Christ, God has shown us that we are forgiven. We till this vineyard not because we are worthy of it, but because God loves each and every one of us. Through faith we have been made righteous, blessed with the grace to yield fruit that we would not be able to ourselves. We have been formed by grace into a community called the church, in which we support one another, undergird one another, and nurture one another in Christian love, the way Christ first loved us.
V. END
If we open our hearts to receive Christ into our lives, eating and drinking the bread and wine of faith, we—unworthy tenants that we may be—will find that by God’s grace we can work the land to bring forth the fruits of the kingdom, so that when our Master returns we may not fear his return, fear having the vineyard taken from us, but that we might rush to meet him that we might hear him greet us and say, “Well done, my good and faithful servants.”
