What is Required of
Me?
Isaiah 43:16-21
Psalm 126
Philippians 3:8-14
Luke 20:9-19
Tim
Christoffersen
St. Anselm’s
April 1, 2001
Do
you recognize most of the characters in the parable of the vineyard we just
heard? Normally there is not a sure interpretation of a parable. This parable
is an exception.
Who is the owner
of the vineyard?
Who is the son?
Who
are the tenants?
Who
are the servants that are sent to collect the share due the owner?
Whom
does the vineyard represent?
At this level, the
parable is easier than most to understand because it is directed at the priests
and the Pharisees who are in the crowd and engaging Jesus. And they know it
is directed at them. I believe we can also understand the parable at another
level where the vineyard represents God’s creation and each of us must
decide whether we are a tenant or the owner, but we will come back to that
later.
I think the fundamental issue in this story is "who is in charge?"
"Who has authority?" The tenant farmers believe they can take control
from the rightful owner, who has withdrawn to a far away place, by killing
his son, the heir to the vineyard. We shrink back at murder to achieve control
and be in charge. We live in a nation based on laws and we believe that crime
generally will be punished. But I suspect most of us have enough experience
in life to know that our human species is quite capable of resorting to evil
to get its way. After telling the parable, Jesus says to the crowd that the
owner of the vineyard will return, kill those tenants and give the vineyard
to others.
Jesus then looks directly at the Pharisees and priests and, using a metaphor
for himself, asks them the meaning of ‘the stone rejected by the builders
that becomes the new cornerstone’. It is a clear allusion to Jesus’
imminent death at the hands of the religious and political authorities and
God’s raising him from the dead. If they did not see themselves as the
tenants in the vineyard who kill the rightful heir, they cannot miss this
one.
The passage to which Jesus refers comes from Psalm 118 that also contains
the language the crowd had used on ‘Palm Sunday’. The crowd waved
palm branches and shouted "Blessed is he who comes in the name of
the Lord."
The messianic vision of the priests and the Pharisees is a messiah who will
lead an uprising that will rid Israel of the Roman occupation. Jesus does
not fit their messiah king. But many in the crowd believe Jesus is the Messiah
and that is why the religious leaders fear the crowd.
So the question still is ‘who is in charge’ and ‘who has authority?’
Call to mind the temptations of Jesus when he went into the wilderness for
40 days after John baptized him. In one of the temptations, Satan took Jesus
to a high mountain and showed him the all the kingdoms of the world and their
splendor. "All this I will give you," Satan said, "if
you will bow down and worship me." Jesus replied, "Away from
me, Satan! For it is written: ‘Worship the Lord your God, and serve
him only.’"
Jesus clearly answers the question of ‘who is in charge’ Jesus rejected
the temptation of Satan to be in charge over a worldly kingdom. The priests
and the Pharisees as the tenant farmers in the vineyard, in effect, took the
deal offered by Satan and killed the heir.
The tragedy of man today is that he thinks he is alone in the universe. In
his ‘aloneness’ contemporary man looks to himself for answers. He
believes himself in charge of creation. He lives in a world of his own manipulation.
What modern man defines is and what he or she cannot define is not.
This was spelled out clearly in an article in the New York Times Magazine
two Sundays ago. The author, Alan Wolfe, is an ethics professor. The title
of the article was The Final Freedom. Wolfe says the 19th century was about
economic freedom. The 20th century was about political freedom. The 21st century,
Wolfe argues, will be about moral freedom. He says, "this century will
be about Americans deciding for themselves what’s moral and what’s
not."
With such an egocentric view of the world, we fail to wrestle in our daily
lives with Jesus words, "Worship the Lord your God, and serve him only."
Modern men and women individually and collectively set the standards, as the
Times Magazine article argues, and establish man as the ultimate judge of
all things.
How do we as Christians respond to Jesus’call to "Worship the Lord
your God, and serve him only?" Abraham Heschel, a Jewish philosopher
and theologian, in his book Who is Man?, said "the most significant
intellectual act is to decide what the most fundamental question is to live
by."
When I start with God as the creator, the question for me is "what is
required of me?" We have been created in the image of God and in freedom,
so we have a partnership or covenant with God. We are tenants in the vineyard
of creation. We live in the present.
The
words of Isaiah and Paul from the readings today come to mind. Isaiah says
"Forget the former things, do not dwell on the past. See, I am doing
a new thing…" Paul says "Forget what is behind and strain
toward what is ahead…" I believe being spiritually alive means
living in the present. We ask for forgiveness of our trespasses and we forgive
those who trespass against us. We don’t forget the past, but in this
season of Lent especially, we repent of our past sins and trust in God’s
forgiveness.
We celebrate life and creation as a gift of God and we acknowledge an indebtedness,
a sense of reciprocity we owe for the gift of our lives. We are challenged
in our daily living to respond and we are responsible. Darkness or evil has
not been eliminated and we may encounter it anywhere. It is always only one
step away from us. But unlike contemporary man, we know we are not alone in
the universe. We know God is present.
We treasure our relationships. We have a deep sense of gratitude. We celebrate
with joy and reverence and we praise God. "For thine is the kingdom,
and the power, and the glory. Forever and even."
AMEN.
