Celebrating God’s gifts

Matthew 21:33-46; October 2, 2011

The Rev. Shelby Ochs Owen

Trinity Church, Staunton

Today’s Gospel passage is a tough one!  It contains a parable of judgment and as difficult as it may be for us to hear, it must have come as a heap of burning coals to the heads of those Jewish leaders who were listening to Jesus.  As Matthew has written it, the parable is clearly allegorical.  The landowner planted a vineyard, leased it to tenants and went to another country.  When the harvest time came, the landowner sent his slaves to collect his fruit and when the slaves were murdered he sent his own son.  Then the tenants murdered the son, too.  When Jesus asked the Jewish leaders, “Now when the owner of the vineyard comes, what will he do to those tenants?” the leaders responded with self-condemnation, “He will put those wretches to a miserable death, and lease the vineyard to other tenants who will give him the fruit (RSV version) at the harvest time.”   They had not yet seen themselves in the story.

These religious leaders who were outwardly claiming to be followers of God’s law refused to listen to the prophets who had been sent to them and to their forbears; they refused to honor God with the gifts he had entrusted to them; and they refused to see the ministry of Jesus as God’s presence among them.  They seemed oblivious that God was actively in their midst.

Their rebellion against God resulted in their inability to tend rightfully to the vineyard that had been entrusted to them, the Kingdom of God.

During the month of October here at Trinity we will be focused on stewardship, focused on how we can tend rightfully to the vineyard, focused on what God is doing in our midst, and focused on ways in which we can join God’s party!  HE IS RIGHT HERE IN OUR MIDST!  What a wonderful truth to consider!  The Holy Spirit is upon us working through us, equipping us to join God’s activity, to be co-creators with the Divine.  What an amazing reality!  As Christians we have inherited this vineyard, we have been invited into the Kingdom of God and we are expected to yield good fruit!  So how do we go about producing good fruit?

I think first we must consider the source of all our being and get some perspective on who we are and whose we are.  I can remember as a young child my mother explaining to me that I did not belong to her (fortunately she did not say this when she was put out with me!).  She said I did not belong to her as her possession but that I was God’s gift to her and that I had been entrusted to her care, but that truly Ibelonged to God. 

The Rt. Rev. Gregory Rickel, bishop of the Diocese of Olympia shares this story as it relates to our parable of today, “[There was] a story about a farmer who told the preacher he was tired of hearing that we didn’t own anything, and that it all belonged to God.  The farmer invited the preacher over for dinner, and after dinner took him out to look over his land.  He had him stand and look in all directions, and he said to the preacher, ‘As far as the eye can see, that is all mine. Now can you really stand there and say I don’t own it?’ The preacher just smiled at him and said, ‘Ask me that in a hundred years.’”

This concept of not owning anything seems strange to many of us, especially living in a capitalistic society.  Was the farmer convinced by the preacher in the story that he really didn’t own anything? No doubt that farmer had worked hard for all that land or perhaps his forefathers and mothers had worked hard for it.   He earned it; he deserved it!  Why did he have the need to know it was all his, that he owned it?  One can almost see his fists tightening as he insists on ownership; one can almost see a narrowing of vision as the farmer expresses his self-satisfaction.   Are we ourselves convinced that we don’t really own anything?  If we take a look at some of the things we think we own, we may be surprised at the reality of the situation.  How about our money?  Do we own our investments?  If we take a look at the volatility of the stock market over the last couple of years, we can clearly see our investments are beyond our true “ownership.” 

Or take a look at our children.  We may think they are “ours,” and we may try to direct them, to control them, to nurture them, to encourage them in ways that we see as in their best interests but do they actually do all the things we would have them do? No. They certainly do not!   Our children do belong to God, and perhaps only when we give them completely to God, do we have peace.  Is our time really ours?  Have you seen what happens to a blank square on your calendar, to a day that you think is yours?  Things happen and the day does not often go the way you had planned.  What about our own health? Do we own it?  What about our first breath?  Did we determine that our life would come to be?

When we reach a point of surrendering all that God has given us, we have a new found freedom with our “things”-our time, our money, our talents and that freedom gives us the ability to move past giving out of obligation to giving out of wonder and celebration. Something within us opens up, our fists relax and we are more at peace. 

God is at work in and through this church.  If you want to see evidence of God’s action, just come hang out here for a few days in a row, sit on the bench by the labyrinth.  You will see folks coming and going to Bible study groups, serving the poor among us and beyond us in numerous ways, practicing in the choir; you would see youth coming to Sunday School, members who are finance experts planning the best use of our resources and lay folks taking communion to many who cannot come to church.  It would be an interesting experience to put it all on the high speed camera to see members joining in with God’s activity as they offer their gifts to God. And then we must consider those who are joining God’s work outside of this property.  The notion is mind boggling and amazingly wonderful. 

At my home parish, as a humorous outreach effort the church had T-shirts made up that said, “Jesus is coming. Look busy!”  I am not asking you to get busy. We are all busy enough. Busy is not the goal.  God calls us to look first to God for how we spend our time, our resources, our talents, that our very lives would point to the reality  that all we have is a gift from God. The Jewish leaders of Jesus’ day seemed to believe they owned their religion, enough to block God out.  Can we give full ownership of our lives over to the one who created us, who redeemed us, who sustains us? Can we invest in the things of life that matter most such as our endeavors toward worship and outreach, mission and spiritual formation through the offerings here at Trinity?

May we tend rightfully to the vineyard God has given us and enter into God’s kingdom joyfully. Let us offer to God that which already belongs to Him, that has been entrusted to us.  May we give generously and joyfully of ourselves: our presence, our time, our resources, yes, our money, our talents, …our very breath.  None of us knows what the outcome of our offerings will be, but as we yield control to the Holy Spirit, God’s fruit will be yielded as well, seen and unseen.   And as we begin to see we are part of something so much greater than ourselves, we can’t help but celebrate - can’t help but join God’s party.