“Fruit of the Vine” – sermon on October 5, 2014
Isaiah 5: 1-7 I will sing for the one I love a song about his vineyard: My loved one had a vineyard on a fertile hillside. He dug it up and cleared it of stones and planted it with the choicest vines. He built a watchtower in it and cut out a wine press as well. Then he looked for a crop of good grapes, but it yielded only bad fruit.
Now you dwellers in Jerusalem and people of Judah, judge between me and my vineyard. What more could have been done for my vineyard than I have done for it? When I looked for good grapes, why did it yield only bad? Now I will tell you what I am going to do to my vineyard: I will take away its hedge, and it will be destroyed; I will break down its wall, and it will be trampled. I will make it a wasteland, neither pruned nor cultivated, and briers and thorns will grow there. I will command the clouds not to rain on it.” The vineyard of the Lord Almighty is the nation of Israel, and the people of Judah are the vines he delighted in. And he looked for justice, but saw bloodshed; for righteousness, but heard cries of distress.
Matthew 21: 33-46 Jesus said, “Listen to another parable: There was a landowner who planted a vineyard. He put a wall around it, dug a winepress in it and built a watchtower. Then he rented the vineyard to some farmers and moved to another place. When the harvest time approached, he sent his servants to the tenants to collect his fruit. The tenants seized his servants; they beat one, killed another, and stoned a third. Then he sent other servants to them, more than the first time, and the tenants treated them the same way. Last of all, he sent his son to them. ‘They will respect my son,’ he said.
But when the tenants saw the son, they said to each other, ‘This is the heir. Come, let’s kill him and take his inheritance.’ So they took him and threw him out of the vineyard and killed him. Therefore, when the owner of the vineyard comes, what will he do to those tenants?” “He will bring those wretches to a wretched end,” they replied, “and he will rent the vineyard to other tenants, who will give him his share of the crop at harvest time.” Jesus said to them, “Have you never read in the Scriptures:
‘The stone the builders rejected has become the cornerstone;
the Lord has done this, and it is marvelous in our eyes’?
Therefore I tell you that the kingdom of God will be taken away from you and given to a people who will produce its fruit. Anyone who falls on this stone will be broken to pieces; anyone on whom it falls will be crushed.” When the chief priests and the Pharisees heard Jesus’ parables, they knew he was talking about them. They looked for a way to arrest him, but they were afraid of the crowd because the people held that he was a prophet.
“Fruit of the Vine” – sermon on October 5, 2014 by Rev. Doreen Oughton
I hope you are all wide awake today, because this is an advanced gospel passage, definitely not Matthew 101. Pre-requisites in listening to Jesus may be helpful. So I hope you are willing to stick with it as we explore these scripture passages. Let me start by giving you some information about the context. Jesus is in Temple in Jerusalem. It is the day after his triumphal parade into the city on the back of a donkey; the day after he overturned the tables of the money changers, and then, to the ire of the chief priests and scribes, healed many. On the way into the city on the morning in which today’s teaching takes place, Jesus cursed the fig tree and caused it to wither. He is back at his teaching, knowing that the Temple leaders are upset with him. He takes them on. They have challenged his authority and he put them on the spot with a question about John the Baptist. He tells them that the tax collectors and prostitutes are going to get to the kingdom of God before they will, and then he tells this parable.
How does he start out? By referencing scripture. Did you notice the similarities between the Isaiah passage and the beginning of Jesus’ parable? The owner of a vineyard plants, fences, builds the watchtower and digs a wine press. The Temple leaders would have recognized this passage. Only instead of talking about bad fruit, Jesus talks about tenants who won’t give to the owner his portion. He goes over the top in telling how they not only refuse to give up the produce, but they get violent with the servants, beating and killing them, and do likewise to the son who is to inherit the vineyard.
Then Jesus stops telling his story, and asks the priests and scribes to give their input – what will the owner do to these tenants? That is really interesting to me. I’m not sure there is another parable where Jesus asks people what they think will happen. There are some he leaves hanging – an unspoken invitation to imagine more of the story, but here he asks outright. And his response to their answer is also interesting. He does not say, “Yes! For sure!” Nor does he say “No, that’s not it.” I imagine him leaving a pause, letting their answer sink in, for themselves and all those listening. Because they give something away about themselves when they answer. When they say that the vineyard owner will “put those wretches to a miserable death and leave the vineyard to other tenants who will come through at harvest time,” they are saying what THEY would do, and they are saying who they identify with in the story. They align themselves with the owner. Could it be that they imagine themselves to be the owners of the vineyard? Remember, Isaiah has said that the vineyard is the nation of Israel. Do they see themselves as those in charge of the nation of Israel? Do they think that they have tenants – workers who are supposed to be producing for them? Certainly one of the things Jesus criticized was the burden of tithes and cleanliness codes on the people of Israel. Jesus was the one who said the Sabbath was for the people, not the people for the Sabbath, as the leaders made it seem. So Jesus reminds them who is truly the owner of the vineyard in the story – it is God. Those religious leaders are the tenants, the violent tenants who want to keep for themselves what belongs to God.
What do you think you would say if you were there? You hear the story. Who do you identify with? Let’s say you are not a religious leader, but perhaps a disciple, or maybe just a bystander. You are part of the nation of Israel. Maybe you are familiar with the Isaiah scripture, maybe not. Now you don’t have to think of yourself as the owner to understand that these wicked tenants may be punished, and certainly will be put out of the vineyard. And I think Jesus wouldn’t mind if, as we listened, we conflate his story and the Isaiah passage, and even the Psalm we used for the responsive reading – a plea from the people of Israel for God to return to caring for the vineyard. Are we the fruit of the vineyard – ill-tended and sour? Have the wicked tenants not only mistreated the servants coming, but also the vineyard itself? Are we the grapes?
I think Jesus was very intentional in shifting the Isaiah parable, which focuses on the unsuitable fruit to the loss of perspective for the tenants. The covenant for these religious leaders is to care for God’s people, to help bring about fruit of righteousness and mercy and peace and justice. This is the kingdom of God. Jesus is less concerned with the quality of the fruit than the quality of care that the vineyard gets. He understands that the two are related. Poor care, poor fruit. It is those who have been charged with leadership and care-taking that are his focus.
When we look at the state of the world today – wars and corruption, widespread suffering, increased environmental upheaval – well, I think an awful lot of decision-making about that goes on at levels most people can’t approach. It is the leaders of nations who set policy, who command armies and police, who distribute resources toward the interest of the few. Sometimes I feel like a very tender grape at the mercy of some very wicked tenants who think they own the world. And as we talked about in the bible study group, the good news here is that God will not let that stand forever. Jesus doesn’t say that God will put them to a miserable death, but he does say that those who had been rejected – the servants and son coming to remind people that all this really belongs to God, well they will be the cornerstone of the new building.
And I wonder, are we being called to be the new tenant workers for God? I mean, it is a little too easy to just let ourselves off the hook completely by identifying with the grapes and pointing a finger at the leaders of the world. Maybe if we looked past them and to the true king of the kingdom, we would know who to follow. And if we were to accept that invitation to work in the vineyard, to be good tenants, what is it that God expects to collect? What do we want to produce for God – what sweet fruit can we offer? Is it bread for the hungry, companionship for the lonely, forgiveness for the sinners, freedom for the oppressed, hope for the hopeless, a sense of worth for the downtrodden? Is it love for all? Could we be God’s response to the psalmist’s plea to watch over this vine? What will be our yield?
