Sermon 27th Ordianry, A, Matthew 21:33-46
October 6, 2008
For lectionary readings at Vanderbilt, click here
Isa 5:1-7
Note: because Isaiah 5 is not in the Lectionary for this Sunday, I’m including it here (NRSV). It is needed because everyone originally hearing Jesus’ parable of the tenants in the vineyard would know that he was riffing on this Isaiah text.
Isaiah 5:1-7
1 Let me sing for my beloved my love-song concerning his vineyard: My beloved had a vineyard on a very fertile hill. 2 He dug it and cleared it of stones, and planted it with choice vines; he built a watchtower in the midst of it, and hewed out a wine vat in it; he expected it to yield grapes, but it yielded wild grapes. 3 And now, inhabitants of Jerusalem and people of Judah, judge between me and my vineyard. 4 What more was there to do for my vineyard that I have not done in it? When I expected it to yield grapes, why did it yield wild grapes?
5 And now I will tell you what I will do to my vineyard. I will remove its hedge, and it shall be devoured; I will break down its wall, and it shall be trampled down.
6 I will make it a waste; it shall not be pruned or hoed, and it shall be overgrown with briers and thorns; I will also command the clouds that they rain no rain upon it.
7 For the vineyard of the LORD of hosts is the house of Israel, and the people of Judah are his pleasant planting; he expected justice, but saw bloodshed; righteousness, but heard a cry!
Why Grow Grapes?
This text Gospel text is brutal! Certainly it is for mature audiences only. It is full of violence from start to finish. The opening scene has a beating, a stoning, and a killing. All 3 are malicious group-actions against innocent victims. It culminates in the murder of the son of the main character, the vineyard owner.
The violence continues as we hear the original audience, the Chief priests and pharisees recommend a response of capital punishment – not humane capital punishment, but, as they say, the owner should “put those wretches to a miserable death” – very cruel, maybe not unusual punishment.
The text then ends with more violence. This time it’s a stone that does the damage: someone trips on it and is “broken to pieces;” and the one on whom it falls gets “crushed.” This is like a Shakespearean tragedy: as the curtain falls there are dead bodies all over the place.
A room full of dead bodies was never God’s intention. This is not a picture of the world as it should be, this is a picture of the world gone bad.All the dead bodies in this story should have the effect of waking us up to take this seriously; apparently this story is about life and death issues. Let us venture in.
First a comment: Wine is the reason to grow grapes. Wine is what makes all the trouble worthwhile – and grapevines are troublesome, difficult plants. They demand hours of laborious pruning, and their fruit doesn’t keep – especially in warm climates. Why do people bother?
The answer has been known since ancient times – from China to Persia, Israel, Greece and Rome – wine. You grow grapes to make wine.The experience of a fine wine is deep and complex. This is the perfect metaphor for what God desires for his people.
We are meant to be his prize vintage. The world that God intends is a world of blessing and satisfaction. That is the metaphor; life as it should be. The opposite of a room full of murder victims and crushed bodies.
Jesus learned this vineyard and wine metaphor from the prophet Isaiah. Isaiah pictures God singing a song for his people, his vineyard – but not a happy one; it is a dirge. He planted a good stock, but it came up wild. He built a vat to collect the fresh juice but it never felt the stain of a single grape. The wild vine would have produced completely undrinkable wine.
So Jesus picked up on Isaiah’s vineyard metaphor and molded it to suit his vision. Isaiah’s vineyard song pictures the whole worthless vineyard getting uprooted, ripped out and trampled into the dust: a metaphor for judgment.
But in Jesus’ telling, the song is different; the vine remains intact. It is the farmers who are held responsible at the end.
Why? Because as Jesus reflected on Isaiah’s vineyard image, he came to the conclusion that vines that are planted from good stock should produce good grapes, excellent wine – unless. Unless they are mismanaged. If the ones in charge of tending the vines that God planted do a bad job of it, they can mess up the whole thing.
The vineyard planter – the owner – is not disinterested in the outcome, he has expectations. He wants fine wine.
The wine of justice and righteousness
So, we move from the metaphor to the hard ground of real life: what did God want from Israel? What constituted the fine wine he was producing? Isaiah says it in plain Hebrew:
he expected justice, [and]; righteousness!
But what did he get instead? bloodshed; and a (victim’s) cry! [the Hebrew uses puns that cannot be replicated in English]
A world of Justice and righteousness is a world as rich and satisfying as fine wine is at a banquet. It is the opposite of a world of bloodshed and desperate cries for help, a world of murdered corpses and crushed people.
How did this debacle happen?
Jesus identifies the culprits – they are the leaders. The tenants did not tend the vines.
The leadership turned what could have been a fruit-producing, wine-making vineyard into a no-go zone of certain death.
Why would Jesus have wanted to picture the leadership of Israel as tenants who killed off the men sent by the Vineyard planter?
Because that is what his people had done to the God’s servants, the prophets whom he had sent to them – imprisoning some, stoning some, and killing others.
Would they do the same thing if God sent his own Son? Jesus expected the answer would be “yes.”
The tenants rejected the servants of the vineyard owner, and would reject his son as well.
Rejected son – Rejected stone
It was a disastrous situation. It would be like builders rejecting the very stone that was supposed to hold the whole building together and getting crushed as it all came down on top of them.
Ironic, isn’t it, that the chief priests and leaders of Israel were called the “builders of the nation.”
The builders rejected the stone, the tenants rejected the son, there would be no wine, no banquet, only bodies soaking the soil with their blood.
What had the leaders done to deserve getting cast in the role of murders in the story?
Jesus held them responsible for destroying the whole vineyard; the community.
God planted this vineyard for a reason; he wanted it to be fruitful and healthy, to produce wine – but not just for his own enjoyment. As we will see next week, this is all part of his preparation for an enormous banquet.
The wine God wanted was supposed to bless the world. The promise to Abraham so long ago was that in his descendants all the world would be blessed.
As the prophet Isaiah said, that God’s intention was that this community would be a light to the nations.
This community was supposed to be a model for the world of justice and righteousness.
This is exactly what the doleful song of the vineyard in Isaiah says:
God expected justice and righteousness – but that was not the agenda of the leadership, and it is not what happened.
But here is the amazing part: according to Jesus, when things go south, when the dream of a community of justice and righteousness dies, what should God do?
What should the owner do with wicked tenants? Come back and put the wretches to a miserable death? — judgment?
Or could the owner instead put the vineyard contract out for re-bidding? Open the door to a new set of tenants who share his goals – who will tend the vines, and produce the wine of justice and righteousness with which to bless the whole world?
Jesus predicted plan B (unthinkable to the original leadership). The vineyard’s lease agreement would be re-negotiated, and given to the people on the other side of the wall – to outsiders.
God is intent on blessing the world, producing his wine and holding his banquet.
All he needs is tenants who will embrace his vision; people who will prune and tend and nurture the vine until it produces a harvest of plump, juicy vintage grapes.
Our turn as tenants
We now have the garden tools in our hands. We know what to do with them. We know what the Owner-planter expects:
“he expected justice, and righteousness“
This is not easy – vines are troublesome. The natural way for the world to be is a world of bloodshed and cries for mercy. But we are to be different.
We are the ones who have a vision of the Grand Design that stands behind day-to-day vineyard life. We have a vision of a world blessed by God with the wine of justice and righteousness.
A world of justice is a world in which no one is shut out; everyone is welcomed at the banquet table.
A world of justice is a world in which every plate has food on it.
And a world of righteousness is one in which there are no cries for help because no one is made a victim.
- The weak are protected,
- the vulnerable are looked after,
- the poor are not abused.
A world of justice and righteousness is one in which no one seeks unfair advantage at the expense of another – even when no one is watching.
A world of justice and righteousness is one in which no one sells a mortgage to someone who he knows cannot afford it, just because the law lets him, and his company rewards him for it.
A world of justice and righteousness is one in which no one cuts corners to save money by polluting the vineyard’s air, water and soil.
This is the blessed world that God intends – the blessing that he plans – the rich, complex, deeply satisfying wine of justice and righteousness.
“This is he Lord’s doing; and it is marvelous in our eyes.“
On this World Communion Sunday, we will come to the Lord’s table in anticipation of that great banquet day.
We will consider the injustices and unrighteousness of a world full of bloodshed and the cries of victims.
And we will commit ourselves to living according to the vision of the the world as it should be.
