Sermon October 4, 2020
We are Tenants of this Place. (Isaiah 5:1-7; Mathew 21:33-46)
Rev. Bernadette Hartsough
Imagine this place with me. A vineyard is carefully planted with love. A watchtower is built to store the good grapes and to give the watchmen a place to live. A winepress is added. A fence is built around the vineyard. The soil is tilled and very healthy.
A lot of love, planning, and care is put into the vineyard. This morning we hear this in the love poem of Isaiah. God is the gardener, the planter and owner of the vineyard. Judah and Israel are the grapes. This love poem is a reference to the relationship between God and his covenantal people; Israel and Judah. As the poem goes on it becomes very dark. What starts as a healthy vineyard built on love becomes a vineyard of sour, bad grapes.
The Isaiah passage is the starting point for Jesus’s parable of the vineyard.This parable is a continuation of last week. Jesus is still speaking to the temple authorities who would have memorized the writings of the prophet Isaiah. This conversation happens after Jesus rides into Jerusalem on a donkey; it is what we celebrate as Palm Sunday. It is days before the crucifixion.
In Jesus’s parable, he speaks about the vineyard and he adds the tenants, the slaves, and the son. The tenants are allowed to live in the vineyard and to work the land. They would keep some of the harvest and share the rest with the owner of the vineyard. The slaves or messengers are the prophets like John the Baptist. Jesus is the son that would be rejected and killed. As Jesus did last week, he dominates the conversation. The temple authorities indite themselves. Jesus is addressing the religious leaders, the temple authorities not all Jewish people. This is an important distinction.
So exactly what was it that caused the grapes to go bad? What was it that the tenants failed to do? What caused the lack of the harvest? In Isaiah it is rejecting God’s teachings by engaging in idol worship. It is unfaithfulness to God’s covenant. God’s covenant involved treating others and the earth with honesty, equity, and justice. I say others and the earth because in Hebrew scriptures the people’s lives revolved around the health of the land. Isaiah talks about polluting the land, destroying the land, and ravaging the land.
Jesus sees the temple authorities as rejecting God’s covenant. They reject it by putting their own fences/interpretations around the law. They are so caught up in what they think about the law that they are not living out the covenant. Just like Judah and Israel in the reading from Isaiah, Jesus condemns the temple authorities for not teaching honesty, equity, and justice. This is a dire warning. Isaiah and Jesus are warning of the consequences when we choose to live separate from God. Although this is a dire warning, God brings Israel and Judah back. It is because of the love and grace of God that we continue to live and thrive.
As we think about these readings, we are tenants of the earth. All of the earth and all that we have belongs to the God. God, through scripture and through the life of Jesus, has shown us how to live united with God and others. As tenants of the earth, we have been tasked with caring for the land, the oceans, the plants, the creatures, and each other.
As a church, we are a vineyard, a place that nurtures and cultivates others to produce a harvest. As we worship and pray, we humble ourselves to God, ever mindful that God is the landowner. As we study, we discern more of God’s will and we learn how to live life in union with God and with others. We tend our vineyard which is St. Thomas/Santo Tomás and Plymouth, Indiana. Supporting the church, we model equity, and justice as we contribute our time and talents to the Non -Food Pantry and the discretionary fund. We are just to the earth as we recycle and maintain a community garden.
We are tenants of this place. We should not forget that. God owns this place and all that we have. God is the landowner. This is our time to continue to cultivate the vineyard. The church and all her assets have been entrusted to us. Generations before us have tilled the soil here. Their sweat, their hard work, and their resources have been put into this place that we call St. Thomas/ Santo Tomás. Their efforts are all around us. Look around at the memorials and you see their names: Henry Thayer, Allen Rudd, Jeremiah Wallace, Bishop Sheridan. These are just a few of the former tenants of this place. I invite you sometime to walk around the church and read the memorials on the windows, the pulpit, on chairs and throughout the nave and sanctuary.
They believed in this vineyard and I know that you to believe in this vineyard that we call St. Thomas/Santo Tomas.
Generations before us have produced numerous harvests. This is our time. Our time to continue producing harvests at St. Thomas/ Santo Tomás. This is our time to model how to live in unity with God and others. Our time to tend and cultivate our church by giving of our time and talents. We are tenants in this place.