Based on Matthew 12:33 -46,
delivered by Revd Dion J. Blundell, Sunday 2nd October 2011, at Christ Church Papakura, 8:00am and 9:30am, and St John’s Drury, 7:30pm.

Context of heading to Jerusalem

To put today’s Gospel reading into context we need to remember back to what else we have heard in Matthew’s Gospel. Matthew’s story has had two key turning points:
The first where Jesus’ ministry became to the Gentiles, as well as the Jewish people. The second turning point was where Jesus decided it was time to go to Jerusalem. Jesus has set his eyes and heart on going to Jerusalem and confronting the top level leaders, both the Jewish and secular leaders. And you can imagine that along the way he has an opportunity to talk to some of the Jewish leaders, to the Pharisees, and he used the parable of the vineyard to explain things.

In the parable Jesus is making the link that the Pharisees are the stewards of the vineyard, that they have killed the prophets before Jesus and that they are now about to kill the Son of the Owner. Jesus poses two questions:
“What will happen to the stewards?”
And the second by implication is:
“What will happen to you?”

These questions serve as a warning. You might see it as yet one more chance to turn back to God. Jesus is essentially saying: turn back from the way things are going, listen to me! You can imagine that he is hoping that this message will make it to the chief priests. The message though is not getting through, rather they try to arrest Jesus and to surely have him killed like the other prophets. So Jesus is making a prophecy about himself, that he will be killed.

Realignment

For me today’s reading is a reminder to constantly come back to God, to turn from what I’m doing wrong and to re-align myself with God’s ways. And this is one of the reasons why each week we have a public confession and absolution. We realise that we constantly get things wrong and that we need to kneel down before God and say: “I’ve got it wrong, will you please forgive me.”

Pruning the vineyard

The metaphor of the vineyard was often used in Jesus’ day. It was used to refer to Israel and God’s people. And Jesus also used it to demonstrate our relationship with God and how we needed to be pruned back, the dead wood cut out and reshaped so that new growth could come through.

We can at times think that the pruning back that God does in our lives is because we’ve got something wrong, and it is therefore a sign of weakness, when in actual fact it is a sign of our humanity. Pruning back is a normal part of being part of God’s Creation. It is only after pruning that vines and us bear new fruit.
In John 15:1-3, Jesus says:

‘I am the true vine, and my Father is the vine-grower. He removes every branch in me that bears no fruit. Every branch that bears fruit he prunes to make it bear more fruit. You have already been cleansed by the word that I have spoken to you. – John 15:1-3

Jesus in John’s Gospel talks of every good branch being pruned back. That is you and me!¹

He says also that we are pruned back or cleansed by listening to his words. (Jn 15:1-3) and this is the difference between the disciples and the Pharisees. One group listens to God’s word to them, and allows themselves to be pruned and another ignores it.

Coming back to God’s Vineyard

Today the theme coming through for me is coming back to God’s vineyard. Our Gospel reading is a story about God’s realm and whether we will be a part of it.

Co-workers with God…

Jesus gave us a parable of God’s vineyard, an area where God has started a work and gracefully allows us to carry it on. One of the authors I like calls us co-creators, co-custodians, and co-stewards. There is a sense that we need to work alongside what God starts, and to faithfully carry things on as God would have us carry them on.

What does God want?

And therein lies the crux of the issue. What does God want? There are two easy traps to fall into here:

1. The first is saying what God wants – and speaking for God.
2. The second is saying how could we ever know and not exploring.

Somewhere there is a balance between the arrogance of speaking for God and the apathy of not doing anything.

The Cove

I was watching a documentary over the weekend called “The Cove.” It was all about the slaughter of dolphins in Japan for food. The line that struck me was when one of the guys said you are either an activist or an inactivist. He really was wanting us to become involved with his cause.

What cost are we willing to pay

One of the questions often posed to us is how much is something worth to us? And the trite answer sometimes given is that something is only worth to us what we are willing to pay. The assumption often undergirding this is that if we don’t pay a lot for something it is not worth much to us. This of course rarely holds true, but it does however give us pause to think about what something is costing us.

As Jesus headed up to Jerusalem he knew his convictions would cost him his life. And he told the Pharisees that he was the only son of the Vineyard owner and he was here to settle accounts. He told them a parable in which he would be killed and directly challenged them with “How will you respond?” And when confronted by God with the impact of their decisions, they had a choice to make.

1. they could ask for forgiveness

or

2. they could carry on as per-normal

They carried on with the status-quo, they tried to arrest Jesus.

Today Jesus continues to speak into our lives, through the Gospel and through the Holy Spirit. And as God says things to us, as areas of our life are illuminated by the Holy Spirit and the truth of the Gospel we have a choice, as to what we will do. We can kill off the prophets, Jesus and the Holy Spirit speaking into our life; or we can say:
“I submit to your pruning God,
trim me back,
graft me back into your vine.”

(cc) by: Revd Dion J. Blundell 2011 (Distributed under Creative Commons agreement)

Let us pray:

Gracious God, you call us back to you, help us to respond to your call. Give us the courage to leave behind our preconceived ideas, help us to listen to your prophets, to not reject the truth of the Gospel, and to follow in Jesus’ ways, even to a cross.…. Amen.

(cc) by: Revd Dion J. Blundell 2011

Matthew 12:33 [CEV] Jesus told the chief priests and leaders to listen to this story:

A land owner once planted a vineyard. He built a wall around it and dug a pit to crush the grapes in. He also built a lookout tower. Then he rented out his vineyard and left the country. 34When it was harvest time, the owner sent some servants to get his share of the grapes. 35But the renters grabbed those servants. They beat up one, killed one, and stoned one of them to death. 36He then sent more servants than he did the first time. But the renters treated them in the same way.

37Finally, the owner sent his own son to the renters, because he thought they would respect him. 38But when they saw the man’s son, they said, “Someday he will own the vineyard. Let’s kill him! Then we can have it all for ourselves.” 39So they grabbed him, threw him out of the vineyard, and killed him. 40Jesus asked, “When the owner of that vineyard comes, what do you suppose he will do to those renters?” 41The chief priests and leaders answered, “He will kill them in some horrible way. Then he will rent out his vineyard to people who will give him his share of grapes at harvest time.” 42Jesus replied, “You surely know that the Scriptures say,
`The stone that the builders
tossed aside
is now the most important
stone of all.
This is something
the Lord has done,
and it is amazing to us.’

43I tell you that God’s kingdom will be taken from you and given to people who will do what he demands. 44Anyone who stumbles over this stone will be crushed, and anyone it falls on will be smashed to pieces.” 45When the chief priests and the Pharisees heard these stories, they knew that Jesus was talking about them. 46So they looked for a way to arrest Jesus. But they were afraid to, because the people thought he was a prophet.

Matthew 21:33-46 [NRSV] ‘Listen to another parable. There was a landowner who planted a vineyard, put a fence around it, dug a wine press in it, and built a watch-tower. Then he leased it to tenants and went to another country. When the harvest time had come, he sent his slaves to the tenants to collect his produce. But the tenants seized his slaves and beat one, killed another, and stoned another. Again he sent other slaves, more than the first; and they treated them in the same way. Finally he sent his son to them, saying, “They will respect my son.” But when the tenants saw the son, they said to themselves, “This is the heir; come, let us kill him and get his inheritance.” So they seized him, threw him out of the vineyard, and killed him. Now when the owner of the vineyard comes, what will he do to those tenants?’ They said to him, ‘He will put those wretches to a miserable death, and lease the vineyard to other tenants who will give him the produce at the harvest time.’

Jesus said to them, ‘Have you never read in the scriptures:
“The stone that the builders rejected
has become the cornerstone;
this was the Lord’s doing,
and it is amazing in our eyes”?

Therefore I tell you, the kingdom of God will be taken away from you and given to a people that produces the fruits of the kingdom. The one who falls on this stone will be broken to pieces; and it will crush anyone on whom it falls.’

When the chief priests and the Pharisees heard his parables, they realized that he was speaking about them. They wanted to arrest him, but they feared the crowds, because they regarded him as a prophet.

Exodus 20:1-4, 7-9, 12-20 Then God spoke all these words:
I am the Lord your God, who brought you out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of slavery; you shall have no other gods before me.

You shall not make for yourself an idol, whether in the form of anything that is in heaven above, or that is on the earth beneath, or that is in the water under the earth.

You shall not make wrongful use of the name of the Lord your God, for the Lord will not acquit anyone who misuses his name.

Remember the Sabbath day, and keep it holy. For six days you shall labour and do all your work.

Honour your father and your mother, so that your days may be long in the land that the Lord your God is giving you.

You shall not murder.

You shall not commit adultery.

You shall not steal.

You shall not bear false witness against your neighbour.

You shall not covet your neighbour’s house; you shall not covet your neighbour’s wife, or male or female slave, or ox, or donkey, or anything that belongs to your neighbour.

When all the people witnessed the thunder and lightning, the sound of the trumpet, and the mountain smoking, they were afraid and trembled and stood at a distance, and said to Moses, ‘You speak to us, and we will listen; but do not let God speak to us, or we will die.’ Moses said to the people, ‘Do not be afraid; for God has come only to test you and to put the fear of him upon you so that you do not sin.’

Philippians 3:4-14 If anyone else has reason to be confident in the flesh, I have more: circumcised on the eighth day, a member of the people of Israel, of the tribe of Benjamin, a Hebrew born of Hebrews; as to the law, a Pharisee; as to zeal, a persecutor of the church; as to righteousness under the law, blameless.

Yet whatever gains I had, these I have come to regard as loss because of Christ. More than that, I regard everything as loss because of the surpassing value of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord. For his sake I have suffered the loss of all things, and I regard them as rubbish, in order that I may gain Christ and be found in him, not having a righteousness of my own that comes from the law, but one that comes through faith in Christ, the righteousness from God based on faith. I want to know Christ and the power of his resurrection and the sharing of his sufferings by becoming like him in his death, if somehow I may attain the resurrection from the dead.

Not that I have already obtained this or have already reached the goal; but I press on to make it my own, because Christ Jesus has made me his own. Beloved, I do not consider that I have made it my own; but this one thing I do: forgetting what lies behind and straining forward to what lies ahead, I press on towards the goal for the prize of the heavenly call of God in Christ Jesus.