The Vineyard

Scripture Reading

New Revised Standard Version: Updated Edition Mark 12

12 Then he began to speak to them in parables. “A man planted a vineyard, put a fence around it, dug a pit for the winepress, and built a watchtower; then he leased it to tenants and went away. 2 When the season came, he sent a slave to the tenants to collect from them his share of the produce of the vineyard. 3 But they seized him and beat him and sent him away empty-handed. 4 And again he sent another slave to them; this one they beat over the head and insulted. 5 Then he sent another, and that one they killed. And so it was with many others; some they beat, and others they killed. 6 He had still one other, a beloved son. Finally he sent him to them, saying, ‘They will respect my son.’ 7 But those tenants said to one another, ‘This is the heir; come, let us kill him, and the inheritance will be ours.’ 8 So they seized him, killed him, and threw him out of the vineyard. 9 What then will the owner of the vineyard do? He will come and destroy the tenants and give the vineyard to others. 10 Have you not read this scripture:

‘The stone that the builders rejected

has become the cornerstone;,*

11 this was the Lord’s doing,

and it is amazing in our eyes’?”

12 When they realized that he had told this parable against them, they wanted to arrest him, but they feared the crowd. So they left him and went away.

Kids to Knowing Place

Introduction- Someone Else’s Money

I have a lot of expensive hobbies...

I ride bikes, those aren’t cheap.

I play guitar and drums, each of which could usher someone into bankruptcy if you let them.

I collect watches.

I love making movies, and camera gear isn’t cheap either!

But…one of the best joys of having a lot of expensive hobbies is when a friend of mine asks for help purchasing something for themselves in one of those hobbies.

My line is “There’s nothing I love more than spending someone else’s money!”

All kidding aside though, I take that responsibility very seriously when someone asks it of me.

If you are going to ask me to spend your money, I’m going to take it super seriously because it’s not mine!

I want to get you on the best bike for you!

I want the guitar you pick up to be the best option available for what you want to do.

I want you to have the right camera to tell the story you want to tell.

I don’t just want to spend all your money because I could.

I want to take care of what isn’t mine as if it were.

And there of course is the question at the heart of this story today, in the last of our Flourishing Series: What’s ours?

The Parable Explained

The Vineyard- God’s Kingdom

In this case Israel

Isaiah paves the way for us in this one:

Isaiah 27:2-6 “On that day: A pleasant vineyard—sing about it! I, the Lord, am its keeper; every moment I water it. I guard it night and day so that no one can harm it; I have no wrath. If it gives me thorns and briers, I will march to battle against it. I will burn it up. Or else let it cling to me for protection; let it make peace with me; let it make peace with me. In days to come Jacob shall take root; Israel shall blossom and put forth shoots and fill the whole world with fruit.”

So as we said last week, this image of the Vineyard is a stand in for the nation of Israel.

Israel was meant to be God’s kingdom on earth.

Israel was meant to be God’s people.

Israel was God’s possession.

We might be able to expand this out a little bit more for our own understanding today.

More generally- The World God has Given Us

Really, we’re reminded that God isn’t interested in particular nations over others.

Psalm 24:1 “The earth is the Lord’s and all that is in it, the world, and those who live in it,”

Genesis 1:28 “God blessed them, and God said to them, “Be fruitful and multiply and fill the earth and subdue it and have dominion over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the air and over every living thing that moves upon the earth.””

Acts 1:8 “But you will receive power when the Holy Spirit has come upon you, and you will be my witnesses in Jerusalem, in all Judea and Samaria, and to the ends of the earth.””

God has been telling us all along through the scriptures that this whole Earth is the vineyard.

It’s all God’s and we’re supposed to look after it and take care of it.

Jesus’ parable in Mark today though has a more specific needle in it, we find out especially at the end.

The Tenants- The Religious Leaders of Jesus’ Day

They were given charge of the vineyard, but it’s not theirs

They were placed in leadership of the nation of Israel.

They were in charge of being the mediator between God and God’s people.

They were supposed to take the people from where they were, to where God wanted them to be.

Their job was to grow something.

It’s not their vineyard, but they’re in charge of making things grow.

It’s not their vineyard, but they should take joy in what the vineyard produces.

It’s not their vineyard, but they are it’s care takers.

Somewhere along the way, they forgot that.

The line that makes me giggle every time I read it in Jesus’ parable is in verse 7:

Mark 12:7 “But those tenants said to one another, ‘This is the heir; come, let us kill him, and the inheritance will be ours.’”

Don’t they know that’s not how inheritance works?

If the son of a wealthy CEO dies, the landlord of his apartment doesn’t get to claim to be a member of the family.

See, as so often happens, the tenants forgot that they were tenants.

They assumed that because they were caretakers, it was theirs, that they owned it.

That’s not how it works.

It still belongs to the master.

The Servants- The prophets

Their job is to remind folks that it’s not their vineyard.

The message of the prophets is actually pretty simple, for as much real estate as it gets in our Bibles.

Micah 6:8 “He has told you, O mortal, what is good, and what does the Lord require of you but to do justice and to love kindness and to walk humbly with your God?”

Amos 5:21-24 “I hate, I despise your festivals, and I take no delight in your solemn assemblies. Even though you offer me your burnt offerings and grain offerings, I will not accept them, and the offerings of well-being of your fatted animals I will not look upon. Take away from me the noise of your songs; I will not listen to the melody of your harps. But let justice roll down like water and righteousness like an ever-flowing stream.”

Isaiah 55:6-9 “Seek the Lord while he may be found; call upon him while he is near; let the wicked forsake their way and the unrighteous their thoughts; let them return to the Lord, that he may have mercy on them, and to our God, for he will abundantly pardon. For my thoughts are not your thoughts, nor are your ways my ways, says the Lord. For as the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways and my thoughts than your thoughts.”

A prophet is concerned with making sure we’re growing something.

A prophet reminds the people of God that they are not where they are supposed to be.

Too often our modern prophets get stuck here though, because what the prophets of the Old Testament were really good at was

Painting a picture of what could be.

You could grow.

You could produce.

You could live a more Godly life in the here and now, and imagine what that could look like.

Prophets, historically, weren’t treated well.

If you are aggressively tied to your vision of the world, and someone presents you with God’s vision of the world, things can get uncomfortable.

And so as Jesus points out in the parable, the prophets were badly mistreated, beaten, and in loads of cases killed,

All for calling us back to the truth of God’s world anyway:

It’s not our vineyard.

We just need to grow something.

The Son- Jesus.

We know this story, right? (Maybe it’s worth repeating)

The stone that the builders rejected has become the cornerstone.

God sends his beloved son into the world, to help us to listen and to understand.

They will respect my son, the parable says.

Except, we didn’t.

Except when Jesus told us that generosity was the right answer, because it isn’t our vineyard, we chose greed instead.

When Jesus told us that love was the highest commodity, because it isn’t our vineyard, we chose our own gains instead.

When Jesus told us that it’s our job to grow the fruit of peace, love, patience, kindness, self-control, we decided it was time for him to go.

And yet, for all that we disrespected Jesus while he was here, Jesus became for us what we could not become for ourselves.

Even though humanity didn’t even come close to deserving it, Jesus became sin, even though he knew no sin.

He became like us so that we could become like him.

Jesus, even though we disrespected him, never stopped coming after us.

He still doesn’t.

What’s this got to do with us?

We were given the world, but it’s not ours.

My sweet boy Julian asked me the other night what I was preaching about.

So I told him just about everything I’ve told you up to this point.

And in a way that only a seven year old can manage, Julian said “Well yeah! If Josh lets me borrow his stuffed animal, I’m going to take very very good care of it before I give it back to him!”

Somewhere deep down, we know how this works.

When you are given something that’s not yours, you give it back the same or, ideally, better than you found it.

God has given us this great world, but it isn’t ours.

God has given us all of creation, but ultimately the earth is the Lords.

God has given us the chance to steward our resources and the resources of the planet, but they don’t belong to us.

God has loaned us a very beautiful, inspiring planet. But we don’t get to keep it.

As we’ve worked our way through this flourishing series, we’ve kind of nibbled around the edges of this, but let’s be clear.

Whether or not we take care of this planet is not a political issue.

Whether or not we are good stewards of the resources this planet offers us is not a political issue.

Whether or not we see to it that everyone has the same access to those resources is not a political issue.

It is by it’s very nature, a spiritual issue.

God has made us tenants of the vineyard.

What condition will it be in when we give it back?

But oh by the way, this doesn’t work with the creation alone.

We can do this with lots of other examples too, can’t we?

We are tenants of this church, but it isn’t ours.

We are tenants of these families we’ve been blessed with, but they aren’t ours.

We are tenants of this life that we have been given, but it isn’t ours.

What do we need to do in the vineyards of our lives, those areas where God has trusted us to be tenants?

Our job is to grow

The master in this story is only interested in his share of the produce.

The master wants to see growth.

The master wants to see maturity.

The master wants to see flourishing.

Imagine for a moment that the grace of Christ was enough that you didn’t have to worry about your afterlife?

Imagine that the stone that the builders rejected actually became the cornerstone, and you and I didn’t have a thing to worry about when it comes to the end of our lives.

What do you think God would want from us then?

I think God would want to see us grow.

I think God would want to see us become more generous.

I think God would want to see us become more forgiving.

I think God would want to see us become more loving.

I think God would want to see us become more like Jesus.

I think God would want to see us flourish.

And in fact, I think that’s exactly how it works.

There’s a version of Christianity that accepts Christ, knows that we’re going to heaven, and then treats earth like some sort of cosmic waiting room.

I don’t know about you, but I am not content to sit around reading highlights for children for my entire life!

Instead, this world isn’t a waiting room.

It’s a vineyard.

A place where we are nourished, encouraged, and yes even challenged to grow into better versions of ourselves.

The version of ourselves that God created us to be.

We are awfully good at forgetting

Yesterday I had the whole day off at home, which meant laundry day.

To be very, very clear about this, I had one thing on my to do list.

One.

And yet, on at least three separate occasions, I walked from the living room, down to the laundry room, turned on the light, and completely forgot why I was down there.

Maybe I didn’t have enough coffee yesterday...

But we are forgetful people.

Those of us who forget our car keys might occasionally forget what God has said and done for us.

We might forget that it’s not our vineyard.

We might forget that it’s our job to grow.

We might even forget the most important part of the story.

The reformer Martin Luther was shaking hands after church one Sunday, and a parishioner said to him

Pastor, why is it that every week you preach the gospel to us?

And Luther responded “My friend, because every week you forget!”

The stone that the builders rejected has become the cornerstone…for us.

My brothers and sisters, in Christ you are forgiven.

In Christ you are redeemed.

In Christ you have new life.

In Christ, you can flourish.

Because of Christ’s work, not our own, we actually have become the heirs, haven’t we?

And we don’t deserve a bit of it.

Don’t forget that.

Jesus will never stop calling us back

You might miss the foolishness of the master in this story.

I think after one of my servants had been killed, I’d probably stop sending servants.

But you know, God never gives up on us, does he?

Even when we lose the plot and we think we own our own vineyards, Jesus calls us back.

Even when we lose our patience, and forget the way of love, Jesus calls us back.

Even when we lose our temper, and give in to the way of anger, Jesus calls us back.

Even when we forget who and whose we are, Jesus calls us back.

His grace is bigger than we can ever imagine.

May we never cease to flourish in the grace of our dear Christ.