Hebrew Testament & Gospel texts for Sunday 4 October 2020

 

Isaiah 5:1-7

Let me sing for my beloved

my love-song concerning his vineyard:

My beloved had a vineyard

on a very fertile hill.

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.

And now, inhabitants of Jerusalem

and people of Judah,

judge between me

and my vineyard.

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?

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.

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.

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!

Matthew 21:33-46

Jesus said, “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 watchtower. 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.

Reflection        In the beginning God created heaven and earth, light and dark, water and dry land, every creature and living thing, capped off creation with human kind then blessed and charged man and woman to, ’Be fruitful and multiply, and fill the earth and subdue it; and have dominion over. (all creatures and creation) …’ And it was so.God saw everything that (God) had made, and indeed, it was very good.” (Gen 1.28-31) In God’s economy everything and everyone is taken care of, except, that does not seem to be the picture today.

Time and time again we get tangled in dried grapevines, trip out of the garden, fall face first into the dirt because we presume to be what we are not. Because we presume to be the purveyors of power and privilege (the proverbial landowners) rather than the benefactors of blessing, blessing given whether we deserve it or not. Recall the parable of workers paid equally whether they worked all day or only for one hour? (Matt 20.1-16) This tale annoys lots of folk because the landowner pays people who work one hour the same salary as people who work ten. Why?  Because in God’s economy the issue is not what we earn or what we deserve. God’s is a blessing economy run on generosity and justice.

The way we participate in God’s blessing is not by presuming to be its originators. We, the people of God are meant to be the living breathing vessels through which God’s blessings flow, flow abundantly, flow without measure to bless as we are blessed, regardless of whether or not we think someone deserves the blessing. 

After Jesus tells the parable of tenant’s misbegotten attempts to steal the vineyard from the landowner he assures the religious officials and all of us that the story does not end with the killing of the landowner’s son. It is just the beginning because every one of us who hears and heeds this story will receive our inheritance, God’s blessing. As people made in the image and likeness of God we are blessed to live according to God’s economy, producing “the (good) fruit of the kingdom.”

What are the good fruit of the kingdom? Us. As the prophet First Isaiah declares, For “…the people of Judah (the Israelite people of God living in exile in the Southern Kingdom)  (the people) are God’s pleasant planting (even though they are in diaspora). We, the people of God are the “pleasant planting” or fruit of God’s kingdom. And, God expect(s) justice (from us), but (sees) bloodshed; righteousness, but hears a cry!”  Like the tenants in the landowners vineyard we protest, “What are those people doing here? They have not worked, they do not deserve this produce. They are lazy. If we give some to them there will be less for us. Let’s seize, arrest, send them away.” Sound familiar?

And can you not hear Isaiah singing, “O, you, people of God, don’t you know you are God’s pleasant planting? God expects justice from you, not bloodshed, righteousness not protests.”

The earth in all its abundance is given to us not because we earn or deserve it, but because we are the pleasant planting of the vineyard, the people of God’s kingdom. But when we turn away from God and like the tenants in Jesus’ parable refuse to extend the blessing, seizing, beating even killing people who want a share, when we fail to respect our sisters and brothers who, also being made in the image and likeness of God and are rightful heirs of the blessing, we can be sure of one thing. We all suffer. We suffer because suffering is the natural consequence of tending God’s kingdom with greed and dishonesty rather than trustworthiness and generosity. 

I have no idea why but we humans tend to spin a web around our social and political silos, to establish rarified groups that share a specific quality be it race, religion, ethnicity, gender, sexual orientation, age, economics, education, geographic location or political party. In so doing we lose the broad-based economy of God’s kingdom, the kingdom that from the beginning includes all of creation and calls it “very good.” Instead of claiming our inheritance, our identity as people of God with a sweeping base of alliance, “many people, one body,” we fracture into bundled troops fighting for our difference.

There is no question, people occupy a myriad of independent and intersecting subgroups of humanity, from race to age to political party. As long as we allow our attention, emotion and behavior to be driven by what divides us rather than what draws us together we deny our true and trustworthy identity as people of God and cut our selves out of the kingdom of blessing. 

How do we end the marginalization of particular groups of people? I believe we do so by refusing to be distracted, divided and destroyed by dualistic arguments of who is in and who is out, who is deserving and who is not. We end the marginalization of particular groups of people by holding fast to the all inclusive alliance of God’s economy wherein everyone and everything is blessed to be a blessing, regardless of whether we deserve it or not.

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Gospel text for Sunday 29 April 2018

John 15:1-8        Jesus said to his disciples, ”I am the true vine, and my Father is the vinegrower. 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. Abide in me as I abide in you. Just as the branch cannot bear fruit by itself unless it abides in the vine, neither can you unless you abide in me. I am the vine, you are the branches. Those who abide in me and I in them bear much fruit, because apart from me you can do nothing. Whoever does not abide in me is thrown away like a branch and withers; such branches are gathered, thrown into the fire, and burned. If you abide in me, and my words abide in you, ask for whatever you wish, and it will be done for you. My Father is glorified by this, that you bear much fruit and become my disciples.”

Reflection     When I searched my memory for an example of what abiding might look like in more pedestrian language, I recalled a sequence of unfortunate events that occurred while I lived in Nambé, New Mexico, about eighteen miles north of Santa Fe. I was enjoying dinner with several of my neighbors in the home of the one who was a gourmet chef. The conversation turned to me when someone commented, “For someone who is so healthy, you sure are sick a lot.” The words stopped me in my tracks, I could not deny them. When I looked around the table I realized, “We all are constantly upping the ante of home remedies, work outs and doctor visits, unexplained allergies, itches and coughs.” The only other thing I recall about that meal is asking myself, “What do we all have in common?” The next morning I awoke with an answer, “Water. Everyone at that table shares a common well.”

So I got a quart jar, filled it with water and brought it to a local lab. When the technician asked me which tests on the list of hundreds I wanted I was utterly perplexed and returned the question, “If you noticed that everyone who is drinking water from your well has escalating allergies and recurring medical issues, what would you test for?” Without hesitation he replied, “Heavy metals.”

Five days later I picked up the results and discovered the level of uranium-238  in my drinking water was one hundred times the maximum contaminant level allowed by the FDA. With a bit of research I discovered it takes fifteen days for the body to dispel low levels of uranium, which  of course does not happen when you ingest the contaminated water every day. To confirm this finding I had a friend bring a geiger counter to my home. The needle nearly jumped off the gadget when we held it near running hot water at the kitchen sink and in the shower. With a call to the University of New Mexico pathology lab I discovered twenty years earlier a study had been done of the drinking water in Nambé and neighboring communities. It was determined that several of the wells had high levels of naturally occurring uranium-238, including a school and a church and multiple private wells. Apparently that information was not made public.

My first thought was to warn my neighbors. I was stunned by their mixed response. So I wrote a letter to the editor of the local paper which ignited the fury of neighbors who, though clandestinely installing reverse osmosis systems, refused to acknowledge the problem - after all what would it do to the value of their expensive real estate? Naive is the word to describe me. My daughter and I moved away.

Jesus says, “I am the vine, you are the branches. Those who abide in me and I in them bear much fruit, because apart from me you can do nothing. Whoever does not abide in me is thrown away like a branch and withers; such branches are gathered, thrown into the fire, and burned.” Or you might say, when we choose to shut our selves down and deny our shared humanity, we suffer the effects of chronic, insidious poisoning.

We are intimately interconnected. We share a common life source and life force. It is up to us to keep our branches open to experience and transmit this vitality we call life. In Jesus’ words, “Those who abide in me and I in them bear much fruit.” This of course begs the question, “How do we know if the fruit we bear is good?” I believe the answer is simple.  When the fruit is good it is not toxic, it is life giving and sustaining. Good fruit corresponds to the nature of the vine in which it abides.

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Gospel text for Sunday 29 May 2016

Luke 7:1-10        After Jesus had finished all his sayings in the hearing of the people, he entered Capernaum. A centurion there had a slave whom he valued highly, and who was ill and close to death. When he heard about Jesus, he sent some Jewish elders to him, asking him to come and heal his slave. When they came to Jesus, they appealed to him earnestly, saying, "He is worthy of having you do this for him, for he loves our people, and it is he who built our synagogue for us." And Jesus went with them, but when he was not far from the house, the centurion sent friends to say to him, "Lord, do not trouble yourself, for I am not worthy to have you come under my roof; therefore I did not presume to come to you. But only speak the word, and let my servant be healed. For I also am a man set under authority, with soldiers under me; and I say to one, `Go,' and he goes, and to another, `Come,' and he comes, and to my slave, `Do this,' and the slave does it." When Jesus heard this he was amazed at him, and turning to the crowd that followed him, he said, "I tell you, not even in Israel have I found such faith." When those who had been sent returned to the house, they found the slave in good health.

Reflection        At first glance it seems we have encountered another Jesus healing parable, then something niggles when we see Jesus turning to the crowd and saying of the slave’s owner, “Not even in Israel have I found such faith.” Jesus finds the Roman soldier, a Gentile, to be more faithful than the Jews? How could this be?

I believe a clue to this mystery is in the endorsement the Jewish elders offered to Jesus on behalf of the centurion, “(This Gentile soldier) is worthy of having you do this for him, for he loves our people (the Jews.)” Could it be? The elders of the Jews who are the radical “others,” if not the outright enemies of the occupying Romans whose centurions lead battalions of hundreds of soldiers to insure Roman power over them,  the Jewish elders are declaring their oppressor legate loves them?

To appreciate the magnitude of this moment we must remember what Jesus was teaching his newly chosen apostles and a “great crowd of his disciples and a great multitude of people from all Judea, Jerusalem, and the coast of Tyre and Sidon… (Luke 6.17) who had come to him to be healed and cured of their unclean spirits just before the centurion sent a delegation of elders asking Jesus to heal his slave. Jesus taught, “But I say to you that listen, love your enemies… (Luke 6.27) 

From the Roman centurion’s perspective the Jews were the enemy, the rapidly growing population of people who posed a threat to the rule and power of the Roman empire. Nonetheless, the centurion loved the Jewish people and one of the ways they knew this was he provided support for them to rebuild their synagogue. Perhaps this is what Jesus meant when he told the parable, “No good tree bears bad fruit, nor again does a bad tree bear good fruit; for each tree is known by its own fruit. (Luke 6.43-44)  

Because the centurion conducted himself as a good tree producing good fruit the Jewish elders could unequivocally endorse the enemy centurion as worthy of Jesus’ healing. Isn't it ironic, the person who lives out Jesus instruction to love our enemies is known as an enemy of the Jewish people. Which makes me wonder, am I producing good fruit sufficient that even my presumed enemies would deem me worthy of blessing?

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Christian Testament text for Sunday 20 September 2015

James 3:13-4:3, 7-8a        Who is wise and understanding among you? Show by your good life that your works are done with gentleness born of wisdom. But if you have bitter envy and selfish ambition in your hearts, do not be boastful and false to the truth. Such wisdom does not come down from above, but is earthly, unspiritual, devilish. For where there is envy and selfish ambition, there will also be disorder and wickedness of every kind. But the wisdom from above is first pure, then peaceable, gentle, willing to yield, full of mercy and good fruits, without a trace of partiality or hypocrisy. And a harvest of righteousness is sown in peace for those who make peace.

Those conflicts and disputes among you, where do they come from? Do they not come from your cravings that are at war within you? You want something and do not have it; so you commit murder. And you covet something and cannot obtain it; so you engage in disputes and conflicts. You do not have, because you do not ask. You ask and do not receive, because you ask wrongly, in order to spend what you get on your pleasures.

Submit yourselves therefore to God. Resist the devil, and he will flee from you. Draw near to God, and he will draw near to you.

Reflection    Get serious. Get humble. Get on your knees. James’ letter could have been written today to all of us Christians dispersed across the globe who say with our mouths we believe in God and Jesus the Christ and by many of our actions declare the constitutional status of the holy “my;” my preferences, my rights, my desires, my predilections. Where is humility in the sacred-cow of individualism? Where are “the good fruit” born in envy, unbridled ambition and victory at any cost?

Nothing is lost in the urgency of the words penned two thousand years ago. The early Christian community was in crisis as we are. If we dare to call ourselves Christian it is time to pause and look honestly in the mirror. Do we live well? Do we live peaceably? Do we live humbly? Are our lives the living, breathing revelation of God’s good fruit poured out through us? If we cannot answer a resounding “Yes, yes, yes!” to these questions we must then ask ourselves, “How am I not in right relationship with God?”

The “good fruit’ the writer of James’ letter refers to are much the same as the fruit of the Spirit  to which Paul refers in his Letter to the Galatians. Love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, gentleness, faithfulness and self control (Gal 5.22) are evidence of God’s grace working in us as we do the serious work of staying in conscious, conscientious and humble relationship with God. And yes, this is serious work, exercising our spiritual muscles. An athlete works out to strengthen and stretch their physical muscles. A worker practices to develop their competency muscles. An intellectual studies to expand their mental muscles. A person of faith prays rightly to mature their spiritual muscles. Which returns us to the question, “How do we pray rightly?”

The German scholar, Eckhart Tolle, who wrote The Power of Now, encourages us to have disciplined, humble prayer practices and warns us not to let our practices get in the way. Somewhere he wrote, and I paraphrase, “Why don’t we just go there now. Why don’t we just stop and be present to Presence right now?”

Perhaps you would join me in being present to Presence right now. If you would, please close your eyes. Take a deep breath, breathe in and breathe out. Now as you take your next breath experience the place of love in every cell and space of your being. Breathe out. As you take your next breath experience the presence of joy throughout your body. Breathe out.  Now do the same thing with peace, breathing in and breathing out, patience, kindness, gentleness, generosity, faithfulness and self-control.  Then we conclude the prayer, “O God, here I am. I consent to Your presence and action within me. Please allow the fruit of your Spirit to flow through me for the good of humanity. Amen.”  You may or may not want to get on your knees.

The fruit of the Spirit are already in us. Love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, gentleness,   generosity, faithfulness and self-control are the substance of Divine Presence, God with us. Even if we are not experiencing some or any of the fruit they are the fiber, the very meaning of our true self which is not other than God. When we consciously consent to God’s presence and action within us and ask to experience the good fruit of God, we are praying rightly.

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Gospel text for Sunday 6 October 2013

Luke 17:5-10        The apostles said to the Lord, "Increase our faith!" The Lord replied, "If you had faith the size of a mustard seed, you could say to this mulberry tree, `Be uprooted and planted in the sea,' and it would obey you.

"Who among you would say to your slave who has just come in from plowing or tending sheep in the field, `Come here at once and take your place at the table'? Would you not rather say to him, `Prepare supper for me, put on your apron and serve me while I eat and drink; later you may eat and drink'? Do you thank the slave for doing what was commanded? So you also, when you have done all that you were ordered to do, say, `We are worthless slaves; we have done only what we ought to have done!'"

Reflection             Oh dear. What is Jesus doing? First he tells me if I have even a smidge of faith I can move mountains, or at least mulberry trees. Me, a Christian, free and empowered. Then in his next breathe he tells me I am a slave, not only a slave, a worhtless slave. Me, a Christian, under command and dutiful. I wonder if these contradictory statements were the scriptures that inspired Martin Luther’s impassioned writings about the relationship of faith and works?

In Luther’s view, it is all about our interior state. External acts, no matter what they are (fasting, worship, performing sacred duties, doing secular acts of righteousness), will gain us nothing in God’s economy. There is only one thing necessary for Christian life and that is faith, faith in the word of God.  Moses preached this to the Israelites before they entered the promised land. “Man shall not live by bread alone; but man lives by every word that proceeds from the mouth of the Lord.” (Deut 8.3) Centuries later Jesus repeated Moses’ words which became the cornerstone of Luther’s theology. (Matt 4.4)

The Word of God, the gospel preached, sets us free and saves us. The thing is, we cannot receive the gospel good news by any works that we can do. We can only receive the Word of God by faith. In Deuteronomy we hear the law...”Live by every word that proceeds from the mouth of the Lord.” But like the Israelites, we are unable to follow the letter of the law. When Jesus re-speaks these words he gives them to us not as law, but as good news, the gospel. What we are not able to do by works we are given by faith... even faith “the size of a mustard seed!” We are set free from the bondage of the law, free to be in obedient relationship with God.

Which brings us to the part about being slaves. Slaves know they have a master and align their will with the will of their master. This is the appropriate relationship between humanity and God. By faith we honor God, trust God and consent to be obedient to the will of God. In other words, we are God’s slaves. As slaves we are to do God’s work, good works for the benefit of others. Good works will never earn us God’s favor. Rather good works are the response, or natural outflowing from God’s favor much as good fruit are born from a good tree.

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Gospel text Sunday 16 December 2012

Luke 3:7-18          John said to the crowds that came out to be baptized by him, "You brood of vipers! Who warned you to flee from the wrath to come? Bear fruits worthy of repentance. Do not begin to say to yourselves, 'We have Abraham as our ancestor'; for I tell you, God is able from these stones to raise up children to Abraham. Even now the ax is lying at the root of the trees; every tree therefore that does not bear good fruit is cut down and thrown into the fire."

And the crowds asked him, "What then should we do?" In reply he said to them, "Whoever has two coats must share with anyone who has none; and whoever has food must do likewise." Even tax collectors came to be baptized, and they asked him, "Teacher, what should we do?" He said to them, "Collect no more than the amount prescribed for you." Soldiers also asked him, "And we, what should we do?" He said to them, "Do not extort money from anyone by threats or false accusation, and be satisfied with your wages."

As the people were filled with expectation, and all were questioning in their hearts concerning John, whether he might be the Messiah, John answered all of them by saying, "I baptize you with water; but one who is more powerful than I is coming; I am not worthy to untie the thong of his sandals. He will baptize you with the Holy Spirit and fire. His winnowing fork is in his hand, to clear his threshing floor and to gather the wheat into his granary; but the chaff he will burn with unquenchable fire."

So, with many other exhortations, he proclaimed the good news to the people.

Reflection            “What then should we do?” I believe we need to join the disquieted crowds in Luke’s gospel and respond to the gnarly prophet John’s indictment that “every tree that does not bear good fruit is cut down and thrown into the fire” asking, “What should we do? How are we to bear good fruit?”

We are three weeks into the season of Advent. We are “filled with expectation” as we await the coming of new light and life in the birth of Jesus the Christ and the question in our hearts ought to be, “How are we to prepare our hearts and minds to receive the Chirst? Said another way, “How are we to prepare the Way of the Lord?”

The prophet John is unequivocal. Bear good fruit. Share your resources. Treat others with compassion and justice. Don’t be greedy. Be satisfied with what you have. In so doing you prepare yourselves to be revelations of the Light of Christ born again. It is simple and straighforward. The Way of the Lord is the Way of compassion and justice. And, the Way of the Lord is not all warm and fuzzy. The Way of the Lord is swaddled in danger and risk. There are trials and consequences along the Way.

What is not compassionate and just, what is not good fruit, will be thrown into the refiners fire because the innocent babe in the manger, the fragil light of new life, will grow up to be a radical, subversive, firey presence who initiates a movement that changes history. That tiny light becomes the refiner’s fire that settles for nothing less than transformed lives.  But even though the prophet’s words may sound harsh they are not about punishment. They are about transformation. You see the refiner’s fire is not out of control and destructive. The refiner’s fire is controlled fire. It extracts the gold from the ore, it plies metal into exquisite creations, it culls followers from among the crowds and produces good fruit. The refiner’s fire transforms our frightened, selfish, greedy creatureliness into the image of the Chirst born again in our hearts. It is for this that we await, filled with expectation.

May the refining fire of Advent give birth to a deeper and more refined experience of God’s Presence in your heart, in your mind and in all of your relations.