A Sermon for the Fifth Sunday in Lent
The Rev. Patricia A. Gillespie
Isaiah 43:16-21
Psalm 126
Philippians 3:8-14
Luke 20:9-19
It's that time of year again -- I spent about 12 hours yesterday with the tax forms. And at the end of that time I felt kind of like the tenants in today's gospel: I worked hard; the harvest is mine; if someone from the IRS shows up I'd like to throw him or her out if not kill them.
There are some familiar presumptions going on in today's parable about the "wicked tenants." One is based on our sense of fairness. Another presumption is about ownership or that we deserve something for our hard work.
But this is God we're dealing with here. Remember: "All things come of thee, O Lord; and of thine own have we given thee."
Everything belongs to God and God doesn't seem to work according to our sense of fairness. God throws all our neat accounting out of the window. We are all totally indebted to God. Nothing we have really belongs to us.
The Apostle Paul, in his own accounting , reminds us that everything is a loss compared to the surpassing value of knowing Christ Jesus, our Lord. Compared to Christ everything -- our accomplishments and our failures -- is "rubbish." Paul uses a crude word for what ends up in the sewer.
What Paul longs for, he has not obtained for himself; he tells us that instead it is Christ who has made Paul his own.
There's where the wicked tenants are mistaken. No matter what they do, they can't get the inheritance or even the harvest for themselves. It can only be given to them by the owner or the son.
God really is doing a new thing here -- a whole new accounting: Everything is nothing and Christ is everything. Jesus comes along and all our debts are paid in full.
God's accounting seems unfair -- even a bit irritating. It's just not fair that it everyone's debts are paid when some of us try to pay back those debts in praise and thanks, in love and good works, while others play golf or recklessly break God's law. It's hard not to keep accounts especially when we think we deserve a refund or at least fair wages.
There's the hitch again -- we all owe it ALL to God. The account books don't belong to us. Jesus is the one who balances the accounts and it seems that his records ‘justify' -- straighten out -- everyone's account.
"Justification" is a concept familiar in both theology and in accounting. It means to straighten things out -- the same word a computer uses to describe straight margins: they are justified.
Justification is there for everyone. When Jesus restores the fortunes of Zion not only do those who have sowed with tears reap with songs of joy but also tax collectors, murderous wicked tenants, and even the IRS are offered forgiveness.
Our debts, our trespasses, our taxes and our sins are paid in full. Ours, yours, mine, and the bad guy down the street.
But this parable is not about who owns the harvest or the vineyard or even about what we owe God. This parable is about recognizing Christ. About recognizing the surpassing value of knowing Christ that makes everything else insignificant.
The only one who is left out of this new accounting is the one who fails to recognize the value of the Son, the value of Christ.
But even for the clueless tenants and those of us like them who may blindly reject the Christ the cornerstone and who kill the Son there is hope. God takes even an act of rejection and murder -- even our crucifixion of the Son -- and does a new thing.
The irony and glory of the story is that killing the Son, the heir, the Christ gives everyone the inheritance. And the inheritance is life.
Even those who stumble over the cornerstone and are crushed and those who have the vineyard taken away from them can be heirs, not by what they do or don't do, but simply by turning and recognizing the gift. Everyone's debts are paid in full. And there's a glorious rebate, the gift of new life.
Recognize the Son, even in his death, and the inheritance is yours.
Then is our mouth filled with laughter and our tongue with shouts of joy.