“Listen to another parable: There was a landowner who planted a vineyard. He put a wall around it, dug a winepress in it and built a watchtower. Then he rented the vineyard to some farmers and moved to another place. When the harvest time approached, he sent his servants to the tenants to collect his fruit. The tenants seized his servants; they beat one, killed another, and stoned a third. Then he sent other servants to them, more than the first time, and the tenants treated them the same way. Last of all, he sent his son to them. ‘They will respect my son,’ he said. But when the tenants saw the son, they said to each other, ‘This is the heir. Come, let’s kill him and take his inheritance.’ So they took him and threw him out of the vineyard and killed him. Therefore, when the owner of the vineyard comes, what will he do to those tenants?” “He will bring those wretches to a wretched end,” they replied, “and he will rent the vineyard to other tenants, who will give him his share of the crop at harvest time.” Jesus said to them, “Have you never read in the Scriptures: ‘The stone the builders rejected has become the cornerstone; the Lord has done this, and it is marvellous in our eyes’? Therefore I tell you that the kingdom of God will be taken away from you and given to a people who will produce its fruit. Anyone who falls on this stone will be broken to pieces; anyone on whom it falls will be crushed.” When the chief priests and the Pharisees heard Jesus’ parables, they knew he was talking about them. They looked for a way to arrest him, but they were afraid of the crowd because the people held that he was a prophet.
(Matthew 21:33-46)
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One of the things that I admire a lot about the United Church is that on a day like today – everyone is welcome at the table of the Lord. We don't ask for your denominational credentials or your membership certificate. We don't have a litmus test. We ask that you have faith in Jesus, and we leave it up to you to decide, on that basis, if you want to come forward. Which means, basically, that all are welcome at the table. Jesus, after all, told us that we shouldn't judge – and what would be more judgemental than to decide that we have the right to restrict access to the table that belongs not to us but to God? That we have the right to bar access to this sacrament of grace in which we're going to share in a few minutes? Everyone is welcome. But for all its openness, and for our great desire to be “inclusive” and to exclude no one, I wonder if, in some ways, the table isn't also supposed to be a place of challenge? The Gospel passage for today represents a challenge – a big one, it seems to me. Tying it into Holy Communion, this passage is perhaps challenging us to live in such a way that the table isn't only a place we feel welcome at, but is actually the natural place for us to be. The table at a Communion service represents many things. It's a place of gathering; it's the centre of the community; it's a place of sharing; it's a reminder of sacrifice and responsibility – things that are absolutely essential if a community is to have any real significance. Symbolically, the table points us to Christ crucified; it represents for us the presence of God from whose love we can never be separated, we're told by Paul in Romans 8. But then we read today's Gospel passage, and we wonder: How do you possibly get kicked out of the kingdom of heaven? Or, maybe more to the point, why would you get kicked out of the kingdom of heaven? That's the most problematic aspect of this passage.
“the kingdom of God will be taken away from you and given to a people who will produce its fruit.”
This is not an unfamiliar passage to me, but whenever I read even the most familiar passage of Scripture, I try to approach it with new eyes and I try to see something that jars me – no matter how familiar I am with the passage. Those words I found jarring. “... the kingdom of God will be taken away from you and given to a people who will produce its fruit.” They raised a lot of questions in my mind.
“... the kingdom of God will be taken away from you and given to a people who will produce its fruit.”
What is “the Kingdom of God”? It's a phrase we use regularly. It's found regularly in the Bible. But what is it? Is it a place? What is it? It's not a piece of geography. I can't give you the co-ordinates to find it. You can't program it into your GPS. In an eternal sense, it's the state in which God dwells; it's what both God and we exist in when God's will is being perfectly done. For now, I think it's almost more a state of mind that God's people should possess. It's the state of mind that desires to see God's will perfectly done and that seeks to create a glimpse of it in the here and now. It's the place where God's people have their true citizenship. It sounds like a wonderful place. The problem is that Jesus said “... the kingdom of God will be taken away from you and given to a people who will produce its fruit.” So my next question is, who are “you” and why was the “Kingdom of God” taken away from them? Maybe we wonder - who gets the Kingdom of heaven taken away from them today? In the passage, it's clear. It's the “chief priests and the Pharisees ...” But what about today? This is surely about more than just the chief priests and Pharisees of Jesus' day. What was it about the chief priests and Pharisees that resulted in them having the Kingdom of God taken away from them? I think that's rather simple actually. It was because they made faith difficult for people. It was because they made it hard for people to believe that God loved them and cared about them. They were judgemental; they pointed out every little flaw they saw in those around them; they were self-righteous, believing that they themselves had no flaws, and that if others didn't live up to the standards they set then the doors to the Kingdom of God would be closed to them. There are such people today. Perhaps that's why the symbolism of an open table is important to us. We don't want to exclude anyone from the table, because we ourselves don't want to be excluded. We remember the words of Jesus: “Do not judge and you will not be judged. Do not condemn, and you will not be condemned. Forgive, and you will be forgiven. ... For with the measure you use, it will be measured to you.” (Lk 6:37,38b) The chief priests and Pharisees were convinced that their judgemental and self-righteous attitudes were of God. Jesus said they weren't. Jesus said that because of them the Kingdom of God was taken away from them – not because God loved them any less, but because they failed to love others as they should. And so, a bewildering role reversal (bewildering to the chief priests and Pharisees, and to the self-righteous and legalistic today) was proclaimed by Jesus: “the kingdom of God will be taken away from you and given to a people who will produce its fruit.”
This is pretty easy to understand. Jesus is talking about those who understand the values of the Kingdom of God. Jesus is speaking of those who welcome others and share with others and help others and support others. Jesus is speaking to those who live by the law of love which he expresses so eloquently and so often: “love God, love one another, love your neighbour and love your enemies.” Unconditional love given freely, without hesitation, without reservation. This is the standard of the Kingdom of God; this is the fruit of the Kingdom of God. Do we love? This is what tells us that we belong. The Kingdom of God is an alien place for those who can't live in love. Of course, we don't do it perfectly. Maybe there are those in the world who, in spite of our best efforts, we find ourselves unable to love. But the key words are “in spite of our best efforts.” The chief priests and Pharisees (and the self-righteous today) make no effort to love as Jesus asked. We're called at least to put our best effort into living in love. And God's grace is there for us when we fail.
The table is a wonderful symbol of what Jesus is talking about in the parable. In 1 John we're told that “This is how we know what love is: Jesus Christ laid down his life for us. And we ought to lay down our lives for our brothers [and sisters].” For the moment, this table is the symbol of the Kingdom of God. This table reminds us of what divine love truly is, and what human love would ideally be. As we approach the table this morning, may we do so as those who live by the values of the Kingdom that Jesus himself lived among us, and as those who accept the grace that God wants to shower upon us.
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