Isaiah 5:1-7; Psalm 80:7-14; Philippians 3:4b-14; Matthew 21:33-46
The Rev. Drew Brislin
As I was thinking about this morning’s Gospel reading and its agricultural aspects, I could not help but be drawn back to memories of some of my earliest school projects and science experiments that included plants. From watching celery soak up food dye, to placing a potato or avocado seed in water using toothpicks to hold part of it above the water line. Taking it home and placing it in the window so that we could painstakingly watch the roots grow from the bottom and vines grow from the top. While this wasn’t a school project, I also recalled a rather ad hoc experiment that my brothers and I undertook together. My father served as a principal for a year or two as I recall and one of the ladies that worked in the cafeteria would often bring him things she had grown in her garden. I particularly remember her bringing several bags of collard greens one day. Now, I don’t remember if some of them had started to rot or if my dad just waited too long to prepare them. I can tell you that he would have been the only one eating them as I had not yet developed my affinity for collards as yet. Like most kids I found them to be yucky. What I do remember though is that my brothers and I found them near the trash ready to be discarded. The house we grew up in was surrounded by woods that spent many hours playing in building forts, blazing trails and doing all sorts of exploring. Being aspiring farmers, my brothers and I took the collards and planted them in the woods. I still don’t know why we did this as there was a lot of cover from the trees so the likelihood of the collards getting sun would have been negligible, yet we undertook the exercise anyways. I think it was a pure sense of curiosity that drove my brothers and I to plant those collards that had seemingly gone bad and just see what happens. We had plenty of space in the woods. The earth was fertile, and the tree cover always kept the ground moist.
This morning in our Gospel reading, we hear the parable of the vineyard or what is often referred to as the parable of the wicked tenants. This parable is the second of three that we hear in consecutive weeks as Jesus continues to reveal who he is and from where he draws his authority. While I have often said that reading Jesus’ parables as allegory can sometimes draw us away from the real message that Jesus would like for us to leave with, he is telling these parables in the temple, so it is difficult not to understand them allegorically. However, we must be careful not to interpret them in such a way that would lead us to place judgement on others. Jesus tells this parable using a story that would have been very familiar to the religious leaders of the day, drawing on Isaiah chapter 5 which we heard in our Old Testament reading this morning. ‘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.’ What we hear in Isaiah and what we hear in our Gospel reading is the landowner setting up his vineyard to be a place where his vines can grow and flourish. He has given the vineyard everything it needs to be successful, yet it grows wild grapes. In the gospel reading the landowner gives the tenants everything they need to be successful. The landowner in our Gospel plants a vineyard like the beloved had in Isaiah, places a fence around it digs a winepress and watchtower as well. The landowner at the beginning has put all the things necessary in place to have a successful harvest and then gives it over to be cared for by tenants and leaves so that they may have the opportunity to grow and flourish on their own. When it comes time for the harvest, the tenants in their desire for more tread down a path of greed. The landowner repeatedly sends servants to collect the produce due him that are successively seized, beaten and killed. The landowner finally sends his own son who is rejected. In the telling of this story Jesus seems to be speaking to the relentlessness to which God seeks relationship. God gives us the fertile ground in which to grow, yet it is up to us to choose to be planted in that ground.
While those collards that had begun to rot did not ask to be replanted and showed little hope of being able to contribute to a meal, my brothers and I nonetheless decided to replant them out of curiosity. My brothers and I didn’t give up on those collard greens and to everyone’s surprise, especially my dad’s, those collards began to grow. They were given an opportunity and the proper environment in which to regenerate and were now ripe for the harvest. I think Jesus is maybe trying to tell us this morning that ‘This is what you think you know, now listen to me. What keeps you out of the kingdom is not God’s judgement but your own inability to accept inclusion in the community that I offer you.’ God’s judgement is always made in grace and love. God’s judgement is his relentless pursuit of us in love. This relentless pursuit is the story of the Bible, and it is embodied in the love that he continues to share with us through scripture, in the Eucharist, in Baptism and all the sacraments but I think most importantly in the love that he commands us to have and share with one another. God gives us fertile soil in which to grow in the rich relationships that we are given as caretakers. Our family and friends, our church, our work relationships, and social groups are all fertile grounds of connection that we are called to nurture. How are we doing with our harvest?