Twenty-First Sunday after Pentecost

October 5, 2008

by The Rev. Constance Jones

Matthew 21:33-46

In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth,
the mountains and the mountain goats,
the sea filled with eels and lobsters and plankton.
God made weather, and a nighttime that is different from day,
and called for everything to have names,
like rhododendron and whooping crane, and Komodo dragon
God created humanity last of all, male and female he created us,
and then he rested.
All these things, because they were made from a divine heart overflowing with love,
were good. They were very, very good.

The story of Creation is like a garden,
in which every good thing lives in harmony.
But outside of the garden there is a vast wide world
where is evil is possible,
and where Cain may kill Abel.

The story of Creation is like a vineyard,
where the owner plants the finest grapes behind a high fence,
and tends them very carefully.
He leases the vineyard to tenants,
but the tenants beat the owner's servants when they come for their share of the harvest,
and then kill the owner's very own son.

The story of Creation is like the free market economy,
where the labor of human hands takes God's abundance,
then produces everything else that people need
to make life secure and sweet.
Out of God-given human ingenuity and hard work
come avocados and fried chicken,
homes with indoor plumbing and summer cottages on the Outer Banks,
free public education and books to read,
drugs to lower your cholesterol and blood pressure,
music to gladden your heart,
and the Heifer Project so the grateful people of God
may supply pairs of animals to villages around the world.

But into all the goodness of Creation
come anxiety, greed and murderous intent –these three evils and many more.

The tenderness and desire between two people who love each other
is turned into exploitation or violence, or cause for condemnation.
The sanctity of human labor is corrupted
crushed by miserly employers or larcenous employees,
and the system turns away from its virtue.
The abundance of all that is produced
is grasped by a conniving few who hoard far more than they can use themselves,
who dream up the idea of sub-prime mortgages,
to entice the unwary and naive into debts they cannot pay back.
The fruits of the land and the land itself
are laid to waste and stained with poison substances.

And the people of God gather at church,
remembering the Creator and celebrating St. Francis,
with the crisp fall days heralding the change of seasons.
They gather in a gifted land,
but one where such an insult to Creation can exist
as a "puppy farm,"
where greedy owners keep animals in cages to reproduce.
Families fostering animals rescued from such a place
say the puppies don't know how to eat from a dish or wag their tails.
Filthy and malnourished, they don't know how to play.
They're afraid of humans, and afraid of the outdoors.

How did you feel when you heard this story on the news?
Or when you hear of tiny children being beaten or scalded,
or old people cheated out of their life savings?
Can you conjure up those feelings now?

Are you angry?
Are there tears in your eyes?
Does it feel like a hand has tightened around your heart, so that you can hardly breathe?
Do you have the urge to hug a child or your cat?
Do you itch to do something, but hardly know where to start?

I wonder if these feelings we have are God's own feelings,
when events unfold and the goodness of Creation is assaulted and polluted
with greed, violence,
and that single-minded selfishness that has marked human existence
since Adam and Eve left the garden.
Imagine if you will, God's own feelings
when the owner of the vineyard sends out his own son,
only to be killed by the tenants..........
God's own feelings when he witnesses Jesus' agony and death on a cross.

If after a first response of outrage and the urge for retribution,
your heart overflows with tenderness
and the desire to right a wrong........
If you feel like buying a meal for someone going hungry,
or going out to plant something,
or hiring somebody who needs the work,
or spending an hour listening to someone who is lonely,
or apologizing for an offense you have committed..........
Well.............
You are in the right place. Yes, church.
This is the place where you can be assured of forgiveness,
or where a reconciliation can, quite literally, be arranged.
This is the place where the lonely who need visits are matched with willing visitors.
Just let us know.
Do you – and here's an idea that has been tugging at my sleeve for months –
do you have a conscience that is green?
Should we have a Green Committee here at Grace Church
to do our own small part to nurture mother Earth?
Will you be part of it? Let me know.
Do you think there are people in this parish or nearby who need jobs,
or who are anxious about their incomes?
Could they support each other?
Do you want to look for specific ways to help the Lackey Free Clinic
that provides medical care to people without health insurance,
or would you rather cut the grass of someone who is in the hospital?
Would you like to adopt a spot where you can pull weeds,
and plant some herbs or flowers?
Maybe you can donate a pint of blood or a kidney,
or donate ........ your prayers for a very good cause.
Will you set fear aside –
the fear that there isn't enough money,
that you haven't enough energy or time,
or that your own effort makes no difference?

You and I are the tenants,
into whose hands God gives his cherished and well-tended grapevines.
We are stewards of the earth, and of living things, and of people,
especially the sick, the old, the weak, and the young.
We are charged with having God's own nurturing and life-giving, loving heart.
There is not a single one of us who is called to do nothing.
And this is the place.
Let's get to work.