It's God's Vineyard

Text: Matthew 21:33-46

Focus: Pastoral ministry.

Function:  To help establish trust between me and Hope Church.

Form:  Storytelling

Intro: 

A few things:

There is this Mennonite farmer/preacher in Australia who runs this blog called pumpkin cottage ministries. His name is Bryan Findlayson. When I need a springboard for an idea, he helps me.

There are two things about him that I really appreciate. 1). He writes from an Anabaptist perspective and 2). He follows the lectionary.

I am committed to following the lectionary for the most part. It matches the bulletins, it covers the entire bible in its nine year cycle, it keeps me from preaching my favorite proof texts and it unites us with the global church. Almost always, I will preach the gospel text because I am still absolutely in love with Jesus and I believe that the entire bible needs to be interpreted in light of Jesus' teachings. When I follow the lectionary, it stretches me to think beyond my own personal favorites. It keeps me in    God's word and it give me, and us, a balance to our scriptural learning.

So here we are, this first Sunday that I am here.

And God assigns me this text that speaks to all this judgement.

It doesn't seem like a positive way to start out.

And, I get my first dilemna.

I have faith. I have lot of faith. I have literally seen the lame walk and the blind recieve their sight during prayer ministry.

Jesus is the same today and forever. I believe that. My desire is to preach, "with God, all things are possible." They are.

Our church, Hope, is in a time of transition. Still. With a permanent pastor, we can see the end of upheavel. But, there is the whole transition to new pastoral style, gifts, abilties, and passion.

And I will stop for a minute and expound on passion. Passion drives us. I have two great passions in my life, that is, besides my love for Kathy, my wife.

They are, in no particular order: 1). Jesus and His sacrifice for humanity, His three days of atoning for the sins of humanity  and 2). working for justice, His three years of teaching us how to live and love one another.

And all of that comes to a head in fruition through His bride, the Church. God loves us and believes in us. No matter what, God will not abandon the church.

So, I desperately need a positive message on this first Sunday with the privilege of being your pastor.

And again, I am faced with this passage.

So, I go back to that muse, the Anabaptist farmer preacher from Australia. And indeed he springboards an idea for me.  He speaks to a problem in the modern church. He says: "Shepherds are no longer faithful and are shepherding according to expected outcomes instead of giving the profit to the Lord."

I like that phrase "preaching the expected outcomes instead of giving... ...to the Lord."

I suppose it is appropriate for us to consider somewhat what the Bible says about false preachers and how that informs my own ministry.

I assume that you understand the illustration here. Jesus is actually referring to a prophecy from Isaiah, recorded in the fifth chapter that also decries the selfish nature of the Spiritual leadership with which the Jewish people are burdened.

God gave them spiritual leadership who were entrusted with bringing spiritual profit to the Lord. But instead, they were serving themselves.

Throughout the history of the OT, the prophets were abused, stoned, ignored, imprisoned, marginalized and killed.

Jesus then refers to Himself, God's own Son, the heir to it all and predicts His own death.

What a shame!

The prophets oftentimes spoke against the leaders because leaders were abusing the system.

But one of the end time warning is to beware of false preachers who tickle the ear and tell people what they want to hear instead of what they need to hear.

In many ways, that is exactly how we as a Church started in the first place here in the Church of the Brethren.

Alexander Mack spoke against the abuses of organized religion and there have been many martyr's for the faith in our movement because of it.

But that isn't something to be proud of.

Let the one who boasts, boast in the Lord.

That muse of mine reminds me as well that spiritual leadership can work either for their own benefit instead of the Lord's benefit. Or, they can work to maintain the status quo.

So how does Jesus' complaint relate to today.

Remember this, when Jesus, the 12 disciples and John the Baptist went around preaching the good news, the gospel, they didn't say this: "ask Jesus into  your heart and you will go to heaven when you die." Or, they didn't preach: "all you have to do to be saved is ask Jesus into your heart and you will go to heaven when you die. It is just that simple."

And don't get me wrong. I did that and when I did,  Jesus came into my heart. I felt Him. I am not dismissing the reality of a real live and genuine experience of transformation when a person trusts in Jesus. Not at all.

But when they preached the good news, the gospel, Jesus, the twelve and John the Baptist preached it this way: "Turn around! The kingdom of heaven is here, right now!"

The emphasis is this difference. It isn't merely a promise of heaven in the future. But God's kingdom, His kingdom of peace and justice is here and now.

Listen, I am not dismissing the reality of people's conversion experiences. They happen in many ways across a broad spectrum of circumstances and people. God is in the business of restoring broken people to wholeness by giving them the work of the Holy Spirit that assures their heart of God's love for them.

But the old addage that it is all about getting to heaven when we die completely ignores the blessing and calling that God has for the church today.

And maybe that is how it fits today. Maybe that is how spiritual leaders are not giving back the profit from God' word that is due God.

So, again, I go back to that muse and I ask myself this question:

"In what ways do we not pay the Lord the spiritual due expected from us, God's vineyard?"

By misusing the trust, abusing the trust, and changing the nature of the gospel.

I know believers who get great benefit from some of the mega-churches. But at other times I cringe when I hear of clergy making salaries in the hundred to hundreds of thousands of dollars.

I wonder if the message of living a sacrifical life for the welfare of others is taught.

But, it isn't mine to judge. Perhaps they are reaching an audience that I will never connect with.

As brother Paul said, good intentions or bad, God can use it and what matters most is that Jesus is preached. (Phillipians 1:18)

A preacher asks himself or herself if that attitude is just sour grapes, or self-justification. We know that the heart can decieve us fairly easily.

But then, I look at the strength of community that we have right here and I know that this is what God has called me/us to.

So let me tell you a true story about my neighbor across the street. He has been on what I call "the slow conversion of -let us call him- Fred."

He found out that I was a preacher soon after I moved into the neighborhood. And his first few conversations with me were about whether or not God would hate him for his marijuana habit.

I understood that he wondered if following Christ would be too hard for him. He was really asking about God's love for him in spite of what he had heard about God.

I assured him of God's love for him and told him that as he experienced a relationship with God, some changes -from God- may come into his life and that even though I am a preacher whose office at times is to speak for God, it was God's job, not mine, to act as a conscience for others.

Fred and I have danced back and forth for years in conversation about spirituality.

Most often, he would report to me about his health and then the things that he was learning and experiencing in his emerging relationship with God.

It is great being a pastor and part of that process!

Constantly, it felt like he was reporting to me. I guess he was gauging my reaction to see if I would love and accept him.

And then, all of a sudden, his questions got very specific. What did I think of welfare? What did I think of gays and lesbians? Is the antichrist coming from Russia, Iran or Iraq?

I learned that he had begun to attend a mega-church.

He has a lot of back pain, so his self-medicating with substances hasn't really stopped. I am not going to judge if that is an excuse or reality. It isn't my place and frankly, I don't really care about the issue.

My answers have always been supportive of his spiritual journey. He heard no argument from me. What was happening to him was a deeper relationship with God. For that, I am happy.

I did tell him that God loves everyone. I did tell him that I understood the argument that welfare was supposed to be done by the church and not the government, and that the church did it well before Constantine, and then it got relegated to the State Church and things haven't been the same since.

That sort of seemed to go over his head.

But all of a sudden he stopped talking to me.

We were side by side pumping gas a block from my house. He told me that his Social Security disability finally came through. I praised the Lord with him. And then, out of the blue, he told me how upset he was with the encroachment of socialism in our government.

I bit my tongue and forced a smile.

When he pressed the issue for my response I merely said that we live in a social democracy where we have elected representatives who have made these laws, and one of them is the Disability he is now recieving. That didn't help.

And then he decried the fact that the government was going to take away all of our guns.

And again, I bit my tongue and smiled.

Jesus loves everyone, both right and left. God is far above politics and it is not my place to judge. Sometimes, the only real answer is to keep silence.

How does this relate, you wonder?

The Kingdom of God is here and now. It is about loving the other. I had to remind myself that God is indeed working out His perfect will in that man's life.

When the gospel message is reduced to pray this prayer so that when you die you will go to heaven, a prayer that I believe works well. But when it is reduced to that, then the implied message is that God does not care about what people do in the interim.

I love "Fred." God loves "Fred." "Fred" is on a journey that God is superintending. And although God used me at the beginning of the process. I am not there now.

I sort of grieve for "Fred" now. The faith, the hope of God's unconditional love has now somehow been traded for a sort of club that has a certain group of people who are in, and a certain group of people who are out. And that is the opposite of what he was first seeking.

And I wonder if the Lord is getting his due. Or, of somehow the news of the Kingdom of heaven calling people to love others unconditionally.

That was the message that drew "Fred" to God. And now, it is something else.

The message of love is radical. It forbids the marginalization of the other and it always, always embraces the power of the good news to change people.