Pastor T.C. Arnold
20th Sunday after Trinity
Matthew 21:33-44
Oct. 25th, 2009
A couple of years ago Andrea and I were browsing through shelves and tables at Barns and Nobel and I came across a book titled something like “100 Keys to Living a Happy Life.” That was not the exact title – but it was something like that. I began to page through it when I came to one of its “one hundred” keys that struck a personal cord with me. It said that one of the keys for living a happy life is to, “never own a restaurant.” It made me chuckle a bit because my sister and brother-in-law own a restaurant (with his brothers and their families). I have heard many stories, unhappy stories, about life as a restaurant owner. The book and its key to a happy life sure make a lot of sense.
To own a restaurant is to try to corral and make run smoothly a hundred different factors that could all go terribly wrong at any given moment. For example, one could have problems with the cook or the server. Perhaps they are late for work or not pulling their weight. Perhaps the factor that is making one unhappy the next day is the lack of customers or customer complaints. Perhaps the lack of income is unpleasant. Perhaps the facility needs work because the toilet is backed up again. Maybe long hours are to blame. There is so much that could go wrong – it’s hard to be happy (so the book says) when you own a restaurant.
I wonder if one of the 100 keys to a happy life in the New Testament could have been coupled with what we heard in the Gospel text for today. Perhaps if someone were to write that book 2,000 years ago it would have said that one of the keys for living a happy life is to, “never own a vineyard.” There is so much that could go wrong. The ground must have the right consistency of moister and minerals to produce grapes. Vineyards were set up on new land and that ground is uncertain. He would have to build a fence and much could go wrong with that. He would have to dig a winepress which meant two basins cut out of rock, or if out of soil, lined with rocks and sealed with plaster – one higher than the other and connected with a channel so the grape juice could flow down and begin the process of fermentation. Much could go wrong with that. He had to build a tower. Such a task would have been a difficult endeavor in that day and age as well. There were no four story cranes to help with the job 2000 years ago. And also, with that – much like they say about the restaurant business – you can’t expect to produce any yield until about the third of fourth year and no great profit until the fifth. Sounds like any business – the restaurant business – the vineyard business.
So it must have been hard for those employees – those “tenants” as they were called in the parable – to keep on working and working on a vineyard that took so much care, that didn’t produce fruit yet and was owned by someone who wasn’t even there (remember – he went away and leased it to the tenants). So it would be hard for the employees of a restaurant to work for a boss or an owner – for years on end – without anything to show for their work – when the boss or owner is not even present among them. What would make the workers happy? Perhaps “taking over” the vineyard would make them happy. Perhaps doing it their way by reaping the benefits and the profit from the vineyard after it finally does produce. Maybe that would make it all worth while.
It would also seem to make it all worth while for us today as well. This is what I mean – and it has much to do with what Pastor Frith preached about last week at our Stewardship Sunday celebration. When we see ourselves as owners of what God owns, or, when we see ourselves as “the lord” over what God has given us to manage – we fall pray to what the tenants were thinking and then eventually did.
You see, the tenants wanted for themselves what belonged to the owner. So, they killed the servants that the owner sent. How are you different from the tenants? You are not. Neither am I. You see, when Jesus spoke this parable to the chief priests and elders in the temple courts, He was calling them the tenants. The tenants would not listen to the servants (the prophets) of God (the master of the vineyard). Instead, they would ridicule, harm and even kill them. The master would send other servants and they would do the same to them. Is this what we do? Yes.
We do this by our indifference to God and His call to the Kingdom. We might think, “but pastor, we are the Christians who heed the call of our master, Jesus.” For sure we are. But that’s today and right now. What about those other times we have chosen the world’s ways and not the Lord’s? What about those times we have chosen sin – to seek it without anyone looking – to speak it when it might be just to irresistible no matter how much it might hurt our neighbor – or to do it when we know God would not approve of our actions even though we would risk our own health, our own family our own relationship with the Lord? The people that would not listen to the servants of God were the tenants in the story. Yes, even good Christians can fall into the tenant category when we believe we are lords over who we are, what we say, what we own and what we do.
That final servant that the vineyard owner sent was the owner’s son. And if you have been following the parable you can clearly see how the owner’s son and the Son Jesus Christ are the same. “Come, let’s kill him and take his inheritance,” they foolishly said. They took the son and threw him out of the vineyard and killed him. Does is sound like what would eventually happen at Holy Week to the Savior Jesus? It should because that’s what He was talking about.
How foolish to kill the son. For what reason would they desire to kill him? The reason was to take his inheritance. But St. Paul would tell us that as children of our Heavenly Father we already have God’s rich inheritance. It says in Romans chapter eight, “Now if we are God’s children, then we are heirs – heirs of God and co-heirs with Christ, if indeed we share in His sufferings in order that we may also share in His glory.” You see, herein lies the problem… The tenants wanted the inheritance apart from the son. Or, they didn’t think they would get it as long as the son stuck around. Or, they were ignorant enough to believe that they can force their way into favor by “taking over” the vineyard – when it doesn’t belong to them in the first place. Any which way – they were sadly mistaken.
And I say sadly because of what could have been theirs. They would have received everything the owner’s son received. They would have been “co-heirs” like Paul would say we are today. Now, truth be told, this was a heavenly story with an earthly meaning that didn’t happen. But it was a picture of what had gone on in Israel. God’s people who were rejecting the prophets and then rejecting God’s own Son – all the while they were co-heirs to the kingdom.
Paul talked about how we share in the Son’s suffering so that we might share in His glory. We know that suffering is ours. There evidence of that in your life right now. We suffer because of sin, because of our faith, because of the sins of others. We suffer “in order that we may also share in His glory.” That glory would come at the price of “The Son” of the vineyard owner being pushed out of the Holy City Jerusalem, down a road while carrying His own weapon of torture and execution and then killed. But we have come along side of our Jesus in faith. We have come along side of Jesus on the cross. We have come along side of Him to the grave. We have come along side of Him in glory and heaven as well. Paul said this very thing in Romans chapter six, “We were buried with Christ in Baptism and just as Christ was raised through the glory of the Father, we too have new life.”
In this veil of tears we call life we are constantly seeking ways to live happier lives. Perhaps we could buy a book that shows us what to avoid – like owning a restaurant or a vineyard. But that won’t equate to happiness. Joy is found in what Jesus would say is the “cornerstone” of life. It’s the Son. And that’s not always joyful as we would like to know joy. But is a joy to know that this veil of tears is limited and our Christ is not. It is a joy to know that the foundation of our life, the “cornerstone” never falters. All that is life rests on that precious foundation.
And now I’m going to end this sermon with a command (which I have been taught not to do – but I’m going to do it anyway). The ONE WAY to a happier life – don’t throw out the Son. Amen.
The peace of God which passes all understanding shall keep your hearts and minds in Christ Jesus. Amen