First Reading Isaiah 5:1-7
1Let me sing for my beloved my love song concerning his vineyard: My beloved had a vineyard on a very fertile hill. 2He 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; and he looked for it to yield grapes, but it yielded wild grapes. 3And now, O inhabitants of Jerusalem and men of Judah, judge between me and my vineyard. 4What more was there to do for my vineyard, that I have not done in it? When I looked for it to yield grapes, why did it yield wild grapes? 5And now I will tell you what I will do to my vineyard. I will remove its hedge, and it shall be devoured; I will break down its wall, and it shall be trampled down. 6I will make it a waste; it shall not be pruned or hoed, and briers and thorns shall grow up; I will also command the clouds that they rain no rain upon it. 7For the vineyard of the Lord of hosts is the house of Israel, and the men of Judah are his pleasant planting; and he looked for justice, but behold, bloodshed; for righteousness, but behold, an outcry!
Psalm Psalm 80:7-18
7Restore us, O God of hosts; show the light of your countenance, and we shall be saved. 8You have brought a vine out of Egypt; you cast out the nations and planted it. 9You prepared the ground for it; it took root and filled the land. 10The mountains were covered by its shadow and the towering cedar trees by its boughs. 11You stretched out its tendrils to the sea and its branches to the river. 12Why have you broken down its wall, so that all who pass by pluck off its grapes? 13The wild boar of the forest has ravaged it, and the beasts of the field have grazed upon it. 14Turn now, O God of hosts, look down from heaven; behold and tend this vine; preserve what your right hand has planted. 15They burn it with fire like rubbish; at the rebuke of your countenance let them perish. 16Let your hand be upon the man of your right hand, the son of man you have made so strong for yourself. 17And so will we never turn away from you; give us life, that we may call upon your Name. 18Restore us, O Lord God of hosts; show the light of your countenance, and we shall be saved.
Second Reading Philippians 3:4b-14
4bIf anyone else thinks he has reason for confidence in the flesh, I have more: 5circumcised on the eighth day, of the people of Israel, of the tribe of Benjamin, a Hebrew of Hebrews; as to the law, a Pharisee; 6as to zeal, a persecutor of the church; as to righteousness under the law, blameless. 7But whatever gain I had, I counted as loss for the sake of Christ. 8Indeed, I count everything as loss because of the surpassing worth of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord. For his sake I have suffered the loss of all things and count them as rubbish, in order that I may gain Christ 9and be found in him, not having a righteousness of my own that comes from the law, but that which comes through faith in Christ, the righteousness from God that depends on faith — 10that I may know him and the power of his resurrection, and may share his sufferings, becoming like him in his death, 11that by any means possible I may attain the resurrection from the dead. 12Not that I have already obtained this or am already perfect, but I press on to make it my own, because Christ Jesus has made me his own. 13Brothers, I do not consider that I have made it my own. But one thing I do: forgetting what lies behind and straining forward to what lies ahead, 14I press on toward the goal for the prize of the upward call of God in Christ Jesus.
Gospel Matthew 21:33-46
33{Jesus said to the chief priests and elders of the people,} “Hear another parable. There was a master of a house who planted a vineyard and put a fence around it and dug a winepress in it and built a tower and leased it to tenants, and went into another country. 34When the season for fruit drew near, he sent his servants to the tenants to get his fruit. 35And the tenants took his servants and beat one, killed another, and stoned another. 36Again he sent other servants, more than the first. And they did the same to them. 37Finally he sent his son to them, saying, ‘They will respect my son.’ 38But when the tenants saw the son, they said to themselves, ‘This is the heir. Come, let us kill him and have his inheritance.’ 39And they took him and threw him out of the vineyard and killed him. 40When therefore the owner of the vineyard comes, what will he do to those tenants?” 41They said to him, “He will put those wretches to a miserable death and let out the vineyard to other tenants who will give him the fruits in their seasons.” 42Jesus said to them, “Have you never read in the Scriptures: ‘The stone that the builders rejected has become the cornerstone; this was the Lord’s doing, and it is marvelous in our eyes’? 43Therefore I tell you, the kingdom of God will be taken away from you and given to a people producing its fruits. 44And the one who falls on this stone will be broken to pieces; and when it falls on anyone, it will crush him.” 45When the chief priests and the Pharisees heard his parables, they perceived that he was speaking about them. 46And although they were seeking to arrest him, they feared the crowds, because they held him to be a prophet.
Conflict of Interest
Let me describe for you a situation that is far too often true in many of our churches today. They are a self-proclaimed Christian family. The husband is a Christian, at least that’s what he put on his job application when it asked for his religious affiliation. His mother has been a good church going woman. As a child he attended Sunday school, youth group meetings, Confirmation classes and was Confirmed as a teenager. At age 16 he got his driver’s license and at age 18, he moved away to attend college. That was some thirty years ago now. He had a religious upbringing, so that must make him a Christian by parental relationships. Or does it?
He prefers to think of himself as a Christian most days; well, except Thursday. Thursday is happy hour at the local sports bar. And maybe Friday, because payday is Friday, and everybody knows, “Friday the eagle flies, and Saturday I go out to play.” Sunday is a good day, but it isn’t necessarily a church day. Afterall, he needs to rest on Sunday from Thursday, Friday, and Saturday. He thinks about church from time to time, he even attends on occasion; you know the odd Sunday, on Christmas, Easter, Mother’s Day, and Homecoming. Afterall, his parents have been members there for 70+ years. Besides, in his estimation, he’s a good man.
He donates a few dollars to the church, he doesn’t break the law, he’s good to his family. Afterall, when it comes to the list of dos and don’ts, he keeps most of the dos and does very few of the don’ts. By classical worldly standards, since he is good, keeps most of the rules, he is indeed a good person, he is good enough. The problem is, he doesn’t understand that his good, just isn’t good enough. One could say that he’s a Christian, but he has a conflict of interest.
His wife is a Christian woman. At least she does Christian things. She goes to church most Sundays; she helps out in the kitchen and on a committee or two. She, like her husband, does good in the community and mostly obeyed the rules. However, she has a problem; she loves to talk about people all day Monday. Oh, she makes excuses for her behavior. Oftentimes in conversations, she’ll complain about her job, about her husband, and sometimes she’ll even complain about the Lord. She’ll make excuses like she’s just trying to get the Lord’s attention, but on Saturday, while out with the girls, she doesn’t mind the attention she receives from other men. She tells her friends that she isn’t the best person, but she isn’t the worst person either. In her mind, she’s a Christian, but she too has a conflict of interest.
The child of this dynamic duo is a desperate child. He’s in-between; in-between childhood and adulthood, in-between believing his parents and following his friends, in-between faith in the church and fun in the streets. He questions who this God is, but he doesn’t want to question too loud. He doesn’t want his friends to think that he’s too strange, or too religious, or too square, or too different. He tells himself that what he’s doing isn’t too bad, after all everyone else was doing it. He is, after all, a Christian like his parents, he too has a conflict of interest.
Isaiah was describing this conflict of interest through the analogy of a vineyard. The landowner wanted to build a vineyard, a heritage. How many here have ever researched the effort that goes into establishing a vineyard? I did some research the other day and was shocked at the amount of time, energy, and resources it takes to establish a vineyard. First, you must select land that is well drained. To have well drained land, vineyards are usually established on a hill side. This hillside also needs to preferably be south facing. Once the land is selected, you must clear it of rocks and then you must prepare the soil so that it has a ph level of 5.5 to 6.5.
Once the soil balance is achieved, you’ll need to install a trellis network to support the vines and in many cases an irrigation system to ensure the proper amount of soil moisture is maintained. And then the hard work begins, choosing the vines. Here in North Carolina, the Muscadine variety is popular for a reason. However, other varieties will grow as well, but not all. So you must choose carefully. Once you’ve chosen the variety, then these vines must be carefully planted in the proper spacing. Then you wait. As the vines grow, you’ll need to prune them, tend them, train them and in time, you’ll begin to get grapes. It takes years, 5 to 7 in most cases, before the typical vineyard begins to even produce a marginal crop. Did you know that it takes 20 pounds of grapes to produce one gallon of juice?
The point I’m making in this explanation is that planting a vineyard isn’t a haphazard endeavor. It takes a lot of planning, investment, and energy. This is why God uses this metaphor when talking to the Hebrew people. They understood the effort it took to establish and protect such an investment. This is why God has Isaiah tell the story he does in our first lesson for today.
In our first reading, God, the vineyard owner, cleared the land, and He removed all the stone. He planted the vines, that is the Hebrew nation, in the middle of a fruitful hill, that is the Promised Land. He placed a watchtower, that is the patriarchs, the judges, the prophets, and the kings, near the vineyard so that He could watch over it. He put in a wine press, that is the Temple and synagogues, nearby so that He could harvest its fruit. However, after all that time, effort, and investment, when it came time for the vineyard to produce grapes, it produced wild grapes. Oh, the fruit from the vines looked like grapes. But when you tasted the fruit to enjoy its sweetness, it wasn’t sweet like the choice grapes He planted. It tasted like the wild grapes that grow in the wilderness.
The Lord was telling Jerusalem, and the men of Judah, “I took you out of the land of slavery and placed you in the middle of a fertile hill. I placed my word in a watchtower so that it could watch over you. I placed my temple nearby so that I could receive the fruit of my labor when you served me in my temple. But when it came time to taste the sweetness of your attitude, the kindness of your words, the joy of your spirit, it turned out that you were not very sweet after all. Your attitude was bitter, not sweet, and your words were harsh and not kind. Your spirit was mean and not joyful. You looked like my people, you even said the words that God’s people should say, you sounded like my people. But when it came time for godly acts, you acted ungodly. Maybe you are my people, but you have “a conflict of interest.”
The apostle Paul identifies this characteristic in Romans 7:18-19: “I know that nothing good lives in me, that is, in my sinful nature. For I have the desire to do what is good, but I cannot carry it out. For what I do is not the good that I want to do; no, the evil I do not want to do — this I keep on doing.” Paul was saying, “I want to do right, but I keep on doing wrong. I keep running into this conflict. Conflict all around me, the conflict that’s inside me. I’m trying to be a Christian, but I have “a conflict of interest.” It’s a conflict between the desires of the self, versus the desire to serve God. You see for Paul this was a reason, but not an excuse. He understood our sinful self-focused nature, the old Adam, as the reason for his struggle against temptation and sin, but he didn’t allow that to be an excuse for not living out his calling as a child of God.
There are things we know we should do. We should go to church and Sunday school on Sunday, but Sunday conflicts with our rest time, our play time, and our personal leisure time. We know we should read the Bible and pray more often, but Bible study and prayer time conflicts with our sleep schedule and work schedule. We know we should make time to reach out and share God’s love with others, but with work, family, leisure time and vacations, we can’t seem to squeeze that into our busy schedule. There are so many competing interests. Sunday seems to be the only day we can get any rest. Well maybe it’s a matter of priorities; it’s a matter of choices. Each of us must choose, and some of those choices can be hard. Some of these competing choices can affect friends, family, status, even finances.
But let me ask you this: if we can manage our work and leisure schedule, why can’t we do the same when it comes to our service to God? Is the conflict of interest we experience a reason, or an excuse, for failing to live out our Christian walk and calling? Do we find ourselves making excuses like, I would go to Bible study, but those people get too holy. Consider this, if we don’t make time for God when it’s inconvenient for us, what makes us think that God will make time for us when we suddenly find ourselves in need of Him?
We say, I know that I should give my time, talents, and tithe to the church, but the church is always asking for my resources. Let me ask you the same question I asked the folks at the PCAT Workshop the other day. What is our most valued resource? The overwhelming response was our time. If our time is our most valued resource, then doesn’t it make sense that if we want to give of our best, then the best that we can give is our time?
The next most valuable resource we feel we have is our money. It costs money to live in this world, we all know that. But when the doctor asks for money, we pay the bill. When we shop online or at our favorite stores, even when it’s for unnecessary things we say, “It’s my money; I spend it the way I like.” We all have bills to pay and new cars to buy and hobbies to maintain, it costs money to live and eat and enjoy life. However, when it comes to God and the church, we seem to give what’s left, if there is any.
What we keep forgetting is that all our gifts, talents and resources are a gift from God. They all belong to Him anyway. All God is asking for is a bit of the first fruits, not the scrapings from the bottom of the barrel. We expect the best from God, but what are we willing to give in return, the scraps, the pennies that are left over? Consider this illustration: Once upon a time two beautiful flowers lived side-by-side in a magnificent garden. One was bright yellow, and the other was bright blue.
From the first moments of their existence these two flowers were praised for their vigor and beauty. The two flowers basked in their glory and all the accolades they received. One day the yellow flower began to do some work. “What are you doing?” asked the blue flower. “I am making pollen,” she answered. “You shouldn’t be doing that. It’ll make you old before your time.” The yellow flower didn’t heed the warning and continued to make her pollen. The next day the blue flower was complimented, but nothing was said to the yellow flower, now beginning to look a bit withered and worn. “What did I tell you?” said the blue flower.
“You must spend all your time on yourself or no one in the future will care about you.” The blue flower primped, kept focus on itself, while the yellow flower was content to make pollen. Several days later a young man was strolling through the garden. He spied the blue flower and picked it. “This must come to my house,” he said. “What did I tell you?” said the blue flower to the yellow. “Now I will adorn this man’s house while you will sit in the hot sun and wilt.” A few days later, when the man was finished with the blue flower, he discarded it into the fire. In time when nature had finished with the yellow flower, there was a whole field of yellow blossoms. This story contrasts what happens to those who do what we were created and commanded to do, as opposed to those who are only focused on the self.
It’s also a tale which demonstrates how different people respond to the gifts given to them by God. Some use gifts wisely and produce an abundance, while others pass up opportunities or use very minimally or unwisely the gifts and possibilities God sends our way. Today’s reading from the prophet Isaiah, known as the “Song of the Vineyard,” illustrates the failure of the people of Judah to wisely use what God had given them and the consequent result that comes from such an abuse of God’s gifts.
In metaphorical language Isaiah highlights that God did everything possible for the people. God brought the people out of slavery and placed them in the Promised Land. God cleared away all the stones from this land, that is the peoples of the region who wouldn’t allow the Israelites to grow and flourish. God gave the people the law to show them how to live their lives by loving God and neighbor. They were given all they could possibly need. The people were special, and because of all God had done for them, He expected a rich harvest. But the people made poor choices, they ignored what God had done, they chose other gods; they produced wild grapes. God expected more from His chosen people. What more could the Lord have done?
In some important ways the blue and yellow flower in the story were very much like each of us today. Each of us are given a wonderful assortment of gifts, but each of us must choose how we use those gifts. For those who choose to see things like the blue flower, they misuse God’s gifts and destruction will be the end result. Like the people of Israel, God’s judgment was proclaimed on the nation. The hedge and the wall, symbolic of God’s protection for the nation and its people, would be removed. God allowed briars and thorns to overrun the vineyard, a symbol that the nation of Judah was to be conquered by pagan peoples. Isaiah was warning that God’s sustenance would be removed; no rain would come to the vineyard. God expected obedience and worship, what He received was unrighteousness.
Please don’t entertain the idea that the story of the flowers and the Song of the Vineyard are not applicable to our contemporary situation, for we must each examine our own lives and see how we’ve used the many and wonderful gifts God has given us. God doesn’t ask too much from us, but the Lord does command that we put Him first in our lives and use our gifts wisely. We’ve all received many wonderful gifts, but the question each of us must ask is, have we been faithful to God with what we’ve been given?
Too often we squander what we’ve been blessed with, or we poorly or unwisely use the manifold gifts of God. God’s gifts are given not just for our benefit, but for use in His service, in His kingdom, and for the good of all. As Jesus says, “But seek first the kingdom of God and his righteousness, and all these things will be added to you” (Matthew 6:33).
Amen
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