Psalm 19
Exodus 20:1-4
Matthew 21:33-46

Today is Worldwide Communion Sunday.  Today is also Peacemaking Sunday.  In two of the passages assigned for today we learn about God’s law!  In Exodus, we learn what was revealed to Moses as the basic 10 commandments which were needed as the new nation was to be established in Israel.  We needed laws to govern our lives together as a people of God, especially as we prepare to leave the wilderness and settle in the promised land. 
The second passage is a continuation of the Matthew passage from last week, which scholars claim may be the last of the parables Jesus taught. 

Remember that it was Jesus authority that was being questioned after he overturned the money changers in the temple area.  Jesus was revising what had been thought to be God’s law.  Concerning taxes to the Romans, he had already made it clear to all that he would not take sides in that argument.  He had simply said whose face is on the money.  Then give to him what is due to him, but give to God what is due to God.   God has authority over our lives and over this nation and world.  We believe that every living being is created by the breath of God, sustained by the Spirit of God and directed by the will of God.  God has authority over God’s creation.  That’s you and me! 

Yet our response to that authority throughout all the ages has always been imperfect.  On our money we print, In God We Trust!  Yet this week we had to spend 700 billion of those dollars to rescue the financial systems of Wall Street before the entire nation’s economic activity went south!  I had a dream that I had died and gone to heaven!  The most amazing thing about arriving in heaven was looking at the money we were issued along with our passport to eternity.  It said In You God Trusts!  I should have discovered the implications of that during my life on planet earth. 

What does all that mean?  What do we, as a nation mean when we put our trust in our imperfect financial institutions while saying in God we Trust?  Do we trust our elected leaders as they vote for us in the spending of our money?  We gave them the authority and we have to trust them with it for that is how we govern our lives together.  It is how we, as a nation, spend our income tax money.  I think this is an interesting time to reflect on money and authority which brings us to those parables.

Jesus has boldly responded to the Pharisees and lawyers as he told this parable about the landowner and the tenants.  To understand this parable we need to be transported back in time some 2,000 years.  The Jewish nation had many laws yet, the social landscape was a mess.  With Roman occupation, they were paying taxes to Rome without representation.  (We dealt with that same issue as we separated from the domination of the British Empire 230 years ago.)  During Jesus lifetime, there was a concentration of wealth in the few who would get richer as the poor got poorer.  Many landowners were losing land to pay debts and deeply resented those who now made them tenants who had to pay back a large percentage of their crops to the new owner.  So Jesus tells a story that was in the headlines of their news.  What is interesting is that Jesus does not put a spin on the story.  He neither tells the story from the landowner’s viewpoint nor from the tenant farmers point of view.  He simply says that in the midst of this great hostility, the landowner had taken the rundown land and made great improvements.  He put a wall around it, dug a winepress in it and built a watchtower so that it would be safe to farm.  Then he rented the vineyard to some farmers who may well have been the original owners.  Then as harvest time came, he sent three of his servants to collect and bring back his share of the fruit.  It can be assumed that the percentage was excessive but we don’t know that.  We simply know that the farmers beat up one, killed another, and stoned the third.  The two remaining returned empty handed.  So the owner sends many more servants that the first time to enforce the mortgage payment.  These are the enforcers but they met with the same battle.  Finally he sends one who has real authority; his son whom he assumes will be respected.  Yet they kill the son believing that would hasten the day when they would get their land back. 

Then he asks the lawyers and Pharisees, “What will the owner do to those tenants?  They respond according to human nature, that they will destroy them and rent the vineyard to others who will cooperate and give him the mortgage payments according to whatever he demands.”  Jesus neither agrees with them nor argues otherwise, he simply says: Look to those scriptures that you keep quoting.  He might have argued that they have never implemented the law of the Year of Jubilee where at the end of each 50 years, all land reverts to the original inhabitants and all debts are cancelled.  But instead he says: “What is marvelous in our eyes is that God is about fulfilling the scripture of Psalm 118, that the stone which the builders rejected has become the cornerstone.   

Perhaps you know that when they were building they would begin by trying to chisel stones until they had a perfect square from which to rightly get the lines correct.  Many good stones would be wasted in the process because of imperfections and be cast off into the piles of rejects.  And then he dares to tell them that the kingdom of God will be taken away from them and given to a people who will produce it’s fruit.  He tells them that God will deny their authority because they have not been worthy of handling the affairs of State of God’s kingdom on earth.  Whoa!  God’s chosen people would no longer be the chosen ones.  Them’s fighting words!

At this point, we can see several obvious implications.  Jesus, as the son of God, should be authorized to enforce the law since there were no sheriffs around.  We know that the Pharisees killed the son and did not respect the authority of God.  Had they believed that Jesus was indeed the authorized one of God, they might not have had him killed.  So what are we to make of this?  Do we understand God’s law as reinterpreted by the promised Messiah of God?  Is it possible that the God in whom we say we trust is not the God who trusts in us?  Let me suggest that there are three different snapshots that point out the difference between what Jesus says is the law of God and the law of humankind.  All three snapshots are images of these revised laws of God. The first is the nature of revenge.

Did you hear about the man who went into the preaching ministry, worked for seven years, then resigned to go back to medical school and become a doctor? "People," he explained, "don't want spiritual health. They just want to feel good." But after working as a physician for seven years, he again resigned, this time to go back to school. "I'm going to become a lawyer," he explained, "because, in the end, people don't want spiritual health. They don't even want physical health. They just want to get even."

I tell you, the world is like that: There is a growing surliness in our lives today. People are bristling with sarcasms, law suits, hand guns, and nuclear warheads. We are a people at war in our relationships. From our marriages to our child-parent relationships, to our next-door neighbors, to our work relationships and on beyond, we are a people doing combat.  Jesus continually taught revenge is not appropriate in the new kingdom.  God is not a god of revenge.  God does not punish the wicked and reward the good as we had thought.  The second snapshot is one of revelation.

The date was June 11, 1963; the place- The University of Alabama at Tuscaloosa. Vivian Malone, a young black woman, enrolled that day as a freshman. Federal troops ensured her entrance, but the doorway was blocked by Governor George Wallace. Holding out for segregation, the governor ultimately failed, and Ms. Malone became the first African-American to graduate from the University of Alabama.  At her side that day was another young black student by the name of James Hood who was scared.  So she slipped him a note; on it was this prayer: "Whatever may be our adversary this day, our Father, help us to face it with courage, for it can be conquered when thou art with us. In faith we pray in the name of Jesus. Amen."

Years later, after an assassination attempt and a deep change of heart, Wallace was rolled in his wheelchair into the Dexter Avenue Baptist Church in Montgomery, and there asked forgiveness. More particularly, the former governor regretted how he had treated Vivian and sought her forgiveness face to face. He wanted to make amends before he died. At their meeting, Vivian told him that she had forgiven him years earlier.  She explained:  "This may sound weird. I'm a Christian, and I grew up in the church. And I was taught that no other person was better than I- that we were all equal in the eyes of God. I was also taught that you forgive people, no matter what. And that was why I had to do it. I didn't feel as if I had a choice." 

The third snapshot is one of trust and love. Instead of revenge or of simply giving us the revelation of faith, God trusts us and loves us.  Jesus explained that we were created in his image to be peacemakers.  What is it to you, if you love those who love you.  What you need to learn is how to love your enemies.  And you can satisfy that human longing for revenge through non-violent resistance.  It is more powerful that all the armies of the world.  God says, I trust in you!  You shall be my peacemakers as love overcomes revenge and hate.  In Holy Communion those three snapshots come together.  Together with Christians throughout the world we hear God's Word telling us that we are forgiven, even as we doubt it!  We still have images of a punishing God. We have learned the REVEALED word of God and yet our faith is weak and it doesn’t seem to fit the nature of our world.  So to reinforce his Word – Christ says do this in remembrance of me, in remembrance of God’s new law and covenant, in remembrance of that still small voice.  So God becomes the ultimate banquet caterer reminding us that we are loved and forgiven; reminding us that God trusts in us!.  In response, we are transformed from human beings bent on revenge to our true nature as children of God acting out the things God seeks in bringing peace on earth, good will to all people.   In that amazing transformation, God forgives our weaknesses, God trusts us to do God’s will, God changes us and empowers us!

Psalm 19 ~ A psalm of David

The heavens declare the glory of God;  the skies proclaim the work of his hands.  Day after day they pour forth speech;  night after night they display knowledge.  There is no speech or language where their voice is not heard.

Exodus 20:1-4 ~ The Ten Commandments

And God spoke all these words:  "I am the LORD your God, who brought you out of Egypt, out of the land of slavery.  "You shall have no other gods before me.  "You shall not make for yourself an idol in the form of anything in heaven above or on the earth beneath or in the waters below…7-9 "You shall not misuse the name of the LORD your God, for the LORD will not hold anyone guiltless who misuses his name.  "Remember the Sabbath day by keeping it holy. 9 Six days you shall labor and do all your work, …12-20  "Honor your father and your mother, so that you may live long in the land the LORD your God is giving you.  "You shall not murder.  "You shall not commit adultery.  "You shall not steal.  "You shall not give false testimony against your neighbor.  "You shall not covet your neighbor's house. You shall not covet your neighbor's wife, or his manservant or maidservant, his ox or donkey, or anything that belongs to your neighbor."  When the people saw the thunder and lightning and heard the trumpet and saw the mountain in smoke, they trembled with fear. They stayed at a distance and said to Moses, "Speak to us yourself and we will listen. But do not have God speak to us or we will die."  Moses said to the people, "Do not be afraid. God has come to test you, so that the fear of God will be with you to keep you from sinning."

Matthew 21:33-46 ~ The Parable of the Tenants

"Listen to another parable: There was a landowner who planted a vineyard. He put a wall around it, dug a winepress in it and built a watchtower. Then he rented the vineyard to some farmers and went away on a journey.  When the harvest time approached, he sent his servants to the tenants to collect his fruit.  "The tenants seized his servants; they beat one, killed another, and stoned a third.  Then he sent other servants to them, more than the first time, and the tenants treated them the same way.  Last of all, he sent his son to them. 'They will respect my son,' he said.  "But when the tenants saw the son, they said to each other, 'This is the heir. Come, let's kill him and take his inheritance.'  So they took him and threw him out of the vineyard and killed him.  "Therefore, when the owner of the vineyard comes, what will he do to those tenants?"  "He will bring those wretches to a wretched end," they replied, "and he will rent the vineyard to other tenants, who will give him his share of the crop at harvest time."  Jesus said to them, "Have you never read in the Scriptures:  'The stone the builders rejected has become the cornerstone; the Lord has done this, and it is marvelous in our eyes'?

"Therefore I tell you that the kingdom of God will be taken away from you and given to a people who will produce its fruit.  He who falls on this stone will be broken to pieces, but he on whom it falls will be crushed."  When the chief priests and the Pharisees heard Jesus' parables, they knew he was talking about them. They looked for a way to arrest him, but they were afraid of the crowd because the people held that he was a prophet.