Musings for Pentecost 16

Sunday, October 2, 2011
Lectionary 27
Proper 22
Sixteenth Sunday after Pentecost

Reflection by Pastor Macholz

INTRODUCTION
In today's gospel reading, Jesus tells a parable of the vineyard, an image of Israel, the prophets' mission, and Christ's death. For Christians, the vineyard also speaks of God's love poured out in the blood of Christ, given to us for the forgiveness of sin. Grafted onto Christ the vine at baptism, we are nourished with wine and bread, that we may share Christ's sufferings and know the power of his resurrection.

PRAYER OF THE DAY (ELW)

Beloved God, from you come all things that are good. Lead us by the inspiration of your Spirit to know those things that are right, and by your merciful guidance, help us to do them, through Jesus Christ, our Savior and Lord.

FIRST READING

Isaiah 5:1–7

The prophet sings a sad, parable-like love song about the relationship between God and Israel. In this song Israel is compared to a promising vineyard. Despite God's loving care, the vineyard that is Israel has brought forth "wild grapes" of injustice and distress, when fine grapes of justice and righteousness were expected.

Let 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;
he expected it to yield grapes,
but it yielded wild grapes.
³And now, inhabitants of Jerusalem
and people 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 expected 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 it shall be overgrown with briers and thorns;
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 people of Judah
are his pleasant planting;
he expected justice,
but saw bloodshed;
righteousness,
but heard a cry!

PSALM (ELW)

Psalm 80:7–15

Look down from heaven, O God; behold and tend this vine. (Ps. 80:14, 15)

⁷Restore us, O ^| God of hosts;

let your face shine upon us, and we ^| shall be saved.

⁸You have brought a vine ^| out of Egypt;

you cast out the nations and ^| planted it.

⁹You cleared 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. R

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;

¹⁵behold and ^| tend this vine;

preserve what your right ^| hand has planted. R

SECOND READING

Philippians 3:4b–14

Paul reviews some of his supposed credentials, which no longer have any bearing in comparison to the right relationship he has been given through the death of Christ. The power of Christ's resurrection motivates him to press on toward the ultimate goal, eternal life with Christ.

^4bIf anyone else has reason to be confident in the flesh, I have more: ⁵circumcised on the eighth day, a member of the people of Israel, of the tribe of Benjamin, a Hebrew born of Hebrews; as to the law, a Pharisee; ⁶as to zeal, a persecutor of the church; as to righteousness under the law, blameless. ⁷Yet whatever gains I had, these I have come to regard as loss because of Christ. ⁸More than that, I regard everything as loss because of the surpassing value of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord. For his sake I have suffered the loss of all things, and I regard 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 one that comes through faith in Christ, the righteousness from God based on faith. ¹⁰I want to know Christ and the power of his resurrection and the sharing of his sufferings by becoming like him in his death, ¹¹if somehow I may attain the resurrection from the dead. ¹²Not that I have already obtained this or have already reached the goal; but I press on to make it my own, because Christ Jesus has made me his own. ¹³Beloved, I do not consider that I have made it my own but this 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 heavenly call of God in Christ Jesus.

GOSPEL

Matthew 21:33–46

Jesus tells a parable to the religious leaders who are plotting his death, revealing that their plans will, ironically, bring about the fulfillment of scripture.

³³Listen to another parable. There was a landowner who planted a vineyard, put a fence around it, dug a wine press in it, and built a watchtower. Then he leased it to tenants and went to another country.³⁴When the harvest time had come, he sent his slaves to the tenants to collect his produce. ³⁵But the tenants seized his slaves and beat one, killed another, and stoned another. ³⁶Again he sent other slaves, more than the first; and they treated them in the same way. 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 get his inheritance.' ³⁹So they seized him, threw him out of the vineyard, and killed him. ⁴⁰Now when 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 lease the vineyard to other tenants who will give him the produce at the harvest time."
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 amazing in our eyes'?
⁴³Therefore I tell you, the kingdom of God will be taken away from you and given to a people that produces the fruits of the kingdom. ⁴⁴The one who falls on this stone will be broken to pieces; and it will crush anyone on whom it falls." ⁴⁵When the chief priests and the Pharisees heard his parables, they realized that he was speaking about them. ⁴⁶They wanted to arrest him, but they feared the crowds, because they regarded him as a prophet.

Reflection

I ran into a friend while at a meeting at a downtown church the other night and asked him how he was doing. “Things are nuts!” he said. He works in the grape/wine industry in the Finger Lakes and suggested that harvest time, which is going on now, keeps him more than busy.

Is it me or has Jesus been talking about vineyards and harvests for a few weeks now, putting forth parables regarding the kingdom; two sons asked to go work, one does and the other doesn’t. Or this week’s where the vineyard is entrusted to tenants who not only did not follow the directions set forth but began to kill the messengers sent to pick up the profits.

How are you doing with your vineyard, the one you’ve been entrusted with these days? I think it a holy coincidence that these lessons appear during this time of the year when our focus moves to stewardship. It asks questions about how we are caring for our vineyards, those things which have been entrusted to us, and how we appropriately offer a return to the One who owns the vineyard. In other words, what are you going with what you’ve received from God’s loving hand? How will you respond?

These are all good questions to ask and answer, especially when they are based in a sense and life style of generosity, extravagant generosity.

I have a simple request and that is this. In these days of October, as part of your daily prayer, have a conversation with God about stewardship and what it means. Pray for a generous, not make that extravagantly generous heart and discover how to trust more fully and wonderfully in God’s promises to care for you. I promise you won’t be disappointed.

Let Us Pray

For renewed bi-partisanship among our leaders

For the unemployed

For those who lack health insurance

To be God’s presence each day

For one another

Quote

When we give to God we are just taking our hands off of what belongs to god.