Sermon
at St. Mary’s Parish Church, Alderbury, Wiltshire Wiltshire – Sunday 5th
October 2014
Exodus 20:1-4; 7-9; 12-20; Phillipians 3:4b-14; Matthew 21:33-46
May
I speak in the name of the Father, Son and Holy Spirit and may these words be a
blessing to all who hear them. Amen
There is an immense
richness about each and every one of our readings this morning which I think
can all be linked together with the one word “faith” – or in the words of Paul
“justification by faith” – the belief that salvation and forgiveness can be
obtained by a true belief in Jesus Christ as our Saviour and not simply a
strict adherence to the law.
In the first of our
readings we are reminded of the Torah, the book of law handed down to the
Hebrews by Moses and upon which the Jewish faith is so heavily founded – laws
or a code of conduct given by God directly to his people for the proper
governance and guidance of his chosen people – laws which were frequently
broken but which, by a strict adherence the Jews thought would ensure that
Yahweh or Jehovah, the unspeakable God looked down favourably upon them.
1. The is only one God – no others
2. Don’t two time God by falsely worshipping other idols
3. There are three names for God – Father,
Son and Holy Spirit – don’t use them wrongly.
4. Remember the Sabbath – the letter “4”
looks a bit like a deckchair to rest in
5. Honour your father and mother – How
often do children take their parents for granted and think of them as simply a
cash machine – No. 5 “lend us a fiver Dad”,
6. Do not murder – the letter “6”
resembles a hangman’s noose
7. Do not commit adultery – think of the “seven year itch” we are sometime told
about
8. Do not steal – the letter eight looks like a pair of handcuffs if
turned on its side
9. Do not bear false witness – No 9 is not 10 – it is not the last of the
commandments
10. Do not covet etc. Think of thin “1” and fat “0”. Have and have not.
The Old Testament is
full of examples of where those commandments were broken – time and time again
and we only have to look at David as a really good (or should I say bad)
example of somebody who broke nearly every one of them – especially murder,
coveting, adultery and theft. We read
how, during the course of the history connected with the Jewish people an
attempt to keep to the law still brought about trials and tribulations and
eventually, God sent down his only son, Jesus, to redeem his people – and us
today.
Our gospel reading is
a clear allegory for this. The vineyard
in the story represented Israel and the vines its people. The tenants those who had been put in charge
of its spiritual welfare – the holy ones – the priests, levites, Pharisees and
sadducees. The fence with the watch tower around the vineyard represents the
law we have just discussed from the times of the Exodus. The Torah which was meant to keep the
vineyard secure. The allegorical picture
painted by Jesus in this parable would have been clear and certainly it would
have, and did, upset the chief priests and Pharisees who wanted to arrest
Jesus. The owner of the vineyard is God
and, the previous slaves represent the prophets such as Elijah and Elisha. Finally sending his son, Jesus, who is killed
by those same tenants – representations of those in authority. In this parable
Jesus is not only pouring scorn on the way in which the tenants are behaving
towards the vineyard and its owner, but also predicting his own
crucifixion. He is also predicting the
demise of those who reject it and pointing out that the same stone which is dug
up and cast aside will be the cornerstone of a new Christian church.
I love the reading
from Paul. It has spoken to me
personally on many occasions and it reminds me of an early occurrence in my
professional career as a lawyer.
Shortly after
completing my degree course in law at Liverpool I joined a large commercial
food manufacturing company in my home town of Grimsby in its legal department.
I was full of myself and probably was quite obnoxious – a bit of a know it all
straight from law school! I was, nevertheless, a humble legal clerk still to
take my final professional examinations to qualify as a solicitor and was given
the task of collecting small debts for my employer. One case which I had was for a debt of about
£5.95 from memory. I spent half a day
reading the file, reviewing the law of contract and its ingredients – offer, acceptance, invitation to treat, consideration
etc. etc. and in law decided my client company had a cast iron case. I then set about issuing proceedings,
drafting the summons and a lengthy particulars of claim – complete with law of
contract legal authorities – cases learned in law school – and finally went to
see my boss to request a cheque for the issue fee – say £4.50. It was then that
he pointed out to me the commercial nonsense of what I had just done and by the
time we worked out the number of hours I had spent on the case, the issue fee
and finally – something I hadn’t even thought about – the likelihood of getting
the defaulter to pay anything back at all from his history, I realised that I
had, in fact wasted an enormous amount of my employer’s time and money. I protested that the case was legally
watertight and that the law was clear.
My boss agreed with me and then quietly advised me to bin the case. The answer was simply that the company would
no longer supply this defaulter with food products – fresh fish if I recall
correctly.
The moral of this
parable of my own – let’s call it the parable of the chip shop owner – was that
whilst the law is there to be observed and followed there are times when that
alone will not provide the answer and can, in fact, work against those who
would seek to uphold it if we don’t consider God’s separate hand in everything. We often try and take matters into our own
hand or think that the law or more earthly solutions will give us the
answer. Paul in our second reading makes
it clear that having followed the law religiously for many years he sees that
as “rubbish” – “rubbish” when compared to following the example and teachings
of Christ. The law will not, of its own bring us that which we need.
Recently I have been
studying and reflecting on the whole concept of forgiveness and grace. My spiritual adviser, a very wise individual
indeed reminded me that there are three distinct types of forgiveness –
personal forgiveness which is us, as individuals, forgiving those who have
wronged us – whether they have asked for forgiveness or not – something which
Archbishop Desmond Tutu calls “a gift which we give to ourselves” not to the
perpetrator of those who have wronged us; secondly legal forgiveness – the
righting of the wrong by legal means – the issue of proceedings against those
who have wronged us but not to our own detriment and finally the greatest of
all of these – “divine forgiveness” – which is totally out of our hands.
Both retribution and
forgiveness of a divine nature we must always leave to God but personal
forgiveness is for us and us alone.
Paul was himself, as
we know, someone who zealously persecuted Christians in his early youthful “law
clerk” days. Like me, as the young
lawyer, he saw the law as being the most important thing in obtaining
righteousness. It’s the right thing to
do. But how often do we ask ourselves –
is it the thing which God thinks it is right for us to do? The tenants in the vineyard wanted to protect
their tenure and secure it by foul means – even resorting to murder. But in the
end, as the parable points out they ended doing what God had planned and
bringing about their own destruction.
How often do we – you
and me – seek to put things “right” without bringing God, through Jesus, into
the equation? Howe often do we stand on
the solemnity and sometimes inflexibility of the law without looking at things
from a deeper and wider perspective? How often do we, like the tenants, build a
fortress which, whilst seeking to protect what we have, also shuts out the Holy
Spirit which should be allowed to freely enter us – especially in times of trial
– when we need him most.
In a moment we shall
sing the hymn – “all I once held dear” which echoes what Paul was writing about
in his letter to the church in Phillippi.
As we sing it let us each and every one think how we can be more open to
receiving the Holy Spirit and setting aside some of our earthly bound habits,
values and prejudices.
Amen
MFB/46
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