Sermon at St. Lawrence’s Parish
Church, Stratford sub Castle - Palm Sunday BCP Evensong
– Sunday 20 March 2016
Isaiah 5:1-7;
Psalm 69:1-20; Luke 20: 9-19;
May I speak in the name
of the Father, Son and Holy Spirit, Amen.
One of the best holidays I ever had was a trip to California
– in fact it was my first ever trip to the United States – and we based our
stay in that wonderful city of San Francisco on the Pacific Coast with its
beautiful bridges, cable cars, tramcars, trolleybuses, Chinatown, freshly boiled
crabmeat on sour dough bread at Fisherman’s Wharf and that interesting trip
across the bay to Alcatraz Island and its redundant prison. Such a beautiful European-styled city with
the ever present danger of another great earthquake.
During our stay we did, however, venture out of the city to
cross the Golden Gate Bridge into Marin County and then on to Napa Valley. Our destination – the best wineries of
California. In the States vineyards are
called wineries, Americans preferring to name them for the final product rather
than the horticulture from which the wine is made.
We visited quite a number of these wineries over the few days
we were there [and I can strongly recommend any wine from the Robert Mondavi
Winery in Oakville, Napa Valley! – especially the Napa Valley Cabernet
Sauvignon if you are a red wine drinker].
One very interesting fact we learned on our trip around this winery, and
several others for that matter, was that when the dreadful vine disease phylloxera struck most of Europe’s vineyards
in the late 18th Century those vineyards were later replenished with
cuttings from California where the vines had become disease-resistant and so
most of the wines which you enjoy today, like a good claret from the Bordeaux
Region, probably had its origin from a grape grown on a vine originally from
North America. No doubt the vines in
California themselves had their origin in the Old World.
Despite the best attempts by those late European vintners to
protect their crop, it succumbed to the phylloxera plague with great financial
ruin for many vineyards in France and Italy.
The growers must have reflected greatly on what they could
have done to prevent this savage destruction of their crops and may have had in
mind the Song of the Vineyard read out to us, in part, this evening in our
first lesson. Perhaps like Isaiah they reflected on why this had happened.
Jesus too, I believe, had this passage in mind when he told
the parable of the tenants which I read out in our second lesson. What a terrible story it is too. In fact,
both of our readings and the first part of Psalm 69 speak of doom and gloom –
they sound suitable lyrics for a Leonard Cohen dirge! Everything is going wrong
– for the vineyard owners in both of our readings and the psalmist. Destruction
and misery surround them.
But Isaiah explains, in Verse 7 that the vineyard represents
Israel and the people of Judah are his garden of delight. Isaiah is writing at the time of the Great
Exile of the Jewish people in Babylon which he prophesied was the result of the
Jewish people turning their back on God.
Throughout the bible we are reminded that God led the people out of
captivity in Egypt into the promised land – a land flowing with milk and honey
– only to turn away from God leading, they thought to the eventual splitting of
the David’s and Solomon’s united kingdom into the separate kingdoms of Israel
and Judah and their eventual capture and occupation by firs the Assyrians and
then the Babylonians. Much of the book
of Isaiah is concerned with prophesy and reflections on this history.
Therefore, Isaiah’s metaphor was well known to the Jews of
Jesus’s day as it is today. A mourning for the lost kingdom which had held such
promises and riches for God’s chosen
people – a vineyard planted with God’s chosen crop to produce a ripe harvest
and a rich fulfilling wine – like Robert Mondavi’s. But like the phylloxera plague it had to be
devastated so that it could be rebuilt and strengthened.
In our Gospel reading, Jesus uses this metaphor about
himself. It follows on straight after questions posed by the Jewish lawyers to
Jesus – “By what authority are you doing
these things?” [meaning healing, preaching and teaching] and “who gave you this authority?” Jesus refused to give direct answers to
these questions, instead his answer is to tell this parable about the tenants
in the vineyard.
Using the same metaphors as Isaiah he uses the vineyard again
to represent Israel; planted by God. The tenants are once again the chosen
people, the occupiers of the land but not the owners – ownership remains with
God – and it is important to remember the words we use regularly in our
Eucharist services – “Let us remember
that whatever we give to God comes from God” or as the Apostle James put it “Every good and perfect gift comes from
God” [James 1:17].
But in Jesus’s parable the tenants are not prepared to give
back any of the fruits to God and just as God had sent prophets to the people
in the past to repent of their sins and honour their God so the owner of the
vineyard in this parable sends servants to collect his share but those servants
are not only ignored they are abused by being beaten up.
The owner becomes frustrated but believes that if he sends
his son, whom he loves, the tenants will respect him, listen to him, return
some of the fruits to the owner through him and the relationship will be
restored. The tenants repay the owner by
killing the son believing that in so doing they will actually be able to take
over the vineyard for themselves as the heir will be dead. But their treachery
and folly is repaid by losing the vineyard which is given to others.
The metaphor is clear, Jesus, the Son of God has been sent by
God to redeem the chosen people of Israel. He is the Saviour, the Great
Redeemer, as many of our hymns proclaim.
Jesus is prophesying and predicting what will happen. Those listening to
him proclaim disbelief that the outcome would ever be as told in the story “May this never be” they proclaim in
Verse 16.
Jesus responds by telling them that this is precisely what
will happen in Verse 17 when he says “Then what is the meaning: “The
stone the builders rejected has become the capstone?”.
This is a direct quote from Psalm 118:22. Jesus goes on to explain that
“Everyone who falls on
that stone will be broken to pieces, but he on whom it falls will be crushed.”
Not good news for those who heard this – indeed, the lawyers
and teachers to whom this whole parable was addressed, having recognised
themselves as the tenants in the story, then seek to find a way to arrest him
and put him away – not realising that this is precisely God’s plan so that
salvation for all mankind, not just the tenants of the vineyard, might come
about.
What does this story hold for us today – Christ’s modern
disciples?
The most important lesson, I think, is to remember that we
are like the tenants – we are here on the Earth for only a short time and that
our tenure of everything which we would like to think of as our own is in fact
a gift from God – the greatest gift so far therefore being the time he has
given us to be here on Earth. Time we should use wisely and not fritter away
and, more importantly, to remember that time spent with God, in his presence,
in prayer and doing his work is time well spent.
It also reminds us that God sent Christ amongst us to die for
our sins on the Cross of Calvary. Like
the tenants, we can often be ungrateful and forget that enormous sacrifice
which God made for us.
“God so loved the world
that he gave his only begotten Son” the Apostle John tells us. It’s something which we should
remember every time we recite the Creed – that great article of Faith which
binds all Christians the world over.
Jesus in another metaphor described himself as “The Vine”
from which all goodness is derived; and we are the branches. If we are to yield a good wine harvest the
vintner has to prune the vine quite drastically in the dormant period.
When I worked in Dorking, Surrey, my office window overlooked
Denbies’ wine estate on the slopes close to Box Hill. Occasionally we would take lunchtime walks
over there and could walk close to the vines.
It never ceased to amaze me how the choicest grapes to make the wine
(and I do recommend their English “champagne”) came from such stubby vines over
the winter months. Massive pruning would
ensure that the harvest was abundant and that the grapes would be plump and
juicy at harvest time.
We as the branches need pruning too if not, like my own
little vineyard back in Winterslow, we become straggly and unable to
concentrate on that which God wants for us.
We straggle and bear little or small bitter fruit and like my vines, and
those of Isaiah, they need pulling up and starting again. As Jesus said, if the vineyard is not managed
properly and we do not give back to God some of the blessings he has given to
us then it will be taken away from us.
It is Palm Sunday, so let us remember that Jesus’s triumphant
entry into Jerusalem was the beginning of a week of earth shattering events
leading eventually to his glorious resurrection on Easter Sunday. Let us this
week follow his progress and be worthy of Him who has given us the opportunity
to maintain and prosper in the vineyard he has left for us.
Amen.
MFB/74/16032016
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