Sermon at All Saints’ Church, Winterslow and All Saints’ Church Farley - Sunday 8 October 2023
Isaiah 5:1-7; Philippians 3:4b-14;
Matthew 21:33-46
Father
God, we bless and praise you and your Son, Jesus Christ, remembering that He is
the vine and we just his branches, and you are the owner of the vineyard from
which all good things come. We pray that we shall bear the fruits of your
creation and protection in all we do, say and think. Amen
I love stories, parables and illustrations about wine and
vineyards. I like drinking it too – especially a nice Argentinian Malbec or
French Claret! When you think about it, the bible, in both the Old and New
Testaments, is full of stories connected with wine. The first act Noah did after leaving the Ark
was to plant a vineyard and subsequently got himself drunk and disgraced
himself; we then have Pharaoh’s cup-bearer (his wine servant) in prison with
Joseph whose later testimony helped release Joseph; the Book of Proverbs has much to say about the beverage including the
dangers of over-indulging; Isaiah writes
a song about a vineyard which we heard read out this morning and which I’ll
come back to shortly; then there is the miracle of water being turned into wine
at the wedding at Canaan – Jesus’s first miracle; Jesus appears to have enjoyed
a good party and drank wine with sinners and tax collectors; there are also
Jesus’s two examples of the vineyard representing modern day Israel which we
will look at more closely shortly and, of course, the serving of wine and its
symbolism at the Last Supper. In fact
there are so many references to wine and drinking in the bible I am amazed the
Temperance Society was ever taken seriously!
Of course, wine was very important back in those days in the
Middle-East because it was a way of drinking purified water in a hot country
and it would usually accompany most meals. It was also important to the Jews
because they had been commanded in the Books
of Numbers (15:5) and Nehemiah
(13:12) to make drink offerings and tithes of wine to Yahweh (Jehovah).
Jesus having been brought up in this Jewish culture would
have seen many vineyards in his time and observed the process of viniculture
and wine making. This is why he used the illustration of the vine and its
branches to describe himself and those who followed him. However, before
looking more closely at the gospel reading let’s look back at what is being
said in our first reading today from Isaiah remembering that Isaiah was one of
those major prophets who foretold the coming of Jesus.
Isaiah is writing at the time of the Exile of the Jews in
Babylon, those seventy years when the cream of Judah’s society had been sent to
Babylon to serve their oppressors. The Temple built by King Solomon had been
destroyed by these invaders and the rump of the population had been left in
Judah to maintain the fields in forced labour. Isaiah looks back and laments at
what had happened, likening Judah to a fertile vineyard planted by God who expected
the people to bear fruit and obey his commands.
What he sees is a nation in ruins brought about by their own failure to
flourish because they didn’t act as God had wished. He describes the people as wild sour grapes,
not the cultivated sweet grapes which he had planted and expected to grow. They
were expected to behave with justice and righteousness but instead they were
divided and warred amongst themselves – the reference here to bloodshed and not
righteousness. Because of this, God had torn it down, dug it up and destroyed
it – a reference to the Babylonian destruction of the Temple and removal of the
people into Exile. It’s God’s judgment on the people – a warning also for the
future never again to allow this to happen.
Paul takes up the theme of obedience to God but in the letter
he writes to the Philippians he looks back upon his own upbringing and
behaviour as an ardent law abiding Jew and reminds us that following the coming
of Christ, things have changed. No longer are we just expected to follow the
law to be righteous but it is also necessary to follow the ways and teachings
of Jesus; that we must now see
everything that had gone on before through the lens of the Cross. Paul
acknowledges that he has persecuted the followers of Jesus for not following
the old law precisely but now realises that whatever he thought he had gained
by strict adherence to the laws was worth nothing to the gain he has made by
the knowledge of Jesus as his Saviour and the Saviour of the world (both Jew
and Gentile).
Jesus, in the parable which he tells in our gospel reading,
reflects back on Isaiah’s vineyard, but the story differs in quite a material
way. Again, the vineyard represents Judah or by now, under Roman rule, called
Judaea. This time the landowner who planted
the vineyard left it to be tended by tenants on his behalf but when his agents
came to collect the produce the tenants killed the agents. This happened twice and then the landowner
sent his own son thinking that there was no way in which the tenants would harm
him – but they treated him in the same way as the agents and killed him too.
Jesus then asks the chief priests and elders, to whom he is
directing this story, what they think the landowner will do next? To which they
reply that they believe the landowner would throw out the present tenants and
put new ones in their place. Jesus then
explains that he is talking about them – that they will be thrown out and
replaced. He is actually foretelling the
coming of the Roman general Titus and the destruction of the Second Temple but
not until after his own death, the death of the son of the landowner – Jesus
the Son of God.
As often with Jesus, he ends his explanation with a bit of a
riddle. He talks about the stone which the builder rejects becoming the
cornerstone. As I am sure many of you
will know, the cornerstone is always laid in the northeast corner of a building
and is the one which is first laid. The rest of the dimensions of the building
follow on. Here Jesus is alluding to himself as being the stone which they, the
chief priests and elders, will reject. He will then become the cornerstone of a
new covenant – a new religious order – Christianity – a following of him, Jesus
Christ, and his teachings. Tom Wright, in his book “Twelve Months of Sundays” explains that it is also a play on words
as the Hebrew word for “son” is “ben” and the Hebrew word for “stone” is “eben”
hence “corner stone” or “corner son”.
So, what relevance do these passages have for us today other
than their historical significance?
It reminds us of three fundamental things:
First, God, as the owner and planter of the vineyard, is the
creator and owner of all things and that we owe our very existence to Him, and
that having created us in his own image, we are expected to grow and lead
righteous lives. If we do that, and
respect and acknowledge that all humankind is created in his image, the world
will be like the Kingdom of Heaven– something which we should all aspire to.
Secondly, that it is not sufficient just to live by the law –
not just be good and obey laws and be diligent in our religious rituals – we
also need to know and accept that Jesus, the vineyard owner’s son, is our true
saviour and, as Paul put it, everything else is of little or no value above the
knowledge and acceptance of Jesus as the Son of God and Saviour of the World,
and
Thirdly and finally, if we accept those two things, God will
protect us and guide us – he will maintain those vineyard walls and hedges and
watchtowers looking out for us and keeping us safe so that we may grow and
flourish and become those rich fine cultivated grapes from which the finest of
all wines is made.
As we started so let us finish with that same prayer :
Father
God, we bless and praise you and your Son, Jesus Christ, remembering that He is
the vine and we just his branches, and you are the owner of the vineyard from
which all good things come. We pray that we shall bear the fruits of your
creation and protection in all we do, say and think.
Amen
MFB/191/04102023
