Matthew 21:33-46
“Grace After All”
October 4, 2020
If you were driving on Route 313 over the last 4 months or so, you might have spotted some new activity behind the Yellow Barn just past the Rec Park. A bit off the road in a fertile field that is beloved by hungry deer and rabbits, a number of gardens were planted. This being public land that belongs technically to all of us who live in Arlington, there were a few hoops to jump through in a process that started almost a year ago but picked up steam this spring when the Coronavirus had taken hold.
This global pandemic did touch down in our small town, not with a spike in illnesses but in the residual effects. School closed, many were furloughed or laid off from jobs and it became clear that quite a few of our neighbors were struggling. A small team that included master gardeners, a compost expert, a talented builder and some volunteers who weren’t afraid to get their hands dirty devoted countless hours to creating, planting, watering, weeding and picking what was designed to be a Victory Garden, modeled after those World War II gardens that were the effort of people dedicated to a cause bigger than themselves.
The beautiful produce grown there then made its ways into the mouths of children served by the Summer Lunch Program, families fed by the Arlington Food Shelf and folks who would stop by the crates set up in front of Bailey Hall every so often and marvel at the produce that was there for the taking and, remarkably enough, all of it happening with no money changing hands. The stewardship of a treasured piece of our community ended up yielding a harvest that was intended to be shared. A lot like God’s bounty that we are all stewards of where the intention and hope is that what we have to share will find its way to those most in need of it. What bounty are we bearing?
This part of Matthew’s account of Jesus’ final week uses a story that has a cast of characters that we must identify to get the full meaning from what seems like a harsh and violent tale. This is an allegory where every image stands for something else. The vineyard itself is the land of Israel with the landlord standing in for God, the religious leaders of the day are the tenant farmers, the representatives of the landlord who keep showing up are the prophets of the Old Testament and Jesus is the son who was killed trying to collect what was owed his father, the landlord.
This was a parable and if we’ve learned anything about Jesus is that he can’t pass up the chance to use a parable so that everyone hearing would have to find themselves in the story. If that whole vineyard is intended to be all of Israel, which would have been the whole world to Jesus’ listeners, we see that all of this is God’s and the bounty that is produced does not belong just to those who work God’s land but is meant to be shared. Jesus wanted the religious leaders to recognize the new kingdom, one that was not meant to be held onto tightly for personal gain.
When Jesus asked the question about what should become of the tenants who killed every slave messenger and ultimately the landlord’s son, they were the ones, not Jesus, who answered kill them all and get new tenants. That’s the answer that would be expected given the rules of the world of that time and of our time, if we’re honest.
But this parable is all about God. The God who has entrusted us with so much that has the potential for growth and blessings. This is the God of second and third and thirtieth chances. God’s love is for Pharisees, wicked tenants, and even those of us living relatively comfortable lives with full cupboards and then some. We are saved not by our own doing but by God’s. This is a matter of grace.
Barbara Brown Taylor reminds us that all of this, everything in creation is God’s and we are the guests of God where we are “welcome on this earth and welcome to it so long as we remember whose it is and how it is to be used. We can love it as our own.”
(Gospel Medicine, 109) What we don’t get to do is thumb our noses at the landlord and persecute the messengers he sends. We can’t forget who we are and whose we are. We are taking care of the earth on God’s behalf and we are to be just as generous with its resources as God is with us. This may not be the world’s way but it is the way of the kingdom that Jesus came to show us, including a table meant for all to share in the bread and cup.
May this feast we are about to partake with so many others in places around the globe beyond our imagining be a recognition of the bounty that we are to share with all of God’s children, as grace bearers just as we have been the recipients of such grace. Amen.