October 2 NOTES FOR REFLECTION Pentecost 16

October 2                               NOTES FOR REFLECTION                         Pentecost 16

Texts:  Isaiah 5:1-7; Philippians 3:4b-14; Matthew 21:33-46

Theme:  Something like "Facing the Inevitable".  Judgment is sure and unavoidable.  What hope is there for us?

Introduction.  There comes a time when time runs out.  Our past catches up with us.  That which we always intended to do one day has not been done.  Judgment is upon us.  A man of great wealth has run out of reasons for delay: he is declared bankrupt.  In the sixth week of his trial on multiple fraud charges another man shocks even his lawyers by changing his plea to guilty.  In both cases a day of judgment has arrived.  So to for Israel.  Even God has given up on his people.  They must now accept the consequences of their unfaithfulness.  St Paul faced such a moment on the Road to Damascus.  Everything he had sincerely believed put him right with God turned out to be wrong.  Fortunately for him (and for all of us!) he got the message and repented.  The tenants in the vineyard did not: they followed the time-honoured course of committing one crime to cover up another and so on.  Their punishment will follow.  They have killed the only person who could have saved them if only they had been prepared to accept him as their (land)Lord.

Background.  A young man who had been a stalwart in the local church throughout his teenage years – often playing the organ and leading the singing – in his early twenties suddenly discovered the joy of courting and stopped attending church.  Discussing this one day with the Vicar, his mother, who was very involved in the church herself, commented: "But I'm not worried, of course – he's got plenty of time to come back."  "How do you know that?" the Vicar asked her.

God shows us enormous forbearance, but the teaching of Scripture is clear.  It has an end.

Isaiah.  The first 5 chapters of the Book of Isaiah form a preface to the rest.  Throughout those chapters the metaphor of the vineyard is used in three different ways.  In 1:8 it identifies the faithful remnant that God reserves to himself within the otherwise faithless people.  In 3:12-4.1 the elders and leaders of the people stand accused by God of having ruined his vineyard by –

·        Plundering the poor

·        Crushing his people, and

·        Grinding the faces of the poor.

But now the prophet faces the seeming inevitability of divine judgment.  The vineyard has become the place where total destruction must be pronounced.  The hope in 1:26-27 has gone: as has the cleansing and new creation in 4:2-6.  This time even God has run out of ideas: what more could be done?  Sin has taken hope away: nothing is left but gathering darkness.

Vines have only one use – to produce good grapes.  If they fail to do that they are of no value: see Ezekiel 15:2-5.

The Feast of Tabernacles followed the gathering in of the grape harvest.  It has been suggested that might have provided the background for Isaiah's song.

Notice the careful structure of the song:  1-2: the singer sings of his friend; 3-4: the singer sings as his friend; 5-6: the singer reveals the identity of his friend; 7: the singer reveals the identity of the vineyard.

Taking It Personally.

·        Recall an instance when you lavished time and energy on a particular project (cooking, making something, sowing something, etc) only to be extremely disappointed with the outcome.  How did that feel?

·        How did you respond?  Did you try again, or did you abandon the exercise in disgust?

·        What about a child, grandchild, or perhaps a pet?  Have you felt let down, unrewarded for all the love, care and commitment you have given?

·        Has God done everything possible for you?  What more could he have done?  How might he feel about the outcome?

 

Philippians.  This passage is one of the most important of Paul's personal testimonies: see also Galatians 1:13-24; 1 Timothy 1:12-16; Acts 22:1-21; 26:1-23.  This passage is a model for Christian discipleship.  He begins by an honest assessment of himself; his Jewish pedigree is impeccable, but he had placed his faith in that pedigree; and he had believed that his righteousness was earned by his study of and zeal for the Law.  This forms the first part of today's passage, dealing with his pre-conversion identity and belief system.  In verses 7-14 he shows how much has changed on his conversion to Christ.  For him, nothing has any lasting value compared with knowing Christ – not "about" Christ.  Righteousness comes, not through zealous adherence to the Law, but through faith in Christ.  He wants nothing more than to know (that is, experience) –

·        Christ

·        The power of Christ's resurrection, and

·        The sharing in Christ's death and resurrection.

Conversion is a process, not an event.  Paul has not yet achieved all these things.  He is becoming more Christ-like: he is not yet like Christ.  So "Forgetting what is behind and straining towards what is ahead I press on towards the goal."

 

Taking It Personally.

 

·        How important is your relationship with Christ?    Can you say with Paul that no one and nothing else even comes close to the value you attach to knowing Christ?

·        What have you lost through your faith in Christ?

·        Have you experienced the power of Christ's resurrection in your life?

·        Look back 10 years.  Are you more Christ-like now than you were then?

·        How willing and able are you to forget what is behind and strain towards what is ahead?  Are you convinced that the best is yet to come?

 

Matthew.  This parable is clearly based on today's passage from Isaiah.  The details in v.33 play no role in the development of the story, and serve the purpose of reminding his audience (the chief priests and elders) of the Isaiah passage, which they knew was about the judgment of Israel by God.  It follows on immediately after last week's passage, and so is set in Jerusalem in Holy Week (after the Triumphal Entry and the Cleansing of the Temple).  The chief priests and the elders were members of the ruling class, and would have within their ranks many absentee landlords who would naturally sympathise with the landlord in the parable.  They would certainly not tolerate such behaviour from their own tenants!  Hence, they are suckered – forced to pass judgment on themselves by the question in v.40.

 

The reference to "harvest time" in v.34 is code for the time of Judgment.  The treatment handed out to the servants in vv.35-6 reflects the treatment traditionally handed out to the prophets of Israel.  Many such tenancies of the time may well have passed down through the generations: tenants with an eye to the future would have wanted good relations with the current landlord's son and heir: v.37.  The reasoning of these tenants in v.38 is decidedly wobbly in terms of succession law, but serves the purposes of the narrative.  The quotation in verse 42 is from psalm 118:22-3.  The implication seems to be that just as builders can fail to recognise good stone when they see it, so they (the experts in the Law) have failed to recognise the Son of God about whom the Law testifies.  In v.43 there is a rare reference (rare for Matthew) to "kingdom of God" rather than "kingdom of Heaven", perhaps indicating that this verse did not originate with Matthew.  Note, too, the direct tone in this verse:  the kingdom of God will be taken away from "you".  Story-time is over and the gloves are off!  In verse 44 a distinction seems to be drawn between those who trip over the stone, who may be redeemed, and those on whom it falls (judgment) who will be destroyed.  In verse 45 the reference to the Pharisees is inconsistent with v.23.

 

Taking It Personally.

 

·        Look back over the past week.  What judgment would you pass on yourself?

·        Do you ever have a sense of God's absence – as if he had gone away on a journey?

·        Does God's apparent absence worry or frighten you – or is it sometimes more of a relief?

·        As you read or hear his parables, do you sometimes feel Jesus is talking about you?  Which parable(s) in particular?