Sermon Rev. John Sovereign (Preached extemporaneously this morning, this is an approximation) When they built the new Fellowship Baptist Church a few miles from our home, my grandfather turned the first sod. I grew up with the ten commandments tattooed on my brain. Morals were a big thing, conduct was important, my family was true, honest, hard working, religiously faithful, GOOD!. Like Paul before his conversion, I presumed myself to be everything God could ask for! And yet, and yet, my confidence was challenged as I came into my teen years and became more aware of my religious and spiritual naivete. I did and said things I shouldn’t, and I knew it. It stunned me. I had to learn to navigate the difference between who I was and who I thought I should be. This is not an unusual experience even though we all process it differently. Some ministers encouraged my awareness of falling short. These ministers in God’s vineyard were the ones who preached the “You should” and “You must” kinds of sermons. It never occurred to me that these ministers were in the same “I can’t” way of living that I was. I thought others were succeeding. I thought I was the failure. It never occurred to me that others might be covering up. To me, as a teenager, it looked like everyone else was able to keep the whole religious package. So I stopped going to church when I entered grade 11. An inability to live up to all the religious “ought-to’s” are a basic course in God’s curriculum. Falling short is an awareness course on the truth about ourselves. We are not so in control as we think, not so good as we think. God’s law points to our need of something other than self control and will power. Even in our best intentions, even in our most perfect moments, it is not enough. In the parable of the vineyard, we see God as the owner of the vineyard, the one to whom it belonged. The tenants had custody of the vineyard, in return for giving a portion of its produce to the owner. Jesus aimed this parable at religious leaders. Responsibility for Judaism and the religious and spiritual life of Israel was in custody of the scribes, pharisees, and teachers of the law. They were the ones who were supposed to teach others. They were the ones who were supposed to know. They were the ones who were supposed to protect the faithful. They were the ones who should preach hope and healing. They were the ones, above all else, who should worship the Lord their God and serve him only. They had custody of God’s vineyard. They left God out of it somehow, or they would have seen the Spirit at work in Jesus. Instead of living by faith, they made their Law itself more important than God, more important than others, but not more important than themselves. They could no longer hear God because they were too busy doing their own thing. The Gospels tend to caricature the scribes and pharisees for their own purposes. They are made a foil for our sake, but nevertheless the church continues to have its modern day scribes and pharisees. Christians who have not yet learned to walk on water, so they must preach techniques and rules and theories from the dock. There were many faithful Jews, even priests, in Israel at this time. An example would be Zechariah and Elizabeth, parents of John the Baptist. Zechariah was a priest, although he didn’t live in Jerusalem. He was faithful, even though it took a humbling curse before he would name his son “John.” Perhaps the shame of being childless, or perhaps because he was not too bright, but at any rate Zechariah had been pushed out of Jerusalem to the fringe of power. God prepared Zechariah through humility to receive a child of promise. Perhaps a humbling curse would have been helpful to every Pharisee. One of their failings was their never ending prattle. They would stand up in the temple, or the synagogue, singing “Thou shalt...” How can you hear God’s voice when your own is open? And yet the people loved to hear Jesus speak. Jesus spoke with authority, not like the Scribes and Pharisees. Funny how people can sense the truth when they hear it. Funny how the truth can so often be the simplest answer of all. In the Gospel of John, some Pharisees said, “Surely we aren’t blind, are we?” Jesus said to them, If you were blind, you wouldnt have any sin, but now that you say, We see, your sin remains.” (John 9:40-41 CEV) The truth is, sin ramps itself up the more we try to force perfection. We have the deluded idea that success in spiritual things runs according to our ideas of success, and we try to get there by our will power alone. We decide which sins are important and which sins we can ignore. We take our little shovels out and dig around a sin, we add manure, and make it turn into a nice flowering crab. We become proud, as if we could tell God a thing or two. Of course, the Israelites with Moses knew sin. They wandered constantly from God. They wanted to be in charge. They complained. They were guilty of missing the mark set for them. The people’s obstinacy challenged Moses’ leadership, and was in opposition to God’s will. Sin is a rebellion against God. Jesus lived within the Jewish laws, and yet his life was not contained by them. Jesus had a higher purpose than the Law, he came to save the world, and to do so Jesus must live a life of faith and obedience. Not to the Law but to the Maker of the Law. We run into trouble as soon as we think the world is lawless. There is a law, and in its many forms it governs relationships, peoples, commerce. Paul tells us this is for our own good, in fact somewhere he tells us that “Still, the Law and its commands are holy and correct and good.” (Romans 7:12 CEV) Christianity is therefore not the opposite of Judaism, or the opposite of the Law. It is freedom from living for the law alone. You’ve got to live within it. A faithful life requires personal discipline. Good people, God’s people, who serve God, are far from lawless. But keeping the Law is not their highest goal. The tenants in the Vineyard deceived themselves into thinking it was theirs. They set their own rules, and they refused their landlord. Jesus asked the crowd “what do you think will happen?” and of course the crowd could see the anger with which the king would pounce upon them. Like people who see themselves as being in charge, and as seeing the Law as an end in itself - those who cannot spend an hour with the Holy One but do spend their time using scripture to abuse the rest of us - are true atheists. They look spiritual and wise from afar, but when you hear them speak you realize they don’t have anything to do with the Lord Jesus at all. Our opening sentence is “I chose you and appointed you, says the Lord, that you should go and bear fruit, fruit that will last.” John 15.16 Will power is a great help in a short burst, but in the longer run of life with God, replacement is of more benefit. Replace the things that drag down with things that build up. Instead of hungering for wealth and good times, or even instead of hungering for perfection - hunger for a deeper filling of God’s Spirit in your inner being. And hunger to do the things of God. God is involved personally and directly with us. God has chosen us, God has appointed us, God is with us. That is why those who make the Law their goal, or who cannot walk by faith so they have to thump scripture endlessly, are really atheists. They do not believe that God cares for them, or that God can work through them independently. They do not believe that God will catch them if they fall. Jesus was always about people, always about listening and loving. He rose from the dead, and he’s in the world today. That is the victorious Christian life, to know that Jesus is in the world today and that we serve him - not the law. To know that we are his. To know the love of God, and to share it. Amen.
Posted on: Mon, 06 Oct 2014 06:42:13 +0000
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