Our Savior, Aiea - a ministry of Aloha



What is the one thing you fear losing more than anything else? The proverbial, “I couldn’t live if I lost that...” I’ll let that question sink in for a few seconds...Joseph Pieper, a 20th century philosopher said, “courage is walking straight up to the source of your fear and not being deterred from doing good.” It’s that “doing good” part that’s important.Today’s Gospel lesson is about fear. The story seems like it’s about a bunch of people who are too lazy and incompetent to do the right thing - so they steal someone else’s vineyard. Thus the lesson would be “don’t steal other people’s stuff” and “don’t kill people” - both of which are good messages - but that’s the problem with parables. If you come up with a reasonably good summary of the parable - and it isn’t shocking, pointed and either a little or a lot condemning - you missed the point. Parables might be simple - but they aren’t easy.A few weeks ago Kayla challenged us to tell a joke - Nancy’s was, “you see me in the water but I never get wet. What am I?” The answer: “a reflection.” Here’s mine: “Some people see right through me and others wonder what I’m hiding. What am I?” The answer: “sunglasses.”What’s the point? Depends. These kind of jokes - like parables - aren’t supposed to make you laugh. Their purpose is to get you to think. To disrupt your normal thinking pattern. To help you step outside your self-imposed lines and look at things from a different perspective. And somewhere along the way - if you lower your guard - you might be interrupted with a very discomforting thought - that the parable is personal. That is what happens to the Pharisees who are listening to Jesus. It’s all fun and games until they realize it’s about them. Fear of failure. Fear of being responsible. Fear of someone thinking you aren’t good enough. Fear of actually not being good enough. Fear of someone else being better than you. The fear of fear. Everybody is afraid of something - but not everyone gives in to their fears.Let’s connect a few dots. Last week the religious leaders asked Jesus, “Where did you get your authority?” They acknowledge Jesus has authority - He can do things they can’t - and they want to know where He got it. Jesus asks, “where do you think John the Baptizer got his authority?” They realize they can’t answer. If John’s authority came from God - they should have made him the chief priest and started a church-wide reformation - but they didn’t - instead they let King Herod cut his head off. If they say John didn’t have any authority - the people will rebel because they call him a prophet of God. Either way they lose. So they just keep their mouths shut. I was in the 7th grade. I had a friend named David Schmidt. He played bass guitar in the school band. We walked home together. One day he asked me to carry his guitar. The next day one of the popular girls in humanities class said she saw me carrying “my guitar” and thought it was cool. Now for the ethics question - how do you respond?Our parable is about a guy who plants a vineyard - that is important information. He also builds a watchtower, digs a winepress and puts up a fence. In other words - he does all the work. He leases it to tenant farmers and goes on vacation. When the grapes are ready he sends someone to get his share. This is why it’s important we know “he planted the vineyard.” They are his grapes - he did everything except harvest them. The tenant farmers decide they don’t want to share - they want the vineyard all to themselves. That’s where the trouble begins.A couple of truths: Life hurts. Life is painful. We cannot - no matter how hard we try - avoid all the pain or hurt. Thus we have to find a way so it doesn’t hurt so much - and this is actually more important - find a way so we don’t mind that it hurts.In 2016, University College in London did a test. They had people play a video game where they overturning rocks on a trail. Three different tests. In the first test - some of the rocks had snakes under them - but nothing happened. In the second test - every rock had a snake under it and when the snake popped out they got a mild shock. In the last test only 50% of the rocks had snakes - and each time a snake crawled out they got shocked. Here is what they discovered. When they were told nothing would happen when snakes crawled out - there was no change in stress level. When they were told they would receive a shock every time a snake crawled out - the stress level was only mildly elevated. But if they were told there was a 50% chance they would receive a shock - even if the shock was mild - the stress levels rose considerably.Based on this test - it would be good if you understood: life is painful, life hurts - no matter how hard you try you cannot avoid all the pain or hurt. We’re all rolling downhill - and it’s a long hill. Our shape determines whether it’s a smooth ride or a bumpy one. We can fight it all the way down - and it will be very painful. Or we can enjoy the ride and while we’ll be wildly dizzy at the bottom - we’ll be in much better shape. There is no stopping - we all start at the top - we all end up at the bottom - the in-between is up to you. Jesus loves the Pharisees. He doesn’t want to lose them forever. The reason He tells a parable is to get past their defense mechanisms and into their hearts. Stories have a way of reaching people that are otherwise unreachable. A couple of thoughts: Guilt is knowing I shouldn’t have done something. Shame is about who I think I am or who you think I am based on what I did. The purpose of guilt is to bring me to Jesus so I can be restored. Shame doesn’t have a purpose. Shame just makes people feel bad about themselves - and does more to immobilize people or hurt other people then restore them. Jesus doesn’t shame the Pharisees - but He does point to their guilt and say, “what do you think will happen to these folks who stole the vineyard - hint, hint?”This parable has an imminent prophetic note to it. The vineyard is the church. The owner is God. The tenant farmers are the Pharisees. Almost everything in the story has already happened - including the Son coming to the farmers to give them one more chance. There are only two things left. The murder of the Son. And the complete destruction of the “horrible men.” If the farmers repent - the “complete destruction” doesn’t have to happen. And so Jesus leaves the parable hanging - like one of those children’s books where you get to decide the ending. The church sometimes forgets who it is. With everything happening in the world - that’s not hard to do. But when it does - people get hurt. The church is to be a place where - no matter who you are, where you come from, what your past is - you can call it home. You know there is always forgiveness here - and I mean always - no matter what. Guilt drives us into the arms of Jesus where we are forgiven and restored. There is no place for shame in the church.But for a reason that can only be called sin - even as we rise up forgiven and restored - we start to think of people who have done such terrible things they cannot be forgiven - and who should not be allowed inside the holy walls of the church. The problem with being saved by grace is there are no boundaries - no limits - and that is a very scary feeling. Which is why the church and even us at one time or another resort to kicking God out of His vineyard. We acknowledge He did all the work - was beaten and crucified and died - but there are limits to how much we can accept - how uncomfortable we are willing to be - how much loss we can accept. Our problem is - we don’t get to decide who gets in and who gets forgiven. That is and always has been up to God because it is and always will be His vineyard. And for that we can be eternally grateful even if we don’t always understand why. I see this parable lived out every day in this world. Congregations are funny things - each one is about as peculiar as you can get. And just because something calls itself a church doesn’t mean it’s really a church. And just because someone says they are a member of a church doesn’t mean they are part of the body of Christ. Every time I hear someone say, “I belong to an independent church” - I laugh. There are no independent churches - all churches if they really are churches are wholly dependent on Jesus. I get what they are trying to say - they aren’t aligned with any particular denomination - but we really need to come up with a better word. We’re either God’s church or we aren’t a church.And when you hear about a “church” that denies the Bible or worships a watered down or polluted version of God - you are watching this parable played out before your very eyes.The progression from last week’s Gospel to this weeks sets the stage. Last week the Pharisees questioned Jesus’ authority. They had all the puzzle pieces - but they still couldn’t put it together. Jesus didn’t match up with what they expected in a Savior - so they didn’t accept Him. This week we take it a step further - it’s one thing to question how the pieces fit together - it’s quite another to reject Him and try to steal the vineyard by killing Him.Jesus pulls up Psalm 118, “the stone the builders rejected has become the cornerstone” and adds, “The kingdom of God will be taken away from you and given to a people that produces the fruit of the kingdom.” Notice the change from the generic parable language to a very definitive “you.” You can’t domesticate the church. You can’t tone down God’s Word or tell the Prophets to use their inside voices or paint over the blood stains on the cross. And you can’t kick God out of His own vineyard. A few years after our Gospel lesson - with Jesus risen from the grave and the apostles planting churches all over Israel - as some of the same priests plot to steal God’s vineyard - one of their leaders, Gamaliel, said, “be careful about this. If this is nothing more than the work of a few men - it will die quickly. But if this is the work of God - you don’t want to fight God - you can’t win.”Jesus is building a different kind of kingdom - and it has nothing to do with vineyards, temples, sacrifices, Pharisees or large offerings. The Pharisees feel rejected by God. They have been waiting for thousands of years - and now that the time is here, they don’t like it - they don’t like it at all. And in an absurd moment - they decide to kill God and take the vineyard for themselves. Why they think this is going to work is beyond me - maybe they just figured they don’t have anything to lose because they’ve already lost everything they cared about.“What good is it if a man or woman gains the whole world but loses their soul in the process?” You can’t domesticate the church or God’s Word. It’s why parables are anything but safe, easy to understand bedtime stories. If you try to turn God into a cheerleader for your way of thinking or paint over the blood stains on the cross or put up a “under new management” sign at the entrance to the vineyard - it isn’t going to work.I know how uncomfortable change is. I’m never thrilled with the real possibility of loss. But before we try to make this all about the things we don’t want to give up, the things we’re deathly afraid of losing, the changes that will run us right up to the edge - we need to ask why we’re so afraid.I won’t speak for you - but I tend to reject people who challenge my privilege, who don't share my theological or cultural convictions. It’s so much easier to be your own expert. To know everything that needs to be known. And when a prophet comes into my life - disrupting, offending, pushing my buttons - there is always Bose Noise Canceling Headphones or a phone call I need to make or maybe I can send them down to Aiea Methodist or to Father Ortiz at St. Lizzies. Few people like to be challenged - and when it comes to something as important as life and eternity no one likes to be told they don’t know nearly as much as they think they do - and unless they repent they’ll never see the pearly gates. And that is why true prophets almost always get themselves killed.And if we’re going to get anything out of today’s parable - it might be this: If a guy in a camel hair jacket who smells like honey and has locusts in his teeth knocks on the door and says, “God sent me to tell you something” or someone tells a parable - and somewhere in the telling we realize it’s not just about someone, somewhere - but about us, here and now. We might want to put the Noise Canceling Headphones away, set the phone to silent and tell the Methodists and Father Ortiz that after we hear what our visitor has to say - we might send them their way because it might be something they need to hear as well.The reason the questions are so uncomfortable is because the last words of the story haven’t been written yet. Everything else is in play. We’re holding the “under new management” sign in our hands when the Owner’s Son shows up. He’s standing there with nail scared hands and this amazing smile on His face. He asks if He can tell us a story. What are we going to say? In the Name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit. Amen. ................
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