Time for the Fruits

 

Time for the Fruits

Matthew 21:33-46[1]

Faith is an aspect of human life that has many facets. Our “beliefs” play an important role in faith. Gathering for worship is central as well. The music, the Scriptures, and the words we say together are both an expression of our faith and a way to encourage faith. We “act out” our faith together when we celebrate the sacraments of Baptism and the Lord’s Supper. Our personal spiritual practices also build up and provide an outlet for our faith. While it’s possible to have faith without a community, we gather with others because they help us hold on to faith when life gets difficult.

At the end of the day, however, the call to follow Jesus is not simply about what we say or about how we worship. It is a call to live life in the way that he did. When Jesus calls us to be his disciples, he doesn’t just ask us to say the right words. Rather, he calls us to “take up our cross” (Matt. 16:24). I think that means that we are to commit to living our lives in the way Jesus did: loving God so completely that we choose to follow his ways no matter what it costs, and loving others even to the point of sacrificing ourselves for them. Following Jesus means “bearing fruit”: the fruit of a life that looks like his.

I believe our Gospel lesson for today addresses this challenge. Jesus tells a story that is traditionally called “the Parable of the Wicked Tenants.” It’s a story of a man who built a vineyard and leased it to tenant farmers. When it came time to collect his share of the produce, he sent his servants, but the tenants beat them and threw them out. Finally, the landlord sent his son, and they killed him. When Jesus asks what the owner of such a vineyard would do to the tenant farmers, the Jewish leaders answer in a way that is predictable—he will take his revenge by killing them.

The problem with this lies with the way we have traditionally interpreted this parable. We have tended to see it as a metaphor for the way God works—the landlord is God, the vineyard is Israel, the tenants are the Jewish leaders, the servants are the prophets, and the son is Jesus. But if we read the parable that way, it makes God into an absentee landlord who makes unjust demands of those he has put in charge of his vineyard. What’s more, God doesn’t seem to be a very competent landlord, because he sends his servants to collect the rent without any protection. And in the end, God acts just like the oppressive land owners of the day by taking revenge on the tenant farmers.

That image doesn’t work for me when it comes to my understanding of God. In the first place, the original command to love our neighbors in the Bible specifically prohibits revenge: “Do not seek revenge or bear a grudge against anyone among your people, but love your neighbor as yourself” (Lev. 19:18). Furthermore, Jesus teaches us instead of taking “an eye for an eye, and a tooth for a tooth,” not to retaliate even against evildoers (Matt. 5:39)! And when Jesus describes who God is, he says “your Father in heaven … makes his sun rise on the evil and the good, and sends rain on the righteous and the unrighteous” (Matt. 5:45). When you put it all together, the traditional way of understanding this parable doesn’t work for me.

I think we need to look at it differently. Jesus tells a story about an absentee landlord who follows the standard customs regarding tenant farmers. He takes such a large cut of the crops as to leave the farmers who are actually working the land with barely enough to keep their families alive. As a result, the tenants rise up and determine to overthrow their tyrant of a landlord. In response, he sends in an army and wipes them out. That’s not how the kingdom of God works! I think Jesus is teaching us about the kingdom of God by telling a story about the opposite way in which the world works.

The kingdom of God works very differently: enemies become friends. Those who rebel may indeed find themselves broken and crushed by their defiance, but they also find that God is the one who heals the broken and lifts up those who are crushed (Ps. 145:14; 147:3). In the kingdom of God, there is no more “eye for an eye,” because operative rule is to forgive as you have been forgiven, to be merciful as you have been shown mercy. There is no place for revenge, because we’re commanded to “love your neighbor as yourself.”

I think Jesus used this unusual method of teaching to shock the “religious people” of his day out of their complacency. They were so used to considering themselves “righteous” and believing the way they lived was blessed by God that they ignored the fact that they were blatantly contradicting the clear teachings of Scripture. It’s easy to fall into that trap: most of us like the comfort of believing the way our world works is what God endorses. But if we look closely, and pay more careful attention to the Scriptures, we may the truth to be unsettling.

I think Jesus may have been warning the “religious people” of his day and ours that the “time for the fruits” is at hand. That’s the literal phrase that is translated “the harvest time” in the parable. “Bearing fruit” is an important theme in Matthew. The idea is that our faith is meant to make a difference in the way we live our lives. If it doesn’t, then it’s not “bearing fruit.” And the fruit that God looks for from all of us is that we love him so fully that we choose to follow his ways no matter what the cost, and we love others even to the point of sacrificing ourselves. I would say it’s likely that means we all may need to make some changes in our lifestyle. We all need to recognize that now is always the time for the fruits!

[1] © 2020 Alan Brehm. A sermon delivered by Rev. Alan Brehm Ph. D. on 10/4/2020 for Hickman Presbyterian Church, Hickman, NE.