The Rev. Canon Gregg Riley will lead the congregation of Christ Episcopal, Saint Joseph, in Holy Eucharist Sunday at 10am October 4 and 18, 2020.
Beginning in November 2020, Father Riley will no longer serve as Priest in Residence at Christ Episcopal, Saint Joseph. Information regarding our plans for November and beyond will be made available as soon as possible.
Online Morning Prayer services Sundays at 10am are available from Bishop Jake Owensby on the diocesan Facebook page:
https://www.facebook.com/
11am Sunday Morning Prayer services and daily 6pm Evening Prayer services (Mon-Sat) are available from The Rev. Garrett Boyte, Church of the Holy Cross, Shreveport on their Facebook page:
https://www.facebook.com/
PROPER XXII - A - 20 - Is. 5:1-7, Phil. 3: 4b-14, Matt. 21: 33-46
“Almighty and Everlasting God, you are always more ready to hear than we to pray, and to give more than we either desire or deserve…” Today’s collect is one of my favorites as it reminds me, and should remind all of us, of God’s gracious goodness, love, and mercy. We have all been blessed beyond anything we might imagine that we deserve.
Our gospel reading and that of the Old Testament go hand in hand with the collect to illustrate God’s goodness, mercy, and love. Israel was God’s chosen people. They were the blessed of God. Throughout the Old Testament, they are often referred to as God’s vineyard.
They were given a mission to be “the light of the world.” Yet, we see and hear through the eyes and mouths of God’s prophets that Israel had failed in her purpose. Again and again, the prophets had called her to turn back to God, to renew the mission God had given her, to be what God had called her to be.
But, they were a stubborn people, stiff-necked, and hardhearted. However, God’s expectations of them never changed. As His vineyard, they were to produce “good fruit” but we see in today’s first lesson this was not the case. Instead of yielding grapes, his vineyard (Israel) yielded wild grapes.
“God expected justice, but saw bloodshed; righteousness, but heard a cry.”
By the time of Jesus, not much has changed. Jesus has the attention of the chief priests and Pharisees in today’s passage, which picks up where last week’s left off, and delivers yet another parable that is pointed directly at them. It too is an allegory of Israel as the vineyard, and themselves as the tenants and God’s expectations of them.
An interesting aside is the fact that during the time of Jesus there was embossed above the gates of the Temple a vine full of grapes; a symbol of Israel’s status in the eyes of God. They saw themselves as God’s vineyard, but the grapes they were producing were not what God expected of them.
The indications of Jesus’ parable is obvious: Israel’s role as the people of God has not been faithfully discharged, indeed God’s servants, the prophets, have been rejected by Israel, which will soon reject God’s son, the cornerstone of God’s new building Jesus alludes to in today’s passage.
God had blessed Israel more than she deserved. God had been patient with her, compassionate and merciful. The Kingdom of God should have been realized in the Jewish people and God’s rule manifested to the world. But as was in the time of Isaiah, so it is in the time of Jesus, Israel had failed.
Jesus delivers his parable and concludes with a question of his audience; a question to which, unlike the one he previously posed, concerning John, which they refused to give and answer, this time they give the right answer.
Their right answer, however, brought with it their condemnation. “Therefore I tell you, the kingdom of God will be taken away from you and given to a people that produces the fruits of the kingdom.” When the chief priests and Pharisees heard this, they knew that Jesus was speaking about them.
God’s expectations of his people do not change. In both cases, injustice and violence are hardhearted responses to God’s overtures of care and love. Both the Old Testament and Gospel lessons are teaching us about the hardness of heart and ingratitude to God.
When we read and hear lessons like these, we do not like to see ourselves in them. Yet we are there. The Bible, from Genesis to Revelation is a single story of God having revealed himself to man and man’s response to that revelation. Within scripture, we have examples of those men and women who did respond to God and produced the “fruit” God expected of them.
We also have examples of those who chose not to respond in the manner in which God expected. Yet, God holds out his compassion, and mercy to all in the hopes that those who have rejected him will one day turn and accept him.
The prophets of the Old Testament had one mission that of proclaiming God’s desire for Israel to return to him; to turn their hearts of stone into hearts of flesh and to produce the fruits of righteousness and justice.
To get, as the Ezekiel said in last week’s lesson, a new heart and a new spirit. Jesus’ mission was the same. His teaching about the kingdom and God the Father was meant to turn the hearts and minds of the people (Israel) back to God, the compassionate one who longed for their return.
The new building that Jesus is speaking of in today’s parable of which he is the chief cornerstone, is the Church. The Church and we are church, have been given that same mission that was given to Israel. We are to proclaim the kingdom and the King, and to live our lives as faithful servants of the One who has invited us to inherit the riches of the kingdom alongside him.
Jesus longs for us to be as compassionate as God is. Why do we find it so difficult? Why are our immediate responses to often selfish and hostile? Perhaps it is because being compassionate is dangerous. It can change our lives, our relationships.
It will affect our outlook on life. We will see things differently, as God sees things, and that may require a conversion of our hearts. Compassion is not weak. It takes strength. Compassion keeps us human.
Today’s gospel story is about that and more. It tells us how Jesus has now come to Jerusalem to confront the tenant farmers with God’s demand for repentance, for Israel to be at last what it was called to be, the light of the world.
And if we dare see ourselves in this story, we see Jesus coming into our lives to confront us, to challenge us to turn our hearts of stone into flesh, to see as God sees and to be what God has called us, and expects us to be, compassionate, and faithful witnesses of Christ producing the fruits of justice and righteousness.
To know Christ, then, and the power of His resurrection, as St. Paul says, is to know God, who is always more ready to hear than we to pray, and to give more than we either desire or deserve, and not through any merits of our own, but through the merits and mediation of Jesus Christ our Savior, to Him be the glory now and forever. AMEN+
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