"Do not be afraid; I am the first and the last, and the living one. I was dead, and see, I am alive forever and ever; and I have the keys of Death and of Hades. Now write what you have seen, what is, and what is to take place after this." Rev. 1:17-19.

Saturday, October 4, 2014

The Parable of the Church Community Garden



         

 Proper 22, Year A

Isaiah 5:1-7; Psalm 80: 7-14; Philippians 3:4b-14; Matthew 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: Pour upon us the abundance of your mercy, forgiving us those things of which our conscience is afraid, and giving us those good things for which we are not worthy to ask, except through the merits and mediation of Jesus Christ our Savior; who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, for ever and ever. Amen.












         In light of our new garden project slated for this spring, perhaps you can identify with the Parable of the Community Garden …?
Once upon a time, a little suburban church decided to build a community garden. They were proud of their abundant and fertile and well-located property, and they had great gardening skills, so they created their garden with care and precision. They chose a lovely site with just the right exposure to sunlight. They wanted the garden to be close to the church, so that it could be at the center of their ministries, and so that it would have access to abundant water. They dug gracious beds by the sweat of their brows and carefully added the fertilizer that would produce abundant yields. They even built a little pergola with a few benches inside, a shelter where visitors could pray and find shade on a hot summer day. Then they invited neighbors to come and share in their garden. They gave them free plots of fine land to plant and develop.  Their priest was proud of the parish’s generosity and their hard work, and the parishioners felt good about themselves. What a fertile spring it was, full of love and growth!
But do you know what those neighbors did? Those neighbors who were given such a great gift? When the summer heat bore down, some of them stopped caring for their plots. They let the gorgeous vines droop and wilt, and they let the weeds take over the soil. The garden looked just awful! To add insult to injury, some of the neighbors came in and stole the harvest from the church’s plot, too! Just stripped those zucchini and tomato plants bare! What lazy and ungrateful neighbors! The church members fumed. The rector was incensed. How dare people mess up this great parish program! How dare people dishonor their land and their work!
Tell me, what should those church members do to those bad neighbors?
          Before we decide, let’s take a closer look at the two stories that Scripture gives us today about gardens. Usually, when we read both of these stories, we assume that they are all about Israel.  In Isaiah, and in much of Hebrew Scripture, vineyards stand for God’s chosen people, Israel. God lavishes love and care on Israel, but the people do not turn out to be very worthy fruit. Instead of producing glorious wine, the vineyard of God’s people produces rotten, diseased grapes: grapes of injustice and greed. So God destroys God’s disappointing work. Isaiah wants the leaders of Israel to hear this story and to see themselves in the bad fruit. He wants them to change their ways and to follow God’s commands and to love their neighbors as themselves.
          And then Matthew clearly builds on Isaiah’s image, right? This time, Israel is not the vineyard itself but the cruel and obtuse stewards of the vineyard. The Jews, led by the scribes and the Pharisees, refuse to recognize and honor God’s messengers the prophets, and especially God’s Son, Jesus. Matthew wants Christians to see themselves as the new tenants of God’s vineyard and to judge the errant tenants whom they have replaced.
          But Jesus’ stories are always more than lessons for other people. Jesus wants his stories to speak to our hearts, today, right now. Despite Matthew’s take on this story, I don’t think that Jesus just wants to pat us Christians on the back with this parable. First of all, I think that Jesus wants us to hear, once again, about the amazing love, grace, and generosity of our God. Just as we lavish care on making our garden, God lavishes care on every corner of creation. God constantly pours loving energy into every flower, every creature, just like the sun shines light down into every living thing, just like the wind caresses the whole world into motion. To me, the blessing of St. Francis Day, the feast that we celebrate this afternoon as we bless our pets, is that St. Francis calls on us to see God’s amazing love in all of creation. Our animal blessings are the recognition that our love for our pets, and their unconditional love for us, is a mirror of the unconditional love that flows between God and the whole creation. We don’t really “own” our pets. They are vulnerable creatures, entrusted to our care by their Creator. When we care for our animals, and when we lovingly build a garden, we are sharing in something holy and precious to God. We are sharing in the joy of God’s life-giving Love.
Oh, but the tenants in Jesus’ parable, these stewards of God’s vineyard. What about them? Clearly, they are violent and cruel. When you heard the parable, you immediately condemned them, didn’t you? I sure did. We condemn the bad tenants because of their insolence, because of their violence, because they don’t respect the owner of the vineyard whose land they work. Where do they get the idea that they are going to get an inheritance by killing the son, anyway? They don’t own that land. They aren’t sons of the landlord. There is no way that they are going to inherit that vineyard. Their sense of entitlement is so great, their covetousness so overpowering, that they begin to see themselves as owning the land that is merely given into their care.[1]
In the same way, when you heard my story about the community garden, you probably condemned the lazy, ornery neighbors, too, didn’t you? The church should throw them out, right? They should close off that garden. No more sharing with these good-for-nothing neighbors. The church should put a tall fence around their garden, with a big lock on it, and they should post a big “no trespassing” sign. If you come back, we’re calling in a lawyer to judge between us, we might well shout!
Oh, but wait a minute—If Jesus’ parable calls the tenants to account in the name of the landlord, who does my parable call to account? In my parable, we church members are the landowners, not the tenants! And yet, in the light of scripture, we are not really the landowners, either, are we? We might have started to see ourselves that way, but our Church is Jesus’ Church. Our land is God’s land. We are supposed to care for it, but are we supposed to lock it away? Where does wise stewardship end, and life-killing possessiveness begin? How often do we forgive our neighbors for their trespasses? Wasn’t it something like seven times seventy times? How does that square with “No Trespassing!” signs? How often do we pour ourselves out into the community around us before we expect anything in return?
It is so easy, isn’t it, to see the work that we do as a church as “our work?” And to want to control it? Believe me, it is especially tempting for priests to see it that way, but I think that it is a temptation for all of us. When we give of our income and of our time and talent to the parish, we are giving up part of ourselves to this larger body that we love and see as an extension of our families. The harder we work to make good things happen here, the easier it is to “take ownership” of our work. That’s what we ask for in leadership, isn’t it? Stepping up and taking ownership? When we invite others to use our buildings—to have parties in our fellowship hall or to hold meetings in our community building—we kind of feel like they owe us something, right? Maybe not money, but at least respect and a helping hand? It’s the same for our sports fields, right, or for our eventual garden?
If only Jesus didn’t keep messing with our idea of ownership, turning everything upside down, making the first last and the last first. If only it didn’t keep sounding as if it is OK not to be in total control. If only cornerstones could look like cornerstones. If only power weren’t condemned, and humility raised up.
In my parable, I bet that little church decided not to close down the garden. I bet they even sent their children over to meet with the lazy neighbors, offering them cold sodas and buckets of ice cream. I bet the children would have offered to dig weeds with them, to get to know them and to find out how the church could help them to take better care of their plots. I bet that’s what Jesus would have done, anyway.
          Before you decide this month what you are going to pledge to St. Thomas, before you decide in which areas you want to serve, before you decide how you want to give of all of your gifts, I hope that we can remember two things. I hope that we can remember the joy of generous creation: how good it feels to join the divine creativity by pouring oneself into a generative project like a garden, or a painting, or an act of charity, without expecting anything in return. And I hope that we can remember that we are mere tenants on this earth, here to serve and preserve what belongs only to God. We are heirs only through God’s Son. Our church, our land, our lives, our projects, and the outcome of our creative efforts belong to God. St. Francis of Assisi directs us today back to our Gospel lesson with his words:
Brothers, look at the humility of God,
and pour out your hearts before Him!
Humble yourselves
that you may be exalted by Him!
Hold back nothing of yourselves for yourselves,
that He Who gives Himself totally to you
may receive you totally![2]
Image result for church community garden images

[1] Bernard Brandon Scott, Hear Then the Parable (Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 1990), 251.
[2] St. Francis of Assisi, “A Letter to the Entire Order,” quoted in http://paintedprayerbook.com/2008/10/04/feast-of-st-francis/#.VC7Cu1f6-Hk

No comments:

Post a Comment