October 5,
2014
+ This is not a question you are asked very often. Or probably
EVER. But…what are you zealous for? No, not jealous. Zealous. For what do you
have zeal?
I know. Yes, some of us have real zeal
for sports. Or for political causes.
I, as some of you know, have real zeal
for music—for alternative from the 1990s, especially. Oh, and for poetry. Oh,
and God, of course.
But zeal is a word we don’t use too
often anymore. And, at least in this part of the country, we are, for the most
part, uncomfortable with zeal.
Now to be fair, being zealous, of
course, is not a bad thing by any means.
This morning we definitely have one of
those parables that challenges us, that keeps us on our toes. It may even make us a bit angry and that
definitely forces us to look more closely at ourselves. Let’s face it, it’s a violent story we hear
Jesus tells us today. These bad tenants
are so devious they are willing to kill to get what they want. And in the end, their violence is turned back
upon them. It’s not a warm, fuzzy story
that we can take with us and hold close to our hearts. The Church over the
years has certainly struggled with this parable because it can be so
challenging.
At face value, the story can probably
be pretty easily interpreted in this way: The Vineyard owner of course symbolic
of God. The Vineyard owner’s son of
Jesus. The Vineyard is symbolic of the
Kingdom. And the workers in the vineyard
who kill the son are symbolic of the religious leaders who will kill Jesus. From this view, we can see the story as a
prediction of Jesus’ murder.
But there is another interpretation of
this story that isn’t so neat and clean and finely put-together. It is in fact an uncomfortable interpretation
of this parable. As we hear it, we do
find ourselves shaken a bit. It isn’t a
story that we want to emulate. I HOPE none
of us want to emulate it. But again, Jesus DOES twist this story around for us.
The ones we no doubt find ourselves
relating to are not the Vineyard owner or the Vineyard owner’s son, but, in
fact, the vineyard workers. We relate to
them not because we have murderous intentions in our heart. Not because we
inherently bad. But because we sometimes
can be just as resolute. We can
sometimes be just that zealous. We sometimes will stop at nothing to get what
we want.
We are sometimes so full of zeal for something
that we might occasionally ride roughshod over others. And when we do so, we find that we are not
bringing the Kingdom of God about in our midst.
Zeal can be a good thing. We
should be full of zeal for God and God’s Kingdom. We too should stop at nothing to gain the
Kingdom of God. But zeal taken too far
undoes the good we hoped to bring about.
The most frightening aspect of our
Gospel story is the fact that Jesus tells us that the kingdom can be taken away
from us. It can be given to others. Our zeal for the kingdom has a lot to do with
what we gain and what we lose. Our zeal
to make this kingdom a reality in our world is what makes the changes in this
world.
At the same time, zeal can be a very slippery slope. It can also make us zealots. It can make us fanatics. And this world is too full of fanatics. ISIS is a good example of fanatics in this
world.
This world is too full of people who
have taken their religion so seriously that they have actually lost touch with
it.
This story we hear Jesus today tell us teaches us a lesson about
taking our zeal too far. If we become
violent in our zeal, we need to expect violence in return. And certainly this is probably the most
difficult part of this parable for most of us.
For those of us who consider ourselves
peace-loving, nonviolent Christians, we cringe when we hear stories of violence
in the scriptures. But violence like the
kind we hear in today’s parable, or anywhere else in scriptures should not just
be thrown out because we find it uncomfortable. It should not be discarded as useless just because
we are made uncomfortable by it.
As I have said, again and again, it is not just about any ONE of
us, as individuals. It is about us as a
whole. If we look at the kind of violence we find in the Scriptures and use it
metaphorically, it could actually be quite useful for us.
If we take some of those stories
metaphorically, they actually speak to us on a deeper level. If we take the parable of the vineyard workers
and apply it honestly to ourselves, we find it does speak to us in a very hard
way.
Our zeal for the kingdom of God should drive us. It should move and motivate us. We should be empowered to bring the Kingdom
into our midst. But it should not make
us into the bad vineyard workers. It
should not make into the chief priests and Pharisees who knew, full well, that
they were the bad vineyard workers.
A story like this helps us to keep our zeal centered perfectly on
God, and not on all the little nitpicky, peripheral stuff. A story like this prevents us, hopefully, from
becoming mindless zealots. What does it
allow and commend is passion. What it
does tell us is that we should be excited for the Kingdom. True zeal makes us
uncomfortable, yes.
It makes us restless. It frustrates us. True zeal also energizes us and makes us want
to work until we catch a glimpse of that Kingdom in our midst.
This is what Jesus is telling us again
and again. He is telling us in these
parables that make us uncomfortable that the Kingdom of God isn’t just some
sweet, cloud-filled place in the next world. He is telling is, very clearly, that is it not
just about any ONE of us. It is not
about our own personal agendas.
The Kingdom of God is right here, in our midst. And the foundation of that kingdom, the
gateway of that Kingdom, the conduit of that Kingdom is always love. Love of God, love of neighbor, healthy love of
self.
This is what Jesus preached. That is
the path Jesus is leading us on. This is
the path we walk as we follow after him. And it is a path on which we should be
overjoyed to be walking.
So, let us follow this path of Jesus with true and holy zeal. Let us set out to do the work we have to do as
workers in the vineyard with love in our heart and love in our actions. And as we do, we will echo the words we heard
in today’s Gospel:
“This is what the Lord’s doing; it is amazing in our eyes.”
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