19 Pentecost

 

Matthew 21.33-46

 

October 8, 2023

 

+ I’m sure you’ve noticed, but there is a lot of zealous people out there, especially as we are gearing up for another election year.

 

There is very little middle ground any more.

 

There is no end of people giving very impassioned opinions.

 

Just take a quick perusal of Facebook. Or the News. Or outside your window.

 

Or look at what just happened in Israel yesterday.

 

And, for the most part, being zealous for something is not a bad thing by any means.

 

I would rather have someone zealous for an opinion with which I might not agree than know someone lackluster.

 

At least the discussion will be interesting.

 

In fact, this past Wednesday was the feast day of one of the truly great zealots for Christ and for the Church, none other than the great St. Francis of Assisi.

 

Francis was a fascinating man, and truly one of the most favorite saints in the Church.

 

He is known as an animal lover, which is why we are blessing our pets on this day.

 

He was known as a lover of peace.

 

He has the reputation of a kind and gentle person.

 

But, Francis was a zealot in his heart of hearts.

 

He was passionate in his love for God, in this following of Jesus, in his care for the poor.

 

Some—including his own family—thought he was a fanatic.

 

And maybe he was.

 

He heard the voice of Jesus speak to him from a crucifix and tell him:
“Rebuild my Church!”

 

Which he did.

 

Both literally and figuratively.

 

But that passionate love he had for God and for others is something we still are celebrating in the Church 797 years after his death.

 

So, this morning, I am going to ask you a very important question:

 

What are you zealous for?

 

For what do you have real zeal?

 

Will anyone be talking about your zeal 797 years from now?

 

I know. Yes, some of us have real zeal for sports.

 

And certainly, here at St. Stephen’s, I know there is a lot of zealousness for political opinion and causes.

 

As do I.

 

I am very zealous.

 

I certainly am zealous politically, and theologically, and spiritually, and poetically.

 

You all know that.

 

If I have an opinion on something, you’ll probably know it in no time at all, even if you might not agree with it.

 

(Have I told you lately that I’m a vegan?)

 

Trust me, I am full of zeal!!

 

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.

 

Zeal equals emotion—or should we say over-emotion?—for us.

 

And certainly zeal involves an emotional attachment to something.

 

Now, as I said, it is not a bad thing by any means to be zealous.

 

It’s good to be challenged occasionally (respectfully, of course).

 

It keeps us on our toes.

 

And it humbles us.

 

Well, 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 tell 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 are 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 real and positive  change 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.

 

There are plenty of good examples of fanatics in this world right now, from the far right Evangelicals to those poor people in North Korea who are held hostage to a brain-washed ideology.   

 

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—and we all should be that kind of a Christian—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 clear  way.

 

Our zeal for the kingdom of God should drive us.

 

It should move us 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 it does 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 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 is doing; it is amazing in our eyes.”

 

Let us pray.

 

Holy God, give us true zeal for your Kingdom. Instill in us a fire that will burn brightly to lighten our path so that we may do what we must do as we follow your Son, Jesus, in whose name we pray. Amen.

 

 

 

18 Pentecost

 

October 1, 2023

 

Ezekiel 18.1-4;25-32; Matthew 21.23-32

 

+ Anyone who knows me for any time knows how I LOVE cemeteries.

 

I know.

 

It’s weird.

 

It’s morbid.

 

But they sort of obsess me to some extent.

 

I love to think about all the stories contained in a cemetery—all the stories that are untold, all the stories that are just mysteries.

 

I love also how each cemetery is unique in its own way.

 

Each has its own characters, its own “feel.”

 

Of course, we now have our own memorial garden here at St. Stephen’s, which also is unique in its way.

 

But, what few of us know is that, just a few blocks north of this church, there are two cemeteries.

 

Unless you actually get out of your car and walk into the actual cemeteries you wouldn’t even know they’re there.

 

Some of us will go up there and explore those cemeteries this afternoon.

 

If you do, you’ll see, in each, a large boulder.

 

In one cemetery the boulder is inscribed COUNTY CEMETERY #1.

 

The one is located at the end of Elm Street.

 

Where the road forks, one to the Country Club and the other to the former Trollwood, right there, on the left fork toward Trollwood, is the cemetery.

 

You’ve probably driven by it countless times and never had a clue.

 

County Cemetery #2 is located on the other side of the old Trollwood, just within sight of where the old main stage stood.

 

Back along the bend in the Red River, there is a stretch of grass and another boulder.

 

This one says COUNTY CEMETERY #2.

 

A third County Cemetery was located on north Broadway.

 

In 1984, those graves were moved to Springvale Cemetery, over by Holy Cross Cemetery, near the airport, because they were falling into the Red River through erosion.

 

One of my great-uncles, who died in 1948, is actually buried in that cemetery.

 

For the most part, many of the graves in Springvale are marked.

 

But in the first two cemeteries, there are no markers at all.

 

No individual gravestones mark the graves of the people buried in the first two cemeteries.

 

In fact, if you walked into them, you would have to force your mind to even accept the fact that it is a cemetery.

 

But there are hundreds of people buried in those graveyards. Hundreds.

 

These are the forgotten.

 

These were Fargo’s hidden shame.

 

Beginning 1899 and going through the 1940s, this where the prostitutes, the gamblers, the robbers were buried.

 

105 years ago, in the Fall of 1918, the Spanish Flu hit the world hard, and Fargo was definitely not spared.

 

Many of the unclaimed victims who died in the epidemic were buried in the County Cemetery #1.

 

This is also where all the unwanted babies were buried.

 

There are lots of stories of unwanted babies being fished out of the Red River in those days.

 

This is where the bodies of those unnamed babies were buried.

 

And when one walks in those pauper cemeteries, one must remind themselves of those words we hear from Jesus this morning in our Gospel reading.

 

He tells us, “Truly I tell you, the tax collectors and the prostitutes are going into the Kingdom of God ahead of you.”

 

What?!? That’s not what we want to hear!

 

Last week in my sermon I quoted the great Reginald Fuller, who said:

 

“[This] is what God is doing in Jesus’ ministry—giving the tax collectors and prostitutes an equal share with the righteous in the kingdom.”

 

That—and those words of Jesus we heard in this morning’s Gospel reading—are shocking statements for most of us.

 

And they should be.

 

It should shock us and shake us to our core.

 

I think that is exactly what Jesus intended when he said it.

 

It’s a huge statement for Jesus to make.

 

Partly it is because, things haven’t changed all that much.

 

OK. Yes, maybe we don’t view tax collectors and prostitutes in the same way people in Jesus’ day did.

 

Jesus uses these two examples as prime examples of the “unclean” in our midst—those who are ritually unclean according the Judaic law.

 

We, of course, have our own versions of “unclean” in our own society.

 

They are the ones in our society that we tend to forget about and purposely ignore.

 

But we really should give them concern.

 

And I don’t meant from a judgmental point of view.

 

I mean, we should actually look and see all those marginalized people we ourselves may consider “unclean” by our own standards our compassion.

 

We should be praying for them often.

 

And we should DO something for them.

 

Because to be viewed as “unclean” in any society—even now— is a death knell.

 

It is a life of isolation and rebuke.

 

It is a life of being ostracized.

 

The unclean are the ones who have lived on the fringes of society.

 

They are the ones who have lived in the shadows of our respectable societies.

 

The “unclean” of our own society often live desperate, secret lives.

 

And much of what they’ve have to go through in their lives is known only to God.

 

And they need us and our prayers.

 

They need our help.

 

They need our compassion.

 

They definitely don’t need our judgment.

 

As uncomfortable as it is for us to confront them and think about them—or to BE them—that is exactly what Jesus is telling us we must do.

 

Because by going there in our thoughts, in our prayers, in our ministries, we are going where Jesus went.

 

We are coming alongside people who need our presence, our prayers, our ministries.

 

 And rather than shunning them, we need to see them as God sees them.

 

We see them as truly loved children of God, as fellow humans on this haphazard, uncertain journey we are all on together.

 

And, more importantly, we see in them ourselves.

 

Because some of them ARE us.

 

Some of us here have been shunned and excluded and turned away.

 

By us. By our Church. By our government. By our society.

 

The point of this morning’s Gospel is this: the Kingdom of God is not what we think it is.

 

It is not made up of just people like us.

 

It is not some exclusive country club in the sky.

 

(Give thanks to God that it is NOT some exclusive country club in the sky!)

 

And it is certainly not made up of a bunch of  Christians who have done all the right things and condemned all the “correct” sins and sinners.

 

It is, in fact, going to be made up people who maybe never go to church.

 

It will be made up of those people we might not even notice.

 

It will be made up of those people who are invisible to us.

 

It will be made up of the people we don’t give a second thought to.

 

As I said, in our society today we have our own tax collectors, our own “unclean.”.

 

They are the welfare cases.

 

They are the homeless.

 

They are alcoholics and the drug or opioid addicts and the drug dealers.

 

Theya re the sex workers.

 

They are the ones who have been exploited and trafficked and used.

 

They are the lost among us, they are the ones who are trapped in their own sadness and their own loneliness.

 

They are the ones we, good Christians that we are, have worked all our lives not to be.

 

This is what the Kingdom of heaven is going to be like.

 

It will filled with the people who look up at us from their marginalized place in this society.

 

It is the ones who today are peeking out at us from the curtains of their isolation and their loneliness.

 

They are the ones who, in their quiet agony, watch as we drive out of sight from them.

 

They are the ones who are on the outside looking in.

 

They are the inheritors of the kingdom of God and if we think they are not, then we are not listening to what Jesus is saying to us.

 

When we think about those county cemeteries just a few blocks north of here, we need to realize that had Jesus lived in Fargo, had he lived 1900 years later and had died the disgraceful death he died, that is where he would’ve ended up.

 

He would have ended up in an unmarked grave in a back field, on the very physical fringes of our city.

 

In fact, he is there.

 

He is wherever the inheritors of his God’s kingdom are.

 

Those cemeteries for me are potent reminders of who inherits.

 

They are potent reminders to me of who receives true glory in the end.

 

It is these—the forgotten ones, the ones whom only God knows—who are in glory at this moment. 

 

Of course, we too are the inheritors of the Kingdom, especially when we love fully and completely.

 

We too are the inheritors when we follow those words of Jesus and strive to live out and do what he commands.

 

We too are the inheritors when we open our eyes and our minds and our hearts to those around us, whom no one else sees or loves.

 

So, let us truly be inheritors of the Kingdom of God.

 

Let us love fully and completely as Jesus commands.

 

Let us love our God.

 

Let us love all those people who come into our lives.

 

Let us look around at those people who share this world with us.

 

And let us never cast a blind eye on anyone.

 

Let us do as God speaks to us this morning through the prophet Ezekiel: Let us “turn, then, and live.”

 

Let us pray.

 

Holy God, help us to not with the eyes of the world, but with the eyes of those who are destined for your Kingdom. In looking, may we truly see those whom you love and cherish. And let us reach out and save them as your Son, Jesus, has commanded us to do; it is in his Name that we pray. Amen.