Pastor Janell re-titled her sermon from her original title printed in the Thursday bulletin because the fruits of the kingdom became more important in her reflections. The Gospel is a parable about a landowner who planted a vineyard, put a fence around it, dug a wine press in it, and built a watchtower. Then he leased it to tenants and went to another country.
What should proper care of this vineyard look like? What should tenant farmers who lease the land give back to the one who owns all of the land?
The chief priests and the Pharisees hear this parables and realize that Jesus is speaking about them. They want to arrest him but they are afraid of the crowds. I hear this parable and I realize it is about about letting the stone the builders rejected become the cornerstone. The true heir of the vineyard is the son that the tenants killed to get to gain an inheritance that does not belong to them. This parable is about me because, in these troubled times, the kingdom of God is not being given to the oppressed.
Jesus teaches the kingdom of God will be taken away and given to a people that produces the fruits of the kingdom and the one who falls on the rejected stone will be broken to pieces; and it will crush anyone on whom it falls.
These are troubled times but are falling on people unequally. Yes, this has been an unusual year with the death of Pastor Ray, the pandemic, the protests and social injustice, climate change and wildfires. Yet I have been simply inconvenienced and not able to perform what I deem to be important routines and rtiuals for most of 2016.
I need to learn to bear fruit in troubled times. I will start by moving beyond my immediate complaints and personal problems and looking at life from a larger perspective. I need a vision that continues to move away from the ego and empire that currently consumes my time.
I want what was so long ago rejected by the builders of ego and empire. I want to commit to Jesus as cornerstone.
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