From the passage in Isaiah appointed for today, the fifth Sunday in Lent:
I expect that a number of us will become involved in these secular phenomena, the first - Daylight Saving - originally proposed by Benjamin Franklin in 1784, though first instituted towards the end of World War I in order to conserve resources for the war effort, as moving the clock forward an hour makes the sun set one hour later.
The second secular phenomenon - April Fool's Day - came about because many people could not adjust to the calendar reforms of Pope Gregory, who in 1562 introduced a new calendar for the Christian world, the new year beginning on January first.
There were some people who hadn't heard or didn't believe the change in the date, so they continued to celebrate New Year's Day on April first. Others played tricks on them and called them "April fools." They sent them on a "fool's errand" or tried to make them believe something false to be true.
Finally, there are all the superstitions about Friday the 13th - believed by many to be a date of dire circumstance and bad luck. Why do we detail these three dates? How focused are we going to be on them?
Conversely, how many of us have noted that this is the fifth Sunday of Lent, the week before Passion Sunday and twelve days before Good Friday? How many of us see the latter series as more vital to our souls' health than the former, secular three.
Now, come with me back to Rangoon, where three months ago I was invited to spend an evening with the 56 students at the Anglican seminary. As it is generally not acceptable for students to pose questions to their teachers in Burma, and as my meeting with the students was in part a test of whether I have a vocation to teach in the seminary, I told the principal my pay would be one question from each of the students.
I thought I'd get a bunch of juvenile questions. What in fact came out was overwhelming: What is the future of Christianity in the United States? What is the difference of missionary approach in USA as compared with Burma? What is the nature of the relationship between the Father and the Son? What is the difference between our heavenly Father and our earthly fathers?
Wow!
The gospels for last week and this speak directly to the last two questions - the relationship between the Father and the Son, and the difference between our Father in heaven and our fathers on earth. They reinforce the transcendent importance of these holy days, as compared with the secular observances.
Last week, in the parable of the prodigal son, we see a contrast between the earthly son and the heavenly Son; this week, in the parable of the ungrateful and homicidal vinedressers we compare the earthly father's behavior with that of our Father. Finally, the series climaxes next week on Passion Sunday, when the contrast is between fallen man and heavenly Son
This week, we see three servants of the landlord assaulted; finally, the tenants murder the son. Who are these servants; whom do they represent?
Jesus spoke this parable early in the week on the way to His death on Friday. Things were spinning rapidly toward the cross. The previous Sunday, Jesus had been welcomed into Jerusalem, hailed as a king, the people shouting "Hosanna! Blessed is the King who comes in the name of the Lord!" He cleared the temple of moneychangers and overturned their tables. He wept over the unbelief of Jerusalem and prophesied its destruction. He irritated the religious leaders; they questioned his authority.
Then he told them this parable of a landholder and his tenant farmers. The people of Jesus' day would have been familiar with that arrangement. Many of the people were tenant farmers, working the land of another who lived far away. The parable begins with a note of grace. The landlord planted the vineyard. He did all the preparation, all the work to guarantee a harvest. The tenants simply had to tend the plants, harvest the fruit, and pay the owner his covenanted share.
I thank our own Joe Chapman for the insight that the parable's three servants and the son parallel the very lessons we read: the Prophets, the Psalms, and the Epistle; with the Gospel prefiguring the very Word of God, His Son.
Given our attention to the secular days and dates, how many of us are thinking about the heavenly and diabolical events we will be observing in the coming weeks; how many of us are grief stricken to be reminded that on Friday the thirteenth of this month we will be recalling our crucifixion of the Son of God? We are even now beginning that dreadful way of the cross, that mournful path towards Golgotha, that excruciating journey leading to the crucifixion of our Savior.
Might we not be best served in our journey during the coming weeks if we constantly remind ourselves - each time that a secular event such as an April Fool's prank, or the resetting of a clock, or the tearing off of a calendar page brings to mind mortal time - if we remind ourselves that the really important date we have is with our Father; the memorable event is that alluded to in the Gospel.
Today's Gospel could be called "the parable of the terrible tenants" or "the reckless landlord," depending on how you look at it. It's a parable of judgment, a judgment that is based entirely on the person and work of Jesus. In it, The tenants staged a kind of tenant revolt. When harvest time came, the landowner sent one of his servants. Instead of giving him the produce, they beat him and sent him away empty- handed. Again, the owner sent another servant, and they beat him up to and insulted him to boot, and sent him back empty- handed. Yet again he sent a third servant, whom the tenants wounded and sent back with nothing.
At this point, the rest of the man's servants are probably saying to themselves, "There's no way I'm going to those deadbeat tenants." We would hardly blame the landlord for evicting them right on the spot. Three times he sent his servants to collect what was rightfully his. Three times his servants returned beaten and bloodied, empty-handed. Just when the average landlord would have given up and taken legal action, this landowner goes one more step, hoping against hope to receive a harvest instead of hostility.
"What shall I do? I will send my beloved son. Maybe they will respect him." There was nothing in the record of those tenants to suggest they would. We stop and wonder. What kind of father would send his beloved son to a bunch of people who have already mistreated his servants? The parable gives us a picture of God's patience, His relentless mercy, His passionate will to save us at all costs. What sort of father would send his beloved son to a bunch of murderous deadbeat tenants?
When the tenants saw the son, they assumed that the owner was dead. They came up with a plot. "Kill the son, and the inheritance is ours." It sounds crazy, but it's actually quite possible. If the owner of the land died and left no heirs, the tenants could claim title to the land free and clear. Provided, of course, that they could get away with the murder of the son - which is why they killed him off the property.
It was a picture of Jesus' impending death. Within a few days of speaking this parable, the religious authorities of Jerusalem would stir up Jesus' crucifixion at the hands of Pilate, on a hill named Golgotha (Skull), outside the city. The parable would become reality. God sent His Son to His vineyard, His Israel, and His Son was despised and rejected and killed outside the city gates of Jerusalem.
"What then will the owner of the vineyard do to those ingrate tenants? He will come and destroy those tenants, and give the vineyard to others." This is precisely what happened. Less than forty years after Jesus' crucifixion outside Jerusalem, the Roman army came and destroyed the city and its temple. The priesthood of the temple ended. The ministry of the Word and the Sacrament began.
To reject the Son is to reject the Father's will to save you. The tenants in the parable were condemned not because they were worse tenants than any other in the neighborhood, not because their harvest was poor. They were condemned because they rejected the owner's servants, and last of all, his son. It is in the rejection of the Son, and only in His rejection, that judgment comes.
There is a piece of Gospel irony in this parable. The wicked tenants thought that by killing the son they could gain the inheritance. And in a twisted way, they were right. Through the death of the Son comes the life of the world and the inheritance of eternal life. God used the rejection of Israel to work the forgiveness and salvation of all. Who would have imagined that God's idea of saving the world would involve His Son being killed at the hands of the religious leaders of His own people, and that God would make that miserable, unjust death of His Son the atoning sacrifice for sin.
So here we have the answer to the question of the relationship between our Father in heaven and our fathers on earth; the relationship between our Father and his Son Jesus Christ. We have an answer to these eager students in Rangoon. Our answer, in fact, was written right after the events alluded to above. We thus could, with Saint Paul (as he notes in his epistle to the church in Philippi) say to the young people at Holy Cross Seminary,
In the name of God, +Father, Son, and Holy Ghost. Amen
Remember not the former things, nor consider the things of old. Behold, I am doing a new thing; now it springs forth, do you not perceive it? I give water in the wilderness, rivers in the desert, to give drink to my chosen people, the people whom I formed for myself that they might declare my praise.
"Indeed I count everything as loss because of the surpassing worth of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord. ...that if possible I may attain the resurrection from the dead. Not that I have already obtained this or am already perfect; but I press on to make it my own, because Christ Jesus has made me his own. "
May we come to the Altar of God, here to be fortified and nourished for our life-giving journey in the coming weeks.