How would Jesus' parable of the vineyard be told today. I gave it a 21st century twist in this sermon I gave in 2011. We were also celebrating the feast of St. Francis that Sunday, so toward the end I relate it to Francis' love of animals and constant praise of God.
Proper 22 A
Transcribed from a
sermon by
The Rev. Valerie Ann
Hart
At St. Barnabas
Episcopal Church
October 2, 2011
I’d like to tell the parable that
Jesus gave us today in the manor that it might be told in the 21st
century. Let’s image that Bill Gates has discovered an area that is very poor
and a town that has absolutely nothing. He goes there and builds a factory, he drills
wells, he builds houses for the people who will work in the factory, he plants
a large garden so the people can be well fed, plants fruit trees for the future
and sets everything up for this town to thrive. The people of the town are so
thankful, so appreciative of what they have been given.
Then Mr. Gates picks out a few of
the more intelligent or sophisticated of the people and tells them they will be
the managers who will oversee what happens. They are to send him a certain
percentage of whatever is make so he can reinvest it other places and they are
to see to it that everyone has a good life. Then he goes off to another country
in another part of the world to help them out.
At first the people are extremely
thankful to Mr. Gates for having done this and helping them out, so when it
comes time for them to add up how much money they made that year they have no
trouble sending the percentage that was expected back to Mr. Gates. They have
more than enough now, with enough food and housing and so forth.
A few years down the road the
managers realize that they haven’t heard back from Mr. Gates. There is no way for
Mr. Gates to know how much money they are making, so they begin to wonder why
are we sending him his whole percentage. They can send him less and he would
never know. So each year the managers send a little bit of a smaller percentage
of what they have made. They take what they aren’t sending and keep it for
themselves. The managers begin to enjoy a few extra privleges. They build new
houses that are a little bigger than the other houses, and they feel they need
even more extra money to take care of them.
This goes on for a few years and
then comes the rumor. The rumor is, I think they read it on the internet, the
rumor is that Mr. Gates has died. Well, they think, if Mr. Gates has died then
this is no longer his factory. It’s ours, right, so we don’t need to send him
anything. We can just enjoy it. And the mangers discover that they need more
and more. They believe they work harder than everybody else so they need to
have more than everybody else. Some of the people are starting to be a little
poor, but that is their choice that they don’t have as much because they don’t
work as hard.
Well after a few more years, Bill
Gates says, “How come I haven’t gotten any money from that one town? It’s been
several years now. I’m going to send one of my chief aids to go and figure out
what is going on.”
Well this chief aid of Bill Gates
is a little smarter than the one’s in Jesus’ parable and he goes there but doesn’t
tell them who he is. He just tries to figure out what is going on. Then he
says, “This isn’t right. This isn’t yours. This was given to you to use, to
take care of. And you shouldn’t be treating some people as less than.” Now some
of the people hear and try to work for change and some people don’t things to
change. The representative goes back to Mr. Gates and says “I’m really concerned.
I’m hoping they will change their ways, but there is no guarantee.”
A few more years go by and there
Mr. Gates is still not getting his share of the profits, so finally he sends
his son. When they find out it is Bill Gates’ son they think, “Well if Bill
Gates is truly dead, and if we kill the son it will be ours. We’ll inherit it.”
What do you think of those people?
Those people were given a great gift. They were given the gift of a new life.
They were given such an opportunity but they forgot it was a gift. They forgot
it didn’t belong to them.
What would happen to such a
people? What will happen to us, because after all everything, everything we
have, is a gift from God. The sunshine isn’t ours. The rain isn’t ours. The
seeds that are planted and grow up to make food aren’t ours. Our bodies were
created by God and are a gift from God. Our intellectual capacity is a gift
from God. We didn’t make ourselves smart. We didn’t make ourselves talented.
Our hands with these wonderful opposable thumbs which mean we are able to
create all this amazing technology - are a gift from God. We didn’t will and
decide that we would have all of that. It is all a gift.
The Old Testament reading today is
the Ten Commandments. It is always good to remember what those basic
commandments are. The very first one is “I am the Lord who brought you out of
slavery in Egypt you will have no other God before me.” The very first
commandment is a reminder that God gives us everything. Our freedom, our lives,
all of it. We are supposed to keep God as number one. That’s the foundation.
That’s the first commandment. No if ands or buts. No I am number one except
when there is a good football game on. Not I am number one but make as much
money as you can. Not I am number one and if you make me number one then I will
give you something. It’s not a deal. It’s not an exchange. I am number one period,
end of that first commandment.
And when we make God number one, when
we appreciate and realize that God is the source of everything, how can we not
live a life of thankfulness and praise? All the time. And that is St. Francis.
St. Francis praised and loved God all the time. No matter what. He chose
poverty because he knew that everything he had was God’s anyway and he gave
away all. And he wrote some of the words we have been singing in some of the
songs about praising God.
One of the last things he wrote
was a wonderful ode to God, the poem of praise which is hymn 406. So if you
look in the hymnal for hymn 406 you’ll recognize, I think, the words.
Most high omnipotent good Lord
To thee be ceaseless praise
outpoured.
And blessing without measure.
From thee alone all creatures came
No one is worthy thee to name
My lord be praised by brother sun
Who through the skies his course
doth run
And it goes on that everything in
creation should praise God. It is a joyous hymn of praise, a poem of praise,
and you would expect that someone who could write that sort of praise for God
was probably feeling pretty good at the time. But the truth is that this was
written near the end of Francis’ life. The last few years of his life he was in
excruciating pain constantly. His feet were in so much pain he couldn’t walk,
so when he wrote this he was in great physical pain. He was also in emotional
and spiritual pain because the order that he had founded based on the idea that
they would own nothing was now under the control of some of his followers and
was starting to buy property, which he was against. He could see that his
order, although still doing good work, was not living up to the deepest commitment
that he had. The absolute poverty of Francis was too much for even the
Franciscans. He was in anguish about that. Imagine being in constant pain and
seeing your life work going in a different direction than you’d intended
it to go and being able to write such
wonderful praise to God. That was St. Francis.
We bless animals around the time
of St. Francis’ feasts day because it is said that he loved animals. There’s a
story of him with a wolf and there are stories he so needed to preach the love
of God that if there were no people around to hear it he would preach to the
birds.
I have sometimes tried to imagine
what Francis might have said to the birds and I imagine that Francis said to
the birds, “You beautiful creatures of God. Creatures created by the loving
God. Sing God’s praise all the time.”
And I imagine that if Francis was
here today and saw the wonderful creatures we have here. These great dogs who
are being so very, very good, he would say, “Animals, you are beloved creatures
of God. Created to praise him. Praise and serve God with every breath, with
every pant, with every bark. Sing God’s praise.”
And I think that Francis might say
to us two legged creatures who are
gathered here today, “You wonderful creations of God, you blessed of God, know
that God loves you and praise God with every breath.”
Amen.
