Sermon from 12th November REMEMBRANCE DAY
One of our Lay Readers, Adrian Parkhouse, preaches on The Parable of the Tenants in the Vineyard from Mark 12:1-12
1. We are nearing the end of our Autumn studies in Mark – just one more to go and we will have travelled the bye-ways of the gospel account and launch into the celebration of Advent. I say the “bye-ways” since, while the passages we have looked at will have been familiar, we have avoided the high-lights and the headlines. We have generally looked at the meetings, the conversations, the one-to-ones; we have tended to avoid the dramatic and the public.
This week is a good example: we left Jesus last week answering the desire of the beggar to see. The blind man who had insight, who saw in the itinerant teacher “the Son of David”; and had the determination to follow his instinct. That was in Jericho – en route for Jerusalem. That was ch.10. And now in ch.12 we have arrived. Our study has by-passed the excitement of the entry into Jerusalem, coats and straw and palms strewn across the path by the excited crowd; we have missed the intensity of emotion there and the day after when Jesus returns to the Temple and turns over the tables of the money-changers and the benches of the dove-sellers: “Scripture say, “My house shall be called a house of prayer for the nations? But you have turned it into a thieves’ kitchen!”
2. For caretakers (or perhaps now they are “facilities-operations managers”?) this is a very difficult time of year. Nor are their problems eased by the effect of global-warming. They are no-one’s friends. You see the only thing that is predictable about the weather at this time of year is its unpredictability. In office buildings of any size the chances are that the caretaker must predict tomorrow’s temperature today and set the controls the night before. Will he permit heating or air-conditioning? Will it be warm, will it be cool? How quickly will it change? By 11a.m. his in-box will be full of complaints from around the office: “too cold”, “too warm”, “there’s a draught”, “I feel ill”, etc. A difficult time of year. Of course one way to alleviate the problem is to create smaller units and to allow co-workers to maintain their own environment. Give them the thermostat and the air-conditioning control for their patch. It can be expensive but it is, I understand, shown to save a great deal of discontent. Nor need it be expensive, since studies show (I read in the Wall Street Journal to it must be so!) that it is not necessary for the thermostat or the air-conditioning controller to contain any working parts or to be connected to anything else in the system for the same sense of well-being to pervade the office! Simply create the illusion of control and people can be happy. Control, of some things at some level, is important to us.
3. The chapter break at the start of ch.12 is artificial. From v.27 of ch.11 to the end of ch.12 Mark is concerned to explain the challenges to Jesus raised by various members of the variety of ruling groups in Jerusalem at the time: the groups “in control” (subject to Roman oversight). As we will see next week, Mark’s account is balanced – Jesus recognised that his challengers were not all bad. But in general terms we get the impression of an alliance of people – Pharisees, Sadducees (not often agreeing about much!), Herodians (pro-Roman), scribes, priests, elders – concerned not to weigh the authority of Jesus – not to test it, not to hear his teaching and assess it in the light of history and scripture and tradition - but concerned only to undermine it.
The first question they asked was direct: what authority do you have for what you are doing? Jesus did not give a direct answer – he instead asked then what they thought of the ministry of John the Baptist, was it divinely-inspired or only human? They could not answer: to have done so was politically impossible for them. That was Jesus’ point: if I tell you the truth, you won’t want to understand me – what would you do? Their question was not – like the plea of the blind beggar – founded on a desire to know but a desire to trap. Their time for that would come a few days later.
Their second question follows our passage: a political one now – should we honour God or Caesar? “Give to God what belongs to God.” Then finally, before we trespass on next week’s passage, a theological question about the practicalities of resurrection: irrelevant says Jesus, you don’t understand: “God is not God of the dead but of living men!”
4. And in the midst of these debates, a story. A parable. Mark tells us, after the first argument: “Then he began to talk to them in parables”. I love that! Do you remember Jesus told his disciples that he taught the crowd with simple stories because otherwise they could not grasp the story: I understand that. And the story here has a very clear meaning: the crowd would have recognised the allusion to Isaiah 5, the prophecy which describes the people of God as the vineyard “the Garden of His delight” and God “looked for justice, but saw bloodshed; for righteousness, but heard cries of distress”; the tenants/the farm-workers were the rulers, those (apparently) in control; the servants were the prophets, ill-treated and ignored; until “He had one left to send, a son, whom he loved” ; who was treated worst of all - killed and his body bundled over the wall of the vineyard to rot. Of course a prophecy of what would happen a few days later. But the story is about the tenants: about their motive – a simple one – to keep control: “Let’s kill him and the inheritance will be ours.” And the story is about owner: that is not what happens. He will destroy those with the illusion of control and to their surprise what they rejected becomes the key for the future.
5. So control, or, more accurately, the illusion of control, becomes a barrier to considering the teaching of Jesus? I have a lot of time for the Pharisees, the Sadducees, the teachers of the law et al. I am comforted that Cameron’s passage next week bears out that they were not all bad. Those who responded to Jesus’ teaching – and we know there were some and would be more (eg Saul) showed tremendous courage in risking the apparent control they had.
Personally I am a cautious person; I avoid making decisions where I can and, where I can’t, I make them very slowly. I am a year older this week (as is the Vicar). I think all the important decisions that I made in my life were made 30 years ago. I admire those of you who can delay finding a life partner until your 20s or even later! I would (and have no desire to!) have no idea!
Perhaps more seriously, today I am conscious of the enormous courage – because of the extraordinary impact on them and the environment they “controlled” - of those who gave up so much in deciding to fight for their country.
In other words I enjoy my “the illusion of control”. It may be different that that of the Pharisees but not wholly so. And so the question I ask: is how my reaction to Jesus’ teaching is conditioned by this illusion of control?. Is my response constrained by my desire to stay in charge of my vineyard? Is it easier to ignore the challenge, than to risk the change? And bear in mind that one of the decisions I made 30 years ago was that the claim of this Son was a good claim – that I should order my life to reflect His love to me. So if I am aware of not wanting to lose control of my vineyard – how much more difficult must it be more for those who may be faced with that sort of decision now? How many folk hear the claims of Jesus, know how real they feel but then assess the consequence on the ambit of their control – or their apparent control?
Looked at from the other end, how important it is for the Church in explaining the message of Christ to realise that proclamation is only part of what we are about – another part is to assist its acceptance – to help the tenants understand what is involved on living with the owner at home. Amongst other things that involve the Church living a life that impresses with the reality of God’s love; and (to pinch JB Phillips translation of Paul’s words) that it is not a matter of words but the power of Christian living.
6. A few of us met this week to consider how we might prepare for the Parish “Listening Day” planned now for 27 January. Cameron will touch on this next week – but for now one of the questions we want to be thinking about beforehand is “how can we make more of a difference in the life of our Church and in our neighbourhoods?” How can our church life encourage us our individual lives to be more “out of control” and more of a witness of living under God’s control – so that others will perhaps be encouraged to take the risk, to recognise their control is illusory, that God is master of their vineyard, as of everybody’s, and that giving up control, while involving change, may be easier than they think.
1. We are nearing the end of our Autumn studies in Mark – just one more to go and we will have travelled the bye-ways of the gospel account and launch into the celebration of Advent. I say the “bye-ways” since, while the passages we have looked at will have been familiar, we have avoided the high-lights and the headlines. We have generally looked at the meetings, the conversations, the one-to-ones; we have tended to avoid the dramatic and the public.
This week is a good example: we left Jesus last week answering the desire of the beggar to see. The blind man who had insight, who saw in the itinerant teacher “the Son of David”; and had the determination to follow his instinct. That was in Jericho – en route for Jerusalem. That was ch.10. And now in ch.12 we have arrived. Our study has by-passed the excitement of the entry into Jerusalem, coats and straw and palms strewn across the path by the excited crowd; we have missed the intensity of emotion there and the day after when Jesus returns to the Temple and turns over the tables of the money-changers and the benches of the dove-sellers: “Scripture say, “My house shall be called a house of prayer for the nations? But you have turned it into a thieves’ kitchen!”
2. For caretakers (or perhaps now they are “facilities-operations managers”?) this is a very difficult time of year. Nor are their problems eased by the effect of global-warming. They are no-one’s friends. You see the only thing that is predictable about the weather at this time of year is its unpredictability. In office buildings of any size the chances are that the caretaker must predict tomorrow’s temperature today and set the controls the night before. Will he permit heating or air-conditioning? Will it be warm, will it be cool? How quickly will it change? By 11a.m. his in-box will be full of complaints from around the office: “too cold”, “too warm”, “there’s a draught”, “I feel ill”, etc. A difficult time of year. Of course one way to alleviate the problem is to create smaller units and to allow co-workers to maintain their own environment. Give them the thermostat and the air-conditioning control for their patch. It can be expensive but it is, I understand, shown to save a great deal of discontent. Nor need it be expensive, since studies show (I read in the Wall Street Journal to it must be so!) that it is not necessary for the thermostat or the air-conditioning controller to contain any working parts or to be connected to anything else in the system for the same sense of well-being to pervade the office! Simply create the illusion of control and people can be happy. Control, of some things at some level, is important to us.
3. The chapter break at the start of ch.12 is artificial. From v.27 of ch.11 to the end of ch.12 Mark is concerned to explain the challenges to Jesus raised by various members of the variety of ruling groups in Jerusalem at the time: the groups “in control” (subject to Roman oversight). As we will see next week, Mark’s account is balanced – Jesus recognised that his challengers were not all bad. But in general terms we get the impression of an alliance of people – Pharisees, Sadducees (not often agreeing about much!), Herodians (pro-Roman), scribes, priests, elders – concerned not to weigh the authority of Jesus – not to test it, not to hear his teaching and assess it in the light of history and scripture and tradition - but concerned only to undermine it.
The first question they asked was direct: what authority do you have for what you are doing? Jesus did not give a direct answer – he instead asked then what they thought of the ministry of John the Baptist, was it divinely-inspired or only human? They could not answer: to have done so was politically impossible for them. That was Jesus’ point: if I tell you the truth, you won’t want to understand me – what would you do? Their question was not – like the plea of the blind beggar – founded on a desire to know but a desire to trap. Their time for that would come a few days later.
Their second question follows our passage: a political one now – should we honour God or Caesar? “Give to God what belongs to God.” Then finally, before we trespass on next week’s passage, a theological question about the practicalities of resurrection: irrelevant says Jesus, you don’t understand: “God is not God of the dead but of living men!”
4. And in the midst of these debates, a story. A parable. Mark tells us, after the first argument: “Then he began to talk to them in parables”. I love that! Do you remember Jesus told his disciples that he taught the crowd with simple stories because otherwise they could not grasp the story: I understand that. And the story here has a very clear meaning: the crowd would have recognised the allusion to Isaiah 5, the prophecy which describes the people of God as the vineyard “the Garden of His delight” and God “looked for justice, but saw bloodshed; for righteousness, but heard cries of distress”; the tenants/the farm-workers were the rulers, those (apparently) in control; the servants were the prophets, ill-treated and ignored; until “He had one left to send, a son, whom he loved” ; who was treated worst of all - killed and his body bundled over the wall of the vineyard to rot. Of course a prophecy of what would happen a few days later. But the story is about the tenants: about their motive – a simple one – to keep control: “Let’s kill him and the inheritance will be ours.” And the story is about owner: that is not what happens. He will destroy those with the illusion of control and to their surprise what they rejected becomes the key for the future.
5. So control, or, more accurately, the illusion of control, becomes a barrier to considering the teaching of Jesus? I have a lot of time for the Pharisees, the Sadducees, the teachers of the law et al. I am comforted that Cameron’s passage next week bears out that they were not all bad. Those who responded to Jesus’ teaching – and we know there were some and would be more (eg Saul) showed tremendous courage in risking the apparent control they had.
Personally I am a cautious person; I avoid making decisions where I can and, where I can’t, I make them very slowly. I am a year older this week (as is the Vicar). I think all the important decisions that I made in my life were made 30 years ago. I admire those of you who can delay finding a life partner until your 20s or even later! I would (and have no desire to!) have no idea!
Perhaps more seriously, today I am conscious of the enormous courage – because of the extraordinary impact on them and the environment they “controlled” - of those who gave up so much in deciding to fight for their country.
In other words I enjoy my “the illusion of control”. It may be different that that of the Pharisees but not wholly so. And so the question I ask: is how my reaction to Jesus’ teaching is conditioned by this illusion of control?. Is my response constrained by my desire to stay in charge of my vineyard? Is it easier to ignore the challenge, than to risk the change? And bear in mind that one of the decisions I made 30 years ago was that the claim of this Son was a good claim – that I should order my life to reflect His love to me. So if I am aware of not wanting to lose control of my vineyard – how much more difficult must it be more for those who may be faced with that sort of decision now? How many folk hear the claims of Jesus, know how real they feel but then assess the consequence on the ambit of their control – or their apparent control?
Looked at from the other end, how important it is for the Church in explaining the message of Christ to realise that proclamation is only part of what we are about – another part is to assist its acceptance – to help the tenants understand what is involved on living with the owner at home. Amongst other things that involve the Church living a life that impresses with the reality of God’s love; and (to pinch JB Phillips translation of Paul’s words) that it is not a matter of words but the power of Christian living.
6. A few of us met this week to consider how we might prepare for the Parish “Listening Day” planned now for 27 January. Cameron will touch on this next week – but for now one of the questions we want to be thinking about beforehand is “how can we make more of a difference in the life of our Church and in our neighbourhoods?” How can our church life encourage us our individual lives to be more “out of control” and more of a witness of living under God’s control – so that others will perhaps be encouraged to take the risk, to recognise their control is illusory, that God is master of their vineyard, as of everybody’s, and that giving up control, while involving change, may be easier than they think.
posted by Parish Administrator at 7:26 pm
0 Comments:
Post a Comment
<< Home