Scriptural Basis
Matthew 21: 33-46 (NRSV)
Blog Reflection
At times, I think I am quite the hypocrite. I enjoy going to union rally's and other events like it. One of the songs they always sing is the famous "This Land is Your Land." I enjoy singing it with the crowd. At the same time, I often feel a sense of my own hypocrisy. The land we are on, really is not our land. The land we are on belonged to many Native American's before the white Christians took this land I now call mine, took it from them. Yet I sing about the land as if it were mine. The owner of all of our lands is really God. God created the land and gave it to whom God chose. Yet, I sing of the land as if it were my own.
The Liturgy of the Word for this weekend begins with the giving of the commandments to Moses and the people of Israel in Exodus. God gives the law of loving God and neighbor. God calls on those whom God has rescued from slavery to recognize God as the one God and to not create others. To avoid stealing, murder, adultery, bearing false witness, and so on. To connect the original first reading with the optional reading from Isaiah 5: 1-7 is to understand that all who work in the vineyard of God's reign are those who have been created and commissioned by the love of God and neighbor that is required of all people.
Christianists and many archconservative Catholics/Episcopalians/Anglicans/Orthodox etc would have us believe that once Jesus Christ came and died on the Cross and rose again, means that only they are those who have chosen to work in the vineyard of God's reign. Many Christianists and the others I have mentioned, believe that unless you agree that all abortion is murder and that any sexual activity outside of the marriage of one man and one woman, then you are not among God's workers or participants in the work in the vineyard. In a sense, they could represent those killing the messengers.
God's reign is not made up of only one kind of person. God's spacious vineyard is not only Christians, Caucasians, legal immigrants, heterosexuals, men, European, speak English or are wealthy and healthy. God's reign is made up of all kinds of people, each unique and with their own characteristics. God has created the land and the work for all whom God made and loves.
The Psalmist in Psalm 19 writes and sings of how the Law of the Lord is perfect. The Law of God revives the soul and gives joy to the heart. The ways of God are acceptance, inclusion and love. While the world around us seeks separation, violence and oppression, God seeks all of us out to know that in God's reign there are none who are left behind. Lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, questioning and/or queer people are among those whom God loves and wants. God's Law is present in LGBTQ people and seeks to bring salvation to us by affirming us as we are, and helping us to live our lives to the fullest. God's Law of love and marriage is as much for LGBTQ people as it is for straight people. Not all marriage has to include raising children and not all unions must be man and wife. The Law of the Lord that is so perfect, is inclusive of all people who are created and loved by God.
As much as LGBTQ people and many others who experience division from families and communities because of violence and oppression, we experience a lot of religious groups rejecting us and keeping us from obtaining what God, the land owner has freely bestowed on all of us. Many individuals who have come to God's vineyard to speak to all God's people about including others in that vineyard have been killed and/or scandalized in their work for justice and inclusion. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Harvey Milk. Rosa Parks. Harriet Tubman. The list can go on and on.
Those who do experience this kind of violence identify with the crucified Jesus. Jesus came with a message of inclusion. Jesus' life was spent seeking the lost and those excluded to be made a part of God's community. God warned of political corruption and the consequences to minorities and those marginalized by those who enjoy their prestigious power over seeking to serve others. And because Jesus loved differently, Jesus too was marginalized, executed and even after Jesus' glorious resurrection and ascension Jesus remained an outcast.
Whether we are Christian or not, straight or not, white or not or any other privileged vs the underprivileged, our challenge is to continue in the work of the vineyard. To work in the vineyard doing what we are supposed to do, without becoming the new oppressors as new folks come to help us better understand how to be inclusive.
In the charming Avenue Q there is the funny but truth telling song: "Everyone is a little bit racist." And the song is all too correct. As much as we all try to eradicate our attitudes towards people of other races, there is still that part of us that is very suspicious about someone who is not quite like us. It does not take much to be confronted by our own racism or prejudice towards someone else.
I think the message of today's Gospel is for all of us to be aware of when we are the prophet coming to deliver a message of God's love, as well as when we assume we are the land owners who can just take out anyone that we do not like or who say things we do not wish to hear.
God's receiving grace as well as God's forgiving mercy are with us no matter where we find ourselves in this story. God seeks to redeem and transform us and our communities. Each of us needs both redemption and transformation so that we can be a part of God's reign to do the work in the vineyard.
Prayers
Matthew 21: 33-46 (NRSV)
Jesus said, "Listen to another parable. There was 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. When the harvest time had come, he sent his slaves to the tenants to collect his produce. But the tenants seized his slaves and beat one, killed another, and stoned another. Again he sent other slaves, more than the first; and they treated them in the same way. Finally he sent his son to them, saying, `They will respect my son.' But when the tenants saw the son, they said to themselves, `This is the heir; come, let us kill him and get his inheritance.' So they seized him, threw him out of the vineyard, and killed him. Now when the owner of the vineyard comes, what will he do to those tenants?" They said to him, "He will put those wretches to a miserable death, and lease the vineyard to other tenants who will give him the produce at the harvest time."
Jesus said to them, "Have you never read in the scriptures:
Therefore I tell you, the kingdom of God will be taken away from you and given to a people that produces the fruits of the kingdom. The one who falls on this stone will be broken to pieces; and it will crush anyone on whom it falls."
- `The stone that the builders rejected
- has become the cornerstone;
- this was the Lord's doing,
- and it is amazing in our eyes'?
When the chief priests and the Pharisees heard his parables, they realized that he was speaking about them. They wanted to arrest him, but they feared the crowds, because they regarded him as a prophet.
Blog Reflection
At times, I think I am quite the hypocrite. I enjoy going to union rally's and other events like it. One of the songs they always sing is the famous "This Land is Your Land." I enjoy singing it with the crowd. At the same time, I often feel a sense of my own hypocrisy. The land we are on, really is not our land. The land we are on belonged to many Native American's before the white Christians took this land I now call mine, took it from them. Yet I sing about the land as if it were mine. The owner of all of our lands is really God. God created the land and gave it to whom God chose. Yet, I sing of the land as if it were my own.
The Liturgy of the Word for this weekend begins with the giving of the commandments to Moses and the people of Israel in Exodus. God gives the law of loving God and neighbor. God calls on those whom God has rescued from slavery to recognize God as the one God and to not create others. To avoid stealing, murder, adultery, bearing false witness, and so on. To connect the original first reading with the optional reading from Isaiah 5: 1-7 is to understand that all who work in the vineyard of God's reign are those who have been created and commissioned by the love of God and neighbor that is required of all people.
Christianists and many archconservative Catholics/Episcopalians/Anglicans/Orthodox etc would have us believe that once Jesus Christ came and died on the Cross and rose again, means that only they are those who have chosen to work in the vineyard of God's reign. Many Christianists and the others I have mentioned, believe that unless you agree that all abortion is murder and that any sexual activity outside of the marriage of one man and one woman, then you are not among God's workers or participants in the work in the vineyard. In a sense, they could represent those killing the messengers.
God's reign is not made up of only one kind of person. God's spacious vineyard is not only Christians, Caucasians, legal immigrants, heterosexuals, men, European, speak English or are wealthy and healthy. God's reign is made up of all kinds of people, each unique and with their own characteristics. God has created the land and the work for all whom God made and loves.
The Psalmist in Psalm 19 writes and sings of how the Law of the Lord is perfect. The Law of God revives the soul and gives joy to the heart. The ways of God are acceptance, inclusion and love. While the world around us seeks separation, violence and oppression, God seeks all of us out to know that in God's reign there are none who are left behind. Lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, questioning and/or queer people are among those whom God loves and wants. God's Law is present in LGBTQ people and seeks to bring salvation to us by affirming us as we are, and helping us to live our lives to the fullest. God's Law of love and marriage is as much for LGBTQ people as it is for straight people. Not all marriage has to include raising children and not all unions must be man and wife. The Law of the Lord that is so perfect, is inclusive of all people who are created and loved by God.
As much as LGBTQ people and many others who experience division from families and communities because of violence and oppression, we experience a lot of religious groups rejecting us and keeping us from obtaining what God, the land owner has freely bestowed on all of us. Many individuals who have come to God's vineyard to speak to all God's people about including others in that vineyard have been killed and/or scandalized in their work for justice and inclusion. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Harvey Milk. Rosa Parks. Harriet Tubman. The list can go on and on.
Those who do experience this kind of violence identify with the crucified Jesus. Jesus came with a message of inclusion. Jesus' life was spent seeking the lost and those excluded to be made a part of God's community. God warned of political corruption and the consequences to minorities and those marginalized by those who enjoy their prestigious power over seeking to serve others. And because Jesus loved differently, Jesus too was marginalized, executed and even after Jesus' glorious resurrection and ascension Jesus remained an outcast.
Whether we are Christian or not, straight or not, white or not or any other privileged vs the underprivileged, our challenge is to continue in the work of the vineyard. To work in the vineyard doing what we are supposed to do, without becoming the new oppressors as new folks come to help us better understand how to be inclusive.
In the charming Avenue Q there is the funny but truth telling song: "Everyone is a little bit racist." And the song is all too correct. As much as we all try to eradicate our attitudes towards people of other races, there is still that part of us that is very suspicious about someone who is not quite like us. It does not take much to be confronted by our own racism or prejudice towards someone else.
I think the message of today's Gospel is for all of us to be aware of when we are the prophet coming to deliver a message of God's love, as well as when we assume we are the land owners who can just take out anyone that we do not like or who say things we do not wish to hear.
God's receiving grace as well as God's forgiving mercy are with us no matter where we find ourselves in this story. God seeks to redeem and transform us and our communities. Each of us needs both redemption and transformation so that we can be a part of God's reign to do the work in the vineyard.
Prayers
Almighty and everlasting God, you are always more ready to hear than we to pray, and to give more than we either desire or deserve: Pour upon us the abundance of your mercy, forgiving us those things of which our conscience is afraid, and giving us those good things for which we are not worthy to ask, except through the merits and mediation of Jesus Christ our Savior; who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, for ever and ever. Amen. (Proper 22, Book of Common Prayer, page 234).
Almighty God, who created us in your own image: Grant us grace fearlessly to contend against evil and to make no peace with oppression; and, that we may reverently use our freedom, help us to employ it in the maintenance of justice in our communities and among the nations, to the glory of your holy Name; through Jesus Christ our Lord, who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, now and for ever. Amen. (Prayer for Social Justice, The Daily Office Site).
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