Sermon from March 3, 2024 by the Rev. Dr. Tara W. Bulger

Our second lesson is from Mark's Gospel, the 12th chapter verses one through 12.

Then Jesus began to speak to them in parables. A man planted a vineyard, put a fence around it, dug a pit for the wine press, and built a watch tower. Then he leased it to tenants and went to another country. When the season came, he sent a slave to the tenants to collect from them his share of the produce of the vineyard. But the tenants seized the slave and beat him and sent him away empty handed. And again, he sent another slave to them. This one they beat over the head and insulted. Then he sent another, and that one they killed. And so it was with many others. Some they beat others, they killed. He had still one other, a beloved son. Finally, he sent him to them saying, they will respect my son.

But those tenants said to one another, this is the heir. Come let us kill him, and the inheritance will be ours. So they seized the son, killed him, and threw him out of the vineyard. What then will the owner of the vineyard do? He will come and destroy the tenants and give the vineyard to others. Have you not read this scripture? The stone that the builders rejected has become the cornerstone. This was the Lord's doing, and it is amazing in our eyes when they realized that he had told this parable against them.

They wanted to arrest him, but they feared the crowd, so they left him and went away.

So for a few years now, I work with an organization called the Zick Preaching Scholars Program, and it's a group of preachers who want to get better at the craft of preaching. I went through the program several years ago, and now I lead a group of preachers from all around the country who want to improve in their preaching. You may be surprised to find out that most seminaries over the course of that three year education, there's usually only one preaching class, maybe two before those people are sent out into the world and to inflict themselves upon a congregation.

They don't have a whole lot of practice. And so you have to be pretty proactive about becoming better at yourself.

And teaching preaching is really hard. The great Episcopalian preacher Phillips Brooks has said that all preaching is truth through personality. It is the truth of who God and Jesus Christ are, and it's told through a person. So as you might imagine, each person will tell the truth a little differently. So there aren't many hard and fast rules. There's not a checklist of what each preacher should do to make a good sermon. Oh, if only there were.

But what I love about working with this group is that in trying to help others, I get better myself and trying to help others with their preaching. I think a lot more about what preaching is and what I want it to be. In watching other preachers try new things, I'm more inclined to try new things myself. I am there to help, but I get more out of it I think than I probably give.

Parables are a lot like that. Parables come to tell us one story. But while that story is told, we learn all sorts of other things out of the story. Let me give you an example from today's parable. This is a parable that tells us what is going to happen to Jesus while he's in Jerusalem. That's the story. But while Jesus is telling that story, we also learn who God is and who we are as humanity.

Let's look first at what's going to happen in Jerusalem. This parable matters because of who it's told to at the time of its telling. Jesus has come into Jerusalem and people have been so happy to see them. They've waved palm branches. The ordinary people are delighted to see Jesus come, but Jesus goes to the temple and he has that famous scene where he throws over the money changers tables and he drives everyone out from selling things in the temple already. The temple leaders, the priests and scribes and elders do not like Jesus. He's upsetting the order of things. Jesus leaves the temple for a little while, but then he comes back and is teaching in the temple. When he gives this parable, he's looking directly at the religious leaders while he's saying these words, and everyone who hears this story knows exactly what he means.

Remember the parable of the sower that Jesus then had to explain to everyone what it meant? This isn't a parable like that. Everyone knows what Jesus is saying. Part of the reason they know is because they know the Old Testament. They know the writings of Isaiah. And in Isaiah five, there is a story about God planting a vineyard, and that vineyard is Israel itself, and God cares for this vineyard. He tends to it. He keeps it safe, and he hopes to produce good grapes. But we're told in Isaiah that some grapes turned out to be wild grapes. They weren't true to who God called them to be. And so when Jesus starts this parable and says there was a man who had a vineyard, everyone in that room goes, “oh, he's talking about us. I remember Isaiah five, he's talking about us.” And then Jesus goes on to tell this story about how the vineyard owner gave them the land, put a fence around it, kept the land safe, dug them a wine press. And when the landowner comes to just take a part of what the vineyard has produced, they begin to assault and kill the slaves who come on behalf of the vineyard owner.

All of those people that the vineyard owner sends are the prophets from the Old Testament. Everyone would've said, “oh, I remember this from Isaiah.” And yes, all those people that are being sent the slaves of the landowner, those are the prophets that God sent to call Israel back to the way. But Israel rebelled over and over again. And so when Jesus says that God then sent his beloved son, they know that he is talking about himself as God's beloved son, and he knows that he will be killed. This is Jesus clearly saying to the religious authorities, to the priest and the scribes and the elders, God has sent me to you and I know you will kill me. And it makes them so angry. We're told at the end of the parable that they want to attack him right then, but the crowds are there and they are in his favor, and so they let him go.

This is the story that Jesus wants to tell about what is going to happen to him while he is in Jerusalem. But if we take a step back, this story also tells us a lot about who God is and about who we are as human beings. This passage tells us about God's character because what does the vineyard owner do again? Again and again? He tries to go to the people. God as the vineyard owner always goes to God's people and tries to call them back to the way, out of God's great love. The landowner doesn't give up on the tenants. He comes to them again and again because he loves them. So we learn about God's character in this story and the character of God is such that God will even send his beloved son because he so wants the people to turn to him.

If you ever think that you are so far away from God, remember that God will come to you over and over again because that's God's character, because that's God's love for all humanity.

But this passage also teaches us who we are at times, and we are a people who have been given gifts and talents by the sheer grace of God, but we call them our own. Those tenants think that all of the produce of the vineyard is theirs just because they tended to the land. They have forgotten who gave them the land, who built the wine press, who kept the land safe. It’s like my grandfather used to say, those tenants were “born on third base, but they think they hit a triple.” Everything they have is given to them by God, and they pat themselves on the back for it. Look how hard we've worked.

Doesn't that sound like humanity? How many times have you and have I patted ourselves on the back for something that was strictly a gift from God? Many times? Maybe it's that you think you have a great work ethic, maybe you do, but that that thing inside of you that makes you want to work hard, that's a gift from God. Maybe you won the parent lottery and you were given good parents who set you up for life. That was nothing that you did. It was a gift from God.

And so this Lenten season, we've been looking at ourselves. Yes, we've been looking at our own sin, all the ways that we stray from the people that God calls us to be. But this Lent, lets also take a moment to look at all the blessings we have that came to us through no work of our own, but are just grace upon grace given to us by God. We are to take a look at those things, the talents and gifts that we have, and remember that God is at the root of all of them.

I would even say that every good thing we have in our lives, at its base, is all coming from God's grace. Every bit of it, even the good things that I do in some way come from God's grace to my life. And I think it's true for all of us.

So we hear this story. It tells us what's going to happen to Jesus over Holy Week, what's gonna happen while he is in Jerusalem. But this story also tells us about God's character as one of being unrelentingly lovingly and reaching out to God's people. And it also tells us who we are, and we are a people who often pat ourselves on the back for things that God gave us. So I want close now with a prayer that I say most every day to help me to remember that God is the source of all goodness. Let's pray together. Gracious Lord, help us to use honestly and well all the talents which you have given us, so that the gain may not be ours only, but yours and your kingdoms through Jesus Christ, our Lord. Amen.