Sunday Service 15th March
- Mar 14
- 9 min read
Who is in charge?
15/3/26
Call to worship
Hymn 132: Immortal, invisible
Time for all
Hymn 63: All people that on earth do dwell
Reading: Isaiah 5: 1-7 Liz
Prayer
Reading: Luke 20: 9-18
Hymn 111: Holy, Holy, Holy
Sermon
Prayer
Hymn 537: We do not hope to ease our minds
Benediction
Welcome to our meditation for 15th March.
I remember once someone boasting about being a self made man, and the comment being that that was obvious because you could see the poor workmanship.
We often look at independence as a virtue, but anyone who has tried to care for an elderly parent knows that what is claimed to be independence is often prideful stubbornness, and leads to a lot more problems than needs to be.
So what is expected of us from God,
does he want us to independent
or does he want us to be unquestioning obedient slaves,
or is there a third way?
We will look at this after our readings and prayers from Liz.
Sermon
How are we supposed to live our lives under God?
That is not an easy question...
I remember way back talking to this guy who claimed that he didn’t get out of bed without praying first to God to ask what clothes he should wear for the day.
He was perfectly serious.
He talked about how often we aren’t obedient to God; that God wants to give us His wisdom and we often go through life not consulting God on anything.
And he had a point.
How much of the world’s climate disaster is because we buy stuff without a thought of whether it is sustainable,
whether the clothes we wear are the result of child slavery in a third world country.
I remember the old VHS cassettes. We used to go to Blockbusters on Friday night and hire a couple of science fiction movies to relax. And at the start of all those films was a warning about video piracy, that if we bought a cheap video then it might be funding criminal gangs.
How many people died of a drug overdose funded by people deciding that buying cheap videos was more important that spending more money on legitimate videos?
But not getting out of bed until you have consulted God about what clothes you wear? That sounds excessive.
On the other side of the argument you have folk that will turn round and say that God helps those who help themselves.
That God has given us a brain and a sense of responsibility, and it is our duty to use both to plan a way forward.
The old joke comes to mind...of the priest who is writing a sermon on trusting God when he hears on the radio that the dam has burst and the tsunami is going to hit the town. And he feels there is no better time to put his trust in God. He has been writing about it and now he has to believe it.
So the floods start to rise and the coast guards come in a boat to rescue him and the priest says, ‘No I will put my trust in God.’
And of course the flood rises and the priest is now on the roof of the chapel and along comes a helicopter to save him and the priest says, ‘No I put my trust in God.’
And of course he dies.
And at the gates of heaven is shouting at God, ‘Why did God fail him when he put his trust in him?’
And we all know the punch line.
God says, ‘I don’t understand it, I sent the coast guard and he helicopter.’
It is obvious that God doesn’t want to micromanage our lives; God wants us to take responsibility for our lives.
It is equally obvious that we can get decisions wrong so God needs us to go to him,
but where is the middle ground in all that between taking too much responsibility for our lives and not taking enough?
Which brings us to the stories of the vineyard.
In the Old Testament the vineyard was often used as an image of Israel.
The vineyard is built by an owner, God,
it was protected by walls and a guardhouse from wild animals and thieves, which was the sign of God’s protection from the far larger countries and nations round about them.
The owner nurtured the vines which was God nurturing the people with the law,
with the prophets and with their leaders.
And in the first reading of Isaiah the prophet is basically saying that God did all these things for the people, God had given them everything that they needed, but they had produced the wrong fruit;
their response was not love but hatred,
not generosity but selfishness,
not seeking peace but creating violence.
And Isaiah is warning the people that a normal owner of a vineyard that put in all that effort, just to have fruit that was uneatable, would just give up and try building a vineyard on other soil, the owner would just leave the land to waste, and if Israel was not careful then God would do the same with them.
It was quite a threat.
The people had seen the Northern Kingdom destroyed by the Assyrian Empire, the towns and cities destroyed, the people killed or exiled, never to return.
Surely God wouldn’t do that to them?
But with the destruction of the Temple by the Babylonian Empire, with the leaders taken into exile, they felt God had completely deserted them.
The faint hope of the prophets, and it was a faint hope, was that maybe God hadn’t given up on the people, maybe the people had given up on God, and if they returned to God, maybe God would bless them again.
Miracles of miracles, beyond their dreams, beyond the possibilities, with no input from the people themselves, God moved history to bring the people home.
Centuries later.
Jesus is in the temple.
The priests, the bastions of what God is thinking,
the ones tasked of explaining what God expects of his people....are attacking Jesus.
And Jesus responds with the parable of the vineyard.
It isn’t even a veiled threat. It is a direct attack on the priest’s authority in their own temple.
These priests have been put in charge of God’s temple and they are acting as if it isn’t God’s temple, it’s theirs.
They aren’t there to tend the vines, the people, so that they produce great fruit.
Instead, the vines, the people, are there to make as much money for them as possible.
When the owner seeks to get his due then they reject the owner’s representatives.
And each time the owner responds the tenants respond more aggressively.
Until the owner sends his own son.
Now the owner could have sent soldiers in to kill them all and claim what was his.
Instead the owner treats them with respect. They have a grievance, they feel they have worked hard and want more for their work.
The owner doesn’t agree with that, but he respects their grievance and sends his own son as a sign of respect so that they can deal with this peacefully.
But the tenants, they think to themselves, ‘If we kill the heir to the vineyard them we become the owners when the owner dies.’
Which, when you think on it, is a stupid thought.
If the owner dies then the land is sold and they are either kept on by the new owner,
which is unlikely when you consider their actions to the last owner,
or evicted and have nothing, and no chance that another owner will take them on.
So where does that leave us?
I think it leaves us with a deep concern.
Maybe it reminds us that we aren’t asking the right question from God.
You see I think over the centuries the priests had been saying to themselves, ‘What does God want us to do with the temple?’
Well obviously God would want the temple to be kept in good repair.
God would want the sacrifices to be done properly and respectfully.
God would want the scriptures to be read and the festivals to be honoured.
And so they set up a whole system to make sure that happened.
There were systems to make sure that the sacrifices were proper sacrifices and not cheap substitutes, because God deserves the best.
There were financial systems to make sure that the offerings were not contaminated with the images of others gods,
and they had systems to make sure there was enough revenue to make sure the repairs of the temple were up to date.
Everything was done to make sure what God wanted was done.
What does God want us to do with the temple?’
But maybe they should have been asking a deeper question... ‘What is God’s vision for the temple?’
Well that would produce very different answers.
That the temple is a place where people feel safe to share their doubts,
Where people feel the love and joy of God.
Where people can find God’s forgiveness and a way forward for them.
The temple would become a place of change, where people would arrive feeling far from God, and leave feeling that God is with them.
Where people would know that they could face their past and their future because they had God’s hope, God’s strength, God’s wisdom to guide them.
That would create a very different temple; the priests would now be thinking differently, not, ‘Are we doing the sacrifices in the right way?’,
but ‘How do we do sacrifices that bring hope to the people?’.
The sacrifices stop being a ritual, and now become a solace.
The prayers stop becoming a ritual and now become a pathway to God’s heart.
The festivals stop becoming a ritual and now become an inspiration and a guidance for the people.
And maybe one of the flaws we have is that we have subconsciously got into the habit of thinking like the priests.
We have these lives as a gift from God.
And we think to ourselves, ‘How does God want us to look after this life of ours?’
Well we look after the body, makes sure it is fed.
We make sure that we look after the future of the body as well.
So we make sure we have some savings, make sure we have decent cloths to protect ourselves from the cold and a decent house to protect ourselves from the weather.
God would want us to be joyful so we make sure we are entertained and avoid things that would make us sad.
We avoid confrontation because surely God wants us to be nice to everyone.
All reasonable answers to the question, ‘What does God want me to do with my life?’
But that might be the wrong question we are asking.
Maybe the question God has always wanted us to ask is, ‘What is the vision God has for my life?’
Maybe a life that inspires other to love because they see God’s love in us?
Maybe a life that challenges the world’s standards because we are challenged to follow God’s standards rather than just following the crowd.
Maybe a life that offers real forgiveness because it has felt the real forgiveness of God.
Maybe a life that helps others because it realises that without God’s help we would be in a far sorrier place.
Maybe a life that can feel gratitude for God’s presence in our lives so treats others with more respect and compassion.
(final story)
So there was this priest, who was writing a sermon on trusting God, and he hears of a dam bursting and the waters are rushing to towards the town. And after a while he sees the coast guard coming towards him and they offer him a ride.
And the priest thinks that he really doesn’t need it because he wants to put his trust in God.
But then he thinks of the old ladies that might be too scared to jump from their window ledges onto the boat...but they might jump if their priest was there to encourage them.
So he sighs with regret because he believes that he hasn’t trusted God as much as he should have, but at least he is helping some of his old ladies.
And at the gates of heaven God stands alone and smiles as he thinks to himself, ‘Now you’re getting it.’
If we have the courage to seek what God’s vision for us is, then that will not only change what we do, but why we do it,
and even more importantly, it will change who we become.
Let us pray
Heavenly Father,
we pause and reflect with this story Jesus told.
May it not just wash over us – but let its spirit grow within us.
May it help us to understand that our lives, our gifts, our communities are entrusted to us, not owned by us.
We cannot, and we should not, just do as we wish, but instead we should be inspired and be inspiring.
Remind us that there are always voices there to guide us:
the voice of your Spirit talking to us,
the voice of challenge from those living with injustice and who cry out in their suffering,
the voice of those who refuse to accept the world as it is— but instead hold onto the dream of the world as it can be....and day by day seek to move the world so that the dream becomes a reality.
the voice of hope from those who see you working in their loves and who remind us that You want to actively work in our lives too.
Help us not to turn away from these voices.
Let the story and the prompting of your Spirit bring clarity, and confirmation of our place in your plans.
Let the truth of Jesus, as the vision caster for our lives, ground us— and inspire us to stewardship of Your creation,
and give us the confidence to be advocates for the welfare of all God’s people.
Amen.
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