Sixteenth Sunday after Pentecost October 2, 2011
The Truth of the Matter Is, There Are Consequences
The Reverend Dr. Howard J. Hess
I. Introduction. The Truth of the Matter Is, There Are Consequences When we turn away from God and God’s Son. This week I met with the Wednesday Women’s Bible Study to consider today’s lectionary readings. As always, the discussion was lively and thought provoking. Shortly into the study, one of the participants asked, “Where is the good news or the joy in all of this?” She was astute – today’s parable demonstrates greed, stubbornness, murder, and ultimate retribution. The answer I gave was this: “The good news is in the truth of today’s readings, because knowing the truth, particularly God’s truth, will always ultimately set us free.” Were I in the study now, I would add to my answer that one aspect of God’s truth is God’s persistent, constant offer of grace.
II. What then is the truth of God found in today’s parable from Matthew? God has created us; God has placed us in a beautiful vineyard that is his, not ours; God has blessed us beyond measure; and God has called us to respond faithfully in return. If we reject God’s claim upon us, God will try repeatedly, in many different ways, to break through our excessive focus upon ourselves. God will give us multiple chances to change; grace will flow.
I am afraid that we are pushing uphill in our culture when we try to communicate these truths. Many of us have been taught that what we think, what we want, and what we need forms the basis of reality. The rather stark truth is that often we have been led to believe that we are at the center of our own universes and therefore entitled to what we desire.
I saw this very clearly in my university teaching. Many students felt absolutely entitled to an A grade. In fact, anything less than an A was often unfair and due to the professor’s dislike of the student. Universities have developed methods of appropriate review to examine such complaints. And, when I became an Associate Dean of Academic Affairs, I somewhat less than joyfully became a major step in the review process within my school. I will never forget one incident in which a student had actually received quite a low grade and became rageful. She came to me, the first step in the appeal process, and demanded that I reverse the professor’s final grade. I arranged for a panel of faculty in the same academic area to review her work carefully. They unanimously substantiated the original grade. She subsequently exhausted all levels of appeal and the grade stood.
The student then made a threat to murder her professor and to murder me for not overturning the professor’s grade. The university security concluded that there was every reason to believe that the student intended to execute her threat. She had become entrapped in a false understanding of what was true. Avenues that might well have been available to help her – re-taking the course or receiving special tutoring, for example – were blocked by her determination to get what she wanted. In some ways she was not unlike the tenants in Jesus’ parable.
For close to a week the university required Peg and me to move into a hotel and refrain from going home. Three different police forces were involved in handling this case (the university, New York City, and the New Jersey borough where we lived). Eventually the university had information that led them to confidently conclude that the threat level was lessened. They determined that we could check out of the Empire Hotel at Lincoln Center and return home. The student never followed up on her threat, but for several weeks we continued to wake up at night with some fear. We had an apple tree next to our bedroom windows and when the apples dropped, they would explode on the driveway, sounding much like hand grenades reaching their targets. Although there were humorous moments in this experience, the story was on a whole deeply tragic. The grace available to this student had been squeezed out of this situation by her rageful focus upon herself, what she believed she was entitled to, and her determination to utterly control the outcome. Ultimately, the outcome was her own undoing.
III. Father Brett was absolutely correct last week – there is always the opportunity to take a different road, to repent, to turn around, and to accept God’s grace in our lives. That’s why the landowner in the parable, representing God, kept sending more messengers to the tenants, and eventually even his own son, Jesus Christ. Surely they would listen to him. But instead, they kill him. Here the story becomes tragic because the tenants reject God’s legitimate claim. The outcome of rejecting God is always ultimately painful. It would be easier to hear that God is exclusively a God of love -- that it doesn’t really matter how we respond or act.
This form of easy love or cheap grace is very dangerous, writes Deitrich Bonhoeffer. We studied him in this morning’s parish hall class as an example of a leader in a sacramental community. Bonhoeffer is the theologian who has most influenced me in my own formation as a priest. He was executed the year after I was born. We are of two different generations, but his soul speaks to mine. Bonhoeffer had grown up and received his theological training in Germany, a country that has had a rich tradition of theological thinkers and writers. After all, this was the country of Martin Luther! Yet it was here that Bonhoeffer discovered a stark truth about modern religion in the 20th and I daresay the 21st centuries. He had encountered Christian churches that were so obsessed with their own survival and comfort that they were unwilling to follow Jesus Christ. Many Christians refused to see the suffering of the Jews, the homosexuals, and many other groups. Bonhoeffer came to believe that a religion that refused to see the truth was false and hollow. He wrote that it must be replaced by communities of faith that are willing to place Christ in the center, rather than self.
IV. Conclusion. Sometimes I worry deeply about our church in the West -- the church that has nurtured me, introduced me to Christ, trained me, and ordained me. I worry that many of us in North America and Western Europe have moved toward wanting our religion on our own terms -- comfortable, climate controlled, and safe. I’m worried that little by little we have begun to worship the form of our religion rather than its substance, which is Christ the Son of God. I worry that in many of our churches we have become attached to organizational management and maintenance rather than organizational faithfulness. I worry that churches and denominations are suing one another and debating with one another while many of our Christian brothers and sisters in Haiti, the Horn of Africa, and so many other places are literally dying of starvation.
So as my sister-in-Christ asked me, “Where’s the good news in all of this?” It is God’s grace. God keeps giving us new opportunities, new messengers, new days, and more chances. And there is good news here at Church of the Ascension. We are studying God’s word, we are praying together, we are serving many others locally and throughout the world. I sense an ever-deepening desire to be a community in which Christ is at the center of our being. But still, we at Ascension must be vigilant in our Christian commitments. It is the preacher’s job today to plead: “Please, let’s not waste any of the grace-filled time that we have!” Amen.
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