1. Good morning.
Let’s pray. O Lord, may the words
of my mouth and the meditations of our hearts be pleasing to You O Lord our
Rock and our Redeemer. Amen.
2. Opening Comments: Suppose your life was completely public and
anyone looking at you could see “you” – that “you” which is a summation of all
of your thoughts, feelings and attitudes.
What if anyone could see the real you just by looking at you.
Imagine (say) that there was some sort of holograph floating over your
head that “told the truth” about you.
It’s what God would see when He looked at you.
Try to imagine what sort of person others would see. In other words, how would you look to others?
How would you like that? How
would you like me and others to see you as you really are?
Now I know that there would be
some of us who would look pretty good – I’m not one of them unfortunately!
How
about you?
Is
your fundamental disposition always open-hearted and gracious or, like me, can
you sometimes succumb to your pride and pettiness?
Then
again some of us might consider ourselves, on average, to be pretty good people. How would that look to us I wonder?
I
would consider a “pretty good person”
·
someone who regularly chooses to give most everyone the benefit of the
doubt and think the best of them.
·
Someone with a ready smile for everyone.
·
A pretty good person might be someone who routinely chooses loving
honesty over expediency, spreading “hope” rather than “accusation, disdain, or
sarcasm.”
·
I think a “pretty good person” looks for opportunities to heal rather
than to harm, nurture rather than expose, restore rather than to pull down . .
. and so on.
Are you a
“pretty good person?”
I
wish that I could say that I was but I’m not.
I’m heading in that direction but haltingly and, but for the
encouragement of my friends and the conviction and empowerment of God’s Holy
Spirit, I would always be a miserable failure!
How about
you?
Today’s readings are pretty clearly calling you
and me to be who we say we are – followers of the most wonderful Being history
has ever recorded – Jesus Christ!
The goal for all of us is to become more and more
like Him isn’t it?
He is both perfect man and perfect God! He’s the second Adam! I’m more like the first Adam who tried to
play God and failed dismally. But you
and I are called to follow in the footsteps of the Second Adam! To become who God created us to be!
Our readings
this morning are reminding that it’s very easy for us to slide down into the
pits of degeneration – so so so easy and, but for God, we would all fall there
and stay there!
The First Reading from the Old
Testament Book of Isaiah reveals a magnificent scene of an idyllic vineyard
that God Himself has created – it’s a metaphor for the world God created for
all of us.
It’s located on a fertile hillside. God cleared it of stone and planted it with
the choicest vines and built a watchtower to protect it and hewed out a
winepress to make the wine from the grapes.
In other words, God did everything possible to ensure it’s success. But sadly it produced wild grapes that were in Isaiah’s own words “bad
fruit.”
The consequence was that God took away it’s
protective hedge, broke down it’s walls and left it unprotected. Wild animals came in and trampled it down and
ultimately destroyed it. It was no
longer tended and it turned into a wasteland!
God said He looked for justice but saw
bloodshed. He looked for righteousness
and heard cries of distress.
The prophet Israel was picturing the
children of Israel – but today we know that God was describing the Christian
Church – we have been given a most wonderful vineyard and we have looked to our
own needs – our own families, our own careers, our own finances and produced
what could be characterized as less than succulent fruit in all cases.
We’ve largely forgotten that we’re not a bunch of
individuals but citizens of the Kingdom of God with the calling to tend God’s
creation which begins with our own families, extends to unbelieving neighbors
and then on to all of God’s physical creation!
Today God is calling
us back to our first calling – to be good stewards of His Creation!
What we saw in the reading from Isaiah was that God GAVE THE PEOPLE OVER TO THE DESIRES OF THEIR OWN
HEARTS and that lead ultimately to a wasteland.
Our desires for ourselves will always lead
us to places of aridity – a desert – the desert of our own hearts absent God’s
Presence!
Our Psalm Reading hauntingly
echoes the reminder:
“The vineyard of the Lord is the House of
Israel” or in our case “The vineyard of the Lord is His Church”
We, God’s followers, are His vineyard!
In this Psalm we’re shown crying out to God
to restore our walls - to return and restore our fruitfulness! To bring revival – to return the Church to
it’s true place of authority!
How far we have fallen from this high position all over the world!
This vineyard theme is echoed again in the Gospel
reading from Matthew.
In this parable Jesus reminds us that God sent
numerous prophets to call us back but we cast them out and even killed
them. We even killed His Son, Jesus,
when God, the Father, sent Him to restore our fruitfulness!
We killed the very key to our salvation!
All of these readings are replete with
God’s indictment upon us – an indictment we deserve. Is there any doubt that we deserve God’s
judgment?
Now let me return us briefly to my opening
questions – does anyone remember them:
Imagine that there was some sort of holograph
floating over your head that “told the truth” about you. It’s what God sees when He looks at you and
me!
Try to imagine what sort of person others would see. In other words, how would you look to others?
How would you like that? How would you like me and others to see you
as you really are?
Is your fundamental disposition open-hearted and
gracious or is it a bit petty sometimes -
a bit cold and and nasty?
Are you and
I pictures of good stewards who faithfully and lovingly tend the vineyard of
God’s creation?
On a scale of 1 to 10 of good stewardship
where would you place yourself?
But God will never leave us there?
He hears our cry – O Lord, restore our walls – erect you watchtower
again and protect us from the marauding seductions of our materialistic world!
Restore your winepress and help us to nurture those around us and
harvest them as a offering to you!
And to our cry God responds in His Holy Word
with these suggestions – turn with me please to our Epistle reading from St.
Paul’s letter to the Philippians chapter 4 beginning at verse 6:
Phil. 4:6 ¶ Don’t fret or worry. Instead of worrying, pray. Let petitions and praises shape your worries into prayers, letting God
know your concerns.
Phil. 4:7 Before you know it, a sense of God’s wholeness, everything coming
together for good, will come and settle you down. It’s wonderful what happens
when Christ displaces worry at the center of your life.
Phil. 4:8 ¶ Summing it all up, friends, I’d say you’ll do best by filling your
minds and meditating on things true, noble,
reputable, authentic, compelling, gracious—the best,
not the worst; the beautiful, not the ugly; things to praise, not things to
curse.
Phil. 4:9 Put into practice what you learned from me, what you heard and saw and
realized. Do that, and God, who makes everything work together, will work you
into his most excellent harmonies.
These verses tell us what the mind of the Good Steward – the true
Christian looks like. This is the mind
of the Good Steward!
Going back to my opening questions about how you and I really
are – these words of Scripture paint a very different and most charming picture
of what we, you and I, were created to look like – to be like.
These verses describe the “Us” that God is calling us to be –
to become – to enter into!
These words from Philippians describe us! This is who we actually are when we’re
ourselves! This is what Christ saved us for!
Please join with me in looking briefly at these words:
Don’t fret or worry. Instead of worrying, pray.
We’re supposed to pray instead of worry.
Do we do this or instead do we obsess over our worries and concerns and
miss out on taking these worries and concerns to the Great Steward sitting in
His watchtower waiting for our requests
Reading on:
Let petitions and praises shape your worries into
prayers, letting God know your concerns.
Phil. 4:7 Before you know it, a sense of God’s wholeness, everything coming together
for good, will come and settle you down. It’s wonderful what happens when
Christ displaces worry at the center of your life.
Have any of us
ever experienced this? Have you
experienced how liberating it is to welcome Christ – the Good Steward – into
our worries and concerns and “walla” He settles us down and displaces the “worry”
at the center of our lives with His loving Presence – with His encouragement –
with His peace!
Have you ever experienced
this? If not He’s inviting you to do
this!
Reading on:
Phil. 4:8 ¶ Summing it all up, friends,
I’d say you’ll do best by filling your minds and meditating on things true,
noble, reputable, authentic, compelling, gracious—the best, not the worst; the
beautiful, not the ugly; things to praise, not things to curse.
Jesus is
challenging us to fill our minds with things that are true, with things that
are:
· noble –
· honorable,
· principled,
· moral,
· descent,
· upright,
· gallant,
· polite,
· self-sacrificing,
· magnanimous,
· virtuous and just!
To think
graciously about our challenges – to find the best and most honorable
resolutions.
St. Paul concludes with this
magnificent promise:
Do that, and God, who makes
everything work together for your good, will work you into his most excellent harmonies!”
Now let’s actually do this right
now.
Please bring to mind something
that has been troubling you.
Here are some examples:
·
A troubling work environment – perhaps someone
is taunting you and doing everything they possibly can to destroy your peace in
the workplace.
·
Your friend or spouse hasn’t been attentive to you
and you’ve begun to allow dark and angry thoughts to arise in your mind about
them.
·
Perhaps
your relationship with your spouse or
friend has become casual and careless – you
find yourself looking for attention and love from others.
·
You’re finances are in a shambles and you find
yourself haunted but thoughts of abandonment and even homelessness!
·
Perhaps your health is less than good and you find
yourself repeatedly imagining yourself becoming an invalid - increasingly
dependent upon caregivers.
·
Perhaps
you see your aging body and the spectra of
your own death haunts you.
·
Perhaps
you have a secret thought life that if
those around you knew about you would be disgraced and you now have a growing
fear that you’re about to be exposed for the person you really are . . .
I could go on but I hope that I have
touched some nerve to make the point that we all tend to brood over our dark thoughts
and what God is reminding us this morning is to invite Him in and with Him to
look with the eyes of love and hope and faith at our lives – our life
situations - and to consciously introduce thoughts
·
that
bring nobility into our imaginings.
·
Thoughts
that bring hope into our imaginings – hope and then faith that, by God’s
intervention, things are going to change.
·
Faith and
an empowering hope that you can change what once seemed a hopeless situation.
·
God is
calling you and me to hit “reset” and reimagine the troubling situation you
find yourself in.
Now hold that troubling situation in front
of you – look at it squarely and ask yourself this question – how is Jesus
looking at this right now with me? What
does He want me to do to take this whole situation to a new realm – a realm
where nobility can operate.
How by the grace
of God can I bring honor into this situation?
What could I do to restore Heaven’s morality into this situation?
What descent thing
could I think and do? What would
civility do if introduced into this situation.
What sacrifice is
God asking of me in this situation?
How could I bring
magnanimity into this situation?
And when all is said and done what Lord are
you desiring in this situation.
Let us close now with a prayer that this
change will become active in our personal lives from this day onwards.
Let’s pray . . .
