Today in the Spirit: Proper 22A
The intensity level of the conflict between Jesus and the religious leaders of Jerusalem reaches its highest pitch in the last days before our Lord’s death. At Proper 22A, the church assigns the second of three parables in Matthew addressed to the priests and elders of the city.
Spoken right after the parable of the two sons assigned last Sunday, the parable of the wicked tenants in Matthew 21:33-44 makes explicit God’s condemnation of the unbelieving teachers of the law, with Jesus stating bluntly that, like the evil tenants in the parable, “Therefore I tell you, the kingdom of God will be taken away from you and given to a people producing its fruits (43).”
Sponsored
It’s all vines and vineyards in the supporting readings appointed to accompany this parable. The OT reading out of Isaiah 5:1-7 is often called the song of the vineyard, expressing the love of YHWH for his vineyard Israel which he himself has established and cultivated: “What more was there to do for my vineyard, that I have not done in it? When I looked for it to yield grapes, why did it yield wild grapes?” (4).
The assigned Psalm 80 may have been composed as a lament of the people of Judah for their kin in the northern tribes of Israel, overrun by the Assyrians. Far from gloating, the Judeans recognize their own guilt and danger before the judgment seat of God. Having heard the harsh language of the Isaiah reading in our worship, we will likewise recognize our need of repentance as a church before a holy God, joining the psalm’s refrain to YHWH elohim tsevaot (“O LORD God of Hosts”) “Restore us again…show the light of your countenance, and we shall be whole” (3,7,19).
The three-year Sunday lectionary assigns multiple readings from Philippians 3, Paul’s autobiographical section of the letter (Last Epiphany A, Proper 22A, Lent 2C, Lent 5C). As part of the Year A series from this epistle, this week’s assigned text is Philippians 3:14-21. In contrast to the circumcisers who put “confidence in the flesh” (see 3:2f), Paul declares he has put his whole trust in Christ Jesus. “I press on toward the goal for the prize of the upward call of God in Christ Jesus” (14).
The assigned collect, translated by Thomas Cranmer from Western Catholic sources, is restored in the BCP 2019 to its original form. (The BCP 1979 changes it considerably). Cranmer’s expanded reference to “your household the Church” emphasizes the cumulative corporate production of “good works” to glorify God.
The Collect
Keep, O Lord, your household the Church in continual godliness, that through your protection it may be free from all adversities, and devoutly serve you in good works, to the glory of your Name; through Jesus Christ our Lord, who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, now and for ever. Amen.
He Looked for It to Yield Grapes (Isaiah 5:1-7)
1 Let me sing for my beloved
Isaiah 5:1-7
my love song concerning his vineyard:
My beloved had a vineyard
on a very fertile hill.
2 He dug it and cleared it of stones,
and planted it with choice vines;
he built a watchtower in the midst of it,
and hewed out a wine vat in it;
and he looked for it to yield grapes,
but it yielded wild grapes.
3 And now, O inhabitants of Jerusalem
and men of Judah,
judge between me and my vineyard.
4 What more was there to do for my vineyard,
that I have not done in it?
When I looked for it to yield grapes,
why did it yield wild grapes?
5 And now I will tell you
what I will do to my vineyard.
I will remove its hedge,
and it shall be devoured;
I will break down its wall,
and it shall be trampled down.
6 I will make it a waste;
it shall not be pruned or hoed,
and briers and thorns shall grow up;
I will also command the clouds
that they rain no rain upon it.
7 For the vineyard of the Lord of hosts
is the house of Israel,
and the men of Judah
are his pleasant planting;
and he looked for justice,
but behold, bloodshed;
for righteousness,
but behold, an outcry!
This little “love song” (1), which seems to drop from the air into the harsher opening chapters of Isaiah, clearly inspired Jesus’ parable of the wicked tenants, our assigned Gospel reading. In the opening, “Let me sing” (1), the “me” is Isaiah himself. However, as the poem develops, the prophet cites the words of YHWH (note: most English translations, but not ESV, have quotation marks around verses 3-6). We overhear the exasperation in the voices of both YHWH and Isaiah. They love “the vineyard” Israel but despise what has happened to it as a result of the people’s rebellious spirit and idolatrous practices: “What more was there to do for my vineyard, that I have not done in it? When I looked for it to yield grapes, why did it yield wild grapes?” (4).
Devotionally, we need to permit the divine frustration of this lament to sink into our inner parts, both as individual Christians and as church communities. It is true: we, the “Israel of God” (Gal. 6:16), are in a favored position over Isaiah’s “Israel.” We enjoy the benefits of Jesus’ ministry of forgiveness on the cross and new life from the Holy Spirit. With fresh kingdom air, our Lord breathes on the apostles (and by extension all of us), saying, “Receive the Holy Spirit” (John 20:22). And yet, we know, as in this passage, God continually searches for good fruit in us and finds, despite every advantage, still an abundance of the bad.
Today, in the Spirit, we absorb this reading from Isaiah together with Jesus’ parable; with, yes, assurance that the cross brings healing, but also with humility to note the exasperation of God looking for evidence of all things new.
Restore Us O God (Psalm 80:(1-6)7-19)
[1 Hear, O Shepherd of Israel, you that lead Joseph like a sheep; *
Psalm 80:1-19, New Coverdale Psalter (BCP 2019)
show yourself also, you that sit upon the cherubim.
2 Before Ephraim, Benjamin, and Manasseh, *
stir up your strength and come to help us.
3 Restore us again, O God; *
show the light of your countenance, and we shall be whole.
4 O LORD God of hosts, *
how long will you be angry with your people that pray?
5 You feed them with the bread of tears *
and give them plenteous tears to drink.
6 You have made us the derision of our neighbors, *
and our enemies laugh us to scorn.]
7 Restore us again, O God of hosts; *
show the light of your countenance, and we shall be whole.
8 You have brought a vine out of Egypt; *
you have cast out the nations and planted it.
9 You made room for it, *
and when it had taken root, it filled the land.
10 The hills were covered with the shadow of it, *
and the boughs thereof were like the mighty cedar trees.
11 It stretched out its branches to the sea *
and its boughs to the river.
12 Why have you broken down its hedge, *
so that all those who go by pluck off its grapes?
13 The wild boar out of the wood roots it up,
* and the wild beasts of the field devour it.
14 Turn again, O God of hosts, look down from heaven; *
behold, and visit this vine,
15 And the place of the vineyard that your right hand has planted, *
and the branch that you made so strong for yourself.
16 As for those who burn it with fire and cut it down, *
let them perish at the rebuke of your countenance.
17 Let your hand be upon the man of your right hand *
and upon the son of man, whom you made so strong for yourself.
18 And so we will not turn back from you; *
O let us live, and we shall call upon your Name.
19 Restore us again, O LORD God of hosts; *
show the light of your countenance, and we shall be whole.
The vineyard imagery in the Gospel parable is prefigured in the reading from Isaiah and this psalm. One feature of this lament is the intense focus on the community–the nation of Israel as the chosen people of God. We note there is no “I” in this psalm, just “us”: “Restore us” is the cry in the refrain of the song (3,7,14,19). The call to God grows in form and intensity from “O God” (3) to “O God of hosts” (7) to “O LORD God of hosts” (14). This shows increased longing for dependence on God as the song moves forward, not only asking for God’s power but appealing to his covenant love sealed by the revelation of his name, YHWH. It is a community plea for restoration.
Devotionally, the strong emphasis on the sacred “us” shows how easily we can get stuck in the solitary “I.” We become too content when things go well for us personally, and too downhearted when they do not. Overly concerned with self-image and self-fulfillment, often without realizing it, we grow idle with respect to our gospel commissioning to the world–the image of ourselves filling the space of our mirrors so there is room for neither God nor the community in the image reflected back.
In The Four Loves, C. S. Lewis writes, “It is easy to acknowledge, but almost impossible to realize for long, that we are mirrors whose brightness, if we are bright, is wholly derived from the sun that shines upon us.” So we can either be a mirror of God or just look into a mirror. Better to be, like this psalmist, one reflecting God in his joy and pain over the world around us. The “psalmist” Lewis refers to here is the author of Psalm 80.
Today, in the Spirit, we hear the voice of the people of God in the psalm, asking to be lifted out of the stupor of too much contemplation of ourselves and our circumstances. Give us hearts to cry out with all the people of God, “Restore us again, O LORD God of hosts; show the light of your countenance, and we shall be whole” (19).
I Press On (Philippians 3:14-21)
14 I press on toward the goal for the prize of the upward call of God in Christ Jesus. 15 Let those of us who are mature think this way, and if in anything you think otherwise, God will reveal that also to you. 16 Only let us hold true to what we have attained. 17 Brothers, join in imitating me, and keep your eyes on those who walk according to the example you have in us. 18 For many, of whom I have often told you and now tell you even with tears, walk as enemies of the cross of Christ. 19 Their end is destruction, their god is their belly, and they glory in their shame, with minds set on earthly things. 20 But our citizenship is in heaven, and from it we await a Savior, the Lord Jesus Christ, 21 who will transform our lowly body to be like his glorious body, by the power that enables him even to subject all things to himself.
Pilippians 3:14-21
Or, “I strive toward the prize of the upward call of God in Christ Jesus” (14, NET). The Greek word diōkō, translated as “I press on” or “I strive” (1) in many English Bible translations, expresses rabid focus on any enterprise in view. It can also mean a fanatic or a persecutor. (In fact, the noun form of this Greek verb Paul uses earlier in the chapter to describe himself as “a persecutor” of the church (v. 6)). Paul uses the verb twice in this section of the epistle to communicate his intense attention to two things: 1) to “know Christ” in his mortal life (vv. 10-11); and in our passage 2) to “receive the prize of the upward call of God in Christ Jesus,” victory after death.
A devotional question might be: what, if anything, are you “pressing on” toward? Many of us prefer to think it is good and healthy to avoid “fanaticism” in any area. Okay, we can agree that any passion that causes us to act out in behavioral extremes and damn the consequences is good to avoid; but what about those “goals” (to use Paul’s word in the passage) to which we are secretly zealous but do not care to admit to? Some of them, like financial wealth or career promotions or even family happiness taken to the extremes, are quiet passions that are culturally acceptable, but not godly. Watch out, beloved, for striving zealously toward what is less than Christ; also for that lukewarm, subterranean passion for Christ that yields just enough spiritual impulse to feel satisfied with your Christian walk, even though Christ in you may desire to burst out of you with much more. Does not Jesus say, “But seek first the kingdom of God and his righteousness, and all these things will be added to you” (Matthew 6:33)? And did we not hear from Paul in Romans just weeks ago using more fervent language, “Love one another with brotherly affection. Outdo one another in showing honor. Do not be slothful in zeal, be fervent in spirit, serve the Lord” (Romans 12:10-11).
Today, Holy Spirit, let me do nothing more to shield myself from Paul’s zeal to “press on” toward knowing you and being with you forever.
Come, Let Us Kill Him (Matthew 21:33-44)
33 “Hear another parable. There was a master of a house who planted a vineyard and put a fence around it and dug a winepress in it and built a tower and leased it to tenants, and went into another country. 34 When the season for fruit drew near, he sent his servants to the tenants to get his fruit. 35 And the tenants took his servants and beat one, killed another, and stoned another. 36 Again he sent other servants, more than the first. And they did the same to them. 37 Finally he sent his son to them, saying, ‘They will respect my son.’ 38 But when the tenants saw the son, they said to themselves, ‘This is the heir. Come, let us kill him and have his inheritance.’ 39 And they took him and threw him out of the vineyard and killed him. 40 When therefore the owner of the vineyard comes, what will he do to those tenants?” 41 They said to him, “He will put those wretches to a miserable death and let out the vineyard to other tenants who will give him the fruits in their seasons.” 42 Jesus said to them, “Have you never read in the Scriptures:
Matthew 21:33-44
“‘The stone that the builders rejected
has become the cornerstone;
this was the Lord’s doing,
and it is marvelous in our eyes’?
43 Therefore I tell you, the kingdom of God will be taken away from you and given to a people producing its fruits. 44 And the one who falls on this stone will be broken to pieces; and when it falls on anyone, it will crush him.”
If the earlier parables of Jesus are hiding “the secrets of the kingdom of heaven” (Mt. 13:11) from his listeners, the three in this section of Matthew (21:28-22:14), our Gospel readings for three weeks running, do not. The religious leaders listening to Jesus easily comprehend that he is speaking doom to them for their long disobedience to the prophets (see 45-46), and especially for the execution of the Son of God which they are about to arrange. Unlike Mark and Luke, Matthew even adds Jesus’ explicit prophecy that they will be cast out of “the kingdom of God” (vv. 43-44).
In the case of the parable of the wicked tenants, it may be harder for Christians to tease out devotional value. What can possibly be added to our growth in the Lord as believers from a story explicitly about the judgment against those who refuse to believe? One thing is perhaps the implied warning about the dynamic of smaller disobedience leading to bigger. The wicked tenants in the parable clearly gain confidence as they act out, while the master’s servants keep coming (and we note in Matthew’s version that “servants” are dispatched in greater numbers). Their crazed optimism about succeeding in their plot to usurp the son’s place grows as their cruel treatment of the servants goes unanswered.
This concept of compounding evil may be exactly what Jesus refers to in his cryptic warning to the disciples: “Beware of the leaven of the Pharisees.” Seed-like “hypocrisy,” Jesus explains in Luke, “secret” though it may be at first, will come to light (see Luke 12:1-3). Similarly, James teaches on the development of temptation leading to death, as it did for the wicked tenants in the parable: “Let no one say when he is tempted, ‘I am being tempted by God,’ for God cannot be tempted with evil, and he himself tempts no one. But each person is tempted when he is lured and enticed by his own desire. Then desire, when it has conceived, gives birth to sin, and sin, when it is fully grown, brings forth death.” (Ja. 1:13-15).
Today, in the Spirit, we see in the parable of the wicked tenants that Jesus himself will be “the stumbling block” to the faithless Pharisees of Israel. Let us take warning of the reality that smaller sin can grow in us and, if we are not careful, become highly destructive.
Today in the Spirit
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