Matthew 21:33-46 “Our Vineyard”
In April of this year, National Geographic published a “flip” issue of their magazine — basically, two issues in one — to explore two starkly different futures for our planet. One half of the magazine presented the worst case scenario: what Planet Earth will look like in fifty years if we do nothing substantive about climate change. The writer described a grim, dangerous world of mass extinctions, searing forest fires, deadly heat waves, fierce storms, and widespread suffering for the human race.
The other half portrayed a more hopeful, verdant vision: what Planet Earth could look like in fifty years if we harness our time, ingenuity, resources, and technology now to undo at least some of the damage we have already done. In this scenario, we would find sustainable ways to feed ourselves. We’d clean up our oceans, rivers, and lakes. We’d provide carbon-neutral energy for all. We’d reimagine our homes, streets, cities, and corporations in light of the most pressing needs of the environment. We’d begin to reverse climate change, and prevent many, if not most extinctions.
“It’s impossible to know who is right,” Susan Goldberg wrote about the two contrasting visions in her Editor’s Note for the issue. Everything will depend on the decisions we make in the coming days, weeks, months, years, and decades.
In our Gospel reading this week, Jesus tells the chief priest and elders a parable about some tenants who make ghastly decisions — decisions rooted in greed, arrogance, disrespect, and selfishness. A landowner, Jesus says, lovingly planted a vineyard, leased it to some tenants, and traveled to another country. When harvest time came, the landowner sent his servants to the vineyard to collect his share of the produce. But the tenants seized the servants. They beat one, killed another, and stoned the third.
In response, the landowner sent a second group of servants to the vineyard — but the tenants killed them as well. Finally, the landowner decided to send his own son into the fray to reason with the tenants. Surely, the landowner thought, “they will respect my son.”
They did not. When the tenants saw the heir of the vineyard approaching, they hatched a plan to murder him and claim his inheritance. So they seized the son, threw him out of the vineyard, and took his life.
Jesus concludes the parable with a question for the chief priests and the elders: “When the landowner returns to his vineyard, what will he do to those tenants?”
I know that “The Parable of the Wicked Tenants,” (as this story is popularly called), isn’t straightforwardly about climate change or the environment. Jesus tells this particular story to indict the religious leaders of his day for exploiting and mistreating God’s people — the people of Israel, God’s “vineyard.” The parable is meant to expose the corruption of the religious elite, and condemn their obsessions with privilege and power. Through the pointed story of the vineyard, Jesus implies that the chief priests and elders are like the wicked tenants. They abuse their authority, dishonor God’s house, and mistreat both God’s messengers – the Prophets and God’s son – Jesus.
At the heart of this parable, though, is a distinction that I think speaks very pointedly to our current environmental crisis. What the tenants in the story neglect to understand — or very deliberately choose to ignore — is that they are stewards rather than owners of the vineyard. When the landowner asks for his rightful share of the harvest, the tenants take offense. As if the vineyard belongs to them, and it is the landowner who is in the wrong for making a claim on the land at all. Somewhere along the way, the tenants have forgotten their place. Their vocation. Their standing in relationship to both the land and the landowner. To put it bluntly, they have forgotten that they own nothing — nothing at all. Everything belongs to the landowner. Theirs is not a vocation of ownership; it is a vocation of caring, tending, safeguarding, cultivating, and protecting — on behalf of another.
It’s worth noting here that Jesus does not describe the evildoers in the story as thieves or marauders. They are not outsiders — they are the landowner’s trusted tenants. He chose them, and granted them creative license to steward the vineyard for the benefit of all. How much more tragic, then, when they abuse the landowner’s trust so cruelly.
The analogy I’m drawing is of course obvious. Have we not, like the tenants in the parable, deluded ourselves into thinking that we “own” the earth and all that is in it, when in fact, we are meant to be stewards only? Have we not, like the tenants, assumed that God is absent, or apathetic, or uninvolved — and hoarded the beauty and bounty of creation for our own selfish ease, gain, comfort, and convenience? Have we not, like the tenants, ignored and even maligned the countless messengers who have warned us over the past many years that our greedy relationship with the planet will lead us to destruction?
The truth is, we humans crave ownership. We like possessing things. We like controlling things. We like believing that things exist primarily to please, feed, entertain, soothe, empower, and protect us. We are “rent-to-own” folks by both temperament and preference, and the idea that we don’t in fact own anything deeply offends us.
This is the case even when creation itself exposes the ridiculousness of our stingy notions of ownership. I have seen news stories about people actually going to court because they want to “own” their view — meaning, the narrow slice of Pacific Ocean visible outside their living room windows. I’ve seen neighbors fighting over who “owns” the 500-year-old redwood tree on the border between their properties. What does it mean to own the sea? What does it mean to own a tree that existed before your great-grandparents were even born? A tree that will outlast your great-grandchildren by another several centuries?
When it comes to the planet, the bottom line is crystal clear in Scripture: we are NOT owners. We are caretakers of a vineyard God cares about deeply, a vineyard that will not thrive or even survive if we continue to treat it as a cheap, inexhaustible commodity. One need only glance at environmental news headlines — “8.8 million tons of plastic waste enter the ocean each year,” “A quarter of all mammals are currently threatened with extinction,” “Sea levels will rise by 1 to 8 feet by 2100,” to recognize how precarious our situation really is.
I want very much to believe in the optimistic half of National Geographic’s April magazine. As a Christian, I do believe that the earth will be renewed and restored. That somehow, God’s coming kingdom will bring healing to all — even to all of creation.
But I don’t for one minute believe that we — the stewards — are somehow off the hook because the landowner will ultimately reclaim his vineyard. Our vocation is lifelong, and our relationship to the landowner is eternal. Unfortunately, reclaiming the vineyard will always meet with opposition from those who have a vested interest in keeping the vineyard broken. So our calling isn’t even close to over. When we hoard, exploit, abuse, or ignore the work of God’s hands, we wound and reject God’s heart.
My Beloved Community, it’s not my usual practice to ask you to “please take action.” At the risk of being too forward, I want to make an exception this week. Find ways to get active in the fight against climate change if you are not already. And if you are, re-double your efforts. Do this as a group or individually, together with your neighbors and alongside strangers.
If nothing else this week, just sit with the possibility that we own nothing — not this planet, not our ministries, not our churches, not even our own lives. All of it is God’s, and all of it is precious beyond reckoning. But the fact that God trusts us to steward any of it? Us? That is pure miracle.
Let us pray…
Creator God,
As we feast our eyes on autumn reds and yellows,
we sense your creative power.
As we marvel at the uniqueness of each winter flake,
we rejoice that you know us each by name.
As we hear the songs of birds of spring,
we yearn to sing your praises.
As we breathe the delicious scents of summer flowers,
our souls rest in your love.
Forgiving God,
We have not lived out our responsibility to be
faithful stewards of creation.
For this, we seek your pardon.
Our over-consumption has impacted the poorest
members of our human family most of all.
For this, we ask your mercy.
Our actions have endangered both the lives of our
children today as well as those yet to be born.
For this, we seek your forgiveness.
Living God,
As we meet you in nature,
inspire us to see anew our place in the web of life.
In our daily lives,
help us to make daily choices that reflect global solidarity.
As we reflect on the teaching of our faith,
equip us to advocate for laws and policies that
reflect your call to faithful stewardship.
We pray this in the name of Jesus Christ who taught us to pray together by saying…
Our Father…