Text: Matthew 21:33-43, Isaiah 5:1-7                                                              W 20^th Sunday after Pentecost

More Sour Grapes and Some Sassy Raspberries

            In the name of our Savior who has made us citizens of heaven, dear friends in Christ:  If this morning’s sermon title, “sour grapes and sassy raspberries”, piqued your curiosity a bit, then I succeeded in my goal. What could a sermon called that possibly be about?  Though I suppose it could be, it’s not meant to be part of a list of ingredients for a dessert recipe I plan to share with you – a dessert that you’d probably prefer to pass on anyway, by the sound of it.  No, it really does have to do with this morning’s Scripture readings.  If you were here for worship last week, you may remember that we looked at a text that included an old Hebrew proverb that had to do with sour grapes.  When the proverb was used, it was meant as a complaint, the thrust of which was: “Somebody else ate the sour grapes, but the bad taste was left in my mouth”.  It was a colorful way to say, “I’m having to pay the price for somebody else’s sin.”  The trouble was that the Lord was angry with the people who were saying it.  He was telling them that they weren’t being honest. He was saying, “Don’t give me that line about sour grapes.  I’m not punishing you for other people’s failures.  No, if you’re feeling the heat, it’s because of your own sin.  I want you to repent.”  So the complaint about sour grapes was a sort of ethical escape hatch for the people, a way to avoid having to take a good hard look at themselves.  By blaming their unhappy circumstances on the sins of others, they were blinding themselves to their own faults that the Lord dearly wanted them to see.   And expanding on the idea a bit, I borrowed their use of sour grapes to stand for any excuse, or dodge, or fancy footwork, or any other method we might use to avoid taking responsibility for our sinful actions and thereby bypass our need for repentance.

            And that just fits in so nicely with today’s Old Testament lesson.  There we find the Lord describing the painstaking care he lavished on the creation of a certain vineyard.  The passage describes a true labor of love.  The stress is on how he spared no expense choosing superior vines and planting them on the best ground possible:  rich, fertile soil on a hillside in order to maximize light exposure and keep the roots well drained.  He goes on to say how he removed the stones that might inhibit growth, and how he built a hedge and wall to protect the vines from livestock and deer that might want to graze, and also a watchtower in which to place guards when the grapes were turning ripe to prevent thieves from stealing the precious fruit.  He did everything he could for his vineyard, and for his efforts he had every reason to expect that his work would be rewarded – that he’d get the good fruit he wanted.  But it didn’t turn out that way.  Despite all his loving care the vineyard only produced lousy, unusable, sour grapes.

What’s he talking about?  It’s a parable of nation of Israel – and therefore also, potentially at least, a parable of what the nation of Israel foreshadowed: namely, the Church of Jesus Christ.  In the Old Testament context, the Lord is describing how he took the people of Israel from slavery in Egypt and planted them in the “land flowing with milk and honey”. But he did more than give them a place to live.  He gave them himself:  his abiding presence to protect, guide, and sustain them.  And so that he could dwell with them, he gave them the whole system of Old Testament worship that proclaimed his forgiveness of their sins through the sacrifices he prescribed.  These bloody sacrifices were to be the constant visual reminders that the holy God cannot abide with sinful man, that justice demands a price be paid – the price of death; but that in his mercy and love for his people, the Lord accepted a substitute:  animals to die for the sins of his people.  So, as they offered these sacrifices, what he really wanted them to do was focus on the terrible guilt of their sins.  He wanted them to repent and come to him with broken spirits and contrite hearts – that was the fruit he sought from his vineyard.  He wanted the fruits of repentance precisely so that they could then appreciate and live within the wonder and power of his forgiving love.

But that’s not what he got.  Instead, his people didn’t want to think about their sins; that was too painful, too self-deprecating.  What they wanted to do was to see themselves as worthy of the Lord’s favor.  They set out with good intentions to please the Lord with their actions.  Instead of thinking of the sacrifices they brought as blood offerings to atone for their sins, they thought of them as more of the good works they were doing to fulfill the requirements of God’s law.  Instead of coming to him thinking, “Lord, I’m guilty and without excuse, I deserve to die for my sins.  Thank you for taking the life of this lamb in my place.”  They came thinking, “Look, Lord, at the fine lamb I brought for you today. I chose it myself—and paid a lot of money for it.  I know you’ll be pleased.”  Now, either way, it was the same act of worship that the Lord required, to bring lambs for sacrifice; but what made all the difference was the attitude of the hearts of those bringing the offerings.  To use the vineyard metaphor, the fruit was there.  They looked like the kind of grapes the Lord wanted; but instead of containing the sweet taste of repentance he sought, he found their fruit full of the unacceptable sourness of human self-righteousness.

            Now, you probably noticed how nicely that Old Testament parable dovetails with today’s Gospel lesson:  the parable Jesus tells about a vineyard.  It’s essentially the same story; but this one highlights the responsibility of the tenants who are supposed to care for the vineyard while the owner is away.  At harvest time, the owner sends his servants to collect his share of the harvest – and now we know what he’s looking for; but his tenants refuse to give it to him. They are in open rebellion against the owner.  And it’s here that my other fruit reference in the sermon title comes in.  Instead of getting the grapes of repentance he wants, now all the owner gets is the raspberries – and I think you know what I mean. Actually, the tenants are a lot more disrespectful than that.  They don’t just insult the messengers sent from the owner, they also beat, abuse, and kill them.  Again, it’s a description of how Israel treated the prophets the Lord sent to put the nation back on track when they strayed.  The consistent message of these prophets was to call the nation of Israel to repentance.  They pointed out the people’s many sins and said, “Come, let’s return to the Lord. He will forgive.”  But the people replied, “What do you mean, ‘Return to the Lord’?  We never left him.  No, we’re his good and faithful people.  We work hard to please him.  What’s he gonna forgive?”  The prophets persisted in their message, and that angered the people. They didn’t like having their sins pointed out.  It made them feel bad.  And they didn’t like feeling bad, so they struck out against the messengers.  They struck out even to the point of killing the vineyard owner’s son thinking that by doing so, they would silence the owner for good and become themselves the heirs and owners of the vineyard.

            There is an eerie similarity in the conclusion to the two parables in today’s readings.  In both stories, eventually it comes to the point when the owner, disgusted and angered because he consistently fails to receive the fruit he seeks, gives up.  In the first story he lets the vineyard go wild.  He tears down the protective barriers he built for it and allows the vineyard to overgrow with briers and brambles.  He even commands the rain to stop falling on the ground, making it into a desert.  In the second story, he slaughters the rebellious tenants and gives the vineyard to other tenants, tenants who will – if they learned the lesson the first failed to learn – strive to give the owner the fruit he seeks.

            Again, it’s all a description of what happened to the people of Israel.  Because they refused to give the Lord the fruit he sought, he withdrew his protection and his presence from them.  And so it is even today that the Jewish people seek to earn God’s favor with their good works and their obedience to his law, thus depriving themselves of the sin-cleansing, life-giving water of Christ and his Gospel of grace.  Their faith is a desert that can only lead them to a wretched end.  And the new tenants?  Well, that would be us.  We are the ones in the vineyard of God’s grace now.  The question is, “Will we produce the fruit the Lord seeks?  Will we give him what he wants?”   

            I know we’re practically talking about ancient history here, but you may remember how two weeks back, I preached a message about how our natural, common sense doesn’t get us very far in the kingdom of God. This is really part of the problem. We think we know what the Lord wants from us, what fruit he is seeking, be it our obedience, or praise, our time, whatever; and for the most part, we’re wrong.  What is it that the Lord seeks from his people?  Broken and contrite hearts that grieve over sin, desire to change, and trust the Gospel of his grace to us in Christ Jesus.  That’s it.  And the natural, common sense response to that is, “No, it can’t be that simple.  There must be something I can do.  Surely the Lord expects more than that.”  The other day on the radio I heard a preacher say, “Jesus can be your Savior from sin, but until you make him the Lord of your life, you’re really not a Christian.” He was saying that repentance for sin and faith in the Gospel isn’t really what the Lord wants of you. That’s only a bridge to get you to what he really wants, which is your obedience and your commitment to him as a leader – that’s where real Christianity begins; or so he said.

            And that is the same mistake the Jews made.  As soon as we stop searching out our sin and repenting, we start counting on our positive contributions and relying on our own goodness.  In the process, we actually make ourselves enemies of the cross of Christ.  And in so doing, we put ourselves at risk of losing the vineyard of the Lord just like the Jews did.  I used this illustration some time ago, but it fits so well; and it may help explain how it happens that the vineyard is lost.  The story is told of a faithful congregation that built a church in which to worship.  It was a fairly humble, unpretentious little chapel; but there was an atmosphere of sincerity about the place.  It was reverential.  Over the front door, carved on the limestone arch, was this inscription:  “We Preach Christ Crucified.”  And they did.  In this little church the law of God was preached in all its terrifying fury so that sinners were shaken and driven for refuge to the cross of Christ.  And to help the people really understand the cross, above the altar was a near life sized crucifix.  The image of Jesus on this cross was quite moving.  Painted blood streamed down the outstretched arms. The head, crowned with thorns, was raised in an upward gaze of desperate agony:  eyes pleading to heaven and the mouth open as if to cry out, “Why have you forsaken me?”  It was hard to look at that image and not be moved to tears.  But here the congregation heard the wonderful news that the Lord Jesus died to save them.   Here they heard how they had been washed in his blood that atoned for their sins. Here their hungry souls were fed with his body and blood given for them for their forgiveness.  And here the Spirit of God worked through these means to produce strong faith, and hearts full of thankfulness and praise for their deliverance.  And so it was in this little church for many years.

            But slowly, almost imperceptibly over a period of time, vines of ivy growing on the front the building covered up the last word of the inscription, so that now it read “We preach Christ”.  No one seemed to notice or care, because it happened that the people had grown weary of always hearing about what sinners they were, how they were to repent, and how they needed to rely on God’s grace in Christ. All that talk of an angry God demanding bloody sacrifices was offensive to their modern sensibilities.  When they heard such talk, they protested, “We’re Christians!  Why do you keep talking to us like we’re a bunch of sinners?  We’re way past all that judgment stuff.  We’ve already been saved.  It’s time to move on.  Now we want to hear how to live the Christian life.  We want to be taught to be Christ-like:  to be loving, kind, and accepting as he was.  We want to move up to the next level of discipleship.”  They took down the unpleasant image of Jesus on the cross, saying, “We want to be reminded of Christ’s victory over sin, not his death.  We want to live in victory.”  When it came time to call a new pastor, they made sure to get someone more positive and reinforcing, who would challenge them to get involved in community and global projects.  They wanted someone who would ask, “What would Jesus do?” and then organize them to do it.  And they changed the way they worshipped.  Gone were all those depressing confessions, creeds, and Psalms.  Worship had to be “uplifting”.  It had to be about praising God – not as a spontaneous response to the gifts of salvation – but for its own sake:  because God demands our praise, and we owe it to him.

            Well, eventually the ivy, which was growing much faster now, grew over the next to the last word, so that the inscription read just:  “We Preach”. And they did.  They preached about the goodness of God and the brotherhood of man. They preached about how wrong it was to condemn anyone or anything.  They preached about how there is good in everyone and everything if only you allow yourself to see it.  They taught inclusion and tolerance and respect for all lifestyles, all faiths, and all preferences.  They took down that ugly cross over the altar, because they didn’t like the divisive statement it made.  Sermons with the following titles were typical of those that were heard:  “Jesus the CEO:  Biblical Methods for Managing Your Business”, “David’s Five Steps for Building Healthy Family Relationships”, “Moses on the Mountain Top:  Scriptural Principles for Attaining Self Actualization”.  The church was always abuzz with classes on diet, health, exercise, and self-esteem.  They held marches for the poor, protests against war, and organized prayer warrior teams to fast and pray for worthy causes.  When calling a pastor, or “executive praise leader”, which is what they now preferred to call him (or her) the first priority was to get someone who knew lots of good activities to keep teenagers entertained and out of trouble.  It was soon the fastest growing church in town.  It grew so large that the old building just wouldn’t do anymore, so they moved into a new multi-million dollar praise and activity center, complete with sports complex, coffee shop, and bookstore.  And everyone was very happy with the way they were working so hard to please the Lord.

            And the old church?  It was sold to a small, obscure group of obviously backwards Christians, who pulled the ivy off the front of the building so that once again, the inscription read:  “We Preach Christ Crucified.”  And they did. They found the cross and image of Christ in the dark recesses of a basement closet, and they put them back over the altar where they’d been before.  And once again, the Scripture was fulfilled which says: “The stone the builders rejected has become the head of the corner.  The Lord has done this, and it is marvelous in our eyes.”

            Dear friends, it is the continuous consciousness of our sin and our consequent ongoing awareness of our need for repentance that keeps the rejected stone that is Christ and his work of atonement marvelous in our eyes.  This is why repentance is the good fruit the Lord seeks from his vineyard, and why everything else we might offer, no matter how noble our intentions, is nothing to him but sour grapes and sassy raspberries.  Repentance is what keeps us focused on the cross, on the work of Christ for our salvation, and our focus there is what enables our Lord to work through us to do his good and gracious will in the world.  He has planted us in his vineyard by his grace alone.  He has given us everything we need.  May it be that we produce the good fruit of repentance he seeks now and always.  In Jesus’ name.  Amen.

Soli Deo Gloria!