{"id":1352,"date":"2008-10-05T00:50:22","date_gmt":"2008-10-05T00:50:22","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.followgreg.com\/revdonaldng\/?p=1352"},"modified":"2020-12-03T11:52:25","modified_gmt":"2020-12-03T11:52:25","slug":"tending-gardens","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.followgreg.com\/revdonaldng\/tending-gardens\/","title":{"rendered":"Tending Gardens"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Matthew 21:33-46<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

October 5, 2008<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Sermon preached by Rev. Donald Ng at the First Chinese Baptist Church in San Francisco.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

One of the biggest news in the San Francisco and the larger Bay Area this past week is the long-awaited opening of the new California Academy of Sciences in Golden Gate Park. Like you, I am excited to visit this newest museum with its aquarium, planetarium, and dinosaur bones. But one of the most amazing features of the new academy is what\u2019s on the top of the roof. It\u2019s a garden!<\/p>\n\n\n\n

It\u2019s called a living roof. The 2.5-acre garden is planted with hundreds of native California plants to provide a habitat for birds and butterflies while also serving as an exhibit on environmental sustainability and biodiversity. The multilayered surface creates a truly balance ecological system for the museum building itself as well as to demonstrate to all visitors like ourselves that we can all reduce our carbon footprints for a greener world.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Recently, a few of us here at church have been talking about starting vegetable gardens outside our homes. I know that some of you have gardens already and some pretty extensive ones. We are delighted when you bring in some of your deliciously fresh abundance to share with the rest of us. But the idea that a few of us were talking about is what if more of us started vegetable gardens and plant different vegetables that would be best grown in the climate and soil conditions where we live and then to bring them in to share with the whole church family. We would have more fresh vegetables free of pesticide. We would reduce our carbon emissions. We would be healthier people. And we would begin creating a deeper Christian community of giving and receiving.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The Parable<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Jesus tells us in today\u2019s parable that there\u2019s a wealthy landowner who constructs a well-appointed vineyard with a fence around it and a wine press already dug in it and even built a watchtower. This was not like any other vineyard. This vineyard was more like the grandness of the living roof on the California Academy of Sciences. In fact, the owner had already done a lot of the hard work in developing his vineyard.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

When the landowner went to another country, he leased the vineyard to some tenants. The tenants were given a plot of land to tend. When it was harvest time like the season we are now in California, the landowner sends out his slaves to collect his grapes. But his hired tenants killed them. Without responding directly to the murderers, the landowner sends even more slaves, and the same is done to them. Ultimately, the landowner sends his own son to collect his portion of the harvest. Not surprisingly, the same fate awaits his son.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The Parable of the Wicked Tenants is another troublesome story for us to understand. It seems to me that the tenants became wicked because they began to feel as though they owned the place. Some of you who are landowners with apartment buildings know what I\u2019m talking about. You probably have some tenants who have been living in your buildings way before any rent control was instituted in San Francisco. Even if you want to raise the monthly rent you can\u2019t. Your tenants act like they own the place. Some of your tenants have lived in some of your places for such a long time that they at times can even act on your behalf. They show the repair guy where the problem is when you are out of the country.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The parable is a warning that we can become misdirected; thinking that the church is our church. Are we misdirecting our church budget as a way to maintain our church building rather than preparing the church building for everyone in the world to come in? Might we be misdirecting our programs and our evangelistic efforts as a way to get new members to our church instead of Christ\u2019s church? Might we be misdirecting our energies and talents to raise monies for our church, our needs, and our organization instead of raising monies for Christ\u2019s church to meet the needs of God\u2019s people? Just when we see ourselves as the organization called \u201cthe church\u201d that is set up just for ourselves may be the moment when we are not the church at all.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The parable tells us that when the tenants began seeing themselves as the rightful owners of the vineyard, they became greedy and selfish and violent. They wanted to keep all of the produce and not just their appropriate portion. Moreover, they started thinking like they are even related to the landowner. They went ahead and killed the owner\u2019s son with the foolish expectation that they might even become the heir of the son\u2019s inheritance.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Jesus suddenly interrupts the story and asks the religious authorities to finish the parable. They declare that the landowner should brutally kill the murderous tenants before hiring a better group of farmers who would return the produce to the landowner at the harvest time.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

End of Violence<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Listen to how the religious authorities added another scene to this violent parable. \u201cPut those wretches to a miserable death,\u201d they reply. Violence only begets more violence. When we live in a world that says power is based on ownership whether it\u2019s a house or stocks or a vineyard, we end up with violence. The tenants wanted power over the landowner. That\u2019s the way it works in a power-driven society. That\u2019s just the way it is.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

But Jesus never gives that answer, nor supports it. Instead, he quotes from Psalm 118<\/a>: \u201cThe stone that the builders rejected has become the cornerstone; this was the Lord\u2019s doing, and it is amazing in our eyes.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I think this is the key to this parable. God didn\u2019t send an army to crush the selfish and wicked tenants. God sent his gentle son who is rejected. He dies. And then God raises him from the dead. This is truly amazing in our eyes. This is the new life and the new thing that God is doing. It\u2019s a new kind of power. This new kind of power gives life instead of taking it.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Jesus tells the religious authorities that their answer to revenge the deaths of the slaves and the landowner\u2019s son is not to put those wretches to a miserable death. Jesus condemns the anger and the violence of the tenants. Jesus condemns the violent answer of the religious authorities. He tells them that violence only begets more violence.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

He leaves them and us as listeners pondering over the consequences of a power-driven society, silently condemning them for their lack of imagination and hope and faith. \u201cHaven\u2019t you heard the scriptures?\u201d he chided them. It\u2019s not about power and violence. It\u2019s about the rejected stone. It\u2019s about the path not taken\u2014the path of faith and hope and imagination. It\u2019s about love, a love so steadfast that it is willing to be rejected, hoping in faith that the power of God will nonetheless bring about resurrection.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The Place of Evil<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

This parable leads us to look at God\u2019s response to evil. We are often racked with questions about how a good God and evil can coexist. Why doesn\u2019t God just do something about the abuse and violence in this parable?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

There are two fair answers in this story. First, if God is the landowner of the vineyard, look at the great patience of the landowner. God is always wanting as many to come to repentance as possible. The tenants may be selfish and abusive and we might think are beyond redemption. But here, God responds to this evil of violence through increasing doses of patient love, until it eventually costs him his son.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Second, God chooses to respond to evil through his followers. In the face of evil, God keeps sending his slaves or messengers into it. His response to evil is to send those who do good. When we see and experience wickedness at a personal or even at the global level, we invariably ask God with exasperation, \u201cWhat are you doing about this?\u201d God\u2019s answer is often a reversal of the same question. God would say, \u201cWhat are you doing about this?\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

When we as followers of Jesus Christ see evil, we should sense God\u2019s invitation to extend God\u2019s love and healing in that place. We don\u2019t put those wretches to a miserable death. We end the cycle of violence. This is giving the landowner his harvest. This is bearing fruit.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Tending Gardens<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

I haven\u2019t visited the new California Academy of Sciences yet. But I plan to do so soon. I read that there\u2019s a 90-foot diameter dome that encases a living rain forest complete with free-flying birds and butterflies. In the Steinhart Aquarium, I read that there are more than 100 tanks filled with fish, reptiles, amphibians and invertebrates. In the swamp, there\u2019s even a white alligator. And on the top, there\u2019s the living roof! From the descriptions, the academy has created a spectacular wonder to see.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Perhaps not anything as spectacular as the new academy is, but what if our call to faith and hope and imagination of tending the vineyard begins at home. Some of us might very well be proven as lousy gardeners but some of us can plant anything and make it grow.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Some can clear away a small piece of land around our homes, others might have above ground vegetable boxes and still others might have vegetable boxes outside our windows. We might get together to teach and learn how to grow vegetables and decide who might try to grow what. This could become a community of vegetable garden tenants enthusiastic about faith, hope and imagination knowing that the miracle of fruits and vegetables all come from God. We will give God praise and thanksgiving when we harvest God\u2019s goodness.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I believe that God invites us to tend gardens as a concrete way to teach ourselves as well as others that we don\u2019t own the land or lay absolute claim on what we might produce. None of us here today can say that we have any credit for the sun that makes the seeds grow. We didn\u2019t invent the seeds that contain the amazing ingredients that eventually produce bumper crops. We didn\u2019t create the soil that is in the ground. We have little to say about when the rains would come or invented the water that comes out of our hoses. When we tend gardens, we come to affirm the truth that it has always been God who created us all and the earth on which we dwell.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

What would happen if many of us started vegetable gardens this year and see what kind of harvest we might receive by next year! When we bring in our produce and share what has come out of the ground with one another as well as with those who may have little, we would no longer be like the selfish and violent tenants. I can imagine zucchinis, tomatoes, beans, apples, lemons, persimmons, squashes, and broccoli, all available for people to share and receive. Imagine what kind of community we can become when we tend gardens for one another.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Jesus said we all have been given this plot of land. It was in good shape when God gave it to us. Now our task is the same as those who came before us. It is to leave the garden better than we found it. If this is true it will take all of us to make this garden lush and green and productive again. Hopefully we reach out and join hands and hearts with our brothers and sisters and even strangers and enemies. Isn\u2019t this the kind of world we want to leave for those who follow us? Maybe it is after all.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Let us pray.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Lord, as we read today\u2019s scriptures we are conscious of the failure of your people again and again. We have failed to live up to your intention. This was a garden that you made good. Every age has tried to turn it into a jungle. Help us to see not only the mistakes of those in other days\u2014but our own failings as well. Convict us of those things we ought to do and not do\u2014help us when we fail. We are amazed as we read your words of your infinite patience and loving kindness. Help us to have that same kind of patience and kindness in ourselves as we take them from this place into a world in need. Amen.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

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