We Just Planted a Garden. Whose Is It? - Matthew 21:33-46

If you've been around this place lately, you may have noticed a lot of planting over the last two weeks. After months of construction, the grounds around the church look very different. There are new trees, new green spaces, and areas that have been cleaned up and restored. It's one of those moments when you can look around and think, Oh. This is what the place is supposed to look like.

There is something so satisfying about that. I think it's human nature to enjoy making things more beautiful. We like to tend, improve, and restore things. We like to look at a patch of ground that has been neglected or covered up and imagine what it might become with a little love. So it feels fitting, with all our recent planting, that this morning's Gospel takes us into a vineyard.

We've been in Matthew's vineyard for a couple of weeks now, and so far it's been a pleasant place. Two weeks ago we heard about a landowner who insisted on paying all the workers the same generous wage, whether they worked all day in the harvest or just for the last hour. It's about as clear a parable of grace as we get. But today the story takes a sharp turn. The vineyard is now a dangerous place, run by wicked tenants.

Jesus isn't holding anything back, and the characters are thinly veiled. The owner stands in for God. The vineyard echoes Isaiah, chapter five: "The vineyard of the Lord of hosts is the house of Israel, and the people of Judah are his pleasant planting." The vineyard is the people of God. And the tenants are the religious leaders entrusted with caring for the people.

The owner sends servants to collect the harvest, and the tenants beat one, kill another, stone a third. These servants are the prophets, who were so often killed for their truth-telling. Finally, the owner sends his own son. Jesus knows where this road leads. He has already told his disciples, more than once, about his fate ahead. And he turns that knowledge into one of the best set-ups in the New Testament.

Jesus is telling this parable to the chief priests and the Pharisees, and when he finishes, he asks them what the landowner will do after the tenants kill his son. They answer: "He will put those wretches to a miserable death, and lease the vineyard to other tenants who will give him the produce at the harvest time." They have caught themselves in their own trap.

But what exactly is Jesus calling out them out for? The tenants in the story have made a fundamental mistake. They have forgotten that they are tenants, not the owners. The vineyard belongs to someone else. Their job is not to possess it or violently defend it but to tend it. They are so far into this error that when the owner asked for one thing, a share of the fruit, they will not hand it over.

We make this same mistake all the time. We think what has been entrusted to us belongs to us: things like our authority, our money, our buildings, our homes, even the people we love. We forget that all of them are divine gifts, and gifts are meant not to be possessed, but shared.

In our church calendar today we honor Francis of Assisi. In the thirteenth century, he saw all of this quite clearly. Francis, of course, is one of the most universally loved saints. We bless animals today and celebrate creation because he loved God's world so much. He is known for preaching to the birds and talking a wolf into living peaceably with local villagers. They're wonderful stories, but they grow out of the deeper truth about ownership versus stewardship.

You may recall that Francis was the son of a wealthy cloth merchant. Praying before the crucifix at San Damiano, he heard Christ say, "Rebuild my church." At first he took it literally and set about repairing the building. He sold some of his father's cloth to pay for it, and his father was furious. I imagine him working up a master plan, running a capital campaign with his father’s unintentional lead gift, and patiently working through a long renovation, much like us. But gradually he came to understand that Christ was asking for something much larger of him: to rebuild God's church in the world.

He began that enormous calling with something smaller: the rebuilding of his own heart. When his father dragged him before the bishop, Francis took off his fancy clothes, handed them back, and walked away with nothing. His prayer led him to a life he could never have predicted. He founded a religious order and lived among the poor and the outcast, always loving the most vulnerable.

Francis understood that he was a tenant in God's vineyard, not its owner. That is a important word for us this morning. We have spent a lot of time rebuilding things around here, and it has been good and holy work. Beautiful buildings and gardens matter. They say something to the neighborhood and city about what we believe is worth tending. But Francis's story reminds us that rebuilding can become a way of holding on, of acting as if we own the place. And his story reminds us that the vineyard is much bigger than this church, and it belongs to God.

We have been given the privilege of tending this place, and we've tried to do it well. Today's parable leaves us with a question. When the owner comes asking for the harvest, what fruit will we have to show?

This parish is in the vineyard that belongs to Christ. The harvest is still God's. Our job is to tend our part faithfully, and to leave this corner of the vineyard, and its people, a little more whole and well-cared for than when we started.