& i'll be there / to cherish & care for you

i'll be there / to always see you through

A sermon on Jesus' sermon on the not-so-ideal tenants:

The ambition of Christianity, if Christianity can be said to have any ambition at all, is for you to do NOTHING. That’s right, nothing. The ambition of Christianity is for you to do NOTHING. But I know that doesn’t make much sense. Does it? Whoever heard of nothing as a goal?!?

What’s more, it’s something of an impossible aspiration, too. Isn’t it? You can’t DO nothing. That’s a contradiction! Doing, by its very nature, must have something to do. And you can’t DO nothing! Can you? Nevertheless, that’s the incredible aim of faith: to do NOTHING.

That Catch-22 isn’t the only problem we have with doing nothing, though! Is it? Frankly, we’re not very good at it. Doing nothing DOESN’T come naturally to us.

Oh, sure, we fantasize about doing nothing. But we don’t really like it. We are so averse to nothing that, at the first quiet moment, we’ll pull out our phones or turn on the television just to keep from having nothing to do. And that’s not to say anything about how we reflexively fill every second of our time just so that we will never have nothing to do! In fact, we’re so bad at doing nothing that we go on vacation and come back even more tired than when we left! Even on our time off, we won't allow ourselves to do nothing! 

It’d be funnier if it weren’t so doggone exhausting. Wouldn’t it?

…But perhaps you think I’m laying it on thick. Maybe you suspect I’m building a straw man to conceal a weak argument. Well then, you so-and-so, let’s put it to the test. Shall we? Let’s try it right now! Let’s do nothing.

I’m not going to tell you how long we’re going to do this. That would ruin the experiment. But don’t worry, I won’t stretch this out indefinitely. That said, we are going to take a little time. Alright?

And what I want you to do is nothing! Don’t fidget! And don’t cheat, either! Don’t do something in your head! Don’t review your grocery list or that catalog of everything else you want to do today. Got it? 

Don’t do anything! Just sit there and do nothing for one blasted moment! Is that too much to ask?!? Jeez! Y’all test my patience before you even test my patience!

Ok. Here we go. Don’t do anything. Ok? And go! *Wait 30 seconds.

…Well, how was it? Did you get restless? Did your mind wander? Did it go into hyperdrive? 

I bet it did. I bet it did because nothing isn’t very easy for us. Is it? That said, it is the aim of the Christian life. The culmination of faith is to do nothing. 

Indeed, Thomas Aquinas quit theology because he had a vision. One day, amid his heavy writing obligations, he took a break to go to worship. And afterward, he sat in the empty church. While sitting there, Christ came down from the cross and spoke to Thomas. 

The legend has it that Christ asked the learned doctor what he most wanted. Amid all the demands on him, Thomas is said to have replied that he just wanted Christ. Whatever happened, after that, Thomas couldn’t be convinced to take up his pen anymore. When asked why, he replied that he had seen a vision that made all his sophisticated prose, and there was a lot, seem like so much straw.

And Julian of Norwich, who obsessed over trying to understand a series of visions she received during a near-death experience, concluded with this, “And fifteen years and more later I was answered in my spiritual understanding, and it was said: ‘Do you want to know your Lord’s meaning in this? Be well aware: love was his meaning. Who showed you this? Love. WHAT did he show you? Love. WHY did he show it? For love. Hold fast to this, and you will know and understand more of the same; but you will never understand nor know anything else from this for all eternity.’” 

Incidentally, she says it took fifteen years as if it was nothing! But it was Martin Luther who put it best. As he said in the 25th thesis of the Heidelberg Disputation, “One is not righteous who does much, but who, without work, believes much in Christ.”

…Yes, it may sound impossible. But it is nonetheless the yearning of Christianity. And it’s a stirring one, too. Is it not? To let go of everything. To even let go of what’s hardest to let go of; your very best. To let go of it all and then, instead, just live with open hands. 

To get on with life! To cease clutching what can never be held. To quit clinging to what is meant to be received. To do nothing and yet miraculously receive everything! 

As Luther said in his preface to Romans, “Faith is a living, daring confidence in God’s grace, so sure and certain that the believer would stake their life on it a thousand times. This knowledge of and confidence in God’s grace MAKES us glad and bold and happy in dealing with God and all creatures. And this is the work the Holy Spirit performs in faith. Because of it, without compulsion, Christians are ready and glad to do good to everyone, to suffer everything, out of love and praise to God who has shown them this grace…”

That’s what we all want. Isn’t it? We all desire this faith that actually gets out there and lives. We all long for that trust that stops trying to manipulate life and instead just receives it for the wild and incredible GIFT that it is.

Yes, it is easy enough to rattle on about this confidence. But it is practically impossible to do. Even our language falls short here. You don’t DO nothing. What we are discussing is beyond the realm of ordinary language and, for that matter, possibilities, too — doing the impossible, doing nothing.

Thus, Scripture. The Bible, fellow sojourners, is a revelation. God’s Word discloses what we could not and would not otherwise surmise. And today, Jesus helps us with a parable. A strange parable. A strange parable that’s strangely not all that unusual.

But I know. It seems like an unusual parable. Doesn’t it? Everyone is acting odd. WHY do the tenants think killing the owner's son will land them the inheritance and not prison time? And why does the owner keep sending servants anyway?!? Why not just send in the troops at the first sign of trouble?

That said, this parable is as ordinary as wonder bread. Yes, it seems outlandish. But it’s not. The sad fact is, in day-to-day life, the dynamics of this bizarre parable are not all that incredible!

…The parable begins with an owner getting a vineyard up and running. And this isn’t any ‘ol vineyard, either. No, this is a primo vineyard. It’s got all the bells and whistles. It’s state-of-the-art. And it's fully functional, too.

But then, before the grapes even have a chance to come up on the vine, the owner ups and leaves! Instead of enjoying the fruit of his labor, literally, the owner turns over the vineyard to some tenants. And there’s not much negotiating, either. But then again, there doesn’t seem to be much need for it anyway. The tenants can spot a good deal when they see one. This vineyard isn’t going to require a lot of labor. All the tenants will have to do is sit back and watch the owner’s hard work pay off.

When harvest time rolls ‘round, though, as it invariably must, something has gone sideways. Maybe the tenants think they can do a better job. Maybe the tenants are worried the free ride is over. Maybe they’ve just become a little too possessive over something that was never theirs to begin with. Either way, when the servant comes ‘round to collect a share of the harvest, the tenants rough ‘em up and send them away empty-handed. 

The plot is foolish, though. Isn’t it? Their bid to keep the vineyard only ensures the tenants will inevitably be expelled from it. And, indeed, that’s how Jesus puts it himself. When he asks how the owner will respond, Jesus takes it as self-evident that the owner will evict those treacherous tenants as speedily as possible.

And in getting us to agree, Jesus turns the tables on us! This parable forces us to see the error of our ways. The high priests, scholars, and religious leaders aren’t the only ones Jesus told this parable against. No, he’s also told it against us too. 

For instance, like the tenants, we AREN’T the cause of our own existence. Are we? And yet, like the tenants, we still try to take possession of ourselves. Don’t we? And furthermore, like the tenants, it’s not working out very well for us, either! Is it?

Yes, this parable is also told against us. But don’t leave, though! Sure, it’s no fun to discover you’re crossways with one of Jesus’ parables. But, when you realize that this parable has got you pinned, you begin to understand just how tragically typical it is. And when you grasp that, you find yourself entering another, more incredible, center of gravity, Jesus’, the Verbum Domini, the Word of God incarnate, the Word of God in the flesh!

…Here’s the rub, though. And frankly, that’s putting it too lightly. We’re not up against a little friction here. No, we’re on the chopping block. This isn’t a rub so much as it is the clincher. 

And here it is: the trouble is, you can’t just choose not to behave like the tenants. First of all, it doesn’t work that way. But—and check this out: trying to act one way or another is do exactly what the tenants did! Saying you won’t behave like the tenants is nothing more than one more way you try to take possession of something that doesn’t belong to you: you!

This how deep our treachery runs! This is why Sin, as Saint Paul understood, isn’t merely a list of misdeeds and omissions. No, capital-S Sin is being caught under a force that’s more powerful than you. Sin is being stuck in a state that infects everything you do and don’t do, too!

This is why our savior must die. Sin cannot be behaved out of. Instead, a decisive end must come. And since we can’t, or won’t, make that end ourselves, God does do the deed.

In Christ, God becomes human. In Christ, God takes on human nature itself. Your human nature! And when Christ dies, so does your old existence! In Christ, life under the power of Sin comes to an end once and for all! 

And when Christ is raised, SO is a new existence! In Christ’s resurrection, an entirely new humanity is birthed! This is why Christ is sometimes called our mother. In his death, we are reborn. 

And that makes your baptism the amniotic fluid! Sure, that’s putting it a bit physical. But it’s right. Something really happens in baptism! In baptism, you are reborn into a new existence! In baptism, a new life is opened TO you! In baptism, a new way of being is created FOR you!

In baptism, you are birthed into a new human nature, one that is true, one that is redeemed, and one that is rescued from the folly of Eden.

…That’s what’s going on in today’s parable. Isn’t it? It’s sort of like Eden retold. Everything is prepared in the vineyard. Just like Eden! But, for whatever reason, the tenants get it into their heads that it wasn’t enough. Just like Adam and Eve! And so, they, too, try to claim paradise for themselves. But all they do is lose it in the process. Don’t they?

This is how it is for us, too. Isn’t it? And this is why the goal of the Christian life is to do nothing. God has already given you absolutely everything. And Christ has preemptively redeemed you from all the ways you’ve turned from all that, too! And if that wasn’t enough, although it is, the Holy Spirit is also constantly giving you the faith to receive this holy work of God over and over again!

Christ has prepared the vineyard of your life by his blood. There’s nothing more you need to do! All you have to do is reap the rewards of his labor. And the only way to spoil that good thing is to refuse to receive it, to try and do something to claim it.

And the old sinner in you can’t resist this temptation, either. But the new saint Christ has raised up from that corpse is champing at the bit to live in faithful response to this ongoing provision of God in and for you. For now, though, you are caught in the middle of these two yous in you. And yes, they fight. They don’t get along. 

But the days are numbered for the old you in you. Christ already suffered that sinner’s inevitable defeat! And by your baptism into his death, you now have the new saint’s redemption and resurrection Christ won by his perfect obedience! Not only will the new you win, but it already holds the eternal wreath, too!

The vineyard is already opened unto you! What’s more, Christ has already handed the operation over to you, too! Right now! There’s nothing you have to do. 

The only trick, and it is a miracle, is just to live in obedient, faithful, and receptive response to all this. And that’s why the ambition of Christianity, IF Christianity can be said to have any ambition at all, is for you to do NOTHING. That’s right, nothing. 

…So let’s try again. Shall we? I want you to do nothing. BUT this time, I really want you to do nothing. And truly nothing, too. 

I don’t want you just to refrain from doing something! No, I want you to do the truly miraculous. I want you to actually DO nothing! I want you to be so open that you receive everything. Get ready because here we go! 

You don’t have to earn your existence! You exist because you’re GOD’S good idea! And God is so over the moon for you that God is even right now speaking you INTO existence OUT of the nothing that’s always creeping around the edges! 

But that’s not all! In Christ, God has ALSO redeemed you from every time you’ve ever turned from God’s goodness, too! God knows your deepest secret and your darkest shame, too! And in Christ, God does not turn from you! On the contrary, in Christ, God draws nearer to you than you are even willing to be with yourself!

And still, there is more! God sends the Holy Spirit to put all that Sin on Jesus Christ! This is why Luther would oftentimes say, at the cross, Christ becomes the world’s greatest and only sinner. All your sins are buried with Christ in his tomb. Sure, you can try and dig up those old sins. But it’s foolish. In Christ’s death, they have no power anymore!

And this changes absolutely everything for you! In fact, it even changes you! This promise kills the old sinner in you who refuses to trust God’s provision! And from that corpse, GOD raises up a new saint in you who assents to the wonder of this abundant life with gloriously open hands! 

Well, that was easier. Wasn’t it? It’s a miracle in real time! And like all good miracles, it redoubles on itself!

Strangely, all this nothing is making something in you. Isn’t it? It’s called praise. And that’s why music is the native language of faith!

Our Hymn of the Day is hymn number 800. Spirit of God, Descend upon My Heart—Hymn 800. 

Go ahead, let that new thing in you rise! Hymn number 800. Spirit of God, Descend upon My Heart. Let’s sing!