If available, this post will be updated later tomorrow with the Worship Service taped at St. Matthews Church in Welland.

Bulletin: Worship Guide

Gospel Reading and reflections PDF

Commemoration of St. Francis of Assisi Season of Creation ends

Prayer of the Day

Beloved God, from you come all things that are good. Lead us by the inspiration of

your Spirit to know those things that are right, and by your merciful guidance, help

us to do them, through Jesus Christ, our Saviour and Lord. Amen.

Gospel: Matthew 21:33-46

[Jesus said:] 33 “Listen to another parable. There was a landowner who planted a

vineyard, put a fence around it, dug a winepress in it, and built a watchtower. Then

he leased it to tenants and went away. 34 When the harvest time had come, he sent

his slaves to the tenants to collect his produce. 35 But the tenants seized his slaves

and beat one, killed another, and stoned another. 36 Again he sent other slaves,

more than the first, and they treated them in the same way. 37 Then he sent his son

to them, saying, ‘They will respect my son.’ 38 But when the tenants saw the son,

they said to themselves, ‘This is the heir; come, let us kill him and get his

inheritance.’ 39 So they seized him, threw him out of the vineyard, and killed him.

40 Now when the owner of the vineyard comes, what will he do to those tenants?”

41 They said to him, “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.”

42 Jesus said to them, “Have you never read in the scriptures:

‘The stone that the builders rejected

has become the cornerstone;

this was the Lord’s doing,

and it is amazing in our eyes’?

43 “Therefore I tell you, the kingdom of God will be taken away from you and

given to a people that produces its fruits. 44 The one who falls on this stone will be

broken to pieces, and it will crush anyone on whom it falls.”

45 When the chief priests and the Pharisees heard his parables, they realized

that he was speaking about them. 46 They wanted to arrest him, but they feared the

crowds, because they regarded him as a prophet.

As Sunday approaches….

Sometimes preparing a sermon reminds me of looking at the rings of a tree and this

week is certainly such an occasion.

The outer ring: Jesus is in mid-dispute with religious leadership over questions of

authority and also because of his critique that there is some mis-use and abuse

within his religious tradition. I emphasize (as does the Gospel of Matthew) that

Jesus’ intention is to fulfill the core of his faith tradition not do away with it. The

story Jesus tells contains a nearly verbatim quote from the prophet Isaiah, a word

picture that gives us a sense of how Jesus goes about integrating the traditions of

his faith with his mission and purpose in his earthly life. The parable’s grisly end

foreshadow’s Jesus’ fate.

The next rings inward: For the community receiving Matthew’s Gospel (some

forty years after Jesus lived, died, rose again and ascended to heaven) questions of

‘bearing fruit’ in a time when their Temple was destroyed and the community

fragmented was a vital question of the day; far from speculative or theoretical.

Proclaiming Jesus risen and ascended is to say that as bad as the thieving and

plundering are, they can’t eradicate Jesus’ love or God’s love.

Today’s connection to the commemoration of St. Francis and the conclusion of the

Season of Creation (observed in the ELCIC, and the Anglican Church in Canada)

Preacher and teacher of preachers Rev. Dr. Carolyn Sharp of Yale Divinity school

points to poignant contrast in the parable between the vineyard owner who

lovingly plants and tends and protects the vineyard and those who plunder it. I

think it’s no stretch to liken the parable’s vineyard to creation itself. How God

lovingly creates and some people (and regimes) plunder and kill! The examples of

plunder might well lead to pointing out that the planet is made sick from pollution

and exploitation.

The vineyard might be a word picture of the kingdom of God as well—the

Beatitudes and the sermon on the Mount followed by parable after parable open

our imagination to the sort of world and existence God desires for us.

The prayer of St. Francis uses creation imagery too—and I detect a subversive tone

to the prayer with lines such as “Where there is hate, we sow love”. Remember the

parable where an enemy sneaks into a field to plant weeds. St. Francis upends the

parable (for me anyway) by composing a prayer in which seeds of peace,

reconciliation, and love are planted in fields that have been plundered. A quote

often attributed to St. Francis is, “Always preach the Gospel. If necessary use

words.”. So our action of planting might be words or it might be acts of kindness

or even courage.

Recording of Bishop Carla Blakely’s message during the 150th Anniversary Service at St. Matthews Church.

This Worship Service was taped at St. Matthews Church in Welland.

Bulletin: Worship Guide

Gospel reading and commentary (PDF)

Prayer of the Day

Almighty and eternal God, you show perpetual lovingkindness to us your servants.

Because we cannot rely on our own abilities, grant us your merciful judgment, and

train us to embody the generosity of your Son, Jesus Christ, our Saviour and Lord.

Amen.

Gospel: Matthew 20:1-16

[Jesus said to the disciples:] 1 “The kingdom of heaven is like a landowner who

went out early in the morning to hire labourers for his vineyard. 2 After agreeing

with the labourers for a denarius for the day, he sent them into his vineyard. 3

When he went out about nine o’clock, he saw others standing idle in the

marketplace, 4 and he said to them, ‘You also go into the vineyard, and I will pay

you whatever is right.’ So they went. 5 When he went out again about noon and

about three o’clock, he did the same. 6 And about five o’clock he went out and

found others standing around, and he said to them, ‘Why are you standing here idle

all day?’ 7 They said to him, ‘Because no one has hired us.’ He said to them, ‘You

also go into the vineyard.’ 8 When evening came, the owner of the vineyard said to

his manager, ‘Call the labourers and give them their pay, beginning with the last

and then going to the first.’ 9 When those hired about five o’clock came, each of

them received a denarius. 10 Now when the first came, they thought they would

receive more; but each of them also received a denarius. 11 And when they

received it, they grumbled against the landowner, 12 saying, ‘These last worked

only one hour, and you have made them equal to us who have borne the burden of

the day and the scorching heat.’ 13 But he replied to one of them, ‘Friend, I am

doing you no wrong; did you not agree with me for a denarius? 14 Take what

belongs to you and go; I choose to give to this last the same as I give to you. 15

Am I not allowed to do what I choose with what belongs to me? Or are you

envious because I am generous?’ 16 So the last will be first, and the first will be

last.”

“Good stuff that doesn’t always find its way into a sermon”

Recently we’ve been offering some reflections or insights that are helpful yet not

always connected to “where the sermon is going” on a particular week. Today’s

parable of the householder contains nuggets that might not get smelted into the

homily yet are good to pay attention to.

What’s life in God’s commonwealth (kingdom) like? We start with day labourers.

Social science experts point to the system of honour and shame as having a feature

where people are approached and asked to work rather than someone of “lower

station” approaching someone in a higher social class to ask for work (Malina and

Rohrbaugh Social Science Commentary on the Synoptic Gospels: 2003 Fortress

Press, Minneapolis).

Day labourers were people without land, or homes with extended families. Day

labourers were at the bottom of the social ladder. Now consider those day

labourers who wait all day to be recruited to work—lower than low! It’s important

to note here that there’s no evidence the eleventh hour workers are lazy—but for

some reason they aren’t the first chosen—age? disability? not from ‘around here’?

unskilled?

The crux of the parable is how the householder treats the labourers. Social norms

are adhered to when the householder approaches groups of people and they agree

on terms for the workday. Seems fair.

The scandal of the parable comes when EVERYBODY gets equal treatment at the

end of the day regardless of when they were recruited and how long they worked.

Even day labourers know the system has tilted in some weird way. I think a

fruitful spot to dwell and preach upon is that the realm of God puts everyone on

equal footing—all are created in God’s image and are worthy of dignity and

deserve a share of God’s abundance to meet their daily needs. For me, “heaven on

earth” would be such provision for everyone without the grumbling from those

who think they deserve better or more than their neighbour.

The householder asks those grumbling (the word choice is intentional and harks to

Israel’s children wandering in the desert, grumbling when water or food aren’t

plentiful) if “their eye is evil” because of his generosity.

The evil eye… Many cultures recognize the human gaze as potentially greedy—

they eye as a window to the soul evidently takes in the world as much as it

expresses one’s state of being. So ogling over shiny objects leads to desire and if

the evil eye has its way, we scheme to take what is not ours and keep it for

ourselves. Entire social and theological points of view are built around the idea

that human suffering comes from the greed and scheming we do to get what others

have (a google search of Girardism and memetic theory will lead to a lifetime of

reading).

Pitfalls in interpreting the parable: Way back, preachers and teachers used to tell

us the rich tend to “spiritualize the material in life” and the poor tend to

“materialize the spiritual in life”. It’s not simple as that, really but for us to regard

the parable as an allegory or as only a metaphor for God’s goodness leads to

ignoring those who hunger and lack what they need for daily living.

Further down the path of misinterpretation is actual heresy (false teaching)—Some

preachers even now have somehow gotten it into their noggins that Jesus came to

replace Judaism with another religion or church. Wrong. Jesus did say he came to

bring abundant life and his teaching is often a corrective designed to bring love and

humanity back into religion (which we humans often turn into some form of self

justification and control over others). The misinterpretation also seems to define

the kingdom of God in ways outside of Jesus’ parables or sermons.

Things I’m thinking about

Squeamishness and some snarky rhetoric pops up whenever we talk about

reparations for people harmed or about housing for everyone. The political

landscape is charged with such emotion about how resources are to be distributed.

Some would say less fortunate folk are just looking for a handout. Others (I among

them if you’re wondering) find the inequitable distribution of the world’s resources

more problematic. Even now as artificial intelligence becomes prominent how

many are asking questions beyond its inherent benefits or flaws; questions like

who ‘gets’ to control and decide how this new technology will be allocated and

used and for whose long term benefit? I think the parable gives us a glimpse into

the common good (and our frequent impulse to object to it when ‘the last become

first’)

This Worship Service was taped at St. Matthews Church in Welland.

Change in posting date: Starting next week, Sunday posts will be sent to your inbox every Saturday morning at 8:00 a.m. It is hoped that this will provide extra time for all to review before Sunday Worship.

Bulletin: Worship Guide

Gospel, and reflection (PDF)

Prayer of the Day

O Lord God, merciful judge, you are the inexhaustible fountain of forgiveness.

Replace our hearts of stone with hearts that love and adore you, that we may

delight in doing your will, through Jesus Christ, our Saviour and Lord. Amen.

Gospel: Matthew 18:21-35

21 Peter came and said to [Jesus,] “Lord, if my brother or sister sins against me,

how often should I forgive? As many as seven times?” 22 Jesus said to him, “Not

seven times, but, I tell you, seventy-seven times.

23 “For this reason the kingdom of heaven may be compared to a king who

wished to settle accounts with his slaves. 24 When he began the reckoning, one

who owed him ten thousand talents was brought to him, 25 and, as he could not

pay, the lord ordered him to be sold, together with his wife and children and all his

possessions and payment to be made. 26 So the slave fell on his knees before him,

saying, ‘Have patience with me, and I will pay you everything.’ 27 And out of pity

for him, the lord of that slave released him and forgave him the debt. 28 But that

same slave, as he went out, came upon one of his fellow slaves who owed him a

hundred denarii, and seizing him by the throat he said, ‘Pay what you owe.’ 29

Then his fellow slave fell down and pleaded with him, ‘Have patience with me,

and I will pay you.’ 30 But he refused; then he went and threw him into prison until

he would pay the debt. 31 When his fellow slaves saw what had happened, they

were greatly distressed, and they went and reported to their lord all that had taken

place. 32 Then his lord summoned him and said to him, ‘You wicked slave! I

forgave you all that debt because you pleaded with me. 33 Should you not have had

mercy on your fellow slave, as I had mercy on you?’ 34 And in anger his lord

handed him over to be tortured until he would pay his entire debt. 35 So my

heavenly Father will also do to every one of you, if you do not forgive your brother

or sister from your heart.”

Reflections…

If you think forgiving is costly and difficult, observe how today’s parable startles

(scandalizes)us into calculating how much more costly “unforgiveness” can be. If

we take the story seriously, vengeance and grudge-holding erode relationships and

community life now and the toxins therein follow us into the next life.Now we recall (as Father Robert Capon reminds us) the person telling the story—

Jesus— teaches about restoring relationships, going after lost sheep and at his own

execution prays that God will forgive his tormentors. For us personally and for the

church at large, Capon’s words about forgiveness put a very perplexing story into

perspective,

Forgiveness “is a gift to the totally incompetent, not a reward for the suitably

disposed” . Robert Capon, (1988) Parables of Grace. Eerdman’s Publishing page

40.

Remember Jesus saying that if someone won’t reconcile, let them be to you like an

outcast or tax collector? His words. If you didn’t know better you’d think he was

writing people off. But we do know what gets Jesus in the hottest water with the

religious authorities: befriend outcasts and tax collectors.

Perhaps that’s enough scandal for today….and may the confounding mercy of God

find you, bless you and empower you to be merciful when you can.