October 5 A LoveSong In Any Language

Isaiah 5: 1-7 Exodus 20: 1-20 Matthew 21: 33-46 Recently I saw the Video “Joyeaux Noel” the story of December 24 1914, when the troops on the front lines of WWI stopped fighting and began singing Silent Night, then exchanged gifts, took time and energy to honor and bury their dead together, and being Christmas Day to play football! Afterwards I wondered, this happened because the German, French and Scottish Troops, were all Christians. What would unite opposition soldiers today? Where is the commonality between Muslims and Christians? There is one God and we have killing each other, even between Christians we have perpetuated a kind of Cold War, with Episcopalians across the Street, Baptists, Methodists and Lutherans down the Block, and further out this way Catholics, further the opposite way Pentecosts. Perspective matters. We need a reframing of the Bible, particularly the 10 Commandments, because somehow, whether from Charleston Heston or Sunday School, we acquired the mistaken conclusion that these were Laws, that the Old Testament is all about Law and Judgment and Punishment, while the New Testament is about Grace. The fact of the matter is Torah means “Teaching” and as described by Isaiah, this morning's prophecy in fact all these passages are LoveSongs. Remember when you were three or four, and someone gave you a goldfish. One day each week, was reserved for changing the water and cleaning the bowl. Every morning and night you gave the fish, just the right amount of food, and she would swim back and forth to thank you, and you loved having something to care for. But one day, your little sister tried to feed your fish and dumped half the container on top of the water. There was a blanket so thick the gold fish could not breathe, and shortly thereafter burial services were held in the backyard, as the goldfish bowl was taken to the basement. When you were seven, you saved your allowance for a Hamster. Better than a goldfish, your Hamster would do tricks, running the treadmill, taking a sunflower seed from your fingers into their hands. But even though you could pet your hamster, and feed and care for them, they always seemed to have a desire to hide from you, or to escape your grip. And one day all too soon, their were additional funeral services in the backyard. When my bride and I were newly weds, I brought home to her a puppy. The unrealistic parts were that we happened to live in a Studio Apartment in Harlem, and while puppy's mother had been a beautiful Irish Setter, she had gotten pregnant by a huge Malamute. So as this brute grew, she had all of her father's strength and power and her mother's scatterbrained excitement. Whenever the doorbell rang, she greeted the guests with her six foot frame balancing her forepaws on your shoulders. One day, left alone, she ate the couch. But however unrealistic, you gave your love to this creature, wanting only to have that love returned. When we got our first house, and our second dog, we went to obedience training, which in hindsight was far more about teaching the owners than teaching the puppy. Each of the earlier Covenants in Genesis, were about the love of God, with nothing reciprocal required. God formed this wonderful Garden for them to live in, with every kind of tree and animal. God washed the earth clean and gave Noah responsibility to be fruitful and multiply. God chose Abram, that God would lead, Abram and Sarai would follow, and God would give to them as many generations as stars in the heavens, sands upon the shore, a land flowing with milk and honey, and a name that is known and remembered. Somehow I recall from Vacation Bible School being taught that one night they ate the Passover, and afterward crossed the Red Sea, to Mt. Sinai where God gave to Moses the two tablets of Law. But the last several weeks, we have painstakingly read, how after the Passover, after the crossing of the Red Sea, God provided for this people by changing the reality of brackish salt water being turned clear. Of Bread falling from heaven,.. of Water spewing forth from solid rock. The Covenant with Israel was different,God chose to make of them a Holy People, IF they would love God. The added nuance, being that being chosen as God's people, was not for themselves, but to bring others to God. Isaiah's Love-song of the Vineyard is about what happened when that which God created chose instead to be wild, to bare bitter tiny fruit instead of lush sweet grapes of harvest. A Covenant is a love-song, a voluntary choice of commitment, an emotional investment in this other. They probably will break your heart, but they are dependent and in need, which touches something emotional. Far more than skin color, or having two arms, two legs and a face, I think this is what was meant by being created in the image of God, is that God loves and desires love in return, just as we do. The Ten Commandments are not Laws and punishments, but are our earliest Constitution, written not as Civil Law but Constitutional. And where the American Constitution begins “We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal” the Ten Commandments begin “I am the LORD your God, who brought you up out of the land of Egypt out of the house of bondage and set you free!” This is the lost Instruction Manual of Life. Reality is created in balance, when God is God, when we allow ourselves to be human, all is right with the world. When we lie, and steal, and covet, commitment adultery, murder, when we fail to keep life in balance by stopping to give thanks to God, we destroy the balance of life. Reality needs to be in balance, when God is God, when we allow ourselves to be human, all is right with the world. Years ago, we had new neighbors who were newly-weds building a house that would be their home. About three years later they gave birth to their first born daughter. Several weeks later, there was a frantic pounding on the door, and I opened it to find this young mother with the child in her arms. She described having for the first tried to give the baby a bottle, and she was sure she had given her too much because the infant was so bloated and lethargic. I recall telling that life was just a little out of balance, and in a moment what was out of balance would come out one way or the other. Sure enough, a few moments later the infant belched and filled her diaper, and once cleaned up, was her happy contented self. According to Matthew, Jesus retold Isaiah's love-song, in a different time, place and language. As we hear it, we need to be careful to listen to hear the story in the same way as told by Isaiah and Jesus. For in Isaiah's Love-song of preparing and planting the vineyard, the ones who destroy the harvest, the ones not yet ready to love, who need teaching and discipling and love, are the vines themselves. The balance when the Vineyard will not produce good grapes, is that gardener takes down the walls and hedges, allowing the Vineyard to know what it is to be wild. In Jesus' Parable, there are human characters, here we recognize the Landowner as God. The Servants sent by the Landowner, to bring home the harvest, are the Prophets, who were often rebuffed, rebuked, and killed. This is a crazy kind of story, because who in their right mind, when their representatives were attacked and killed, would not respond by sending Police, or Military, but instead risk sending their own Son? Who would imagine killing the Son of the Landowner, imagining that they could get away with both not paying for their harvest, killing the Heir, and somehow they would take the Land without punishment. A Crazy-kind of love, but God did send God's own Son. What we cannot do, is to take the teaching out of context, imagining we would be any different, judging the Pharisees and people of that time, rather than listening and judging our own lives. Because as horrible as this story is, Jesus' Parable, like Isaiah's is a Love-story. Like King David, with the Prophet Nathan's parable about the Wife of Uriah, the listeners judge themselves, declaring that those who Stole and killed the Son deserve to be punished. But Jesus responds with the proverb of the Stone which the Builders rejected becomes the Head and Cornerstone, so when order and balance are restored, God tries to love again. A Crazy Love-story, the Lost Instruction Manual of Life. But it makes greater sense than any other story ever told, because like God, we do have hope-filled/ hopeless loves, we are ruled by our emotions and we make commitments carved in our flesh for all time to come.