Sunday, August 15, 2010

8/15/2010 Sermon: Stink Fruit

6:10 PM | Posted by Kris | Edit Post
Sermon: Stink Fruit
St. Stephen’s Episcopal Church
Sunday, August 15, 2010
Pentecost 12, Proper 15, Year C
Berkeley D. Johnson, III

Well, these are interesting lessons we have to consider today….

About a week ago, my Canterbury intern, Kris, (who is here today) asked me “so, what was up with those lessons from Sunday?  They were brutal!”  It was her first Sunday ever in an Episcopal Church, and God was raining down all manner of pestilence…and the prophet was announcing all sorts of doom…and remarkably, Kris didn’t run away never to return, but has actually come back for more.

So, what did I say?  What “answer” did I give?

Well, I can tell you, I didn’t try to soften the message by saying “well that’s how people used to think God dealt with us for our disobedience, but we don’t think that way anymore” (well, apparently Pat Robertson does, but that’s another story).  Nor did I otherwise try to dismiss it as not relevant to our lives today.  And I will admit, I did need some time to think about it.  But then, I remembered my training and formation, and wrestling with these passages, and I did try to put them in context and offer some version of the following:

In the first reading from Isaiah, the prophet starts off with what he refers to as a love song.  He describes all the love and care that went into the planting and the preparation of the vineyard.  But, it quickly becomes apparent that the hopes for this vineyard do not reach fruition, if you will.  Rather, the fruit, which was supposed to be sweet, has become bitter.

Isaiah is announcing impending doom; the prophet is interpreting the present state of affairs; he’s saying, things don’t look very good, and he is letting the people know that if they don’t change, there’s trouble a’comin’.  And I have to think the prophet’s message was no more popular or well-received in that time than it is today.  Because the historical context is that Assyria is on the march, and will soon invade from the north.  And the prophet needs to be able to explain why.

You see, I explained to Kris.  God made two great covenants with the people of Israel: the first was with Moses at Sinai; that was a conditional covenant: if you obey me and keep my covenant, you will be my chosen people.  But there was a second covenant as well, with King David, an unconditional covenant that will last forever.

So, the question for the people of Israel (and let’s put ourselves in their place) was: how do we reconcile God’s promise of an everlasting kingdom with the fact of an invading army where Israel has been, or is about to be, conquered and destroyed?

So, that is the context for this morning’s “wild grapes” reading.  Israel is the vineyard, and God is removing its hedge (his protective barrier), and it shall be devoured.  The prophet is not predicting the future so much as he is announcing what is going to happen and, perhaps more importantly, “why” it is going to happen, if things don’t change.  In fact, if we look at the Psalm that follows, in verse 12, we see that very question addressed to God: “Why have you broken down its wall?”

And the response is?  Because God expected justice and righteousness, but saw bloodshed and heard the cry of the oppressed.  Because God expected sweet, delicious grapes, but got wild, sour, bitter – more literally - stink fruit.

So, no, it’s not my style to try and smooth over the difficult passages, but to enter fully into them.  I just don’t see how it is helpful to try and minimize God’s anger at injustice.  And I am reminded here of a great OT theme: the beginning of wisdom is fear of the Lord.
So, deal with it we will.  Now, maybe Jesus is going to clear up all this trouble for us in today’s Gospel passage.  Surely, we can count on our savior, the Prince of Peace, to hold us gently like the Great Shepherd up there in the window behind me.  Surely, Jesus is going to rescue us from this wrathful angry God, right.

Well, as it turns out, Jesus isn’t having a particularly good day either.  So much for the Christian mythology that the OT is about the law and God’s anger and vengeance, but the NT is about God’s love and grace.

Today, Jesus, our Prince of Peace, announces “Do you think I have come to bring peace to the earth?  No, I tell you, but rather division!  And fire!…apparently.  And he then goes on to enumerate the kinds of divisions, within the household, he has come to bring. And, I have to admit, I don’t remember ever seeing this line before where Jesus talks about “what stress” he is under.  So Jesus is, or at least sounds, angry, impatient, displeased, and, in the modern vernacular, stressed out.

And so I ask myself, as I always do, since I want to be able to share it with you: where is the Good News in this?  Especially when we’re being called “hypocrites.”  Oh sure, you can sit around and talk about the weather, but you can’t interpret the present time!

Ouch! So, what do we do with this?

Well, most preachers, at least if the resources I looked at are any indication, avoid it completely and focus instead on the “great cloud of witnesses” in the second reading, which certainly is a more positive, pleasing image than a burnt-out, destroyed vineyard.  But let’s regroup and see if we can figure out what is God upset about.  Or better, I remember from reading Marcus Borg: what is God’s passion?  God’s passion is justice.  God is upset, in today’s lesson, about injustice: blindness in the face of suffering.  Because, you see, Israel is no longer that desperate band of oppressed people wandering in the desert.  No, by this point, their society has transformed, like so many others, before and after, into a society of haves and have-nots, and the gulf between rich and poor is widening.

And, to ask a similar question, what is Jesus’ passion?  What is Jesus always talking about, pointing toward?  The Kingdom, God’s kingdom.  So, similarly, do we perceive the kingdom, God’s realm, here on earth?  I mean, since we’re still here some 2000 years later, it’s kind of tough to argue that Jesus was speaking primarily of interpreting the present time as some sort of preparation for a blessed afterlife.

If God is upset about injustice on the earth, whether it is the neglect of the weak and the poor, the cry of the oppressed, or whatever modern parallel we care to name, and Jesus is articulating his displeasure with our inability to interpret the present time, then I think the evidence in the scales weighs in favor of an understanding that it’s what we do while we’re here, now, in this present moment, to overcome injustice, that ushers in God’s kingdom.

So, as best I can figure it, Jesus is stressed out because of our failure to recognize or interpret that it is now, in this present moment, that God’s divine love and justice has been incarnated, in Christ, here on earth, and that it is our task to continue to incarnate that divine love and justice, following the example of those listed in the 2nd reading from Hebrews, here on earth, in and through our own lives.

John Dominic Crossan articulates this understanding in a way that works well for me, and so I will share it with you.  It has to do with the apparent “gulf in sensibility” between Paul’s teaching and Jesus’ teaching.  Paul writes that “flesh and blood cannot inherit [enter] the kingdom of God.”[i]  But Crossan argues that, “for Jesus, anyone incarnating divine justice on earth was ‘flesh and blood’ entering the kingdom of God.”[ii]  As Crossan says: “if you begin with Paul, you will interpret Jesus incorrectly; if you begin with Jesus, you will interpret Paul differently.”[iii]

I am sure, because we are in California, there have been many sermons these past two Sundays, both pro and con, focusing on Judge Walker’s ruling in the Prop 8 trial.  And so it raises the question in my mind: does Judge Walker’s ruling serve to incarnate God’s divine love and justice here on earth?  I believe for many, both Christian (myself included) and non-Christian, it does; and I know just as well for others, it does not.  Indeed, for many, that decision seems to have stirred the very division that Jesus is talking about in today’s gospel reading.

Well, that’s enough for today, don’t you think?  So, I’ll leave the interpretation of the Second Reading from Hebrews and the great cloud of witnesses to the Bible Study group that meets in the Boydston Room following this service, and close with this:

Gracious and loving God, please help us constantly to be aware of and to struggle with, our status as “haves,” that we might do as is pleasing to you to overcome poverty and injustice; be with us also in our status as “have-nots” as we struggle to overcome injustice, exclusion, intolerance, and in some cases, just simple lack of common human understanding and decency.  Thank you for your prophets and for your Son, Jesus, who keep us on our toes, and through whom your message of divine love and justice has been incarnated, here on earth.  And finally, let us remember, as we gather around your table, of our common purpose, as one body in you, to love you, to serve you, and to incarnate your divine love and justice, here and now, on earth, in this present moment, as you would have us do.

Amen.
[i] I Corinthians 15:50
[ii] Crossan, John Dominic, The Birth of Christianity, p. xxx (1998).
[iii] Ibid., p. xxi.
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