From Wellington Cathedral of St Paul

Vines and Wines

Palm Sunday 28 March 2010 5pm

The Revd Jenny Wilkens

• Isaiah 5:1-7
• Luke 20: 9-19

http://wellingtoncathedral.org.nz/index.php/Sermons

One of the things I used to enjoy when I lived in the South Island was driving fairly often between Christchurch and Nelson, and watching the relentless progression of the vineyards marching north from North Canterbury, and South from Blenheim. Each time I drove through it seemed they were ever closer to joining up in one long vineyard from Blenheim to Christchurch!

Now of course I have the opportunity to get to know the vineyards of the Wairarapa a little better! Vineyards over the last twenty years or so have become very much part of our landscape, and perhaps we can now better identify with the vineyard imagery of the Bible.

For as we heard in our readings this evening, the image of the vineyard is a common one in the Bible, reflecting the Mediterranean setting of the peoples we encounter there.

It was seen as part of the fulfilment of God's promises to the people of Israel, once they had left the desert wilderness life and settled into the fertile land of Canaan, that each should be able to sit under their own vine and fig tree (Micah 4:4).

An idyllic vision, but the reality of Isaiah's song of the vineyard is that we soon move from the beautiful picture of God's tender care of these choice vines, God's pleasant planting, to find that the whole lot has gone to pot and delivered only sour grapes!

God's song becomes a lament: 'What more was there to do for my vineyard that I have not done in it? It is a lament we will hear repeated later on this week on Good Friday: 'O my people, what have I done to you? Or how have I offended you? Answer me.' (Micah 6:3)

God's song becomes a lament and then a dire prophecy of judgement, and why? Because God 'expected justice but saw bloodshed, expected righteousness but heard a cry' (Is 5:7) from the oppressed.

Israel was charged to bear the fruit of justice in her life, and to show God's grace and righteousness to the world around. But she has rather practised injustice in her own life, and insisted on keeping God's grace to herself rather than sharing it, righteousness has turned to self-righteousness.

This was the reality in the time of the prophet Isaiah, the 8th century BCE, and this was still the reality Jesus sadly finds in his own time, when he comes to Jerusalem for the last time. Riding on a donkey of peace, as we remembered this morning, he found a city far from at peace with itself or with the message he comes to bring.

And so he tells the parable of the vineyard: the vineyard owner has sent his slaves, his messengers, to the tenant farmers, seeking good fruit, but to no avail. This is one of those parables where none of Jesus' hearers would have missed the point that God was the vineyard owner, the tenant farmers are the people of Israel, and the slaves/messengers are the prophets God has sent to them over the years.

Now the owner sends his beloved son but the tenants plot against him and finally kill him. What then will the owner do? He will come and destroy those tenants and give the vineyard to others.

'Heaven forbid!' cry Jesus' hearers, and particularly the scribes and chief priests, those who hold the power and control of the nation's religious life, those who immediately feel threatened at the thought of having to share this with others who are not, as they saw it, God's people.

Jesus responds with what seems to us a rather strange quotation from Psalm 118:22 The stone that the builders rejected has become the cornerstone. Psalm 118 is what is called a pilgrimage psalm, one of the psalms of ascent that were sung by pilgrims as they climbed up the hills to the Temple at Jerusalem.

We heard another verse (v26) from that Psalm used in our Palm Sunday Gospel this morning, as Jesus rode on the donkey down the Mount of Olives and up the hill towards the Temple: 'Blessed is the king who comes in the name of the Lord!' (Lk 19:38). Of course we know those words well too from our Eucharistic liturgy, the words of the Benedictus.

But that acclamation of blessing and triumph midst the hosannas soon turns we know to cries of rejection. That will not however be the end of the story, for in God's purposes, the stone the builders rejected will become the cornerstone.

The builders of Israel, her acknowledged leaders now, may reject Jesus, but he will be revealed as the cornerstone of the new temple which is his body. Jesus' body will be torn apart on the cross, just as the veil of the Holy of Holies in the temple will be torn from top to bottom, signalling the reconciliation achieved between God and humanity in Christ.

Then a new Temple will be built but not with bricks and mortar, rather built of living stones, all who belong to Christ, with Christ as the chief cornerstone. The new vineyard will bear fruit, with Christ as the Vine and all who belong to him as the branches of that vine, bearing fruit as God intended.

This is what we are invited to be part of again this week as we enter into Holy Week and its holy mysteries. We are invited not just to cheer with the crowds and the donkey and the palms as we did this morning, but also to journey with Christ to places of rejection, of desertion, of loneliness, of suffering this week.

We will hear further this week imagery of the vine and the cup: At the Last Supper, this cup that is poured out for you is the new covenant in my blood. (Lk 22:20) In Gethsemane, "Father, if you are willing, remove this cup from me, yet not my will but yours be done." (Lk 22:42)

We are invited to walk the way of the cross with Jesus, knowing that only in this way do we identify with his death for us, taking on himself all our selfishness, our self-righteousness, our rejection, our injustice and lack of love towards God and others…

Only when we walk with Jesus to the cross and through death, can there be the hope of new life, new beginnings, new wine of the kingdom, new fruitfulness in our lives, lived in the power of the risen Christ.

Holy Week invites us to make that journey with Christ again this week. "Jesus, when you rode into Jerusalem, the people waved palms with shouts of acclamation. Grant that when the shouting dies, we may still walk beside you even to a cross. Amen." (Collect for Palm Sunday)