Good Morning Friends,
There is a messiness in imagining the future unless Jesus is leading. Sure, we are to have a vision, but our creativity can turn to chaos soon enough. Our failure to imagine the continuing benefits from and to others is often the root of the evil that befalls us. There is no hiding from this pride, and it could be playing out in our nation at this very moment. We can believe we are bearing the right fruits in the vineyard when in fact we are just ripping up the roots from the soil destroying our own future as well or perhaps we are just growing wild grapes. Frankly I am an advocate of bearing the fruit of joy, but the apparent joy of a good soldier who kills an enemy during war should be unsettling for us all. Still C. S. Lewis presented a case where our Lord finds our desires too weak. We fool around with the joys of drink and sex and ambition when infinite joy of Jesus is offered to us. We settle for good instead of great or perhaps something much worse. We are far too easily pleased with the wrong results of the seven deadly depravities. So, How Can We Seek The Right Harvest When We Humans Are So Sinful?
Scripture: “Listen to another parable. There was a landowner who planted a vineyard, put a fence around it, dug a wine press in it, and built a watchtower. Then he leased it to tenants and went to another country. When the harvest time had come, he sent his slaves to the tenants to collect his produce. But the tenants seized his slaves and beat one, killed another, and stoned another. Again he sent other slaves, more than the first; and they treated them in the same way. Finally he sent his son to them, saying, ‘They will respect my son.’ But when the tenants saw the son, they said to themselves, ‘This is the heir; come, let us kill him and get his inheritance.” So they seized him, threw him out of the vineyard, and killed him. Now when the owner of the vineyard comes, what will he do to those tenants?” 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.” 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’? Therefore I tell you, the kingdom of God will be taken away from you and given to a people that produces the fruits of the kingdom. When the chief priests and the Pharisees heard his parables, they realized that he was speaking about them. They wanted to arrest him, but they feared the crowds, because they regarded him as a prophet.
Matthew 21:33-43, 45-46 (NRSV)
Do not worry about anything, but in everything by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving let your requests be made known to God. And the peace of God, which surpasses all understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus. Finally, beloved, whatever is true, whatever is honorable, whatever is just, whatever is pure, whatever is pleasing, whatever is commendable, if there is any excellence and if there is anything worthy of praise, think about these things. Keep on doing the things that you have learned and received and heard and seen in me, and the God of peace will be with you.
Philippians 4:6-9 (NRSV)
Let me sing for my beloved my love-song concerning his vineyard: My beloved had a vineyard on a very fertile hill. He dug it and cleared it of stones, and planted it with choice vines; he built a watchtower in the midst of it, and hewed out a wine vat in it; he expected it to yield grapes, but it yielded wild grapes. And now, inhabitants of Jerusalem and people of Judah, judge between me and my vineyard. What more was there to do for my vineyard that I have not done in it? When I expected it to yield grapes, why did it yield wild grapes? And now I will tell you what I will do to my vineyard. I will remove its hedge, and it shall be devoured; I will break down its wall, and it shall be trampled down. I will make it a waste; it shall not be pruned or hoed, and it shall be overgrown with briers and thorns; I will also command the clouds that they rain no rain upon it. For the vineyard of the Lord of hosts is the house of Israel, and the people of Judah are his pleasant planting; he expected justice, but saw bloodshed; righteousness, but heard a cry!
Isaiah 5:1-7 (NRSV)
God blessed them, and God said to them, “Be fruitful and multiply, and fill the earth and subdue it; and have dominion over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the air and over every living thing that moves upon the earth.”
Genesis 1:28 (NRSV)
Now Israel loved Joseph more than any other of his children, because he was the son of his old age; and he had made him a long robe with sleeves. But when his brothers saw that their father loved him more than all his brothers, they hated him, and could not speak peaceably to him.
Once Joseph had a dream, and when he told it to his brothers, they hated him even more. He said to them, “Listen to this dream that I dreamed. There we were, binding sheaves in the field. Suddenly my sheaf rose and stood upright; then your sheaves gathered around it, and bowed down to my sheaf.” His brothers said to him, “Are you indeed to reign over us? Are you indeed to have dominion over us?” So they hated him even more because of his dreams and his words. He had another dream, and told it to his brothers, saying, “Look, I have had another dream: the sun, the moon, and eleven stars were bowing down to me.” But when he told it to his father and to his brothers, his father rebuked him, and said to him, “What kind of dream is this that you have had? Shall we indeed come, I and your mother and your brothers, and bow to the ground before you?” So his brothers were jealous of him, but his father kept the matter in mind.
Now his brothers went to pasture their father’s flock near Shechem. And Israel said to Joseph, “Are not your brothers pasturing the flock at Shechem? Come, I will send you to them.” He answered, “Here I am.” So he said to him, “Go now, see if it is well with your brothers and with the flock; and bring word back to me.” So he sent him from the valley of Hebron. He came to Shechem, and a man found him wandering in the fields; the man asked him, “What are you seeking?” “I am seeking my brothers,” he said; “tell me, please, where they are pasturing the flock.” The man said, “They have gone away, for I heard them say, ‘Let us go to Dothan.’” So Joseph went after his brothers, and found them at Dothan. They saw him from a distance, and before he came near to them, they conspired to kill him. They said to one another, “Here comes this dreamer. Come now, let us kill him and throw him into one of the pits; then we shall say that a wild animal has devoured him, and we shall see what will become of his dreams.” But when Reuben heard it, he delivered him out of their hands, saying, “Let us not take his life.” Reuben said to them, “Shed no blood; throw him into this pit here in the wilderness, but lay no hand on him” —that he might rescue him out of their hand and restore him to his father.
So when Joseph came to his brothers, they stripped him of his robe, the long robe with sleeves that he wore; and they took him and threw him into a pit. The pit was empty; there was no water in it. Then they sat down to eat; and looking up they saw a caravan of Ishmaelites coming from Gilead, with their camels carrying gum, balm, and resin, on their way to carry it down to Egypt. Then Judah said to his brothers, “What profit is it if we kill our brother and conceal his blood? Come, let us sell him to the Ishmaelites, and not lay our hands on him, for he is our brother, our own flesh.” And his brothers agreed. When some Midianite traders passed by, they drew Joseph up, lifting him out of the pit, and sold him to the Ishmaelites for twenty pieces of silver. And they took Joseph to Egypt.
Genesis 37:3-28a (NRSV)
Message: In today’s scripture we have a story about Joseph and the coat of many colors and in it we have the drama of the deceitful coverup of his siblings. Here we see what bitterness drives people to do. Joseph’s brothers are so bitter, they do not care who gets hurt and what damage is done. Bitterness blinds people to the long-term consequences. Maybe Rueben never thought it would go as far as it did and how despondent the lie they perpetrated about Joseph’s death would make their father feel. Bitterness is a slippery slope. So, when we find bitterness in our hearts, we need to act by owning it and confessing it and then fixing it by making a reconciliation. What is required if we hope to live in peace with others is to forgive. The focus of many people today is to acquire wealth and property and enjoy worldly pleasures thinking that is all there is. Some people in places called churches do the same thing. People are concerned about building things. But if Jesus is not the cornerstone of a whole new way of building…a whole new Temple for worship in us, the desire is turned into rebellion. The thing is that Jesus is about building a whole new approach to experiencing God and the joy of the Vineyard. That is why Jesus confronted the religious leaders of the Temple. Still to this day those with power are often accorded the most respect no matter the source of their wealth, even in the structure of the institutions we call church. But Jesus presents a very different option. In Christ we have a whole new way of worship that is not a transaction but much more. For as God chose Israel to point the world to God, now God has appointed the called-out assembly of God to point the way too, and we are not doing a very good job of it if we are not making disciples. Friends, as some of the first words of Scripture teach, we are to keep our focus on God. We are to love God, love others and make disciples. We are to be fruitful and multiply for God because God has provided in creation what we need. And friends, God has in a similar way to creation itself provided in Christ all that the believer would need to produce the fruits of the Kingdom. Maybe we need to be cultivating that focus to harvest the best kind of joy. But the history of the work of the church is a bit tainted and the facts dispel the grand illusion that we are saving lives, when the reality is that those historically bringing the gospel also brought oppression for many. We must humbly depend on God to do the heavy lifting. Thankfully Jesus in today’s text is teaching us about ushering in a new way of worship in a Vineyard that does not produce so much wildness and rebellion. Friends, God’s desire for us is to enjoy the new wine of God’s lush vineyards. But we, like our ancient tenant farming ancestors in today’s Gospel reading, remain oblivious to the splendors of God’s creative doctrine, which compels God to always provide enough for everyone. Still, we want more than we need, even as the religious leaders in the Temple wanted more power. You see part of it is in seeking the right harvest, but the greater challenge is in sharing it fairly. The cycle of sin, punishment, repentance and renewal has worn itself out. We need a new way led by the Spirit.
And So, we are living in a time of many uncertainties and stress. We are bombarded with news of terrible things happening around the world daily. Some of them may be lies because more than a few people are bitter. Many people are also feeling anxious about all kinds of things. We wonder how we can find peace in such a time as we are living in. Still, God remains supreme, and God’s glory is assured, in our hearts and worship and ultimately in the victory Christ has won. So, we are to have no anxiety about anything and continue to pray for peace and justice and respect. So, thank God when you ask God for help. Then peace will reign in your hearts, whether external events are pleasant or not. And remember what Jesus’s last command was. Indeed, we are to go in peace, proclaiming the Gospel of Christ by your lives. Because God wants everyone you know to be saved, to live by the new law: Love God above all things and love our neighbor as Jesus Christ loved us. God can even use evil for good and did so in the life of Joseph. So, avoid bitterness and dream on in the love of God.
Pray that we begin with love. Pray that our fruit is not so wild as to be useless. Pray we discover a whole new way of worship in Christ. Praywe hear a cry for an awakening in the church. Pray we do it God’s way instead of our own way. Pray that we are not so rebellious and envious. Pray that our worship never bears the fruit of hate, injustice, oppression, bitterness and idolatry. Pray we realize that God has provided what we need to produce fruit for the Kingdom of God and that the called-out assembly of God has been chosen to point the world to the way of God. Pray we choose the joy of Christ so others might see how a life that Christ at the cornerstone has can glorify God. Pray we bear the fruit of love, holiness, justice and righteousness and joy for the Kingdom of God. Pray we rejoice that God has chosen us to experience grace and mercy. Pray we believe that God is sovereign, and we are not even though we have choices. Pray we realize that evil is initiated in our hearts, but love can be initiated there as well in response to God’s love for us. Pray we know our spiritual enemies and face them in battle victoriously because God has chosen us to bear fruit for the harvest.
Blessings,
John Lawson
Daily Devotionals 