RENTERS OF THE WORLD
Matthew 21: 33-46
By and large, those who did not pay
for things originally, and especially those who have an inability to pay for
things that get broken, rarely take care of your belongings as carefully as you do. Films capture the escapades of
an unsupervised boy named Kevin in “Home Alone,” a huge and loving, but clumsy
and slobbering dog left alone by Tom
Hanks’ character in “Turner and Hooch,” and what fraternity brothers in “Animal
House” when the alumni and administration are gone. Certainly some of you have rented a car, an
apartment, tools, or even a home. Security deposits are almost always required
to try to insure proper care of what was rented. Still, anything someone rents seems to get less attention and
care than what you own;
subconsciously do you care for what is yours, or what is loaned to you, in
extra special ways? Boys especially:
think about when you got permission to drive the family car or minivan or
station wagon in my case: did you wash it, clean it, and drive it carefully? Compare
how you cared for their car with the
way you cared for your first bought car?
Did you wash it every day or just every other day? Did you check under the hood
every time you drove it or every other time? Did you wipe off the door handles
after someone touched them? Both boys
and girls seem to care best for what is theirs.
Sometimes, however, for profit or out
of need, we have people rent our property or we pay people to maintain our
property. For maintenance, we look for references from friends and neighbors:
who did a good job? Is the company trustworthy?
And sometimes, no matter how hard a professional tries, there are those
who are hard to please since what is being cared for is theirs instead of yours. Now that I’ve had surgery on my shoulder, my
days of changing my own oil are probably over; but years ago I trusted my cars
to “professionals” for a period of time until one mechanic put so much new oil
in my crankcase that it cause my oil seals to leak, and on two other occasions a
mechanic “forgot” to change my oil filter. You see, it’s my car, and to me those things matter! When I trim my own grass, my back screens
never get cut; but while on a vacation several years ago, the professional who
cut my grass cut four of them with a weedwacker. And once when the children
were little, Mary Ann and I came home from an evening out and paid our
babysitter, only to learn the next day that both big speaker cones on my stereo
were torn from an unsupervised child. What might have happened to our children
that could have been a tragedy when an eye was turned the other way? We seem to
care the most for what is ours. But we also learn how to and who we can trust
with our health, our home, and our loved ones.
As children grow up, parent’s nerves
get on edge as they trust more and more work around the home to them, not just
because there are so many jobs, but to teach them how to care for, repair,
clean, and be responsible for what is entrusted to them. So with dusting comes
broken nick knacks; with lawn mowing comes bent cutting blades or chopped sprinkler
heads; with cooking comes spilled grease, sliced fingers, or chipped plates. But parents cannot, and indeed should not,
keep all such jobs to themselves. There will be some damage in the process of
entrusting property to someone else.
Last week we listened in as Jesus
told Pharisees a parable about a father and the two disobedient sons who would
not do as he asked, Today we come to his next parable: a landowner, who
allegorically has been interpreted to be the Heavenly Father, buys a vineyard,
(i.e. some call it his kingdom, others call it Israel echoing Isaiah chapter 5:
verse 2,) and he lets it out (rented it) to tenant farmers (i.e. Israel’s
religious leaders.) In spite of pledges of trustworthiness, they fail to take
care of what was entrusted to them. The landowner (God) sent his servants
(prophets) to get the first fruits that the land produced. Like a story on the evening
news, we learn that a number in succession are grabbed beaten. The landowner,
deemed by some to be either foolish or naïve, finally sends his son to get the
first fruits of the crops of the land. As we heard and perhaps suspected would
happen, he was cast out of the vineyard (perhaps foreshadowing Jesus’ own death
outside the walls of
Friends: this is a New Testament parable. The parables of
Jesus not only hold up a mirror to religious people of his day, they are living words of God that, when held up, also
reflect your face and mine. Today, this parable applies to those who have
pledged to follow, and serve Jesus, and be stewards (care givers) of God’s
earth and its inhabitants. How are we doing? From Genesis to the Psalms to the
gospels to
But the vineyard has been handled by
crooked, uncaring tenants; things like greed and self-centeredness have
alienated them from the God who lovingly made them and ultimately claims them.
Ages ago in Genesis one, God listed what was good in the world. Like poetry,
Genesis reminded us that God completed that list in six days. And friends,
nothing is off of that list even today; nothing and no one. So, will we take
care of God’s things and God’s children carelessly
because they aren’t ours, or carefully
because they’re his, but given to us for our care? After all, included in God’s
Face Book list of most precious friends, is a picture of you.
Jesus invites his friends to this
meal that is a foretaste of the wonderful
Jeffrey A. Sumner