How many of you are familiar with Albert Einstein’s
definition of “insanity?” Einstein defined insanity as doing the same thing over
and over again, expecting different results. Our first dog helped us experience
this. Every day when the postal carrier would come to deliver mail, the dog
would go nuts, and bark her head off, and sounded like given the chance would
have attacked the person just delivering messages through the mail slot. From
the dog’s perspective she was a success- every day some stranger came and tried
to put stuff in our door and she barked and the person left. That’s not
insanity.
Insanity was what we did. Every day we would
chastise the dog for that behavior and tell her not to do it. And it never
changed. You’d think that since we provided her a safe and comfortable home and
good food, and she always cornered the best spot in a nice fluffy bed. You would
think that she’d listen. But every day, the postal carrier would appear, and
the dog had the same response. Because to our dog, “This is MY HOUSE!” And she
was in charge.
Our dog was not exhibiting insanity- we were. For
thinking that on a different day or with a different person the result would be
different. And we could have given up on the dog but we didn’t. Because we loved
the dog. And thankfully she never “got” that person who came and shoved mail
through the slot in our front door.
But insanity, that act of doing the same thing over
and over again expecting a different result is perhaps the best way I know to
describe what we see in the vineyard lessons today. Stories of wild grapes and
tenants run amok, and the actions of the owner of the vineyard. (Thanks David
Lose!)
The owner has labored to create a vineyard, tilling
soil, planting lovingly, setting everything in order for the best and most
abundantly possible harvest, and then gives the care of the vineyard over to other.
In Isaiah we hear that it all goes wild from there and the temptation is tear
it all down. But in the gospel, we hear about the tenants in a different way.
And as far as we know in most respects they have been good tenants and have
cared for the place. They’ve been given a place to live and a job to do- bring
in the harvest. And presumably they’ve been given a promise that some of the
harvest will be theirs as their pay, but of course the rest goes to the one who
owned the land and who created the vineyard. And the harvest has come!
But now they look around and they see that harvest
and they just don’t want to share. They’ve worked hard day after day for an
owner who isn’t really around. They’ve put themselves into it and it doesn’t
seem right that most of this goes to someone else.
So when the landowner sends servants to collect, they
don’t receive grapes of joy in the harvest. Instead, to borrow the phrase from
John Steinbeck, they meet with grapes of wrath. In wrath and anger those poor
servants are abused or killed. Because the tenants have decided that this is MY
PLACE!
Here’s where the insanity starts.
The owner could do as we would at this point, send
in police or soldiers and take this by force. But instead, the owner sends more
servants! Who sadly meet the same result. And that’s crazy! Why would the owner
put so much at stake to risk a different result? More grapes of wrath. And
frankly now the tenants are feeling the battle surge.
So then it really gets crazy, because the owner says,
“I’ll send my son. They’ll listen to him. They’ll show respect, and recognize
his authority, after all they have had a job and a place and are getting cared
for.”
And we know how it ends. More wrath and killing.
The question isn’t really so much why did the
tenants act that way- we sadly expect it. The stories in our world and our
lives tell us this.
The question is, “why did the owner act that way??”
Why would anyone try to live in the framework of a
relationship over and over when it is clear that it’s so one-sided?
That’s just crazy.
Today’s parable was told by Jesus to the leaders of
the temple to show them who they were- those who rejected over and over the
messengers of God. And while it’s a story about them and about how they would
go on to reject even the Son, none of us should be under the impression we
would be any different.
When so often we find in our own lives, ways we
reject God’s call upon us to care for the vineyard, for those who show up in
it, or to listen to God. When it is easy to respond to others not with love but
with wrath. To call upon force rather than tend relationships.
Our news and our own stories tell us this is true.
And in the end so much of what we’re given we are sure is OURS, because we’ve
been tending it, we hardly think at all about who else might have a stake.
We can do a fine job of serving up grapes of wrath.
That’s not the gospel.
Sometimes we have to work harder to see what the
good news is.
The bigger and more important part of the parable
however is what we know of God. It’s the story of one who lovingly arranged a
place for us to live and to work and to grow, and who despite all our
rejections and possessiveness, and even our violence and spite, continues to
send not only messengers but to send the Son.
This side of the cross we know just how crazy this
love God has for us really is. Christ on the cross is the ultimate message,
that takes our wrath and made of it, our salvation.
If God responded towards any of us as we deserve,
there would be wrath and destruction indeed. How unexpectedly graciously
instead,
God persists over and over in a relationship with
us, however one-sided, and while it is indeed the height of insanity, it is the
best demonstration of crazy love we’ll ever see.
The grapes in the end are not grapes of wrath, they
are grapes of mercy and forgiveness and love.
And this day again we will taste them. We’ll come
because God invites us and we’ll receive the body and blood of Christ who died
at our hand, but for us. So today, maybe, we’ll taste these grapes and maybe
linger over it, and savor that taste that for us is the taste of love and mercy
for each of us and for all of us.
And then maybe remember that of all the things we
clamor to possess, or to know, the sweetest and best is God’s crazy love for us
all.
