The sermon I preached yesterday morning at Deer Isle Sunset Congregational Church, broadcast via Zoom and Facebook …
It’s all gift, all of it:
the vista from the ledges on the brow of Blue Hill, stretching from the mountains of Acadia across Blue Hill Bay and Penobscot Bay to the Camden Hills,
the brightly-colored leaves — orange and yellow and red — providing a last visual treat before long months of chill and darkness,
the fire that sparks and crackles, taking the edge off the chill and intimating deep mysteries of the universe in its dancing flames.
It’s all gift, all of it:
the eagle gliding on still wings, the lobster flapping its tail as it is lifted from the trap, the harbor seal leaping from the waves,
the dip of a paddle, the filling of a sail, the crash of a breaking wave.
It’s all gift, all of it:
the tangy freshness of a scallop ceviche, the robust aroma of roasting coffee (even of you don’t like coffee!), the table set for two or four or for a whole extended family,
your granddaughter swinging on a backyard swing, the young soccer player launching an arcing shot on net, the person listening on the other end of the phone call,
the novel you wish would never end, the music you wish would never end, the painting that pulls you into its world — enthralling, consuming.
It’s all gift, all of it:
the one lying next to you in the bed and the one lying in a bed across the road and the one lying in a bed on the other side of the world.
It’s all gift, all of it:
your work, your family, your community, your neighbors, your nation, this world, your life — your life, your very next breath.
It’s all gift.
It’s all gift — this garden, this vineyard, this earth — given to us, given to you and to me, given to all of us, every one of us, to enjoy and to tend, to be blessed by the tending, and to offer blessing by the tending. It is given freely, in joy for the sake of joy, with only one condition: that the landowner, the gift-giver, the laird, the Lord, be given his share of the harvest.
And what is his share of the harvest? Justice. This is what the landowner, the gift-giver, the Lord. wants … justice.
He wants a just tending of the earth: appreciating and preserving and protecting its beauty and its bounty, taking from it what we may with gratitude and with humility, but not exploiting or abusing or taking for granted, tending it with care for the sake of the generations that will live after us on this earth and for the sake of the earth itself.
He wants a just tending of the vulnerable ones among us, of those easily overlooked or even pushed aside because of age or gender or race or nationality or disability or disease or circumstance.
He wants a just tending of the fruits of the garden, understanding and applying the fundamental truth that this garden does not belong to us, but is given to us for the blessing of all of us.
So, when he comes, what will he do? When the owner of the vineyard comes, what will he do?
He wants his share of the harvest! He wants justice! But we have wittingly poured carbon into the earth’s atmosphere, causing fundamental change to climate and weather patterns and putting life, all life on this planet, at risk. Our nation is already and will increasingly suffer the effects of climate change: heat waves, drought, heavy downpours, sea level rise, declining water supplies, reduced agricultural yields, increasing ocean acidity, disappearing fisheries, wildfires, insect outbreaks, disease spreading among plants and animals and humans. A recent United Nations study reported that one million animal and plant species are now threatened with extinction, many within decades, more than ever before in human history, due primarily to the direct and indirect effects of human exploitation and disturbance of their habitat.
He wants his share of the harvest! He wants justice! But Proud Boys are told to “stand by” and an officer of the state pins the neck of a black man with his knee for eight minutes and forty-six seconds, not because he must but because he can. Children are forcibly separated from their parents at our borders, and hardworking, tax-paying heads of household are unjustly deported. And in our nation, three out of four women have experienced verbal sexual harassment, two out of four have been sexually touched without their permission, and one of every four women have survived sexual assault.
He wants his share of the harvest! He wants justice! But the top 0.1% of Americans hold more wealth than the bottom 80%. Three single individuals, three men, hold more wealth than the bottom half of the entire US population combined.
He wants his share of the harvest! He wants justice! But the church of which we are a part, the larger community of women and men who choose to call ourselves by Christ’s name, are as bitterly divided against each other as the nation as a whole. How can that be? How can it be that people who love Jesus (or at least claim to), how can it be that people who commit themselves to following Jesus (or at least claim to), can hold such divergent social values and political loyalties? Is Jesus that opaque, that unclear? Or is it us? Are we not paying close enough attention? Are we all not paying close enough attention to what Jesus says matters most? It was his prayer, after all, that we be one –that we be one — and he said that the world will know we belong to him by our love for each other.
The landowner, the gift-giver, the Lord, wants his share of the harvest! He wants justice!
And what about you? What lies in your heart? What bitterness lingers there? What grudges do you harbor there? Whom do you exclude from your care, from your consideration, from your love? From whom have you become estranged, either by their choice or yours or by simple neglect?
When he comes, what will he do? When the owner of the vineyard comes, what will he do?
He will kill them! He will kill these evil men! He will kill these faithless tenants! He will kill … us?
Will he?
Whose words are these? Whose words are these? These are the words of the scholars, the teachers, the rabbis, the pastors, the imams. These are our words, not Jesus’ words. This is our way — the way of payback, revenge, settling scores — not Jesus’ way.
When he comes, what will he do?
In Jesus Christ, the man of Nazareth, our crucified and risen Savior,
you have come to us
and shared our common lot,
conquering sin and death
and reconciling the world to yourself.
In Jesus Christ, you have come to us, you — our God, our Lord, the landowner, the gift-giver. In Jesus Christ, you have come to us, not judging, but saving, not killing, but being killed, not taking back, but giving more, not cutting off, but reconciling. Reconciling. Bringing back together. Overcoming divides. Repairing broken relationships. Reconciling us, reconciling the world, to yourself.
It’s all gift. The generous One is generous again and generous still. He has come to us and he comes to us still in order to restore and to fulfill the purpose of his gift. He has come to us and he comes to us still, conquering sin and death and reconciling. He has come to us and he comes to us still to make his business our business, to make the business of conquering sin and death our business, to make the business of reconciling our business. This is how we honor him, this is how we show our gratitude, by giving him his share of the harvest, by doing the ongoing work of reconciliation.
There is a simple prayer service written by the Iona Community in Scotland that is one of my favorites. At the church I pastored in Waterloo, Iowa, we would use this service each year on Wednesday evenings during the season of Lent. The service includes a time of shared, directed prayers that begins like this:
We bring to God
someone whom we have met or remembered today
and for whom we want to pray …
We bring to God
someone who is hurting tonight and needs our prayer …
We bring to God
a troubled situation in our world tonight …
But then there is this:
We bring to God, silently,
someone whom we find hard to forgive or trust …
This is the work of reconciliation! Whom do you find hard to forgive? Whom do you find hard to trust? From whom have you become estranged? With whom do you need to be reconciled?
It is a place to start, a place from which the ripple effects of being reconciled may spread. We begin to change the world by changing ourselves. We become reconciled to God as we reconcile ourselves to each other.
The prayers end with this invitation:
We bring ourselves to God
that we might grow in generosity of spirit,
clarity of mind,
and warmth of affection …
Warmth of affection … Clarity of mind … Generosity of spirit … May it be so. May it be so …
David was a poet, sharing his poems with me during my tenure at the church and still as we have both lived in retirement half a country apart. His poems are sometimes hard to read, because they expose the world as it is in all its cruelty and hypocrisy and injustice, but never, never despairing, always holding up the bright light of hope, hope rooted in a compassionate and faithful God, for all to see.