Isaiah  5:1,2,4 ; Matthew 21: 33-46

Minding the Farm

Three weeks ago we were visiting one of my cousins in the countryside in The Netherlands.  Decades ago she and her husband had moved from the urbanized part of The Netherlands, better known as North and South Holland to the east of the country.  That was a major move then, but now a lot of the Dutch have moved out of the big cities to the countryside.  They had bought a farm there and raised their children there and worked locally as elementary school teachers. It is an area without canals but of pretty green flatland full of farms with reed roofs (in the past a sign of poverty, now a sign of wealth). But now they are in their early sixties and they have quite a bit of land.  The children are all grown and there is a lot of work to do to keep the place up.  That is going to get harder and harder.  And her husband had a bout with cancer.  But they love that place.  It is full of mementos from her parents’ and my grandfather’s house and they have put so much time and effort and they seem very youthful.

Friends, let us summarize what we have learned about the text: in both the book of the prophet Isaiah and the Gospel of Matthew we find people minding the farm which in the Israel of Jesus’ days was most often the olive grove or the vineyard.  God is the owner of the vineyard who is dealing with deadbeat workers of the vineyard.  In Isaiah they are bad stewards, because the land is yielding sour grapes.  In Matthew they are dealing with downright criminal elements who are minding the farm.  The owner keeps sending representative to the tenants of the vineyard.  But they get rejected. Finally the owner (who is a metaphor for God) sends his son thinking they will listen to Him (this is a metaphor for Jesus), but in fact they kill him.

Friends, what is your vineyard? What has God put you in charge of?  In other words what piece of land or group of people has God has called you to take care?

Sylvia Earle is an expert on our oceans and she has been involved marine biology for many decades.  She is resigned and optimistic at the same time about the future of our oceans.  When asked what the state our oceans are, she takes a lamenting tone.  We are pretty much plundering the seas she explains, less so here as in some other countries.  This cannot go one.  She is resigned to the fact that the planet we live on now is no longer the planet onto which she was born.  It has been irreparably changed.  She has just accepted that.  Just as there are many experts in the world who are resigned to the fact that human-made global warming can no longer be reversed. The glaciers will keep melting.  But she is also optimistic that people are starting to pay attention and that the worst can be averted, even though so many species are already extinct.  We are taking notice.  The oceans are Sylvia Earle’s vineyard.  She feels charged with taking care of them.

Just a few weeks ago the US government signed a five hundred million dollar agreement with the Navajo nation.   Pretty much every treaty the US signed with Native Americans (or First Nations people) was ignored or violated.  I hope this one will hold.  The government took control of the “vineyards” which Native Americans were tending in a sustainable way and mismanaged it.  They stole their vineyards.  This is the trend of history. Nations subdue other nations and commit atrocities and inflict injustice. Almost no nation is immune and few large companies are.  Royal Dutch Shell trashed Nigeria, Texaco Ecuador.  And whatever happens in the world, as informed citizens we are really all complicit to a certain degree.  We all harbor inhumanity within our humanity.

So friends, if we are paying attention these two texts should hit us in the face like a two by four or at least an ice cold bucket of water.   We are really the tenants in Isaiah.  We have not tended to the vineyard well.  “None of our business,” one might say.  “I am just living my life as I can.”  That response doesn’t fly in light of the Christian faith.  We are our brothers’ and our sisters’ keepers.  “No,” the Bible says:” you are here to tend to the vineyard.”  “You are here to mind the farm.  You are not just here to have fun until people say about you “ He or she bought the farm.” As Christians, we are responsible for at least a part of this planet or a group of its people and we are in charge of part of it.  So, again, friends, what are you supposed to be tending? What is your vineyard?  May God grant you a calling and a sense of fulfillment in your task.