God’s Work

sermon for World Communion Sunday
by Torin Eikler
Matthew 21:33-46 Isaiah 5:1-7

At the Church Board meeting this past Wednesday, Mike told us an interesting and moving story from work at the school.

Earlier in the week, a pair of boys – one 7 and one 10 - came to school for the first time after moving into the area with their mother. They arrived on the bus from Bartlett House by themselves because their mother was receiving emergency medical attention and couldn’t come along. They got off the bus and made their way into the front office with little incident and were waiting quietly to receive their class room assignments for 2nd grade and 4th grade, respectively, just like usual.

And then, the trouble started.

The younger of the two boys is a special needs student who is a fairly extreme example of Down’s syndrome, and the busy-ness and excitement of the start of the school day was a bit too much for his nerves. He ran off through the maze of hallways in the office complex with his older brother close on his heels while the staff came to alert.

Now as I pictured this, I imagined a scene from a crime drama with detectives radioing in, “We have a runner! We have a runner! Go, go, go!” as tense music plays in the background. (Clearly I’ve watched a bit too much television in my time because I’m certain it was not at all that tense.) In fact, before the staff had to get very involved, the 10-year-old had followed his brother into the storage closet he had chosen as a quiet, safe place to hide. He soothed him with calm words and loving touches, and the two were soon back in the front area, waiting once again for their turn in the schedule. The older boy, displaying no anger but perhaps a little embarrassed, commented to the staff around them, “I know. I know. He’s my brother, but I still love him.”


Amazing, isn’t it … how the wisdom of the Spirit can speak so clearly where and when we are least expecting it? This child - whose short, hard life has pushed him into responsibilities that many adults would fear to take on – this young boy showed a level of patience and caring that often eludes the best of us.

It humbles me to hear his words speak in the back of my mind as I think of all the times that I walk past people who could use a kind word, or when I grumble about friends or acquaintances who grate on my nerves simply because of who they are. If we all could reach out to the world and serve the “least of these” in the way he did we would be much closer to the Realm of God, for the vineyard is meant to be tended by people like this child.


Why is it that even though we always find stories like this moving in the power of their witness to Christian values, they just don’t tend to translate into changes in our lives? We regularly talk about the inspiration we find in them, yet so often we tend to act more like the tenants in the parable we heard read today – selfish, greedy … blind and deaf to the working of the Spirit among us even as we voice our belief that all our stuff and even our lives are not so much ours as they are God’s.

Think about it… How many times have prophets and visionaries come to share Truth – capital T truth - with us or call us to remember the mission, vision, and priorities of God? They speak to us of environmental concerns and the devastation wrecked by our sadly irresponsible stewardship of the world’s resources. They remind us of the brothers and sisters who wander homeless and hungry in the midst of a culture drunk on plenty and obsessed with the quest for more. They tell stories of the suffering that comes from emotional and physical violence and war – suffering among those who are least at fault, who are weak, and who most desire peace. They speak the words of God as they shape a vision of a world at peace, living in harmony.

And what do we do? How do we respond? Well I, at least, am much more enlightened than the tenants in the parable. I don’t beat them or stone them or kill them. I don’t even wish that I could imprison them like the chief priests and Pharisees (at least not most of the time.)

No, the tools and techniques that I use – that we all use – are more refined and subtle. We simply ignore the people who trouble our comfortably hectic patterns of living. Or we offer them a welcoming smile and a hand shake, listen to what they have to say with nods and concerned expressions, and send them on their way to bother someone else while we offer up a list of justifications among ourselves until we have buried the still small voice they awakened within us under a tumult of grumbling.

Perhaps we deserve to have the word of the Lord that came through Isaiah directed against us…
And now, inhabitants of Morgantown and people of the United States,
judge between me and my vineyard.
What more was there to do for my vineyard that I have not done for it?
When I expected it to yield sweet grapes, why did it yield sour 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 … and it shall be overgrown with briers and thorns.

For the vineyard of the Lord of hosts is the Church of Christ,
and the followers of Christ are his pleasant planting.
He expected justice but saw bloodshed and greed;
righteousness but heard the cry of the suffering and abused!

Perhaps this is just what has been happening of late. With the economic downturn, the credit crisis, a strained and straining military, and the demise of the United States as the sole and benevolent world power; perhaps we are witnessing what happens when the wall protecting the vineyard falls down…. Perhaps … if such metaphors can be taken literally.


Perhaps we do deserve to have the Realm of God taken away from us and given to “a people that produces the fruits of the Kingdom.” But, amazingly, that is not what we receive.

No, in those moments when we happen to be waiting for the next thing to come and our eyes are open to see the reality of the hectic, scary world – when we run to hide in the quiet dark – in those moments, our patient brother comes to us. He sooths us with quiet words and calms us with the warm touch of a loving embrace. He feeds us on the bread of life to renew our strength. He gives us the wine of the new covenant to refresh our spirits and restore our courage.

And then, wonder of wonders, he leads us back out of the lonely, fearful emptiness we have chosen into the bright warmth of the vineyard we have ignored and treated so poorly. Instead of casting us out, he offers us grace. Despite our repeated failure, despite of our tendency to ignore or neglect the least of these among us, in spite of our habit of throwing out those who speak the words we need to hear – the words of the Spirit; he invites us back into the Realm of God. He gives us, once again, the power and authority to tear down the walls we have raised to protect our place as a “chosen people” and bids us to go and bring others to share the bounty of the garden and the new life it promises.


Sisters and brothers in Christ, as we share in the feast of life at the table of our Lord and brother, let us praise God for the salvation we have received:
salvation from the flawed ways of the world and
the false promises it makes…
salvation from the burden and worry of trying to do it all …
salvation from the dark loneliness within ourselves.
Let us eat again of the bread and tasting again the water of life, let us joyfully take up our own small part in tending God’s vineyard. It is good work. It is God’s work. And we have been chosen – we are privileged – to share in the fun.