EDITOR'S NOTE: In October 2017 I began a new venture as a synodically authorized minister at Faith Lutheran Church in Wolverton, Minn. The ride over the past 3 years has been an amazing journey of learning, growing and a deepening of my theological mind. This sermon took place on Sept. 29, 2020. This was the 25th digital service we performed after our church was shuttered because of the COVID pandemic.
So the other morning I was on my way to drop off our crazy dog, Gus Gus, that many of you have heard about, and who is like lightening in a bottle and goes to doggy daycare, believe it or not, when I heard this new, unfamiliar song come on the radio. I was listening to the radio station called "KLOVE," which is a Christian Contemporary radio station, that you can find in Fargo-Moorhead. You can also find it online by "googling" KLOVE, just like it sounds ... "KLOVE."
And there was there was this brand new song by the "Casting Crowns." Now, if you have listened to Christian Contemporary music at all in recent years, you may have heard of them. They are a pretty popular group, and they have played here at the Fargodome to packed crowds.
Anyway, I was just pulling up to the doggy daycare with Gus, and so I had to hustle him inside so that I could get back out to the car to hear the rest of this song because it had just gripped me so. I don't know if that's ever happened to you where you had to rush back to the car, or maybe you sat in your car because there was a song that had you transfixed. But there I was.
This song gripped me so that I had to find out what it was. I hadn't heard this song, and it was new this year. And I'd like to just read to you part of the lyrics. The song is called "Start Right Here" by the Casting Crowns.
"We want our coffee in the lobby.
We watch our worship on the screen.
We got a rock star preacher who won't wake us from our dreams.
We want our blessings in our pocket.
We keep our missions over seas.
But for the hurting in our cities, would we even cross the street?
But we want to see the heart set free and the tyrants kneel,
The walls fall down and our land be healed.
But church if we want to see a change in the world out there
It's got to start right here.
It's got to start right here.
It's got start right now.
Lord, I'm starting right here.
Lord, I'm starting right now."
Verse two goes like this:
"I'm like the brother of the prodigal
the walls fall down and our land be healed.
He didn't run off like his brother,
but his soul was just as dead.
What if the church on Sunday,
was still the church on Monday too?
What if we came down from our towers,
and walked a mile in someone's shoes."
And the third verse goes like this:
"We're the people called by His name.
If we'll surrender all our pride and turn from our ways,
He will hear from heaven and forgive us our sin.
He will heal our land, but it starts right here.
We're the people who are called by His name.
If we'll surrender all our pride and turn from our ways,
He will hear from heaven and forgive our sin.
He will heal our land right here."
Wow! ... What a pretty powerful indictment of our Christian life right now, isn't it? ... I mean, I'm used to the Christian songs they play on Christian Contemporary radio. They are generally pretty "poppy" and upbeat, and remind us of the glory of God.
When I got done listening to this one, this song really hit me between the eyes, and made me begin to think about the Christian life that I am leading. Is God's Kingdom really starting here with me first?
Well, I think that question is exactly what tonight's gospel is asking us too. Just with different words. Instead of asking us if God's Kingdom is starting right here, I think the gospel is asking: To what are you tending that will bear fruit that will bear fruit for the Kingdom of God? The Kingdom of Heaven?
You see, I find a lot of similarities between that Casting Crowns song and Matthew's gospel tonight. I think they are both speaking to a certain kind of religion. Or possibly a certain kind of religiosity. ... A religion in which we don't practice what we preach. In the song, they pointedly hold up a mirror and ask each of us if we really are living out God's Kingdom.
Would you cross the street to save your own city? Your own community? Your own nation? ... What about that political divide? Would you cross the political divide to save your own community? ... Would you start missions at home for those who are just as much in need? And maybe the most damning of all: Do you practice the same church on Mondays as you do on Sundays?
Well, I think the very same questions, although in different words, are layered in tonight's gospel too. And throughout Jesus' parable of the landowner, He is drawing parallels to God that we cannot miss. He's decisively telling the religious leaders in this parable. We don't know it at the beginning, because it comes in verses before tonight's gospel, and then at the very end of tonight's gospel, but he's speaking to the Pharisees; he's speaking to the high priests. He's not speaking and preaching to the masses here; He's actually in the temple at Jerusalem. And here in the temple, he's telling these high priests and Pharisees that they've been practicing bad religion too.
In other words, His father, the landowner, sent others before Jesus to collect that fruit. And in God's vineyard that he had built and then leased to us He first sent Abraham and Moses and the kings and the judges and the prophets, and what had we done to all of them? Do you see the parallels that Jesus is making to those who God sent before His son to collect that fruit from the harvest?
Maybe even worse yet: Do you see the parallel that Jesus is drawing between himself and the son in the parable? Because we all know too well what happens to the son in the parable, right? We read it in very stark terms. They seize him; they throw him out of the vineyard; and they kill him in the hopes of obtaining his inheritance.
Faith Family, I think our gospel tonight forces us to ask some really tough questions of ourselves. First and foremost, among those questions, is during this time of national strife, and unrest and anxiety, what are we tending to? What are we caring for that will produce or bear heavenly fruit? Fruit for the Kingdom of God? ... Or are we more like the religious leaders in this parable? Are we preaching one kind of religion and practicing another? ... Is our church the same on Monday ... as it is on Sunday?
Well, thankfully for us, Jesus reminds us all that while God's Kingdom will be taken away from those who reject the cornerstone, the second parable of tonight's gospel lesson, it will be gladly given to all of those who produce the fruits of the kingdom.
And so I just have to wonder tonight: Are we living a life in which God's Kingdom starts right here? ... Right here in this church? ... Right here in our hearts? ... Right here in our faith community, as that song says? ... Or are we leading a life such as these religious leaders who are in danger of being crushed by that very cornerstone?
Jesus does give us a way to answer that question, Faith Family. ... And if you look at the very front of your bulletin tonight, in the description paragraph, right underneath the date, it ends in this way: "Grafted onto Christ the vine at baptism we we are nourished with wine and bread so that we may share Christ's sufferings and know the power of His resurrection."
And not only that is the answer to our question tonight, Faith Family, that is the Good News as well, for this Tuesday, Sept. 29, and Sunday, Oct. 4, the 18th Sunday after Pentecost. ... Amen.
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