God is always more ready to hear....
/Sermon Proper 22 A All Saints 10-4-20
Feast Day for St. Francis
Isaiah 5: 1 – 7 Psalm 80: 7 – 14 Philippians 3: 4b – 14 Matthew 21: 33 – 46
God is always more ready to hear than we are to pray… BCP Collect
On this Sunday when we are celebrating the life of St. Francis of Assisi, it seems sad not to have a Blessing of the Animals liturgy. An afternoon of saying prayers for furry and feathered friends is one of my favorite afternoons. I think of it as the true beginning of Fall.
We are worshipping outside surrounded by God’s beautiful creations including birds and an awesome number of flying and crawling bugs! Some of you have dogs and cats waiting for you at home. With our Atlanta kids here with us, I have 2 cats and 4 dogs waiting at home. Wall-to-wall fur, you bet! Knowing that many of you have much loved pets, I would like to offer a prayer from our customary Blessing liturgy for our beloved companions:
Heavenly Father, good Creator of all that you have made,
we ask you to bless these pets whom we love.
As you created them in your abundant goodness, we ask you to keep
them healthy and happy, surrounded with love and soft warm
beds.
Make us careful tenders of your creation, being always aware of
these creatures’ needs that they may find joy in us
as we do in them.
We ask your blessings on the beloved pets who are no longer with
us. Keep them safe in your tender care. We give thanks for
the joyful memories we have of our time with them.
Through our care of these pets may we become more able to care for
our brothers and sisters and to work for the furtherance of your
Kingdom, where you live and reign forever and ever. Amen.
You have heard St. Francis’s story many times. He was a truly rich young man who turned his back on his family and his wealth, quite literally. Francis lived in complete personal poverty and required all the monks who came to join him to do the same. Francis lived his poverty with great joy, and with great reverence for the natural world – people, animals and plants. He considered all of creation to be from God and beloved of God. He taught that it is our responsibility to live in respect and care of every person, every animal, every plant – no exceptions.
St. Paul would have appreciated St. Francis, I believe, both for Francis’s renunciation of the status and wealth of his family and for Francis’s total commitment to Jesus and the preaching of the Gospel. There is one big difference, however: St. Francis did not often speak about his trials and his privations, while St. Paul often reminds his readers of quite specific sufferings. Paul’s writings as well as Jesus’s teachings about our taking up the cross and suffering for our faith set expectations early on that suffering is part of Christian ministry.
Vineyards are present throughout the Scripture, both as agriculture and as metaphor. In the Complete Jewish Bible translation, Verses 14 & 15 in our Psalm today say:
(14) God of armies, please come back!
Look from heaven, see, and tend this vine!
16 (15) Protect what your right hand planted,
the son you made strong for yourself.
The Psalmist is saying that Israel – God’s people living in their promised land – is the vineyard that God tends. The writer declares that God plants this vineyard with God’s right hand. That means that God plants God’s people with full blessings and goodness from God.
Metaphors are an interesting part of our quirky language. They allow us to draw a concrete word image of something we know to help us understand a concept or a new idea. Looking at Christianity in general and our church in particular as a vineyard tended by our God is a beautiful way for me to understand our relationship with each other.
You have seen vineyards – how there are woody trunks that are rooted in the ground but set distinctly apart. The branches are twined around a lattice of wire. All the branches merge so that one does not see separations between the trunks. When grapes are picked, no one traces the separate branches each to its own trunk – it does not matter which root provided the nourishment and water to the grapes. It matters only that the grapes are full and rich with color and flavor.
In the parable that Jesus told, the tenants in the vineyard had a choice. Their contract specified the quantity of the grapes that the owner wanted to receive. There was no mystery that the tenants would be required to pay that amount to the owner. They chose, however, to pretend that they did not owe anything to the owner. They beat, stoned and killed first the messengers and then the son, the legitimate heir to the vineyard thinking that through murder they could steal the property for themselves.
Sometimes we act the same way with God’s creation. We think we can drain every resource right down to the last drop, we can ignore the diminution of wildlife around us, we can create enormous piles of trash and garbage, and God will not pat attention. Life will carry on getting better every day. We are finding that that is not true. What do we say in our liturgy: You made us rulers of creation. But we turned against you and betrayed your trust….. Then we add: and we turned against one another. We are the vineyard, but we act like the wicked tenants.
The author Charles Swindoll once observed that the church is the only organization that shoots its own wounded. When we forget who we are, we turn against God. God made us for God’s self, not for our own domination and betrayal. When we ignore the wounds carried by our brothers and sisters, we betray one another.
I sent out an email early on Friday morning as we were learning about the Covid-19 infection of our President and of many of those closely associated with him. I asked you to join me in a Vigil of Prayer – now 29 days – between now and our national election. I asked you to pray for the health of our President and other leaders – whether we like and support each of them is not the point. I asked you to pray for the coming elections at all levels. How you vote is not my point – that you vote is certainly the point.
I asked that you pray for the health of our nation in this time of tremendous stress and difficulties. Prayers for our healing are sorely needed.
Whatever our political persuasion, whatever our differences with other Christians, whatever races are soon to be won or lost, this is our vineyard. We are the vineyard and we are God’s tenants caring for it. I ask that you pray as if the life of the vineyard and the livelihood of the tenants depends on your prayers. I believe, dear ones, that dependency is clear and presently in danger.
God is always more willing to listen than we are to pray. Please – pray to the God who created us and loves us absolutely, the God who never sleeps, never leaves us, and desires good for us. Amen
