Cat Goodrich
First Presbyterian Church, Birmingham
October 8, 2017
On Doing Difficult Things
Matthew 22…
Las Vegas.
Two weeks ago, the name Las Vegas would’ve evoked the bright lights of casinos, the clang of slot machines, palm trees towering over the strip. The smell of money and mistakes in the desert.
Not anymore.
Likewise, Dallas. Orlando. San Bernadino. Charleston. Newtown. Huntsville. Blacksburg. Columbine.
Places forever changed by gun violence.
The news of another mass shooting is horrific.
It almost leaves me … numb. It’s too much to wrap my head around. Countless families, and friends, and communities stricken by terror and grief because of senseless violence. It leaves me wondering, what is it going to take? How many more people – how many more children have to die before we insist that laws are passed to ensure it never happens again?
Given the deep divides around guns in this country – in our church, even - Is it just the way things are? Human beings just have a will to violence?
If anything, at least we can be confident that the ugly brutality of this gun lovingera is nothing new. Humans have turned to violence to solve problems for a long time. Look at the parable we heard this morning. There’s killing all over the place. The tenants kill the landowner’s servants, then they kill his son. THEN the religious leaders suggest the landowner should retaliate by killing the tenants! Is human life really so expendible? so cheap?
This parable is baffling. Matthew includes it, we think, because his community was coming to terms with Jews who rejected Jesus as the messiah. If we read it like an allegory, the vineyard is the kingdom of heaven, God is the landowner, and the tenants are the religious folks who first rejected the prophets, then reject Jesus. Jesus says, the kingdom of heaven will be taken away from the tenants and given to those who produce fruits.
Ugh. Traditional readings see the religious folks as the Jews and those who produce fruits as Christians. The word for this is supersessionism, and this reading has been used to justify all kinds of terrible, anti-Semitic thinking.
Reading the story this way tells us much more about Matthew’s community than it does about God. By taking another look at the landowner, we can turn that terrible reading on its head. See, he doesn’t behave very rationally, does he? His servants meet a terrible fate – twice! Twice they are beaten and killed! And then, for some reason, he decides to send his son to the same fate.
Preaching professor David Lose quotes Martin Luther saying that sometimes you have to squeeze the good news out of a parable. This is where we squeeze. The good news as I hear it in this story, is that no matter how awful we can be – no matter our penchant for violence and our refusal to give God credit for the bounty of the vineyard, God still pursues us! God seeks us out and risks everything to be in relationship with us. Three chances he gives the tenants to return to him that which they do not own. And despite their violent ways, the landowner does not retaliate.
And so I hope that the same is true for us. Policy change can’t mend the families shattered by last week’s shooting, or heal the hundreds upon hundreds of people who will suffer from post-traumatic stress. But it’s not too late to prevent the next tragedy. Common sense regulations about who can have guns and what kind of weapons are reasonably used for sport or even protection. You have to register with a photo id to buy decongestant because some people might misuse it. We take off our shoes at airport security checkpoints because of one crazy guy. Surely universal background checks, waiting periods, and an assault weapons ban are not only possible, they’re common sense at this point. If we don’t act, what is in store for us but more tragedy and violence?
When Jesus asks what the landowner should do to the tenants for refusing to return the harvest and for killing his servants and his son, those listening say that he should have them killed. But Jesus disagrees. Jesus says only that the landowner should take away the vineyard and give it to those who will produce fruit. This is crucial! Instead of vengeance, instead of justice that seeks an eye for an eye, the landowner seeks restoration – true justice! By restoring the vineyard to those who will share its bounty.
We cannot solve problems with violence. God turns us away from vengeance and instead seeks justice through restoration.
In Boston, there is a neighborhood called Roxbury a little bit south of downtown. Roxbury is low-income, and suffers from a significant amount of gang violence. In 1993, a sophomore at West Roxbury High named Louis Brown was on his way to a teens against gang violence meeting when he was killed in the crossfire of a gang shootout. His mom was devastated – he was a good kid, who’d worked hard in school and tried to get his friends to be engaged in work for peace and justice. Instead of seeking revenge for her son’s death, or becoming totally disempowered, Louis’ mom, Tina, started the Louis D. Brown Peace Institute. She has dedicated her life to changing the way society responds to homicide. She wanted to help other families in the same situation, and to change her community through training, witness, and advocacy for peace. She writes that as part of her healing journey, she built a relationship with the mother of the man convicted of killing her son. She says, “It was a long process. Yet through that connection I felt her pain and I saw her shame. I extended my hands and my heart of forgiveness and she accepted. That relationship allowed me to understand how families onboth sidesgo through grief, trauma, and loss after a homicide happens.”
Tina Chery – Louis Brown’s mom – and her organization are producing fruits of peace, and reconciliation, and compassion, and love in the midst of grief and trauma.
When I named this sermon “On Doing Difficult Things” I was just trying to fit the rubric Shannon had embraced for his last six sermons here. I’d read the passage and thought – wow, what an awful story, it’s going to be hard to know what to do with that! That was before the events of last weekend. But I think that reading this parable in light of Las Vegas, we are called to something more than just call for policy change to make instruments of mass murder a thing of the past. We are called to greater imagination, to create a different way of living together that rejects violence and vengeance completely. A way of life that literally shares the bounty of the land with those who help produce it, and a way of life that bears the fruits of the kingdom – fruits of peace, reconciliation, compassion, and love. In a culture like ours, this is not easy –But Jesus told parables because it allowed him to speak about injustice faced by his community without coming right out and confronting those who were responsible. Parables allowed the listeners to find themselves in the story, and in so doing, realize the impact of their actions on others. And then, hopefully, to change.
Where do you see yourself in this story? In Tina Chery’s story? In the ongoing drama around gun violence in our country? What is God calling you to change?