August 15^th 2004; St. Andrew’s Pictou

Costly Anguish

Isaiah 5:1-7

Psalm 80:1-2, 8-18

Luke 12:49-56

 

We are constantly bombarded with messages like:

-free membership introductory offer!

-a low introductory six month interest credit card,

-an all you can eat buffet,

-two for the price of one,

-Boxing Day sales that go on for months,

-manager’s clearance,

-“imagine all of the freedom,” for a toonie,

-a life of bliss in finding a wife or husband “made in heaven,”

-children under 12, free!

 

On and on, we hear messages that might give us the impression that we really can get “something for nothing.”

 

The actual day to day process of life seems to teach us something quite different:

-the introduction may be free, but carrying the membership on after that can cost a lot of money,

-all those credit cards eventually have to be paid off,

-you have to lose all of the weight you gain from the all you can eat buffet,

-you find out that two for the price of one balance out because it is twice the competitor’s price for the same single item,

-the woman from Glace Bay had a heart attack after winning the 10 million from the stress of all of the people going to her for help,

-10 years into marriage, that “made in heaven” spouse needs just as much work as your neighbour’s spouse,

-and all of those “children under 12 for free” can draw together a throng worthy of a Harry Potter movie set.

 

Folks, there is no free ride; there is no such thing as “something for nothing.”

 

What I have just said is exactly the same message as God conveys through the prophet in the Isaiah reading.

 

God uses the metaphor of a vineyard as a description of the people.

 

Listen to the loving way Isaiah has God begin to describe the vineyard:

“Let me sing for my beloved

            My love song concerning his vineyard:

My beloved had a vineyard

            On a very fertile hill.”

 

Because God loved the people so much, nothing was spared in making this vineyard the absolute best that it could possibly be:

“God dug… cleared… planted… built… hewed… and expected.”

 

But! After all of this, what did the vineyard produce?

 

Wild grapes! In layman’s terms, that means garbage!

 

After all of this loving care and concern and the best of God’s efforts, the people turned out to live their lives as GARBAGE.

 

The vineyard was the house of Israel and God expected justice and righteousness and instead got bloodshed and the cry of affliction.

 

What this passage means for all time is that all society, (the house of Israel and all of us) are responsible for promoting justice and righteousness:

-justice meaning right relationship between people, showing respect for each other, and

-righteousness meaning the wider umbrella of God’s sense of justice in all life and dealings that include our relationship with God.

 

Be very clear that faithfulness is not without cost.

 

Jesus sets the record straight on this issue on the reading from Luke. As he lived and felt what we live and feel, Jesus was under great stress.

 

“I have come to bring great fire to the earth, and how I wish that it were already kindled!

(How I wish it were behind me!)

I have a baptism with which to be baptized, and what stress I am under until it is completed!”

 

Jesus is telling us that the process of life in “following him” are extremely difficult, just as we are to tell our children that being moral and ethical and to be worthy of trust and to stand for something is extremely difficult.

 

You may be confused with the words of Jesus in this passage:

“Do you think that I have come to bring peace to the earth?

No, I tell you, but rather division!

From now on five in one household will be divided, three against two and two against three…”

 

You may think that this is confusing when we call Jesus “the Prince of Peace” but in fact Jesus is just being truthful, that if you stand for peace, you will be in conflict with those who may use your desire for peace to take advantage of your love of peace.

 

Jesus Christ is the original whistle blower!

 

You know what we do with whistle blowers?

 

Our government, 2,000 years after Jesus, is trying to enact whistle blower legislation to protect those who blow the whistle on other people who are sabotaging our system.

 

There was a program on TV the other day where people in the US intelligence system were fired for trying to expose how others in the intelligence community were making the country vulnerable. (Makes you wonder who the enemy is!)

 

As a wise man told me recently, “They won’t enact whistle blower legislation because they rule with fear and they wouldn’t be able to do that if the whistle blowers were protected.”

 

In this passage, Jesus Christ is just telling us to read the signs in front of us, to see the writing on the wall, get a reality check, or whatever you want to call it. He makes an analogy with the weather: we know what happens from the weather signs, so why can’t we interpret the other signs?

 

“When you see a cloud rising in the west, you immediately say, ‘It is going to rain.’ And it happens.

And when you see the south wind blowing, you say, ‘There will be scorching heat.’ And it happens.

You hypocrites! You know how to interpret the appearance of earth and sky, but why do you not know how to interpret the present time?”

 

All of our churches today have a real problem interpreting the signs of the present time.

 

The Roman Catholic Church would rather sell off their churches to pay abuse claims then to change they way that they operate with mandatory celibate clergy and its consequences.

 

Many churches are slaves to their ritual and won’t change it even if nobody is coming to see it performed.

 

The Presbyterian Church would rather ignore the empty pews and closing churches, than to courageously self-examine how we might conduct ourselves in a better way to serve the needs of the people. Our so-called improvements have been likened to rearranging the deck chairs on the Titanic.

 

There is all kinds of costly anguish going on in our world, in our churches and in our lives.

 

The rule of creation that we see in the reading from Isaiah and Jesus words in Luke tell us that rule is hard and fast: cost is involved and the process of life means that costly anguish is the price that we pay for standing for him in life or not either way, we pay.

 

However, what Jesus is asking us to do is the read the signs and make our choices as to which costs we are willing to pay:

-we can pay for a divorce or pay for counseling,

-we can pay dearly for crippling personal issues, or we can self-examine,

-we can deal with our personal issues or pay for alcohol, and dugs to try and mask them,

-we can pay the price of anguish and carry a secret that needs to be shared, or pay the cost of risking in telling that secret to one we trust and reducing our pain,

-like the people to whom Isaiah was talking to, we can squander our wealth in destructive ways, or pay homage to the God of life who only asks for our faithfulness.

 

There are great costs in life that we must pay on our journey.

The bottom line choice is: that we can pay in ways that destroy us, or pay in ways that give us life.

 

That is what Jesus asks us to do: read the signs and make the choice that gives life!

 

Either way: Costs are involved, but God in Christ implores us to make the choices that give us life.

 

The choices are yours to make.

AMEN                                                 Rev. Alan Stewart