I remember from seminary that one of my wisest professors said, “All congregations are some mixture of problems and potential.” I specifically remember writing that down in my notes, because it struck me as being profoundly true. And I’ve remembered that statement again and again. I think it’s true of St. Andrew’s, of Holy Trinity, of St. Francis, and of all our congregations. It’s true of the church I grew up in and the churches I’ve been a part of as a layperson and as a priest. But I also think it’s true of us as individual Christians, those of us who find our home in the tradition of Anglicanism, as well as those of any other Christian denomination.

At rock bottom, when we’re being honest, we see the truth that we’re all a mixed-up mixture of problems and potential. We see that truth in our own lives and in the lives of the Christian denominations in which we make our faith homes. It’s the truth about us now, but it’s also historically true, for we see the whole mixed up story of humanity’s problems and potential throughout the pages of scripture. How are we coming along (or not coming along) in our lives of faith, love and service to God? It’s the question that underlies the story of God’s people, including us, and our own stories.

In today’s gospel, we have Jesus telling not just a parable but an allegorical story. In a way, this allegorical story is the Old Testament in miniature. It’s about a vineyard owner (God), who leases his vineyard to some tenants (the people of Israel). When the time comes for the harvest, the vineyard owner (God) sends some slaves (the prophets) to collect the harvest. But the people of Israel attack the prophets, or in the way of the allegory, the tenants attack the slaves. God sends more prophets, but the people attack them too. Finally God, the vineyard owner, sends his son – Jesus – thinking that at last the fruits of the harvest will be collected peaceably once the tenants see who it is who has come. But of course, it is not to be and the tenants not only attack the son, but kill him and seek to claim the vineyard as their own. And that is part of the story of the New Testament, in miniature.

A whole heck of the lot of the time, we don’t think about what we’re doing, or why we’re doing it - that’s the plain and honest truth. We like to think we’re in charge, we want to be in charge, we believe we’re entitled to be in charge, and we act a lot of the time as if that were so. It’s the problem part of the human mix of problem and potential. But we deceive ourselves, don’t we – just as the tenants of the vineyard did – believing that if they took matters into their own hand and seized control that everything would work out just fine. We deceive ourselves when we try to switch roles – seeking to be owners rather than tenants.

If there’s a theme by which to name this story from the gospel, it’s stewardship. The Bible tells us over and over again that all that we have, all that we are, and all that we might become is pure gift from God. Creation is ours to take care of. People are ours to love and cherish and protect. Work is ours to do on behalf of God. All that we receive from our work, and specifically our wages, are meant to be shared gladly and gratefully. In fact, you might say that the vineyard is God’s vision for his people – working together, working on behalf of God, and working for the good – the fruits – of all.

That’s the potential. The problem is that at some level of our being, we fall back into the sinful trap of believing we’re the vineyard owners – free to decide what’s owed to whom, what we ought to keep for ourselves, and worse still, that the fruits of the harvest are ours to keep and ours to hoard. Maybe the best way to put it is as a question. Do we serve our own ends or do we serve God’s goals? That’s the stewardship question too.

At the end of the passage we hear today, Jesus says very clearly that God is holding us accountable for producing the fruits of not the harvest, but the kingdom. Just what are those fruits? If we’re supposed to be stewards, not owners, tending the vineyard on behalf of God, we ought to be pretty sure of what we’re working day by day to produce. If you go back to the Isaiah passage, our Old Testament reading today, it’s clear that what God has expected from his people are fruits of righteousness and justice. Jesus created an easy to remember shorthand for naming the work that would produce the fruits of the kingdom – he told us to love God and to love each other. If we did that, if we do that – righteousness and justice would naturally follow.

A lot of the time, I think what brings us all here Sunday by Sunday is the acknowledgment that we believe in God’s vision of the vineyard. We believe in God’s vision of human beings loving and serving and caring for each other and thanking God for the opportunity to do so. We see the potential in ourselves as being good stewards and good tenants of the vineyard. Gratefully, we know that some of the time, we live our lives in the fullness of that potential. We come here to give thanks to God for the privilege of being such servants.

But by the same token, we also come here Sunday by Sunday to acknowledge that some of the time, we fall short of our potential. We claim as our own what rightly belongs to God. We try to jockey and position ourselves within the vineyard to lord it over others. We seek not justice and righteousness for others, but justice and righteousness for ourselves. So, some of the time, we live our lives not in the fullness of our potential, but in the shallowness of failing to live up to our potential as the people of God.

Not surprisingly, perhaps, we can turn to the Apostle Paul for some good advice. Paul faced up to the mixture of problems and potential within himself and wrote about it frequently. He also saw very clearly the mixture of problems and potential within the faith communities he was seeking to establish and wrote extensive letters to those communities about just such issues. Paul says, “I press on toward the goal for the prize of the heavenly call of God in Christ Jesus.”

Paul acknowledges that God’s vision of the vineyard is a huge one. The fruits of the kingdom – love, faithfulness, justice, and mercy – take constant, never-ending, and vigilant dedication on the part of those who work for the kingdom. Paul knows, like we do, that the work is not easy but that the vision is glorious.

But Paul tells us not to give up – he tells us to “press on.” And so we come to church to thank God for his blessings, for the work he calls us to do. We come to church to offer our sorrow in acknowledging our failures to live up to our potential. But we also come to church to be forgiven, to reaffirm our calling as tenant workers, and to recommit to the work God gives us to do. May we all “press on” as God’s workers in the vineyard, knowing, like Paul, that life in God’s service holds all the promise and all the potential in the world. Living into that reality is our salvation, and the world’s too.

Amen.