I am frequently aware of how the scriptures become tame to our hearing as they are read in church. Part of the effect, I suspect, is that we hear them as being part of the liturgy, and from a totally different time in history and culture, part because we may assume that God was somehow more evident to the people of the past. It is as though Jesus appeared to people with a calling card or resume which made it obvious that he was the son of God. Hence we may view the stories of resistance to him as a sign of just how stubborn or even evil were the religious leaders who didn’t accept him. Likewise we might believe the Israelites who had been in exile in Babylon would have been overjoyed to hear the prophet call for them to return to their land and that God will make a way. God is doing a new thing for them and we assume they saw this as good news; or that it was easy for Paul to come to the conclusion that everything was garbage except knowing Christ.

Sometimes we can be tempted to put on romantic glasses when reading the bible. We need to read the scriptures not as about different times and different people, of God who operated differently, but as about our common heritage as the human children of God, of God who still operates in our lives and our world in the same paradoxical ways which evoked uneasiness, discomfort, confusion and resistance in the religious and non-religious then as now. If we can do this then we may be able to approach today’s readings with a bit more openness and less judgment and ponder how it would be if these were addressed to us personally.

Remembering that Isaiah was speaking to people who had been in exile, from their homeland, for quite a long time. It was their parents and grandparents who remembered what it was like before the Babylonians captured them and deported them to this new place. Exile wasn’t all that bad in some respects. It was a relatively civilized area with opportunities to function rather autonomously. They had adapted to this new culture and its values. In a sense they had lost touch with what it meant to live the life of a faithful Jew. Hence the promise the prophet proclaims that God is going to make a way for them to return, he is going to do a new thing so they can praise him was about living again as the chosen people so the world would know God through their way of exemplary living. In a sense this was not really a great image of a promised future for people who had become comfortable living a compromised life.

The parallel question then is what are the contours of our life which may be a compromised existence? What are we captive to and how are we not living a life which points to God, and feeling – well it isn’t that bad.

When I think of not being free, of what holds me captive that doesn’t feel all that bad, I think of how I am influenced by the consumer mentality. Herbert O’Driscoll commenting on the opening collect says that we fall victim to the consumer temptation, but the question becomes are we the consumer or the one being consumed by the insatiable appetite for more. I also think of how I expect life to keep moving forward, what is coming next. I was in a conference this week and I came in a tad late to a morning worship service. Everyone was sitting quietly and so I sat down assuming that we were observing a period of silence. Well it went on for a while until I found myself becoming fidgety. I realized I couldn’t simply wait and stay open because I didn’t know what was expected. I thought this is a good parallel to relationship with God in everyday life. It is not enough to have the prophet say, Behold I am doing a new thing – we want the play by play plan. We want it under our control.

This may lead us to the parable of the Vineyard and the disloyal tenants. It is not enough to have what the owner provided for them, they wanted it all without any accountability or responsibility to the one who gave it to them. It may lead us to ponder when do we fail to see our life, relationships and opportunities as entrusted to us rather than belong to us? Whether we completely agree with him or not, Al Gore is placing that question before us regarding our environment. Can we really do anything we want and assume that there are not consequences, do we care what those who follow us will experience, what does it mean to be stewards of creation, relationships, our lives, the social structures of our society? How are we to attend to the vineyard that is our life so that those who follow us may benefit from its fruits and understand their role not as owners but stewards.

Now I know that I do not always live in this faithful/trusting way. Even though the parable has a harsh sounding ending – I believe we must read/hear it against the Gospel story – the image of the stone that is the cornerstone which will crush us is paradoxically the very Lamb of God who takes away the sins of the world.

There is challenge and judgment in these passages, and there is encouragement to trust again, to begin the journey of faith again, believing that our God wants us to experience the freedom that comes from knowing, above all else, the security of Christ’s intercession for us. To believe that we are accepted, and being prepared for the New Things God will do. We don’t have to be ready for everything, in fact we may not be ready for what we will be later. Can we leave that in God’s hands and trust in his belief in us – to help our unbelief, to prepare us to echo what St. Paul came to understand over many years seeking to understand God’s claim on his life,

“ Not that I have already obtained this or am already perfect; but I press on to make it my own, because Christ Jesus has made me his own…. Indeed I count everything as loss because of the surpassing worth of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord.”

Here a true story from Dr. Rachel Naomi-Remen’s book,

Kitchen Table Wisdom:­

I love the wisdom of the father, I can see this as God’s gentle preparation of us and I hear it in the collect which we prayed at the beginning of this service.

…Grant your people grace to love what you command and desire what you promise; that, among the swift and varied changes of the world, our hearts may surely there be fixed, where true joys are to be found, through Jesus Christ Our Lord.

Amen