SermonsWritten - East Columbus Christian Church

Getting Our Attention

August 29, 2010

The Parable of the Tenants (Luke 20:9-19):

He went on to tell the people this parable: "A man planted a vineyard, rented it to some farmers and went away for a long time. At harvest time he sent a servant to the tenants so they would give him some of the fruit of the vineyard. But the tenants beat him and sent him away empty-handed. He sent another servant, but that one also they beat and treated shamefully and sent away empty-handed. He sent still a third, and they wounded him and threw him out.

"Then the owner of the vineyard said, 'What shall I do? I will send my son, whom I love; perhaps they will respect him.'
"But when the tenants saw him, they talked the matter over. 'This is the heir," they said. "Lets kill him, and the inheritance will be ours."
"So they threw him out of the vineyard and killed him.

"What then will the owner of the vineyard do to them? He will come and kill those tenants and give the vineyard to others." When the people heard this, they said, "May this never be!"

Jesus looked directly at them and asked, "Then what is the meaning of that which is written:

" 'The stone the builders rejected has become the capstone? Everyone who falls on that stone will be broken to pieces, but he on whom it falls will be crushed."

The teachers of the law and the chief priests looked for a way to arrest him immediately, because they knew he had spoken this parable against them. But they were afraid of the people.

Believe it or not, in the last church I served (which, admittedly, was a lifetime ago), some in the congregation told me: Don’t be so stiff while you’re preaching. Leave the pulpit once in a while.

But I was in a frightening transitional situation and the people weren’t in the mood to be as understanding as you. There, I felt as those servants in our scripture reading must have felt, going to the vineyard on behalf of the owner.

And, believe it or not, this “stomping” habit of mine only developed because the old pulpit here was so confining that I used to preach in the center aisle instead, using a music stand. Remember? I couldn’t pound my fist on a music stand, nor can I pound my fist on this pulpit without breaking something! Despite the worries of some who fear that I may wear out the carpet, as a servant I will do what I can to get and keep the attention of the congregation. The Word of God – especially today – is too important to sleep through. Are you with me?

In Jesus’ parable, the owner of the vineyard was trying to get the attention of the people to whom he leased it . . . the tenants. The owner wanted his percentage of the grape harvest; after all, the vineyard was his. He planted it! But the tenants wouldn’t even reply to him; they had taken over, acting as though the vineyard was really theirs.

American citizens should be able to feel the emotion of this story because as we sit here exercising our right to worship, illegal aliens cross the border of our vineyard, work its soil, reap its benefits, pay no taxes, assume no citizenship responsibility . . . and various government agents (who would be the servants in the story) are routinely thwarted in their efforts to enforce the borders of the vineyard and reclaim it for the owners; namely, us. Neither the servants nor the owners seem to be able to get the tenants’ attention. The tenants, in my illustration, would be America’s elected officials.

Just so that we have the symbolism right, in Jesus’ story, who is the vineyard owner? (God) Who does the vineyard represent? (Israel). In fact, if anyone is making a note this morning, you might check out Isaiah 5:1-7, especially verse 4, where God (the vineyard owner) is saying: Why . . . when I expected (the vineyard) to bring forth good grapes, did it bring forth wild grapes? – Isaiah 5:4

The owner has a right to expect part of the vineyard’s harvest; after all, he planted it in the first place! My dad sometimes leased part of our farm to be planted in corn or beans or tobacco, and his return was a share of the crops. That happened a lot in Jesus’ day in the northern valley of the Jordan River, but it was also a time of great economic upheaval and labor unrest, and tenants could not always be trusted to give the landowners their due. Jesus told very contemporary stories!

If the vineyard was Israel, and God owned the vineyard, who were the tenants? The leaders of Israel, especially the religious leaders, who were supposed to be cultivating the people for God, helping them to grow toward Him, because they were His harvest. But for eight centuries, these tenants were using the vineyard to profit themselves. The vineyard owner, God, kept sending His servants to show the tenants the right way to tend the vineyard and to claim the harvest for His own. Who were these servants He sent?

Before Jesus, the servants God sent were the prophets of Israel. For example, God sent Elijah . . . and the king and queen tried to kill him. God sent Amos . . . and the religious leaders ignored and belittled him.

I was in the dry cleaners the other day, and when I put my dirty shirts down on the counter, the lady behind the counter: I am very sorry to tell you that the price of shirts has gone up since last week.

She looked so apologetic that I said: You didn’t set the prices. Nobody ought to shoot the messenger.

She looked up with a very sad face and said: Mr. Hoover, you have no idea how often this messenger gets shot!

The tenants in God’s vineyard kept shooting the messenger. God sent Jeremiah (my favorite of all, perhaps). If you look in your Bible, chapter 37 of Jeremiah probably has this heading: Jeremiah imprisoned. Chapter 38 probably has this heading: Jeremiah imprisoned again. The story goes on to say: . . . they let Jeremiah down with ropes. And in the dungeon, there was no water, but mire. So Jeremiah sank in the mire – Jeremiah 38:6. For 8 centuries, the tenants ignored, rejected, abused and tried to kill the servants that God sent to the vineyard. The political and religious leaders kept shooting the messengers sent to get their attention. God must have kept shaking His head with the sad face of that young dry cleaning lady. And the tenants kept running the vineyard to benefit themselves, even though many of the messengers kept telling them: The owner’s son is coming! (Who is the vineyard owner’s son?) (Jesus!)

Now, here is the Son, just four days before his own crucifixion, telling this story in the flesh to the tenants themselves (the chief priests, the scribes and the elders of Israel), wondering out loud why the vineyard still isn’t producing for the owner . . .

And I wonder if He still wonders why, even though He died for the vineyard!!

Fast forward with me from about 30 A.D. to 2010. How has the story changed? What is the vineyard now? No longer only Israel, but the whole world. (Just think of the Great Commission - - Go into all the world and make disciples…) Who is the owner now? God. God is still God! Jesus is still the Son! Who are the tenants in charge of the vineyard? Are they the leaders of the institutional Christian Church?

The life, death and resurrection of Jesus Christ created a new kind of believing body . . . us. His Church. Follow me, now . . . I want to show you what Peter writes to us in his first letter:

. . . you are a chosen generation, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, His own special people, that you may proclaim the praises of Him who called you out of darkness into His marvelous light – I Peter 2:9.

. . . (you) once were not a people, but are now the people of God, who had not obtained mercy, but now have obtained mercy - 1 Peter 2:10.

We, the Church, belong to the owner of the vineyard . . . God. We accept, and not only accept, we glorify the owner’s Son, Jesus, as our Savior. We would never reject Him by the way we live. We would never throw Him out of the vineyard by the decisions we make. Right?

If that is true . . . why do some churches need to distinguish themselves from others? For example, why do some need to call themselves Bible-believing? Because others, unfortunately, are not. Why do some churches need to designate themselves Christ-centered? Because, sadly, some are not. Why is there so much compromise within the Christian Church on social principles such as abortion, so much ambiguity where the Word of God is very clear on issues such as human sexuality? If we reject the saving work of the Son, we run the same risk as the elders, chief priests and scribes when Jesus told them they were going to lose the vineyard for treating it as their own and failing to give God His rightful percentage!

Who are we in this story?

I would like to believe we are not the institutional Church, which over time has convinced itself that – somehow – it owns the vineyard.

We are more like the servants in the story. We follow the direction of the owner. We know that His purposes are perfect, and that His goal is to love and save the vineyard.

In the last couple of years, I have closely followed the writing of Albert Mohler, the president of Southern Baptist Theological Seminary. A couple of months ago, he spoke at commencement, addressing the new graduates about to head off into ministry. I would love to share his entire address; like everything Dr. Mohler writes, it is awesome . . . but I would like to share about 7 sentences, because what Albert Mohler does here is paint a picture of how unlike the world Christian ministry is . . . and that lay people and pastors should be no different in going out to the vineyard, carrying the message of the owner. Mohler writes:

Our calling makes no sense according to the wisdom of the world. The vast majority of Christian ministers (that’s you) and pastors (that’s me) have served without the slightest attention of the world. The American dream does not fit this calling . . . for the ministry of Christians is never really accomplished. We don’t rest, collect a pension, live a life of leisure. We are to serve to the end, learn to the end, teach to the end, and be faithful to the end. We are all together in the School of Christ, and from that school we never graduate until He claims His Church and clothes it in righteousness. The Father’s purpose is to glorify Himself in the Son, the Lamb, through whom sinners are transformed by His blood . . . and on that day He claims us, we will be bowing to the Lamb together, forever.

Today’s servants in the parable, ladies and gentlemen, are you and I. East Columbus Christian Church, fairly free of institutional entanglements, free to go out into the vineyard with the Greatest News the world has ever known . . . that the vineyard owner so loved the vineyard that He gave His only Son, so that whoever in the vineyard believes in Him will be part of a great harvest. That Good News is the purpose and the meaning God has given us, together, to share.

We do it with our eyes open. We know messengers get shot. We do it knowing that many will reject Jesus, and us, even though He is purely for their good. Jesus quotes Psalm 118: The stone which the builders rejected has become the chief cornerstone.

Those who build their lives on the foundation of Jesus Christ are safe and will be with Him forever!

But – and this is where stomping and pounding the pulpit and other attention-getting devices I never used before this church (because I was too afraid) come in: Whoever falls on that stone will be broken; but, on whomever it falls, it will grind him to powder – Luke 20:18.

Those who reject Jesus will become like the tenants in the vineyard; cast out forever from the presence of the owner.

I officiated at a funeral the other day for a man who, in his early years, helped tend the elephants at the zoo. His son told me of how tending the elephants (who are the real king of the beasts) taught his father a valuable life lesson. When the young man was feeding and cleaning and watering the elephants, he respected them. He acknowledged that when he was in their space, that space was theirs. If he failed to respect that space, he would be crushed. And in time, he came to love them.

That’s an awkward metaphor, I know . . . but that young elephant-keeper is who today’s tenants (leaders of the Church) need to imitate. The Church occupies itself with busy work around the cage, tidying the hay, refilling the water, worrying about issues like tolerance (which sounds really good, and the Bible tells us love should be tolerant, but should never tolerate the presence of sin); my point being, the Christian Church cannot act as though the elephant cage belongs to it, because one day, its neglect of the real attraction here – the elephant – is going to get it crushed! Consistently, the churches who revere the elephant, the Word of God, Jesus Christ . . . these are the churches who, even in this increasingly God-rejecting world . . . these are the churches who are blessed.

The Church’s one foundation is Jesus Christ her Lord! Let us be servants, a servant Church, ECCC, serving, preaching, living the Son, telling the whole vineyard about Jesus . . . until the day the Son once again comes to the vineyard, and we drink the wine He promised we would drink with Him. And He will have everyone’s attention.

Andrew Hoover, Pastor, East Columbus Christian Church

We Give Thee But Thine Own

August 22, 2010

East Columbus Christian Church

Text: Luke 19:11-27:

While they were listening to this, he went on to tell them a parable, because he was near Jerusalem and the people thought that the kingdom of God was going to appear at once. He said: "A man of noble birth went to a distant country to have himself appointed king and then to return. So he called ten of his servants and gave them ten minas. Put this money to work,' he said, 'until I come back.'

"But his subjects hated him and sent a delegation after him to say, 'We don't want this man to be our king.'

"He was made king, however, and returned home. Then he sent for the servants to whom he had given the money, in order to find out what they had gained with it.

"The first one came and said, 'Sir, your mina has earned ten more.'

" 'Well done, my good servant!' his master replied. 'Because you have been trustworthy in a very small matter, take charge of ten cities.'

"The second came and said, 'Sir, your mina has earned five more.'

"His master answered, 'You take charge of five cities.'

"Then another servant came and said, 'Sir, here is your mina; I have kept it laid away in a piece of cloth. I was afraid of you, because you are a hard man. You take out what you did not put in and reap what you did not sow.'

"His master replied, 'I will judge you by your own words, you wicked servant! You knew, did you, that I am a hard man, taking out what I did not put in, and reaping what I did not sow? Why then didn't you put my money on deposit, so that when I came back, I could have collected it with interest?'

"Then he said to those standing by, 'Take his mina away from him and give it to the one who has ten minas.'

" 'Sir,' they said, 'he already has ten!'

"He replied, 'I tell you that to everyone who has, more will be given, but as for the one who has nothing, even what he has will be taken away. But those enemies of mine who did not want me to be king over them—bring them here and kill them in front of me."

Several have told me: I’ve never heard of the parable of the ten minas. So, just what is a mina?

It isn’t this bird. A high school friend of mine had one and taught it to swear; this Chinese one is smoking because its owner says it nags him for cigarettes until he gives in. So our mina isn’t this kind of mynah.

Nor is it this kind of “minah” with a funny hat and a pickaxe (although we owe this coal “minah” an awful lot, don’t we? Think of him every time you punch the button on your garage door opener when it’s 95 degrees outside, or 5 below).

Our mina is a Greek coin of Jesus’s day, a coin of great value; in fact, how much the mina was worth varied according to the kind of metal that was used. The word mina referred to the weight of that metal; in Jesus’s story, the mina He referred to was probably silver. In the Jewish temple in Jerusalem, the powers-that-be accepted the Tyrean shekel when people paid them the temple tax. When Judas betrayed the Lord, temple officials gave him how many pieces of silver? (Thirty pieces, or about half a mina.)

A mina was worth a lot. When the nobleman in our story was getting ready to go away, he gave his servants their assignment (and the money to go with it). Ten servants, ten minas, one mina apiece. And he told them: Put this money to work until I come back – Luke 19:13.

Some say the mina was worth three months’ wages; others say it was four. It wasn’t a fortune . . . but what would you do with four months’ wages if it were handed to you?

Would you do much needed repairs on your house? Put a down payment on a car? Support a missionary? Whose money is it? Whose servant are you?

What does the nobleman have invested in you? While He is away, I mean?

When I started considering this story for preaching, I started thinking about what Dinah and I do every year on Draft Day - National Football League Draft Day. We take a vacation day (although now it’s a couple of evenings). We get snacks, drinks, and make it a little draft party to watch the NFL teams select eligible players coming out of college. A few years ago, the number one selection was a young man named JaMarcus Russell. JaMarcus Russell, quarterback, Louisiana State University to the Oakland Raiders. My jaw dropped as I watched him throw a football 80 yards . . . while on his knees. What an arm! I could hardly wait to watch him on Sunday afternoons. But when I saw an interview with him, I said to Dinah: He’s not going to make it. He’s too laid back. He’s not that interested in football.

And that’s exactly what happened. The Oakland Raiders invested $40 million guaranteed money (I don’t know how many minas that is) in young Mr. Russell, hoping he’d be motivated and work hard and use that incredible arm to guide them to Super Bowls. But JaMarcus got fat, he couldn’t move well, and he wouldn’t work hard to learn the team’s playbook. Oakland ate the 40 mil and released him; now, he’s under indictment for drug possession.

As I considered what has happened to JaMarcus Russell, I began to ponder a young man named Daniel Ruettiger, nicknamed Rudy. Rudy Ruettiger came from a Catholic family who loved football, especially Notre Dame football. Rudy would have liked nothing better than to play for the Fighting Irish, but there were a few drawbacks: He was 5 feet seven inches tall, 165 pounds, and had marginal athletic talent. And his grades weren’t very good. He didn’t have a mina’s chance, or even a shekel’s, of making any college team.

But he set his sights on Notre Dame. He did everything he could. He went to junior college and fixed his reading problems and his grades. He worked on the maintenance crew at the stadium. For two years, he volunteered to be a tackling dummy for the team. And finally, the head coach let him dress with the varsity for one game, and to play just one play. And the team carried him off the field like the champion he was.

JaMarcus Russell has wasted his vast, God-given talent (though I pray there’s still a chance for him); Rudy Ruettiger had hardly any but made of it all he could, and today does motivational speaking to help others do the same. What are we doing with our minas, large or small?

So the nobleman comes back home, no longer a nobleman. He has been crowned king, and calls his servants in to find out what they have done with his investment. One of them has turned his mina into ten minas (4 months’ wages into 40 months’) and is put in charge of 10 cities. The second servant also invested well; one mina became five, and the king gave him five cities to oversee.

My friends, what has the king given us? What has he given you? Maybe it doesn’t seem like a lot; maybe, like Rudy Ruettiger, what the king has invested in you seems like a lot less than a mina. But do not underestimate what you can do for the king; and do not underestimate what the king expects of me and you!

I know that King James English is hard for people, and I try to avoid it, but the words of the hymn we sang a while ago sum up what the King expects from us much more adequately than this poor little sermon:

We give Thee but Thine Own,
Whatever the gift may be,
All that we have is Thine alone,

A trust, O Lord, from Thee. -- William W. How

I always wanted to play in the high school band. My sister seemed to have all the musical talent, so my folks invested in her, and she became a fabulous trombone player, and singer, and pianist. In their eyes, I think, I was kind of the ugly duckling. But I wanted to be in the school band, and I saw my opening when the bass drummer was graduating. I was old - a junior, but I went to the band director and asked, can I play? . . and amazingly, the answer was yes. Even I, it seemed, could bang a drum.

I was only in the band long enough for one band camp, and I did okay. But there was a freshman drummer who wasn’t. Couldn’t learn his part. He was down on himself, feeling not a part of things. We became friends, and were roommates at band camp. Late into the night, almost every night, we sat on the floor of our room and banged out those parts on the carpet with our sticks and our mallets until he had them.

Saturday morning, our parents all gathered, and we played some of our songs for that fall. Then came the moment that the director handed out the Camper of the Year award. And no one was more stunned than I was that it was me. I thought that I had been helping my friend Jeff while no one was watching. But I found out everyone knew. I don’t tell that story to bang my own drum! As I said, I knew I didn’t have much talent, but I was willing to give up important social time (like holding hands with a girl or dropping water balloons from a four-story dormitory) to help my friend learn his part.

Like I said, I thought no one was watching. Is that what we Christians have come to think? No one’s watching? The nobleman in our parable is Jesus, of course; He has gone away to be crowned king. In time, He will come back. In time! How much time? So much time that the Church has forgotten what it’s supposed to be doing? Every Christian is given a mina of some kind, something valuable, something entrusted to us by the king, but like the third servant, have we just kind of wrapped it up in a hanky and put it out of sight and out of mind?

Because the Church has stopped talking about, even thinking about, the day that King Jesus comes back?

When the King left on His journey to heaven, His disciples were told: . . . Jesus . . . will come back in the same way you have seen Him go into heaven! Why do you stand here looking into the sky? – Acts 1:11. In other words: Didn’t the King just give you some work to do?

Has that changed somehow? We have got to read our Bibles. Jesus said: It is not for you to know the times or dates the Father has set . . . Acts 1:7. To us, it seems like a long time, maybe an impossibly long time, that Jesus has been away. But not to Him! Moses prayed to the Lord:

. . . a thousand ages in Your sight are like a day that has just gone by . . . Psalm 90:4.

What seems to us, the Church, as such an impossibly long delay that some have given up and stopped trusting His words don’t believe in the Lord’s return . . . for the world, this is a grace period. Do you remember the parable? When the nobleman went away to receive his crown:

. . . his subjects hated him, and sent a delegation after him to say, “We don’t want this man to be our king.” – Luke 19:14.

Jesus told this story before His own going away because He wanted His disciples – He wanted – His Church – to understand what was going to happen to Him. How He was going to stand before Pilate, and Pilate was going to say to the crowd: Shall I crucify your king? And how the crowd said: We have no king but Caesar! Crucify this man!

I heard someone say the other day, with great sarcasm, but also with great truth, about the proposed building of the Ground Zero mosque: And of course, all of the people who are demanding the mosque be built in the name of religious freedom will also be equally supportive when someone wants to put a nativity scene near Ground Zero. There are many who – like in the story – simply do not want Jesus Christ to be their King. This (as we see it), this long delay is a grace period so that all the world may come to know our King’s beautiful, redeeming love for them. Jesus Himself said:

For God sent not His Son into the world to condemn the world, but that the world might be saved through Him – John 3:17.

That’s where we come in, Church. In this grace period, a time when the enemies of the King might come to their senses, this is still a time of work for the Church. What are we doing with what King Jesus has invested in us? We work hard at our earthly work. What are we doing with our mina?

You know, it’s interesting: The Greek word for mina is the same root word used in mine, as in land mine. If the King entrusts us with a mina, and we don’t use it, it’s all going to blow up on us. Look what we’ve been given! The Gospel story . . . do we know the story of Jesus well enough to tell it to anyone? Our own salvation story . . . do we have enough of a story that we can share? Do we have certain spiritual gifts, wisdom, teaching, even the gift of helping? Can we bang a drum for God, or help someone bang theirs? If our attention is only on this world, Jesus seems to be saying we will have nothing in the next.

We don’t know a lot about heaven, but we do know it’s going to be an active, fulfilled, responsible life. Remember the servants, who were given 10 and 5 cities to oversee? When I was young, I nagged my dad to be able to mow some of the lawn . . . and we had lots, there on the farm. One day, he assigned me a little to mow. I worked and worked to make it look like he did. When he came home: That looks pretty good, Charlie! (Or George, or Fred, or whoever I was that day). And I was so proud that he gave me a little more to mow!

When King Jesus returns, he will reward the servants who invested their minas faithfully, and in heaven, they will be given the chance to “mow even more grass” . . . to serve Him in even greater ways. Which sounds better: You wicked servant! Or well done, good and faithful servant?

The King doesn’t expect us to do any more than He did Himself. He took what His Father gave Him, took a huge risk, came as a little baby, taught radical things as a young man, and the risk Jesus took with what He was given landed Him on a cross . . . and the way He invested His life there, sacrificed His life there, made it possible for us to sit in church in 2010 so that we can have life and freedom and hope in a future we would never have had. Take that nail-pierced hand and invest your life, live that sacrificial life, and one day, be ready to hear the words: Well done!

Andrew Hoover, Pastor, East Columbus Christian Church

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