What Lies Ahead

October 2, 2011
Year A
Philippians 3:4-14
Matthew 21:33-46
Sixteenth Sunday After Pentecost
“What Lies Ahead”




God will prevail

God will prevail. That is the message this morning, God will prevail. Whatever it is that you are going through. Whatever questions you have, whatever it is that you are worried about – God will prevail.

God will help me through whatever it is. And for most of my life, God will prevail in spite of me and whatever I have done.

I can make the best plans; I can have to best of intentions. I can set out to do what I think needs to be done, and God knows otherwise, and does what is best for me anyway.

Anyone who has lived for a while knows the twists and turns of God. We twist, and God turns.


The fable of Angel – we are just tenants
There is a fable about the Angel Gabriel who has just come from surveying the earth and its inhabitants when he reports to God. "Lord, it's my duty to inform you that you're the possessor of a choice piece of real estate known as planet earth. But the tenants you've leased it out to are destroying it. In another few years, it won't be fit to live in. They have polluted your rivers. The air is fouled with the stench of their over-consumerism. They frequently kill one another, and all the prophets you've sent to them calling for an accounting have met with violence. By any rule of sound management, Lord, you've got but one option." Then raising his trumpet to his lips, Gabriel asked, "Shall I sound the eviction notice now, sir?"

And God said…


We are just tenants
Another truth of life is that our life is that we are just tenants in this world. We don’t own anything – everything belongs to God. We are all living on borrowed time in a borrowed place. No matter how much we paid for it – it does not belong to us, and we can’t take it with us when we go. When it all is said and done, we are the tenants, and God is the owner.


Explanation of Matthew
Jesus addresses this issue in Matthew 21. He tells a parable of tenants, servants, the land owner, the vineyard, and fruit. In the Matthew story – the landowner sends servants to collect money from the tenants. They kill them all – finally they send his son, they kill him too. They think that if they ignore the servant, they can keep the profit for themselves. Not understanding that they can never take what does not belong to them.

Of course in Matthew – Jesus is talking about the Pharisees. Telling them that in spite of all of their knowledge, and attitude, and understanding – they are not God – and what they do is not eternal. The reference to the tenants murdering the son is a premonition to his going to the cross.

This story is in all of the gospels, Matthew, Mark and Luke. This story is also in the gospel of Thomas. The gospel of Thomas is not considered a part of our bible. But it does not have the violence and killing. It is also believed to be the story closest to what Jesus would have actually said.


What the tenant farmers heard
His audience was the Pharisees – but it would have also been an audience of tenant farmers. People who have lived on family farms for years and years. But when the Romans came, they bought up those farms. They owned the land, but the families still used the land. And had to pay rent in order to live on their own land. These were people who understood that in life, that no matter how hard they worked, and did what they always did – they would never own the land. All of the work that they did – was for someone else. They were looking for a way to trust in God. No matter what the landowner thought – God would prevail.


Jesus also talking to the know it alls
But we can’t ignore that Jesus was also talking to the Pharisees. They thought they were on God’s side. They thought they knew who the messiah was. They thought they had spent their whole life looking –and would recognize him when he came. And yet they were the ones who did not get what Jesus was telling them. Last week Jesus says the first will be last and the last will be first. This week Jesus says that the cornerstone that the builders rejected- would be the most important stone. Of course he was speaking about himself. In Hebrew – ben means son, oben means stone. He was the stone the builders rejected.


Message for us today
The message for us tenant farmers today – is not to rely on our own understanding. God will prevail – in spite of ourselves. Have you noticed that the more you know – the more you realize that you don’t know? The more you think you understand God, the more you don’t understand God. The further ahead you get – you always have to take two steps back. God intended for it to be that way.


Man reevaluates his life while shaving
A man was shaving one morning – he noticed that he started to bleed – but there was no cut on his face. He went to the doctor- who told him that he had skin cancer.

Just the mention of that word forced him to reevaluate his whole life. What was it that was most important in his life? What were his priorities? Where was he in his life? Who was he? Where do I want to be?



Paul’s spiritual diagnosis
Paul says that the diagnosis does not always have to be physical. It can also be spiritual. That day came for him, when he had to take account of his life. And that day comes for all of us, when we realize that God will prevail. Not me. Paul tells us that God prevails – through Christ. And we have to put Christ as the most important thing in our lives. Not our identity, not what we think we know, not what we have achieved, but what we have done in the name of Christ.

Who am I – imperfect
Where have I been – in the past
Where do I need to be – in Christ.

Last week we learned that Christ emptied himself in order to be an example for us. So we have to empty ourselves of all of the things we think we have accomplished and replace that with Christ. God prevails through Christ, not us.
That puts everything else in perspective. We are just tenants in God’s world. What we do for ourselves is nothing. What we do for Christ is eternal.

I am looking forward
A friend of mine tells a very sad story of her father dying in the hospital. On her mother’s birthday – she went to visit him and he seemed very agitated, even though he was very sick. He told her to go to the hallmark store to buy his wife a card, and to bring it back so that he could sign it.

He signed it looking forward, with love Harold.

No one understood the message until he died. He was a Christian – he knew that god’s will would prevail over his life. Yet he knew that even in death – he could look forward to what Christ had in store for him.

Press on, move forward
God will prevail. In life we can follow Paul’s message for us – Beloved, I do not consider that I have made it my own; but this one thing I do: forgetting what lies behind, and straining forward to what lies ahead. I press on toward the goal for the prize of the heavenly call of God in Christ Jesus. Press on, move forward.

Let us pray…..