Between a Rock and a Hard Place
Matthew 21: 33-46
A Communion Meditation
By the Reverend Odette Lockwood-Stewart
Epworth United Methodist Church

My dad was a milkman. Remember milkmen? When the dairy he worked for for over twenty years saw the minimart stripmall writing on the wall that said milk home delivery would soon not be profitable, they came up with a clever if somewhat cruel plan.

The dairy offered to sell the milkmen the American Dream. Or so it seemed. Each milkman was invited to buy his own milk route from the company and to buy the truck. In exchange for the route and the truck, the milkmen paid some cash, financed the rest, and signed a binding contract to buy all their milk products, equipment and services from the company. They could accept this offer … or find another job. And so many signed away their savings and pledged their future labor. Including my dad. The guys worked even harder than before because now, they believed, they were really working for themselves and for a better future for their families.

My dad was so proud that without even an elementary education he had become an owner.

But the milkmen had not become owners. The company took their money, continued to profit from their labor, wrote off corporate losses, sold off the dairy, and invested in other markets, in other countries. It took less than 5 years for the milkmen to go under financially. Then they looked for those jobs, while still deep in debt to the milk company.

I don’t think I need to tell you the kind of reception that company messengers and collection agents would receive from these former milkmen. And, if the son of the CEO had come round expecting r-e-s-p-e-c-t he would have been gravely disappointed.

Now, many years later, I read that just one of the perks given to the current CEO of the multinational corporation, beyond his $3 million dollar a year salary, is $87,000 per year for his volunteer work in the community.

And when I read about third world debt, and superpowers debating whether they can afford to forgive that debt, when for every dollar given in aid to poor nations, four dollars are taken out in profit, I understand the scandalous and prophetic power of Jesus’ parable.

Jesus knew the parable of the vineyard in the words of the prophet Isaiah … and he knew his listeners would know these words … that in God’s vineyard, the fruits God expects are not bloodshed and tears, but justice and right relationship.

Jesus took that parable, described the harsh realties of life in Galilee in the first century, and then turned the power structures of the day upside down to describe God’s new heaven and new earth. He had the powerful folks identifying with the poor, and worrying about the return of the owner! Jesus’ parable had to do with ownership … and work … and fairness … … and judgment…and stewardship.

There was a vineyard … an owner … and some tenants who thought they were owners …

Jesus’ story presents a vicious cycle of violence, victimizers and victims. The wealthy owner, the tenant farmers, the agents, the son, the new tenant farmers all are caught between a rock and a hard place … their actions as well as their attitudes challenged … their failings punished …

The poor people who heard Jesus’ story were shocked. They couldn’t imagine God as an absentee landlord. But the religious leaders and authorities were angry. They knew this story was aimed at them. “Therefore I tell you, the kingdom of God will be taken away from you and given to a people that produces the fruits of the kingdom.” The fruits of justice and right relationship.

Yet at every moment in this parable … there is the possibility, the potential for transformation, redemption, right-relationship.

Globally, personally, we can feel caught between a rock and a hard place … between choices that seem deeply flawed … or seem like no choice at all… we can be enmeshed in our own behaviors and in systems that seem at best problematic and at worst evil.

Jesus offers another way.

And while it is tempting, comforting even, to point this parable at CEOs, multinationals, or Pharisees, the same question Jesus asked them is posed to us as well: When the owner of the vineyard comes, what do you think will happen to those who were supposed to be tending the vineyard and producing fruit? Are we the owners of this earth, these gifts, these lives, this church, this moment in history, or are we stewards entrusted to tend and care, gather and give?

Today is World Communion Sunday.
On this day all over the world Christians take, bless, break and give.

But this morning all of us have already engaged in communion with the world in many ways.

Our coffee, clothes, food, fuel, cars take human and natural resources from all over the world. Through weather patterns, war, globalization, spiritual, environmental, and human impact, we bless and/or break the lives of others and ourselves.

We exchange air with over five and a half billion human beings, and billions more living things. Are we good stewards of the world, the vineyard, that God has entrusted to our care? Is our daily communion with the world holy communion?

I believe that at the depths of our souls we already know. We know when there is something holy or unholy in our speech, thoughts, actions, unthinking acceptance, emptiness, busyness. We know the next right step. And - we are blessed with the clarifying, comforting, challenging, celebrating, calling, collective wisdom of a ……community of faith.

I believe that what we need to learn is how to hit the pause button long enough to access that knowing, that blessing.

My mom is 88 years old and is bewildered by having more than one remote control in her home. Often we’ll get a phone call – without intro or greeting– “I can’t get this thing to work. I don’t even know which thing’s supposed to work.” Now, I’d like to say that I can respond helpfully to these requests, but such is not always the case.

Now, those of you who know how to hit the input, mute, timer, tivo, and pause buttons, I salute you. But I would like to know – where do you find your own pause? I don’t mean pass out, zone out, fill up or run away. I mean pause. The pause to listen. The pause to pray. To center life. Meditation. Contemplation. Paying attention to the holy.

Each Sunday we pray for others, for the world, for ourselves, and respond “Hear our Prayer.” Each Sunday we also share silence. For as Fred Craddock says, “the voice of God in Jesus was not a shout.” I sometimes imagine God asking, softly, “Can you hear me now? Can you hear me now?”

When we contemplate what’s beautiful and what’s broken in our world … in our lives … and relationships … when we remember … when we pause, take, bless, break and give our lives, … wisdom arises from deep within, Christ within us, … the centerpoint, the cornerstone that … ironically and wonderfully … resides precisely at the points between … the rock … and the hard place.

As we approach this table for world communion, let us pause to listen … and experience what it can mean to live what we know is true.

As we leave this table and continue holy communion with the world, let the stone rejected by the powers and principalities of this world become the cornerstone of our stewardship of God’s vineyard. Amen.