Rev. Dustin ParkerWhat more could He do.. Nothing!
Concordia Lutheran Church
Pentecost 15, October 1, 2011
Come Worship the Lord!
for He has done it all!
Isaiah 5:1-7
† IN JESUS NAME †
As we bring others to receive Christ’s peace, to know His love, to be cleansed by His blood, may we realize that the Father has indeed done it all, that He has done all that could be done, all that needed to be done, because of His love for us!
Mediating the case –Does the owner have a right to close the company
Yesterday, on the way to church, Handel on the Law was on the radio, and the caller was a entry level manager. The manager was calling to get advice on taking his company’s owner to court, for the owner kept firing the personnel the manager had hired and trained and fought to see equipped with the best tools they needed to do their job.
Typical of Bill Handel, the response was slightly cynical and sarcastic, just barely over the top. Basically it boiled down to - the owner of the company has the right to fire whoever he wants!
It doesn’t matter if the owner invested years in training them, if he spent tens of thousands in equipping them, Handel’s point was that it was the owner’s decision to fire them. It is the owner’s responsibility to judge if they were productive enough, and to judge the quality of their work, and if it stank – to fire them
Firing them may sound mean; it may even sound cruel and heartless. Yet, the owner should be able to expect a certain level of production from his employees? Shouldn’t he be able to expect that their work have a quality that reflects His investment?
How many would say “yes, it is the owner’s right”? How many would think as Handel did, that any judge’s decision would fall on the side of the owner?
Would your decision drastically change if you were the employee?
In today’s Old Testament reading from Isaiah, God asks for such a judgment, He asks for a ruling – is God fair in expecting His people to produce very positive results?
The Adversary answers – we did our jobs
Is what is produced correct?
Is it abundant and the best – which God had planted?
Is there anything more that could be done?
One must wonder what one could say against God in this. If we move the parable from the vineyard to a modern computer manufacturing plant, the details shift. Instead of choicest vines we have smartest, highly educated and best trained employees, instead of clearing it of stones, the workplace environment was the best! The best equipment He provides and maintains, everything the staff needs is provided for them. There is no reason this company shouldn’t soar, and yet it becomes nothing but a drain on Him.
The employees answer – but work was produced!
We did our jobs! We did everything you asked! Look at the results! (pull out the Mac ) Here is our one unit!
Not exactly what you expect of a 2011 computer firm, instead of 10,000 brand new android tablets, you get… a Mac. Instead of a color screen with 64,000 vibrant crisp colors, you get… black and white.
As God looked at Israel, how could He not sigh?
Did they do what they were called to do? Taught to do? Encouraged and equipped to do?
Too often we are like Israel don’t produce fruit which God could rejoice.
One must wonder – is there a time for the vineyard to be destroyed?
Is it time to destroy the Vinyard?
Look at the destruction – complete
Do we realize we’ve been re-planted
God answered the question…
There is a striking paradox in Isaiah, something that sounds wrong at first, but give me a moment to explain.
God must destroy the vineyard, the sour grapes have to go. The walls have to get broken down, the vines chopped up and tilled under. If there is to be hope it absolutely MUST be judged. The destruction must be complete, if there is to be hope.
I’ll say it again, the destruction God called for in His vineyard has to happen…
The sour grapes need to die, they need to be tilled under, there is no other option…
What God needed to do was kill off the vineyard, to destroy it completely, even as He said He must! Hear again what God said He would do
You see my friends, the problem for us isn’t the same as it is for Israel. The problem for us is that we are sour grapes – the challenge is realizing that we’ve been tilled under, that we have died with Christ in our Baptism, as Paul talks about in every epistle, as Ezekiel promised in the story of the Valley of the Dry Bones, as Jesus told Nicodemus – you must be born again!
They had to die… with Christ, to then find themselves raised from such a death.
We have been!
Do we “get it”? Do we see ourselves as living a resurrected, born again life? Or do we see ourselves like the nation of Israel prior to Christ – unable to be fruitful and multiply, unable to grow – either as individuals or as a congregation, unable to do what God planted us to do! There is nothing from stopping us from being pleasing to God, from His rejoicing in that which we see the Holy Spirit do in our lives.
It’s simply a matter of knowing Him, of trusting His work in burying us in Christ, and calling us to life in the Resurrected life of Christ. That’s what this baptismal font is about, that is what this altar is about. It is about God burying that sin-filled unproductive us in the ground, and bringing to life a new grape – a new wine that is filled with the Spirit’s power, that when pressed doesn’t produce whine, but the finest communion wine, the blend of our lives into Christ life.
So what is to be produced?
Here is a picture of the kind of growth that pleases God. Last week the evidence of God’s work in us was seen a few miles away. Two young people Mark McCombs and Elizabeth Jennings, led another congregation in worship over in Bellflower in a special outdoor, where Deacon Jennings preached to over 110 people! Among them, a young woman whose baby was having heart surgery on Tuesday, a surgery that went perfectly. Even more amazing was that when she asked for prayer last Sunday, our people – our missionaries to Bellflower were there – ready to respond in love. Mark did his first baptism – the child who was to have surgery – he baptized her right then - on the spot – another child was marked as one of God’s.
Also among the visitors were a number of young families, whose children will be baptized in the weeks to come, because they witnessed the baptism of the young one. They will be baptized because of the Jennings and MarkMcCombs, because they are God’s servants, because they were sent out by the servants among whom God groomed them….you. Hear again Paul’s words to the church in Rome!
14 But how can they call on him to save them unless they believe in him? And how can they believe in him if they have never heard about him? And how can they hear about him unless someone tells them? 15 And how will anyone go and tell them without being sent? That is why the Scriptures say, “How beautiful are the feet of messengers who bring good news!”
Romans 10:14-15 (NLT)
My friends, we are God’s people, He dwells with us! Even though we struggle, He works through us. Don’t buy into the idea, that just because we still sin, God is somehow unable to use us! We are the people He has planted here, as people whom He has made His own, to do that which brings Him great pleasure and joy.
IS our fruit based just in the numbers we bring in? Not really, though I would say that the fruit is what accounts for them listening to our message of hope. Paul in his letter to the church in Galatia, described the life God created us to live.
22 But what happens when we live God's way? He brings gifts into our lives, much the same way that fruit appears in an orchard—things like affection for others, exuberance about life, serenity. We develop a willingness to stick with things, a sense of compassion in the heart, and a conviction that a basic holiness permeates things and people. We find ourselves involved in loyal commitments,
Galatians 5:22 (MSG)
Such a life is contagious – such a life comes alongside others, and guides them towards Jesus, whose loves brings healing into the brokenness. Such love infects the world.
It is who we are created to be, a people who live in Christ’s peace, not producing our own fruit, but rather, so closing united with Him, that we produce His.
That is the intimacy given to us in our baptism, as God kills off the sour nature of sin, it is the intimacy found as God gathers us together, it is the intimacy that brings people to come worship the Lord with us, for we are His people, the flock that He guides into peaceful pastures.
Where His peace, a peace beyond all understanding, guards our hearts and our minds.
AMEN?
Pentecost 15, October 1, 2011
Come Worship the Lord!
for He has done it all!
Isaiah 5:1-7
† IN JESUS NAME †
As we bring others to receive Christ’s peace, to know His love, to be cleansed by His blood, may we realize that the Father has indeed done it all, that He has done all that could be done, all that needed to be done, because of His love for us!
Mediating the case –Does the owner have a right to close the company
Yesterday, on the way to church, Handel on the Law was on the radio, and the caller was a entry level manager. The manager was calling to get advice on taking his company’s owner to court, for the owner kept firing the personnel the manager had hired and trained and fought to see equipped with the best tools they needed to do their job.
Typical of Bill Handel, the response was slightly cynical and sarcastic, just barely over the top. Basically it boiled down to - the owner of the company has the right to fire whoever he wants!
It doesn’t matter if the owner invested years in training them, if he spent tens of thousands in equipping them, Handel’s point was that it was the owner’s decision to fire them. It is the owner’s responsibility to judge if they were productive enough, and to judge the quality of their work, and if it stank – to fire them
Firing them may sound mean; it may even sound cruel and heartless. Yet, the owner should be able to expect a certain level of production from his employees? Shouldn’t he be able to expect that their work have a quality that reflects His investment?
How many would say “yes, it is the owner’s right”? How many would think as Handel did, that any judge’s decision would fall on the side of the owner?
Would your decision drastically change if you were the employee?
In today’s Old Testament reading from Isaiah, God asks for such a judgment, He asks for a ruling – is God fair in expecting His people to produce very positive results?
The Adversary answers – we did our jobs
Is what is produced correct?
Is it abundant and the best – which God had planted?
Is there anything more that could be done?
One must wonder what one could say against God in this. If we move the parable from the vineyard to a modern computer manufacturing plant, the details shift. Instead of choicest vines we have smartest, highly educated and best trained employees, instead of clearing it of stones, the workplace environment was the best! The best equipment He provides and maintains, everything the staff needs is provided for them. There is no reason this company shouldn’t soar, and yet it becomes nothing but a drain on Him.
The employees answer – but work was produced!
We did our jobs! We did everything you asked! Look at the results! (pull out the Mac ) Here is our one unit!
Not exactly what you expect of a 2011 computer firm, instead of 10,000 brand new android tablets, you get… a Mac. Instead of a color screen with 64,000 vibrant crisp colors, you get… black and white.
As God looked at Israel, how could He not sigh?
Did they do what they were called to do? Taught to do? Encouraged and equipped to do?
Too often we are like Israel don’t produce fruit which God could rejoice.
One must wonder – is there a time for the vineyard to be destroyed?
Is it time to destroy the Vinyard?
Look at the destruction – complete
Do we realize we’ve been re-planted
God answered the question…
There is a striking paradox in Isaiah, something that sounds wrong at first, but give me a moment to explain.
God must destroy the vineyard, the sour grapes have to go. The walls have to get broken down, the vines chopped up and tilled under. If there is to be hope it absolutely MUST be judged. The destruction must be complete, if there is to be hope.
I’ll say it again, the destruction God called for in His vineyard has to happen…
The sour grapes need to die, they need to be tilled under, there is no other option…
What God needed to do was kill off the vineyard, to destroy it completely, even as He said He must! Hear again what God said He would do
You see my friends, the problem for us isn’t the same as it is for Israel. The problem for us is that we are sour grapes – the challenge is realizing that we’ve been tilled under, that we have died with Christ in our Baptism, as Paul talks about in every epistle, as Ezekiel promised in the story of the Valley of the Dry Bones, as Jesus told Nicodemus – you must be born again!
They had to die… with Christ, to then find themselves raised from such a death.
We have been!
Do we “get it”? Do we see ourselves as living a resurrected, born again life? Or do we see ourselves like the nation of Israel prior to Christ – unable to be fruitful and multiply, unable to grow – either as individuals or as a congregation, unable to do what God planted us to do! There is nothing from stopping us from being pleasing to God, from His rejoicing in that which we see the Holy Spirit do in our lives.
It’s simply a matter of knowing Him, of trusting His work in burying us in Christ, and calling us to life in the Resurrected life of Christ. That’s what this baptismal font is about, that is what this altar is about. It is about God burying that sin-filled unproductive us in the ground, and bringing to life a new grape – a new wine that is filled with the Spirit’s power, that when pressed doesn’t produce whine, but the finest communion wine, the blend of our lives into Christ life.
So what is to be produced?
Here is a picture of the kind of growth that pleases God. Last week the evidence of God’s work in us was seen a few miles away. Two young people Mark McCombs and Elizabeth Jennings, led another congregation in worship over in Bellflower in a special outdoor, where Deacon Jennings preached to over 110 people! Among them, a young woman whose baby was having heart surgery on Tuesday, a surgery that went perfectly. Even more amazing was that when she asked for prayer last Sunday, our people – our missionaries to Bellflower were there – ready to respond in love. Mark did his first baptism – the child who was to have surgery – he baptized her right then - on the spot – another child was marked as one of God’s.
Also among the visitors were a number of young families, whose children will be baptized in the weeks to come, because they witnessed the baptism of the young one. They will be baptized because of the Jennings and MarkMcCombs, because they are God’s servants, because they were sent out by the servants among whom God groomed them….you. Hear again Paul’s words to the church in Rome!
14 But how can they call on him to save them unless they believe in him? And how can they believe in him if they have never heard about him? And how can they hear about him unless someone tells them? 15 And how will anyone go and tell them without being sent? That is why the Scriptures say, “How beautiful are the feet of messengers who bring good news!”
Romans 10:14-15 (NLT)
My friends, we are God’s people, He dwells with us! Even though we struggle, He works through us. Don’t buy into the idea, that just because we still sin, God is somehow unable to use us! We are the people He has planted here, as people whom He has made His own, to do that which brings Him great pleasure and joy.
IS our fruit based just in the numbers we bring in? Not really, though I would say that the fruit is what accounts for them listening to our message of hope. Paul in his letter to the church in Galatia, described the life God created us to live.
22 But what happens when we live God's way? He brings gifts into our lives, much the same way that fruit appears in an orchard—things like affection for others, exuberance about life, serenity. We develop a willingness to stick with things, a sense of compassion in the heart, and a conviction that a basic holiness permeates things and people. We find ourselves involved in loyal commitments,
Galatians 5:22 (MSG)
Such a life is contagious – such a life comes alongside others, and guides them towards Jesus, whose loves brings healing into the brokenness. Such love infects the world.
It is who we are created to be, a people who live in Christ’s peace, not producing our own fruit, but rather, so closing united with Him, that we produce His.
That is the intimacy given to us in our baptism, as God kills off the sour nature of sin, it is the intimacy found as God gathers us together, it is the intimacy that brings people to come worship the Lord with us, for we are His people, the flock that He guides into peaceful pastures.
Where His peace, a peace beyond all understanding, guards our hearts and our minds.
AMEN?
