World Communion Sunday

I’d like to begin with a story that isn't in the Bible, but it’s one that’s probably familiar to you. Brenda was relatively new in the congregation. She was the kind of person who dove in with both feet. She immediately volunteered to help with the kitchen. Next thing we knew, she was actually in charge of the kitchen. She had a very particular way of doing things. If you didn’t do it the way she liked, she let you know it.

After a while it became more difficult to staff the kitchen. People just didn’t like working with Brenda. And there were certain people that she didn’t like working with either. Pretty soon, it was just Brenda and the couple of people she liked. It had ceased to be St. Paul’s kitchen. It was now Brenda’s kitchen. She decided who got to stay.

Nobody ever sets out to be a gatekeeper. It happens the way water finds its level. We’re handed something precious, and we start to guard it. Today Jesus tells a story about that. It’s an uncomfortable story, because it’s a story about us.

Listen again to how the parable begins. A landowner plants a vineyard with great care. He puts a hedge around it, he digs a wine press into the rock, he builds a watchtower. It’s got everything you need. Then the landowner leases it to tenants and goes away.

The tenants are given a gift. They didn't plant a single thing. They didn't dig the press or build the tower. Their whole job is to tend what someone else has made and to give the owner his share of the harvest. But when harvest time comes and the owner sends servants to collect, the tenants seize them. They beat one, kill another, and stone a third. The owner tries again with more servants and gets the same result. Finally, he sends his son, thinking they’ll respect him.

And then this already dark tale takes an even darker turn. “This is the heir; come, let us kill him and get his inheritance.” Notice what they want. They don't want the harvest. They want the vineyard. They've tended it for so long that they've forgotten it was ever a gift, and they've decided that it is theirs to possess.

Then Jesus turns to the religious leaders and asks, "When the owner comes, what will he do to those tenants?" And their answer is as quick as it is certain: “He will put those wretches to a miserable death and lease the vineyard to other tenants who will give him the produce at the harvest time.” They pass judgment not realizing they are the ones on trial. It’s only later that the chief priests and Pharisees realized Jesus was talking about them. And us.

So what is the vineyard? What has God given us that we are tempted to claim as our own? I'd suggest it is grace itself, and the love of God, and the way both are set before us in the sacrament of Holy Communion. Think about how we handle the table. Some churches, including Calvary in the past, literally fence it in with a communion rail. Some traditions fence it in with doctrine: you may come if you believe this particular thing about what happens to the bread. Some fence it in with membership: you may come if you belong to us. Some fence it in with age, or baptism, or confession, or good standing. Some of us fence it in more subtly, with a look, a hesitation, a quiet assumption about who really belongs here and who is only visiting.

According to the Augsburg confession, part of my job is to administer the sacraments “rightly.” But if we're not careful, it can turn into something else. It becomes a matter of who gets to decide. It comes from the deep human desire to be the keeper of the keys. And every time we do it, we are standing in the vineyard saying this is mine, while the owner's servants stand at the gate.

As I often say, this table doesn’t belong to us. The bread is not ours. The cup is not ours. We didn't plant the vine. We were invited to tend it, and our job is to hand over the harvest.

Paul knows this temptation from the inside. Paul lays out his résumé for us. Circumcised on the eighth day. Of the people of Israel, the tribe of Benjamin, a Hebrew born of Hebrews.

As to the law, a Pharisee. As to zeal, a persecutor of the church. As to righteousness under the law, blameless.

Read that list carefully. Every item is a way of holding onto the keys. Each is a credential, a claim of belonging, a reason to say I'm in, and I know who isn’t. And Paul didn't just hold those keys, he used them. His zeal for guarding the vineyard made him a man who dragged people out of it.

Then he says something incredible. "Whatever gains I had, these I have come to regard as loss because of Christ." In fact, he regards it all as rubbish. What he actually says is that he regards it all as shaving cream. You get the idea.

And why does Paul say this? Because he came to know the Son. Paul, who had been standing with the tenants, found himself face to face with the very one his kind of zeal had put to death. And what did the Son offer him? Not “give me back what you stole.” Not judgment. He offered himself, and a place in the vineyard.

Paul says that he no longer wants a righteousness of his own, the kind that comes from keeping the rules and holding the keys. He wants the righteousness that comes through faith in Christ. The kind that is received and never earned. And then he says: "Not that I have already obtained this or have already reached the goal, but I press on to make it my own, because Christ Jesus has made me his own." Did you catch the reversal? The tenants wanted to make the vineyard their own. Paul says the only thing that matters is that Christ has made him his own. Paul is not holding onto anything. He is being held, and that is his whole hope.

The tenants believed that the inheritance had to be taken; that grace is a scarce thing, and that someone has to seize it and stand guard. But look at what actually happens to the Son. He is thrown out of the vineyard and killed. All of which points to the cross, where God did the most astonishing thing with power. God gave it all up.

Paul says elsewhere, in the verses just before our reading that Christ "did not regard equality with God as something to be exploited, but emptied himself." Jesus holds the ultimate keys, and he lays them down. He is stripped, mocked, and nailed up, yet he doesn’t call down legions of angels to rescue him. He surrenders every ounce of power and control there is.

And what does the inheritance turn out to be? It’s forgiveness, mercy, new life, and a place at the table for anyone who is hungry. The tenants killed the heir to get the inheritance, and the heir gave it away while dying, for the sake of the very ones who killed him.

That's why the stone the builders rejected has become the cornerstone. The one we threw out is the one everything else rests on. And the harvest the owner wanted all along turns out to be a people who live the way their Lord lived: open-handed, unguarded, giving away what was freely given to them.

Today, on World Communion Sunday, Christians all over the planet are gathering at tables, in cathedrals and storefronts, under tin rooves and under trees. Some of them are people we'd agree with on almost everything. Many are people we would disagree with about nearly everything. They use different words, different bread, and different music. Some of them we would never have invited.

Yet this is a single table and never was ours to divide. Because it isn't ours. We didn't set it. We can't fence it in. We’ve been given the vineyard to tend, and the Son who was rejected and killed is the one who is host. He pours the cup and breaks the bread. He doesn't check credentials at the door. We know this because of who he ate with, and who he was willing to die for.

So, what do we do with our keys? We set them down. We set down the keys we've carried so long we no longer notice their weight: the assumptions about who belongs, the quiet gladness that we're on the inside, the need to be the ones who decide. We can trust that the God who gave up everything on the cross is not going to run out of grace because someone unexpected is standing in line.

So come to this table. Not because you've earned it, and not because you belong to the right group or believe the right things in the right amounts. Come because Jesus, who was thrown out of the vineyard, has thrown open the gate. This bread is broken for a hungry world, and the cup is poured out for everyone. Come and eat, because it was never ours to hold onto. It’s only ours to receive, and then to hand on. Amen.