In touch	Check-in	Intercessions
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In touch

Up-to-the-minute jumping-off points for sermons, linking the reading to the latest news and global issues

Time’s up!

When performance is lacking, the clock is ticking (Matthew 21:43)

 

Context

• Football managers at many clubs are just a few games away from getting the sack – which is what happened to Michael Beale at Glasgow Rangers.
• And it’s not just the coaches who face the axe as officials can find that mistakes cost them their jobs.
• The jobs of the heads of our biggest companies are often no more secure.
• The history of life on our planet is to be told in a Netflix series starting later this month. It will be a story of fighting for survival and of whole sets of species being replaced by others. The story of life replacing life has echoes in Replacement Theory which says that Caucasian culture and authority is threatened by a Jewish and non-white conspiracy to overthrow the status quo.
• The climate crisis continues to threaten, but there are occasional signs of hope such as the news that the first beaver has been born in the wild in London for 400 years.

 

Reflection

The story of the tenant farmers is one that has certain elements that are recognisable in our contemporary world, but others that seem rooted in a world that is not ours. We understand the context of tenant farmers and it might seem reasonable to hand over a percentage of the profits from the land to the land’s owner. However, it seems outlandish for the tenants not only to refuse to pay what they owed but to take such extreme measures against the landowner’s emissaries.

Jesus asked the crowd how they would imagine the story would end and they told him that the owner would come and exact judgement against the tenants who had killed his servants and then his son. The owner would then give the vineyard to new tenants who would behave correctly. Jesus agreed with them – up to a point. The vineyard owner would deal with the existing tenants, but the vineyard would be given to a nation who would ensure that the vineyard yielded proper fruit. This is interesting in that there was no mention previously that the fruit the vineyard had produced been anything other than good. Perhaps this is a reference to an Old Testament passage which uses a vineyard as a metaphor for Israel.

The religious leaders who first heard this parable knew that Jesus was directing this parable at them and that Jesus was threatening them with being replaced and their place in God’s kingdom given to others. Jesus uses the singular word ‘nation’ rather than the people ‘nations’ which is usually interpreted to mean Gentiles. If Jesus had wanted to say that the Kingdom of God would be given to the Gentiles, there were more obvious ways to say this, so there is ambiguity in who or what this ‘nation’ is. Perhaps this is an example of Jesus alluding to God’s desire to include, rather than exclude and replace.

 

Questions

• Jesus doesn’t explicitly agree with the religious leaders regarding the appropriate judgement on the tenant farmers. What do you think is a proportionate response to the tenants' behaviour?

• Have you ever been replaced? How did it feel, especially if this was done publicly?

• If you are involved in a traditional Christian church, have you ever felt that you are threatened with being replaced – by secularisation, other religious faiths or different ways of expressing your own faith?

Simon Carver is a recently retired Baptist Minister living in Watford who takes a particular interest in film, sport and US politics.

 

Check-in

Connecting faith with everyday, real-life issues for young people

Who likes baked beans? As a teenager who didn’t like meat, baked beans on toast were my far too frequent meal of choice! Despite being a popular UK food, we have an unsuitable climate to grow these haricot beans, but recent news revealed a Lincolnshire farmer has harvested the 1^st commercial UK crop, using a special new seed variety.

However, the farmer said it had been ‘one of the most stressful experiments’ due to unpredictable weather and the need for specialist harvesting equipment, plus the crop in 2022 had failed in the summer heatwave. His perseverance and skills mean that a crop is now possible, with hugely reduced reliance on food miles from USA and China imports, plus the crop enriches the soil with nitrogen.

The parable in Matthew describes tenants in a vineyard who keep wanting more for themselves, stopping at nothing to get it, even murder. Although the story is extreme, parables still speak to our lives and situations. God wants us to use the gifts and resources God gives us, rather than wanting something different. I find it’s easy to think ‘things will be better when…..’,  ‘ If I can just do ……. then I’ll be ok’. But we only have the present, and God wants us to make fruitful choices with what we have.

Right now in this moment we have unique gifts and experiences that we can use so that others learn of God’s love. Like the bean farmer, we’ll make mistakes and things won’t go as planned, but this helps us to build up resilience. Each day we can choose life-giving and loving choices. And each moment is forming us one way or the other. We can ask the Holy Spirit to form us into the person God desires us to be.

Question: Is there a talent or experience you could use to help people in your school/college or friendship group?  

Action - In small groups, discuss the following and encourage one another: If there is an activity which doesn’t seem to be going well for you, what can you learn from it – can you do it differently? Where might you find help?

Dr. Angela Mak is a Licensed Lay Minister in the Ecumenical Partnership of West Swindon and Lydiard Tregoze. She is also a school’s worker, and retired biology teacher.

 

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