Union Church

October 5, 2008.
Matthew 21: 33-39

The sub-prime mortgage crisis in the U.S. threatens to affect us all.

To simplify things, it goes back to people in an overheated housing market, who were buying bigger and bigger properties with less and less equity to the point of buying what they simply could not afford. All the while, these folk were aided and abetted by unscrupulous loan officers who created sub-prime mortgages to pad their sales and bonuses. They then hid these high risk loans in bundles of asset- backed securities and sold them to financial institutions.

Our western culture values owning over renting, values
mortgage payments over lease payments. And these values can run away with us and cause us to think and act in disastrous ways. Look what happens when there isn’t enough government regulation or due diligence in the ownership game.

We find the same run away situation in our parable today.
The absentee owner is out of touch with his enterprise.
There is ownership without stewardship.

The tenants, as they work in the vineyard are plotting how to turn stewardship into ownership. They foolishly think they can possess the vineyard through violence and selfish zeal. But as the listeners know, it will only be a matter of time before the axe falls.

Look what happens when we will do anything to be an owner.
And look, what price the absentee owner pays for being out of touch with his enterprise.

We want to be owners more than we want to be stewards. And so, we often confuse stewardship with ownership.

Every fall we encourage one another to be faithful stewards.
But truth be told, we struggle with the idea that we are to be stewards of much and owners of little.

However, that is what this Jesus parable is telling us.
It is God’s creation in which live.
It is God’s world in which we share community.
It is God’s vineyard in which we toil for our daily bread.

Worldwide Communion Sunday reminds us of the Church universal coming together in worship for a unifying meal, but how in touch are we with human aspirations?

Worldwide Communion Sunday is beginning to remind us of something else.
It is reminding us that the whole world is God’s world.

Increasingly, Worldwide Communion Sunday reminds us of our stewardship for the world of God’s making.
We are seeing right now what happens when stewardship is turned into ownership in economics and in the environment.

So let’s remember that this is God’s world and we are only tenants in God’s vineyard.
We are to pass on to the next generation the fruits of our labours in this church, in this community, in this province, and in this world of God’s making.

So the application for today?

Let’s relax. Let’s re-frame.
Let’s step away from the edge.
This is God’s world. God already owns it.
God is ever present in it.
We just have to care for it.
Thank God.