Sermon

Palm Sunday Evening

April 1, 2007

The hymn immediately prior to the Gospel reading of this evening’s service stated, “This day radiates with the first fruits of the Passion of the Lord.” This morning, the service was a joyful one—Bright colors, children carrying palms, joyful hymns. This evening is more sedate—we have now begun the journey to the Passion of Christ. Dark colors, somber hymns, the sadness in the icon of Christ the Bridegroom, these now lead the way. And though it will be several days before we commemorate the crucifixion of Christ, the Passion has in a sense already begun. For the first fruit of the Passion was the rejection of Christ by His own people. This evening we heard in the Gospel lesson about the cursing of the fig tree, which represented the leadership of the Jewish temple, entrusted as God’s chosen people to preach God’s message of hope, which somehow got tangled up with legalistic weights and measures, so that they never bore the proper spiritual fruits. We heard the parable about the two sons, the first of whom said he would go work for his father and then didn’t; while the second said he would not work and later repented and did. This again represents those whom God chose who accepted the message but did nothing with it, and contrasts them to the ones who initially reject God but then come to their senses and become devout followers. It is the second group, the Lord says, that will enter the kingdom of God. And finally, the parable about the tenants of the vineyard who treated the servants of the landowner terribly when they came to collect the fruits of the vineyard. Eventually the landowner sent his own son and they killed the son. The landowner is the Lord, the tenants were the people of Israel, the servants sent to get the fruits of the vineyard were the prophets, many of whom were slain and treated shamefully. Eventually the Lord sent His own Son and the tenants saw the Son and killed Him. Jesus says to the disciples, in foretelling of His Passion, that the very stone which the builders rejected is the chief cornerstone. For as we read in the Psalms, unless the Lord builds the house, in vain do the laborers toil. (Psalm 127) Many of God’s chosen people did just that—they tried to build a temple, a religion, a way of life, without God.

The focus of this Holy Week is not to pat any of us on the back with how good we are. It’s to try to help us in tending to our souls and finding the places where our souls are wounded so that they can be healed. If no wounds are found, no healing can occur. So the Gospel provides us with three questions to ponder as we seek spiritual healing and renewal: Are we bearing spiritual fruit, or are we fruitless like the fig tree, which was outwardly beautiful and alive, except that it wasn’t producing fruit. Despite our outward confidence, is there anything missing inside? Secondly, which son do we identify with—the one who said he would work and didn’t, or the one who said he wouldn’t work and did. Have we heard God’s word but failed to transfer it over to our lives? Or have we rejected God’s Word and are now more eager to reverse course? And finally, God is the landowner for each of our lives, our world, our jobs, our homes, our families, oure relationships with others. We are each tenants, not owners, for the owner is permanent, the tenant is temporary. Everyone’s life is temporary. We are on this earth, God’s vineyard, for a finite amount of time. When the landowner comes to collect the fruit of his vineyard, will we have something to offer him from our time we have spent as a tenant? How would we feel if the landowner came to collect tonight? The marquee hymn of the first three nights of Holy Week has this same theme. “Behold the Bridegroom comes in the midst of the night, and blessed is the servant, whom He shall find vigilant.” It is not merely enough to accept Christ. One has to bear fruits that reflect a Christ-centered life. And one has to be ready at all times for the master of the vineyard to return to collect his fruits. We are God’s chosen people. He has chosen us, the way a bridegroom proposes to his bride. This week serves as a time to again answer that proposal, with a recommitment to the marriage between Christ and His Church, between each of us and the Lord.