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This parable of owner and tenants is obviously referring to the rejection of the prophets, and finally of Jesus, by the Jewish leadership. And the lesson is “Don’t reject God’s message, and give God due honor, worship, and obedience.” .... And all this, under the threat of losing one’s place in the kingdom.

Well, I guess a strong homily could be built around these themes, but, as I read these gospel verses at the beginning of the week last week, my mind wandered off in a very, very strange direction. This was caused by the fact that, as an Irishman, I began to feel some sympathy for these tenants. Of course, I didn’t agree with their violence, but I guess I am a captive of history. The struggle of the Irish people for four hundred years was not about religion. It was about land. And in the seventeenth century, in particular, the English authorities dispossessed the Irish farmers of their land and handed it over to English and Scot settlers. These happened to be Protestants. So that is where the religious problem came in. The original Irish owners became tenants, while many of the new owners eventually became absentee landlords, squeezing the tenants for higher rents in order to maintain their lavish lifestyles in London. So there was constant tension between owners and tenants, and it often led to bloodshed, just as we find in the parable.

Why am I giving you this little history lesson? To illustrate the fact that I can come to a piece of scripture, an understanding of the gospel message, with a lot of bias. The bias may have deep roots in history, in family or personal experiences, in childhood memories or myths. We carry a lot of baggage with us that can prevent us from seeing clearly the message of Jesus, and from experiencing the true freedom of the children of God. You know, Jesus spent a lot of his time and his energy in trying to free people from the burdens laid upon them by their history, by tradition, or by well-meaning people like the Pharisees. And so, we find Jesus saying, “Come to me if you find life burdensome and I will refresh you.” None of us are immune to bias, not even Church authorities. You know they have, in the past, placed many heavy burdens on people’s shoulders. And the most recent example of this is the proposed ban on gay men entering the priesthood. There are a number of gay men serving as priests in this diocese. They are excellent, compassionate, caring and highly gifted men. Are they now going to have to bear the burden of being told that it was a mistake to ordain them, that they are not worthy of priesthood? This is allowing bias to color our understanding of the gospel message, and none of us is immune from that.

The pioneers who settled this land started their journey west from the Mississippi with wagons full of stuff from their old lives. And then, they found that if they were to live in the new life, they’d have to lighten the load and dump much of what they had thought was essential. Each one of us carries a lot of baggage with us from our heritage, our families, our schooling, our environment. Now, some of it is extremely valuable and should be preserved at all costs, but some of it may be slowing us down or even putting us on a wrong path altogether on our journey to the kingdom. It’s hard to let go. Any of you ever tried to clear out your garage? It’s hard to let go. It’s hard to change. It’s hard to see things differently. It is hard to admit that our world view may be biased and not in accord with the messages of the great prophets, and especially with the message of Jesus himself. So, let us pray for openness to the Holy Spirit that will enable us to recognize our bias and get past it to a true understanding of the Good News.

Well, I told you in the beginning that my mind had wandered off in a very strange direction. So, let me come back for a few minutes to this gospel parable and try to understand it without bias. I think it is surely about justice, about living the just life. Now these tenants had surely entered into some kind of lease agreement with the owner of the vineyard. They unjustly ignored the terms of their lease and did so in a violent, even murderous way, and they certainly do not deserve my sympathy. But the parable is really asking us to reflect on our relationship with God. We can say that, in a certain way, God has leased to us this world, indeed our very lives, and has made an agreement with us. We call it a “covenant.” You shall be my people and I shall be your God. There is an implicit agreement that we pay our rent to God by living justly, honestly and honorably. And he gives us every opportunity to do so. We’ve had many great teachers, down through the centuries and especially the greatest teacher of all, we have had Jesus. If we are to build lives that are pleasing to God, then Jesus, as scripture says, must be the keystone of that structure. It is he who holds everything together. His word is Life. And so we should embrace that life, embrace that word of Jesus, and try to live by it, simply, sincerely, without prejudice or bias. Amen.