Dinner Invitation

Matthew 21:33-46
Dinner invitation
We tend to complicate things.  But this is a complex world.  We have words to communicate but words are imperfect. To be able to deeply understand each other requires deep trust and intimacy but that just isn’t possible all the time. Even those to whom we are closest can misinterpret and misunderstand us.
Only God knows your heart. Only God knows you motivation. Only God knows exactly what you need and sometimes we let God use others to be the blessing he intends for us.
A long time ago in another season of life I experienced a radical act of hospitality. It was a simple invitation to dinner. I was throwing darts at a local place where I was introduced to a friend of a friend. I don’t remember his name but I remember he was from the Bahamas. He, like me, was a student at Ferris State University. I never met anyone like him before. He spoke with a thick accent. He was from another place. He didn’t look like me or any of my friends, yet he seemed friendly.
He invited my friend and me to his apartment for dinner.  He lived in married housing on campus. It seemed odd that this older man would want my friend and me to come to his apartment for dinner. If this were a movie we would be screaming at the screen to not go.
We went. He made chicken Souse. Not Chicken “sauce” but Souse. A simple meal of chicken wings boiled with potatoes and carrots and other simple ingredients. It was delicious. We chatted and went back to our dorm.   He didn’t ask anything from us. He offered and provided a meal for which I was inadequately grateful.
I didn’t see his act for the generous one that it was. That is one of those places in life that I could have a “re-do.” I actually have lots of those.
His Chicken Souse wasn’t what I expected. I don’t know what I expected going in to that situation but it wasn’t a simple recipe prepared in generosity.
Today we are going to have a meal that is very simple indeed. Bread and Juice. There is some disagreement about the nature of this meal between groups of Christians –about how God is involved. But let’s talk about what’s in this meal.
[The sun and rain that watered the grain of wheat, the grass and alfalfa that fed the cow that produced the milk that made the butter, the salt from the earth and the sugar from the beat grown in the earth and the human hands that were in the entire process right down to the hands that combined the ingredients and carried them to church today] Psalm 139:7-9
In the scripture Jesus told a parable about a vineyard and tenant farmers. The land owner put a fence around the vineyard. The land owner set aside this piece of land and specified it as a place for the vineyard. The land all around may be no different but this piece of land has now been given a special purpose. This can be compared to God setting aside the Hebrew people to be his people. The parable goes on to say that the landowner sent servants to collect rent and they were all put out or killed including the son of the landowner.
It can be said that this refers to the prophets of God and finally to Jesus prediction of his own death.
Jesus asks the question, “When the owner of the vineyard comes, what will he do to those tenant farmers?”
Those listening to Jesus respond in a way that we would expect and in a way that we may respond, “41 They said, “He will totally destroy those wicked farmers and rent the vineyard to other tenant farmers who will give him the fruit when it’s ready.”
And if we don’t read carefully we may think that this is the right answer. We may be so conditioned to the earthly response that we may miss what Jesus actually says. He does not say “You are right.”
He says, “Haven’t you ever read in the scriptures, The stone that the builders rejected has become the cornerstone. The Lord has done this, and it’s amazing in our eyes?[a] 43  Therefore, I tell you that God’s kingdom will be taken away from you and will be given to a people who produce its fruit.” Not that he will destroy anybody but that what they have been entrusted with will be given to those who will produce fruit.
I believe that the responsibility for the Kingdom of God on earth has been given to the Christian church. That we are the ones who are expected to produce fruit.
The thing is, in the parable the owner of the vineyard built a fence around it. When Jesus empowered his disciples to go into the world, baptizing all nations, he removed that fence. In effect the vineyard is to cover the whole earth to produce fruit not only in a particular place as in the parable but where ever one finds oneself. He has not called one people to be his. He has called all peoples to be his adopted children.
There is no longer us and them.  The divisions that we understood before are no longer valid. The fence is down and the vineyard is growing!
We can narrowly look at the parable and see that the original tenants are the Israelites and the new tenants are Christians. Or we can widen our view and see that we are both the wicked tenants and the ones who will produce fruit.  How many of us have perfectly incorporated Jesus into our lives and produce the fruit that Jesus expects? None of us.
Not one of us has been perfected in this life.  The good news is that when God looks at us he only sees his beloved Son living in us. And can’t help but love us unconditionally.
So Jesus has invited us to dinner. On the menu are only two things: Bread and juice, common earthly, universal foods. We are going to pray that these common foods will be for us the body and blood of Jesus Christ. We know that God’s glory fills the whole earth. We know that God is everywhere. This is the presence of Christ in everything.  Richard Rohr writes in his daily meditation, “If we deny that the spiritual can enter the material world, then we are in trouble, since we hope to be just that -spiritual and fully material human beings.”
We are invited to this very simple meal with the most radical gift of love and hospitality ever offered in all of human history. God is everywhere but for a few moments we are going to try to recognize God in this meal.
If we can gather, time and again, and recognize God in this meal then we can bring that knowledge out and recognize God in the world.  When the lines dissolve between “God’s here,” and “God’s not here,” we become more Christ like. Because Jesus saw God in places where others did not: in sinners, in outsiders and in enemies.
So, how is it with you today?  Can you see God even in those other things? Fortunately God is patient.  God is forgiving. And God invites us to have a simple meal of bread and juice with him so that we can have a glimpse and a foretaste of the banquet that we will have in the kingdom of God.