The eCrozier

Whether we enjoy it or not, most of us are surrounded by technological and economic abundance. Our culture has many ways to stimulate our appetites for the goods and services made available to those who can afford them. And it’s not just that we have an appetite for all this abundance, we feel it’s our right to have it. Those who want lower taxes still demand high quality education, services, and amenities in their communities They just don’t want it to come out of their paychecks. They claim the right to all that supports their needs and desires, but they often are blind to the needs of others.

In such a world, it’s only a small step from claims to certain rights to the violent rhetoric of some current political groups, who claim, with some logic, that in our materialistic society only the language of violence (see recent calls for “2^nd Amendment solutions” to our problems) speaks loud enough to demand the attention of others. The vineyard tenants of Jesus’ parable (Matthew 21:33ff) are not all that remote from us; their acts of violence against the owner’s servants and son are simply extreme examples of a motto that weaves its way through our society:  “What’s mine?”

The judgment proclaimed in the parable is easy for us to apply to someone else.  We can say that their claims are too extreme, illogical, or greedy, while our claims are legitimate, reasonable, and just. We ask only our due while they demand too much. It’s easy to see where such colliding claims lead. They lead to mutual destruction in some form or another. When our political system becomes besieged by such colliding claims, as it is now, it breaks down, as does our environment, overwhelmed with pollutants.

The Gospel of Jesus is a stark alternative to this cycle of claim and counterclaim. This doesn’t mean we all begin equally in life or that there’s no need for social change to end the extremes of wealth and poverty. It means that we’re freed from the blind claim of unreasonable rights. We’re freed from this desire because God’s grace is all we truly need. If we see God as the source of all that we have and all that we are, then we will see others as neighbors to be loved rather than as enemies to be overcome; as people loved by God and not as competitors for more things. God’s love and grace in our lives is the necessary pre-condition for our ability to see the world with eyes that don’t demand “our rights” and “our way” at the expense of others (see 1 Corinthians 13:4-5).

The abundance that surrounds us isn’t the abundance of things that we use to fill the void in our hearts. What actually surrounds us is the abundance of God’s love that heals our hearts and makes us whole. This love from God enables us to see the world with a clearer vision and less grasping hands. As God’s people, however, we often want to claim the vineyard as our own. But that just indicates how broken we are by our own sin. Still, God uses broken things. It takes broken soil to produce a crop, broken grain to make bread, crushed grapes to make wine, broken bread and poured wine to make us whole. When our hearts are broken, we come to know our true need. Jesus says, “This is my Body broken for you and my Blood shed for you.”

+Scott