Sermon, October 5, 2014: The Master Lease

Christ United Presbyterian Church

October 5, 2014

“The Master Lease”          Matthew 21:33-46

Have you ever leased as car?  There are a variety of reasons for leasing.  If you are an independent business person it may have some tax advantages.  If you don’t drive a whole lot of miles every year it might have some advantages.  If you simply want a car that you can’t afford to purchase outright, there might be an advantage to leasing. 

Many years ago in a business law class I was told that for every privilege that we have there is some obligation.  A lease grants you certain privileges, but it has obligations.  Normally there is a limit set to the number of miles you are allowed to drive over the course of a lease, and if you exceed that limit you have an obligation to pay a penalty based on the miles driven.  And of course there is the fact that after the term of the lease is up, you have to return the car to its legal owner or pay a buy-out price. 

I once got involved in a genuine lease tragedy.  I fell in love with the car, but when the lease was up I didn’t have the money to buy out the car.  By then I was living a long way from where I had leased the car, and I explained that to the dealer who owned the car.  I even asked if we could just extend the lease arrangement.  The dealer said not to worry: it didn’t matter how far away I was, they would find an agent to pick up the car.  They wanted their property returned, and with a sad heart I had to give it up.  Unhappily, I met my obligation.

In the Gospel lesson today we have some tenant farmers who had leased some land from a landowner.  Apparently their lease obligation was to pay rent in the form of some share of their crops.  They not only didn’t pay, they abused the first set of agents that he sent to collect it.  Jesus says that they beat one, killed another and stoned the third one. 

The owner was a patient person who thought perhaps there had been a misunderstanding, so he sent a second set of agents to collect.  They were treated the same as the first set.  Apparently the owner still thought there might be some hope for this situation so he tells his son to go and straighten out the mess.  The owner said to himself: “They will respect my son.” 

Well, that didn’t work out so well either.  They killed his son telling one another that if they killed the son they would be able to take over the property as their own.  Apparently they felt that if they killed the son and established their own claim to the land they would be able to keep the land.  Perhaps they thought that the owner wasn’t tough enough to claim and protect his own property.  Clearly, they denied any obligation that they might have had regarding the land that they had been given the privilege to work.

They mistook the owner’s patience for weakness.

This is a pretty rich parable.  I’ve heard dozens of sermons on this parable and mostly they focused on the murder of the son.  That’s certainly an important part of the story.  It’s an important part of our story.  But the metaphorical murder pointing to the death of God’s Son leads to a redemptive act on the part of God, and today I want to back up from the murder and look more closely at the tenants – the lessee’s. 

This concept of God as the lessor and we as the lessee is a good one for us to think about.  We say that everything we have comes from God – and it does – but it might be more precise to think of all that we have been given as being on a long term lease rather than an outright gift.  If you were in the energy business you’d quickly understand that even getting a lease on something can be a very competitive affair with the winner feeling very grateful to have received it.

We have won the privilege of a broad master lease allowing us to live abundantly in this, God’s creation. 

In the end, God knows that we aren’t always going to behave responsibly and meet all our lease obligations.  That’s where the gift of redemption through Jesus comes in, but let’s not get ahead of ourselves. 

We have won the privilege of a very broad lease allowing us to live abundantly in this, God’s creation.  We should be very grateful to receive the privilege of this lease and very anxious to meet our responsibilities under the lease agreement – what scripture calls the Covenant.

The first and most important responsibility that we have is stewardship.  Our first and most important responsibility under the Covenant is to care for the creation that God has allowed us to live in.  To care for the earth; to care for the water; to care for the air; to care for the crown of God’s creation:  one another. 

We can faithfully live out some of that by living carefully and thoughtfully and not participating in the ruination of the material aspects of creation.  We can care for one another through daily acts of gentle kindness and concern.  We can come together as God’s tenants, living the life that God has set apart for us and showing the world what God’s expects of us by the example of this congregation. 

And we can care for God’s people around the world by bringing them the words of the Covenant and the word of redemption so that they too become aware of their shared responsibilities under the lease agreement.  

We are stewards of the creation and we are stewards of the Covenant and we are stewards of the message of God’s redeeming love.  How we respond to that first obligation is perhaps a more individual decision than the other two.  How we act as stewards of the creation can be a personal thing, a local community endeavor or participation in a global effort. 

As stewards of the Covenant we must act in concert with one another; we must act as a congregation; we must act as a denomination; we must act as a global body of God’s redeemed.  To do that starts with the congregation. 

It starts with our recognition of the privilege of having received that lease as we gather to give God our thanks and praise.  It starts with the example we set for the outside in the way we love one another in here and extends out as we extend that love to the community. 

It starts with our support – both spiritual and material – of the existence of this congregation. 

God has indeed given us everything that we have.  We are expected to understand that what we have been given is still God’s, but we are asked to repay with just a portion of all that we have.  We are asked to repay by spreading God’s love; by spreading God’s word; by coming together and living as a congregation that displays the love of God and the message of redemption. 

And by supporting the economic needs required to maintain this congregation and its ministry.  This has been an incredible year in the life of this congregation.  You have replaced the roof over this sanctuary and the flat roofs will soon be replaced with no debt for the congregation.  You have moved the budget into a break-even position.  The feeding ministry that we house has been expanded to four meals a week.  You are seeking and hopefully will soon call a new full time pastor to help you live out and spread God’s word. 

That’s what God expects us to do with the gifts that God has leased to us, and money – there I’ve said it – is one of those gifts that we are called upon to return to the Lord’s ministry.  Here in Marshall a part of the Lord’s ministry is the ministry of Christ United Presbyterian Church. 

We are saved by the redemptive act of the Son of God, and accepting that salvation means also gratefully receiving the Covenant between God and God’s children.  We will stumble and even fall, and Christ will lift us up and get us back on the right road. 

We have become the adopted heirs of the Covenant, an agreement made between God and Abraham and Isaac and Joseph and David and John.  Second only to the redemptive gift of Christ Himself, that Covenant is the greatest privilege that we could have ever received.  We have become God’s own children.  We are called upon to live in that Covenant always recognizing that with every privilege comes responsibilities. 

Amen.