Last week, we heard about the two sons—the one who has an attention deficit disorder and when asked by his father to go work in the vineyard that day, says “I’ll go” and doesn’t go. And the second son who is having a bad attitude day and says to his father, “Not me.” And then he goes to the vineyard.

I hear this parable and I think we need the example of yet a third son. One who says, “Yes, Father” and who goes to work in the vineyard.

This week, we have Jesus’ description of that third obedient son in this parable, in this autobiographical allegory.  [Read Matthew 21: 33-46.]

Jesus is the heir and the vineyard owner is God. That makes this a truly remarkable story. I don’t know about you. But if I had sent some members of my household staff on an errand for me to a rental property down the shore or up in the mountains and they came back battered, bruised, and even in a box…I would not send my beloved child. She would be securely locked up in my home and I’d sent the sheriff or state police to deal with those tenants.

God doesn’t seem to have good luck with gardens and vineyards. Consider the Garden of Eden. Read Isaiah chapter 5.

Even so, still today, we are given this earth and each other to care for. We are to be the tenant farmers, to be the stewards of God’s good creation. How are we doing?

I’m not so sure.

Global warming and global economies are fueled by greed.

And I certainly don’t want to be the Grinch who stole Halloween. But, I heard that this year, this nation, will spend $3 billion dollars on Halloween.

That’s an interesting number, don’t you think?

We are well trained consumers.

Consuming away.

Why?

Why do we buy things that don’t last and don’t satisfy?

Greed. Greed is one of the seven deadly sins.

Greed may be called the matriarch of the other 6 deadly sins.

Earlier we heard the listing of the Ten Commandments as God gave them to Moses. [Exodus 20: 1-20.]The Hebrews also knew the seven laws of Noah. And later their system developed into over 800 laws and precepts.

They said that theft was the root of sin. When you take God’s name in vain, you steal God’s good reputation. When you commit adultery, you steal the affections of another person’s spouse. And certainly when you kill, you rob another person of life itself.

But for us, the root is greed.

We buy things, particularly brand name things, in order to fill ourselves up, to make ourselves bigger, more powerful, more noticeable, more important AND

MORE LOVABLE.

We are greedy because we do not know ourselves to be loved.

We don’t trust that God knows us perfectly and loves us perfectly.

Think about that.

I wonder how we might act with we had that trust in God’s grace and love.

[Pause.]

In 2000, Alan Greenspan the Chairman of the Federal Reserve diagnosed our national illness as “infectious greed.”  And this infection has spread well beyond the board rooms and corporate offices of our major industries.

You and I have been clamoring about the price of oil because we believe it is our right to have easily available, inexpensive fuel so that we can drive… drive to the mall.

This Saturday, I was on the highways between here and South Jersey. I’d been visiting my family. There were three traffic jams. Two, sadly, were accidents. Cars, trucks and campers. And police and rescue vehicles were on the scene. The third?

It was a line to get into the Deptford Mall which was about a mile away. And the exit ramp was full. The slow lane of the highway was full. There was no accident. The back up was normal Saturday afternoon volume. It wasn’t even one of the last shopping days before Christmas.

As you remember, it was a beautiful, sunny day. A time for walks in the woods and laying in the grass to look at the clouds. Are we all getting “nature deprived”? Not looking at the sky and trees. The beauty of nature is one of the ways our Creator shows God’s glory.

We are greedy because we do not know ourselves to be loved.

One of the hallmarks of the early Church was the love and mutual respect they showed one another in Christ’s name. Justin Maytr who died the year 165 wrote in his book First Apology that

“We who formerly hated and murdered one another and did not even share our hearth with those of different tribe because of their customs, now, after Christ’s appearance, live together and share the same table.”

One of the antidotes for greed is to spend time in prayer and meditation with Jesus Christ. Bishop Mark said, “The more time we spend with our loving Lord, the more loving we ourselves will become.”

Another antidote is to set some misconceptions right.

God owns the vineyard. We do not own the vineyard.

But we are more than slaves and servants, we are friends and family.

The vineyard is ours both to enjoy and to tend.

Let us pray:

Gracious God, whose loving hand has given us all that we possess: Grant us grace that we may honor you with our substance, and remembering the account which we must one day give, may be faithful stewards of your bounty, through Jesus Christ our Lord. AMEN.