Absentee Owners
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NEW TESTAMENT: Philippians 3:4b-14
GOSPEL: Matthew 21:33-46
God’s Purposes for the Church
Invitation: To speak in a natural way about their faith and heal the hurt
I have worked in the environment of an absentee owner. It is not a pretty picture. The owner has expectations and the workers have expectations but neither set of expectations are remotely connected! There seems to be anarchy in every direction. One of the fundamental reasons labor unions became a reality in the early 20th century is because of these separate expectations. In the early years of labor unions they too were a form of anarchy. They protested and rioted and ultimately struck the Ford Motor Company to force Henry Ford to pay them better! Today the same demonstrations that worked at the turn of the 20th century don’t seem to work anymore. All they are vicious aggressive acts that are viewed by the rest of the world as anarchist. People don’t like anarchy, moreover they don’t tolerate anarchy. It doesn’t fit in a culture anymore. Perhaps we have become civil! Perhaps the day to day life is so close to anarchy that intentionally causing anarchy seems vile! It seems that people are seeking peace but don’t know where to find it.
Jesus is talking to the leading priest once again and once again he is convicting them of misdirected expectations. We could take a lesson from this Scripture! In our seeming attempt to make Disciples, we may have become anarchist! Perhaps we are viciously and aggressively trying to force people into submission rather that allowing them to make an intentional choice to follow Jesus!
We must constantly evaluate our expectations and place value where it belongs. Jesus tells the leading priests that “the Kingdom of God will be taken away from you and given to a nation that will produce the proper fruit. …”
We worry so much about the Kingdom being taken away that we overlook the reason why we want the Kingdom in the first place! The question, of course is; are we producing the proper fruit? Are we speaking naturally about our faith and are we healing the hurt? Is our language about our faith, chaotic and fanatical or is our language loving and inviting? Do we know enough about our faith to speak naturally about it? Or are we like the Absentee Farmer who plants a few crops and moves to a foreign land?
We have to evaluate these things continually. The expectations we had even a year ago are significantly changed this year! Last year our Christian world’s eye was on Burma, North Korea, Northern Africa and the atrocities there. This year Burma and North Korea aren’t even on the map. Our focus is the Presidential Elections and all of the nonsense around that event. Even our expectations about the President of The United States have changed. There was a time when that office was highly respected and people looked up to the leader of the free world. Today, the Presidency is practically a joke. The last two Presidents’ (one of each “denomination”) has disgraced the office and downgraded our expectations for that office to the degree that no one seems to care much anymore. The newness of some of the current candidates is revitalizing the possibilities and our expectations. It is about the newness!
Is Christianity becoming the absentee owner? Are we forgetting to put the church and our faith in the center of our lives rather than at the periphery? Have we lost touch with our own faith, because we have chaotically tried to keep it the same when the rest of the world is changing? Are we focused in seemingly ancient ideals that do not mesh with the current culture? In our absence have we lost the art of speaking naturally about our faith? You tell me.
Let’s approach each question, the first question, “Is Christianity becoming the absentee owner?” is a hurtful one! As a member of the clergy, a dying breed in and of itself, I can tell you with authority, Yes We Are! More and more of the duties and the obligations of the church are being shifted to the few. Committee members and pastor are taking up the work of the church rather than having it carried by every person in the congregation.
Remember Acts 2? It described a community of believers who became one body. It described the distribution of community responsibility and the combining of physical and natural resources. We are, at the very least, one step away from that and perhaps several miles from that! Church staff people do not get paid on time, they sometimes have to wait for paychecks until the bank account has money in it, bills and other debts like maintenance are place low on the priority list due to funding and the most devastating of all, those few who have taken on the work of the church are burnt or burning out! They can’t and don’t want to do it anymore! When they stop so does the church.
The second question is even more hurtful. Are we forgetting to put the church and our faith in the center of our lives rather than at the periphery? The battle cry of the Christian church, at least in the North East, is “I don’t have time”. Even people who are retired and whose schedules have been relieved of the routine of work are simply too busy. The humor in this irony wears thin quickly! It may not be so funny anymore. Some have to continue to work, because their retirement and Social Security are insufficient to meet their daily needs. That is not funny! Some can’t relax enough to stop scheduling things. That also is not funny! There are some who are distracted for assorted other reasons. That is not funny either. Christianity should be such a treasure that nothing could distract us from it, yet we cannot find the time or resources to support it. Yet we seem to do little about it.
This again presses a hard question. Are we doing everything possible to make Christianity so valuable that one could not turn away from it, or are we causing people to turn away? Remember what happens to the absentee owner in Jesus’ Parable. The absentee owner was relieved of his duties! Jesus said, “What I mean is that the Kingdom of God will be taken away from you and given to a nation that will produce the proper fruit. ….” Jesus warns us that we are not guaranteed a local church in our local community. Look around the country and you can see the evidence of this promise fulfilled! Churches are closing and combining all over. This church is already the product of a combining of two churches in the town! We cannot do this again! We must find the value in our faith here and now! We cannot go looking for it somewhere else! It doesn’t exist!
Have we lost touch with our own faith, because we have chaotically tried to keep it the same when the rest of the world is changing? Reality, what a concept! Reality, my friends is change! Reality is controlled chaos, not over control! Reality, is what is happening at the moment. If you look out the window you will see the leaves changing. This is the evidence that God seeks change! Not one of you can keep this set of leaves green, nor would you try. You have accepted this annual change, with the love of the season! Mother Teresa once said “Life is 10% what happens to you and 90% of how you handle it.”
We must re-learn our Christianity. We have to learn how to apply it to our daily lives. We are challenged by Jesus in this Scripture passage to re-value our own faith; move back in as Primary Owners. We must reacquaint ourselves with our faith and become natural at speaking about it again. Due to the pressures of the worldly to denounce our faith we have become uncomfortable in our own skin. We have even become absentee owners of our selves.
Are we focused in seemingly ancient ideals that do not mesh with the current culture? Have we, like so many, taken the Scriptures out of context? Paul reminds us that he was a perfect Jew but it was his new found faith in Christ that redirected his life! Then he redirects his intellect and passion towards the very Christ that he denounced only a short time before and he attached a very high value on this transformation. “I once thought all these things were so very important, but now I consider them worthless because of what Christ has done. Yes, everything else is worthless when compared with the priceless gain of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord. I have discarded everything else, counting it all as garbage, so that I may have Christ and become one with him.” Is there any question about Paul’s expectations now? No!
I believe firmly that God is asking us to reconfirm our intellect and treasure! Our Discipleship leaders are wondering what it is that we should be doing. Perhaps Paul is directing us here! Redirect our intellect and passion towards Christ Jesus! Make church a center piece in our lives. Commit ourselves to being primary owners rather than absentee owners.
Of course, that means being present! That means being engaged. That means actively inviting others to become a part of our faith community. That means never loosing those who enter our midst as seekers or visitors! You and only you can do these things. You are the congregation of Danby Federated Church! Danby Federated Church is “A Place for All”! We have to learn to speak naturally about that!
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From Reverend Michael Grinnals
