SEATTLE MENNONITE CHURCH

World Communion Sunday, October 2, 2005

Sermon: Weldon D. Nisly

TITLE: Bearing Fruit for God’s Reign

THEME: World Communion Sunday

TEXTS: Psalm 80 in call to worship

Isaiah 5:1-7

Matthew 21: 33-46 Parable of the wicked tenants

Jesus’ Word and Anabaptist Words

In Matthew’s gospel Jesus clearly says that “the kingdom of God will be…..given to a people that produces the fruit of [God’s reign]” (Matthew 21:43).

The first Anabaptist author that I remember reading was Peter Riedemann, an early leader of the Hutterite stream of Anabaptism. Riedemann’s words are a particularly fitting inspiration for us on this World Communion Sunday.

“As the bread is made a loaf by bringing together of many grains, even so we, many human beings, who were scattered and divided, of many minds and purposes are led by faith into one, and have become one plant, one living organism and the body of Christ, cleaving to [Jesus] in one Spirit”

Peter Riedemann reminds us of the nature and purpose of Jesus. Jesus demonstrated in the Last Supper with his disciples, how they are like many grains of wheat “scattered and divided, [with] many minds and purposes.” Yet, like bread made from many grains of wheat, they are made into one loaf -- “one living organism and the body of Christ, cleaving to [Jesus] in one Spirit.”

Our source and summit is in Jesus Christ who in communion makes us the body of Christ.

Jesus in Matthew’s Gospel

“In Matthew’s gospel, the reconciliation of weak and failing disciples is a dominant theme, including personal healing and forgiveness. Jesus’ compassion is expressed throughout the gospel by [showing] mercy on all those in need, and [Jesus] expects the same quality to be found in his disciples – a vital theme in the Sermon on the Mount (Matthew 5-7). The Beatitudes speak of those who are sorrowful, persecuted, and slandered, but also of the merciful and the peacemakers. In Matthew’s gospel, the forgiveness motif climaxes in the cup narrative at the Last Supper when Jesus says, “This is my blood of the new covenant, poured out for many for the forgiveness of sins” (Matt 26:28). Through his death on the cross, Jesus has achieved the ultimate healing, the forgiveness of sins, and he offers this gift to his disciples in [communion] as the source of peace and reconciliation they are seeking” (Kevin Seasoltz, “Open House, Many Dwellings: Open and Closed Communion,” Worship, Sep 2005, Vol 79, No. 5, p. 406)

SMC sermon – WDNisly – 10/2/05 – p. 2

These word about Jesus in Matthew’s gospel, by a monastic friend, Kevin Seasoltz, OSB, in an article on communion which he wrote for the current issue of Worship, also captures the essence of a “Conversation on Communion” conference that John Rempel and I led last weekend at Bethel College Mennonite Church in North Kansas.

Isaiah 5:1-7 Song of the Unfruitful Vineyard

Let us go first for a moment to the prophet and gospel stories heard today from Isaiah and Matthew. Both Isaiah and Jesus tell parables with a vineyard as the setting. Both issue stern judgment against those who would be “faithful” yet are anything but faithful.

Isaiah the prophet tells a story that is not only a parable but is a song – the song of the unfruitful vineyard. It would have been worthwhile to have had someone chant this parable for us in worship.

Read Isaiah 5:1-2….

This fruitful imagery of God’s vineyard so thoroughly and tenderly cared for climaxes with a transitional tension: “It yielded wild grapes.”

Isaiah continues the sung parable with this transitional tension of the vineyard yielding wild grapes.

Read Isaiah 5:3-6…..

Then the song of the vineyard climaxes in stern judgment and stark juxtaposition:

Read Isaiah 5:7……

If we continue on, Isaiah immediately adds a denouncement against social injustice!

Woe to you who join house to house and add field to field,

until there is room for no one but you. Isaiah 5:8

Woe to you shed blood and practice injustice! The prophet’s severest critique is for those who profess faith in God yet live unjustly.

Matthew 21:33-46 The Parable of the Wicked Tenants

When we turn to Matthew’s gospel, for today, we hear Jesus tell a most wrenching and difficult parable. It is a parable quit like Isaiah’s parable centuries earlier.

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Jesus also reserves strongest critique for those who were most certain of their righteousness yet live unfaithfully and unjustly. In Jesus’ parable, God is portrayed as a landowner who employed tenants as stewards of the vineyard to produce good fruit. Instead of caring for the vineyard and returning what is due to the owner of the vineyard, the tenants seize, beat, kill, and stone those who come in the name of the owner. Finally they even seize, beat, and kill the closest heir of the owner for their own gain.

Jesus sums up the situation with a personal reference from scripture: “The stone the builders rejected has become the cornerstone” (Matt 21:42; cf., Ps 118:22).

The authorities know Jesus is speaking about them. And it is not complementary! It is an indictment against their self-righteous injustice. They are unfaithful to God and they do not bear fruit.

Bearing fruit for God’s reign

These parables from Isaiah and Jesus are to be heard in judgment of our unfaithfulness to God in being unfruitful stewards and servants of God. We are to care for God’s vineyard – care for God’s creation and for God’s creatures – so that it bears good fruit.

We are also to be fruit in God’s reign. We are bear fruit of for God’s reign.

We too are confronted by Isaiah and Jesus with how we have not been good stewards and servants of God’s vineyards. We are confronted with our refusal to hear Jesus and take Jesus seriously and to be Jesus for a broken world.

We would do well to prayerfully ponder how we are unfaithful and unfruitful stewards in God’s vineyard. Yet rather than focusing on our unfaithfulness and unfruitfulness, I want to tell two brief accounts that are signs of bearing fruit in God’s reign.

Yesterday many of you were at the Mennonite Country Auction in Ritzville to help raise money for Mennonite Central Committee’s work bearing fruit in God’s vineyards of the world. We also just completed a school kit offering for MCC to help children go to school in other parts of the world. Yet even in “doing good” – that is in bearing fruit – it raises a tension – at least for me – over how eating more food and buying more things helps us be good stewards and bear fruit in God’s reign? Nevertheless, thanks to all of you who were bearing fruit for Mennonite Central Committee work in the world. Perhaps we should never be too comfortable or certain about how it cares for God’s vineyard and bears fruit.

Also yesterday afternoon a group of us joined Bill Sutherland for a memorial service to scatter Konnie Landis’ ashes on the Puget Sound near the Mukilteo Lighthouse. As we told stories of Konnie and scattered her ashes, we know that Konnie lived a life cut way too short by cancer after 36 years last June. We also know that she lived with great

SMC sermon – WDNisly – 10/2/05 – p. 4

compassion and passion that bore much fruit in such a short life. This past week I received an email from a young Ugandan man, Mukisa Kenneth, that she and Bill met and sponsored in Uganda a year ago. Even in deep sorrow, we thank God that Konnie was a good steward in God’s vineyard who was committed to bearing good fruit of healing rather than shedding blood. Konnie touched many lives in bearing fruit.

Bearing fruit and becoming bread

Last Sunday morning at Bethel College Mennonite Church we celebrated World Communion Sunday a week early in keeping with our “Conversation on Communion” for the weekend. John Rempel preached the sermon on “Eating and Becoming the Body of Christ.”

It is very much like Jesus is telling us in this parable about tending the vineyard so that it bears good fruit. We care for God’s vineyard so that it bears fruit. And we become the fruit of God’s reign ourselves.

In the same way, bread is broken by Jesus as a sign of his body broken for us so that we may eat the bread and become the bread for a broken world rather than adding to the brokenness of the world. The body of Christ is broken for us so that we may receive it and become the body of Christ.

As we come to the Lord’s Table and celebrate our communion with Jesus, let Peter Riedemann’s words inspire us:

“As the bread is made a loaf by bringing together of many grains, even so we, many human beings, who were scattered and divided, of many minds and purposes are led by faith into one, and have become one plant, one living organism and the body of Christ, cleaving to [Jesus] in one Spirit”

Jesus tells us that “the kingdom of God will be…..given to a people that produces the fruit of [God’s reign]” (Matthew 21:43).