Via Stand Firm. This is a rector's letter to the parish of St. Michael's Episcopal Church in Easley, SC. Fr. Workman and I were colleagues in the Diocese of SW VA. ed.
The national leadership of the Episcopal Church says it must go to court, if necessary, to retain the properties and assets of departing congregations and dioceses. These legal actions rest on a claim to be the stewards of properties built by past generations. This is presented as an unassailable fiduciary reality. I believe a recent Sunday gospel reading raises questions about that claim. My aim here is mainly to show that a debate is altogether proper on this pivotal issue. The Presiding Bishop has emphasized recently that dissenting voices are welcome and I offer mine here.
The parable of the vineyard tenants from Mt. 21:33-46 has a transparent message from Jesus for the mission of God in this world. The message includes a clear reference to leaders and structures.
Recall the elements of the parable. The “master of a house” plants a vineyard. Clearly God is in view. The familiar imagery of a vineyard in the Bible often refers to the people of God and our productive purpose in this world. The owner erects structures—a wine-press, a wall, and a watchtower. It is not hard to picture the actual structures of worship and rule in Jerusalem—to which Jesus has now come in Matthew’s narrative. The right to make use of these structures comes from the purposes of the owner.
The owner leases out the vineyard to tenant managers, who rebel at a particular harvest time. They mistreat and kill the owner’s servants who come to make the owner’s claim on the produce of the harvest. Think of the prophets; think of John the Baptizer. The owner sends his son. What a remarkable detail, emphasized by Matthew, Mark, and Luke! The tenants seize the son, cast him out of the vineyard, and kill him. Picture Jesus saying that in Jerusalem days before his arrest and execution.
Matthew records Jesus asking the religious leaders of Israel what should happen next. They began their answer: “He will put those wretches to a miserable death.” It could be argued from standard New Testament studies that Matthew (or an editor) was well aware how concretely that happened in A.D. 70. The structures of worship and rule were taken away. And remember that Jesus has just previously cleared part of the Temple plaza of those who were misusing it.
The second part of the leaders’ answer was: “He will let out the vineyard to other tenants who will give him the fruits in their seasons.” Matthew, Mark, and Luke record that the leaders got the point and tried to arrest Jesus on the spot.
Jesus projected the transfer of God’s vineyard to new tenants—his apostles. The leaders of the Church at the time of Matthew’s publication could easily see themselves in the place of the tenants in the parable. Church leaders today are now in that position. All claims to stewardship of the structures of the vineyard are brought under scrutiny by this text. Any particular leaders of any particular church body must now face the standards and expectations of the Owner for his vineyard. The vineyard, with all its structures, has been taken away before and it can happen now.
The standard of judgment belongs to the Owner of the vineyard, not to the current tenants. TEC's leadership may assert that they are meeting the standards of God for the mission of the vineyard. But it is not a foregone ecclesiastical conclusion that the present tenants are right just because they are the tenants. The faithfulness of the current leadership of TEC to the mission of God is the crucial question in their claim to the structures of mission. So, what is the Owner looking for?
Holy Scripture, read in the light of Church tradition with the eyes of holy reason, is a full source of information about God’s expectations. References to vineyards, vines, branches, fruit and harvest are one of the great threads of the Bible. Other passages add other themes. The aims of the Owner include some of what the leadership of TEC emphasizes. These aims flow well from harvest language, having to do with feeding hungry people and, by extention, providing shelter, water, medical care, and education. These are good and right concerns.
Now I will take a side in the debate about whether the leadership of TEC can rightfully claim the structures of departing congregations and dioceses. I do so by asking some questions.
In this same gospel (Matthew 9:37,38), Jesus looked upon lost people and said “The harvest is plentiful, but the laborers are few; pray therefore the Lord of the harvest to send out laborers into his harvest.” Has the Church been wrong through the centuries, when, along with feeding the hungry and giving shelter and all the rest, she saw the heart of the harvest being the announcement of Jesus Christ’s work of eternal salvation through his death on the cross and resurrection? Isn’t this theme of the victory of Christ over sin the very heart of each of our Eucharistic prayers? Isn’t the final test of the harvest, according to the aim of the Owner, that lost people are gathered in through repentance and faith in Jesus Christ and find the light and life of God though his Son?
And isn’t this standard for the harvest announced at the end of this same Gospel according to Matthew (chap.28:16-20) with an astounding call to “make disciples of all nations,” putting the Name of the Lord Jesus Christ on them by baptism, and, yes, teaching them to live in the Way of Jesus?
The structures of the vineyard are meant for the full harvest, announced by the full gospel. The tenants’ use of the structures of God’s vineyard is justified only by meeting the expectations of the Owner. Whether the Episcopal Church is meeting those expectations at the national level is, like every church through history, open for evaluation.
Jim Workman
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