Let the Vineyards Be Fruitful!
Isaiah 5:1-7; Psalm 80:7-14; Philippians 3:4b-14; Matthew 21:33-46

Once again the lectionary offers us an incredibly timely word that addresses you and me here and now. And once again, as is most often the case in Scripture, a metaphor is used to capture our imagination and get the point across. Today that metaphor is that of a vineyard. In our first lesson and gospel, the vineyard is a metaphor for God's people. In our psalm, the vine is a metaphor for God's people. Today we also begin a four week focus on stewardship, leading up to our Consecration Sunday Celebration on October 23. Stewardship is also a metaphor. The metaphor of stewardship comes from images of stewards in Scripture. Stewards are always accountable for that which has been entrusted to their care. Our lessons today use the metaphor of a vineyard and they deliver a strong word to stewards. That word is accountability.

How many of you have ever gone shopping for clothes? I'm going to ask you to engage your imaginations in yet another metaphor right now. I'm going to ask you to imagine we are at a local department store. Imagine that we, the congregation of Holy Cross, are beginning the process of a make-over, like some of us do when we have a mid-life crisis, or when we move from one chapter of our lives to the next.: when we graduate, or get married, or have a baby, or get divorced, or become empty-nesters, or retire. Holy Cross is at one such juncture in our life as a congregation. Imagine with me, that we are shopping for clothes that might express a new identity as we enter this new chapter in our lives. On the rack are our lessons for today. Some of them might express where we used to be, some convey where we are now. Some might express the image we'd like to project. Let's just try on some outfits and see how they feel. Remember that trying something on does not obligate us to buy anything.

Our first outfit -- our first lesson from Isaiah: we are the vineyard. The vineyard, despite being given every possible advantage or asset to promote abundant growth, is failing. The painstaking care of the steward has been wasted. This promising vineyard must be destroyed. This outfit we're trying on gives us a wake-up call, and a warning about God's judgment.

This outfit actually reminds me of a conversation I had with a friend of mine this past week: your former pastor, Pastor Lindholm. He showed me a list of all the congregations in our synod, based on the annual statistics we all send in to the national church office each year. This list covered the period between 2001 and 2004. That includes his last eight months with you, the two year interim, and my first two and a half months with you. On this list each congregation is assigned a status based on these statistics: growing, stable, or declining. Out of 132 congregations in our synod for which we have statistics, during 2001-2004, 70 declined, 37 were stable, and 25 grew. The number is based solely on worship attendance. Pastor Lindholm highlighted Holy Cross on this list. Between 2001 and 2004, Holy Cross was one of the 70 declining congregations. Pastor Lindholm said that, before coming to Holy Cross, he served two different congregations in northern Michigan. Under his leadership, they grew significantly. And since he left, he lamented, both have folded. He's concerned that the same might happen to Holy Cross. And all of his hard work and painstaking care all those years would yet again be wasted.

I think we can all agree this is not going to happen tomorrow. But if we look at the average age of the choir, and at how many children are in worship on a given Sunday, we can begin to see the writing on the wall if we continue as we have been. (A definition of insanity, remember, is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results.)

Let's put our first lesson back on the rack and try on our next outfit -- the psalm. In Psalm 80, God's people are the vine. The vine that was transplanted -- brought out of Egypt, took root and filled the land with its fruit. It had its hey-day. But now that vine is collapsing and it seems as though the steward -- God -- has abandoned the vine. The people pleaded to God, "Turn now -- look down from heaven; behold and tend this vine; preserve what your right hand has planted."

This outfit we're trying on, our psalm, conjures up images of Hope Lutheran Church in Detroit that was transplanted, brought out of Detroit, to ten acres of land in suburban Livonia in 1958. Thanks to the massive movement west of white Detroiters in the 1960s and 1970s, Holy Cross grew, just like the city of Livonia, by leaps and bounds. The worshipping community grew to become a congregation in its own right, and Hope Extension became Holy Cross Evangelical Lutheran Church in 1963. Yet now, this community is changing too. Crowley's, at Livonia Mall, where we might have shopped for our new outfits, is gone. The Wonderland Mall, where we might also have gone, is closed, soon to be a Wal Mart super center. Many of the auto-related jobs holding this area together are now shaky. What does that all mean for us? Many of our members have moved further west once again, to Novi and Northville, even South Lyon and Howell and Dexter. Might we consider another transplant? A Holy Cross extension? Or is our call to be a regional church, attracting members from long distances? Based on what I know, most of the people who drive long distances to come here are related to people who came here in the 1960s and 70s.

Let's take off our psalm, put it back on the rack, and try on our Gospel. In our Gospel, Jesus uses Isaiah's image of the vineyard to make his point. Tenants have been given temporary management -- stewardship -- of a fruitful, well-established vineyard, on behalf of an Owner, who is God. Through the messengers, or prophets, God's people are called to account for how they use what has been entrusted to them. (That is the role I am playing today, calling us to account.) In this case, the stewards attack the messengers, including the owner's son, who symbolizes Jesus. But then Jesus switches metaphors and says "The stone the builders rejected has become the cornerstone." In other words, the Messiah the religious leaders refuse to accept will become the foundation of a new mission to the Gentiles. If the Jews would not accept Jesus, then it's time to move on -- to lease the vineyard to new tenants. In this case, those new tenants would be Christians -- believing Jews and converted Gentiles who make up the church.

While we have this outfit on, I want to share with you the experience of another congregation in our synod. This congregation happens to be one of the fastest growing congregations on that list Pastor Lindholm gave me. While we were declining by 33%, Immanuel Lutheran Church in Detroit grew 40.9%. I know this congregation intimately. I served as the interim pastor there when it was at its lowest point 7 years ago, clearly on the decline. There were a handful of people in worship, some from the neighborhood, some hangers on who drove in from the suburbs, and two women who sat in the front row every Sunday who still spoke Swedish.

About the time our forebear Hope decided to plant an extension in Livonia, on the land on which we now sit, Immanuel made a conscious decision NOT to do that, to stay in the city and embrace whoever moved in to the neighborhood. The church split over that decision. Many members left because of it. And the years that followed were far from easy. The church almost closed. When I came, the congregation had hit bottom. They had to face their most critical challenges, embrace a new identity and commit to being what God would call and enable them to be. The alternative was to accept the inevitability that they would eventually fold.

During that interim time at Immanuel, we worked together through a process which called the congregation to come to terms with its history, discover a new identity, accept leadership changes, renew denominational linkages, and commit to new directions in ministry. On a retreat geared toward discerning a new vision and mission, we embraced a metaphor that opened us to God's imagination working in us and through us, just like all these metaphors in Scripture help us to do. The metaphor that congregation discerned for itself was that of a lighthouse. Their vision statement, which is now painted across the end wall of their gymnasium next to a life-size painting of a lighthouse, says, "We are a lighthouse and spiritual center in the Chandler Park Community, reaching out so that all are welcome on the journey of giving praise and service to Jesus Christ."

What we focus on becomes our reality. When we focus on fear and anxiety around transition and decline, we can expect decline. It becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy. The remnant of people left at Immanuel focused on trust, and faith, transition and their vision. They called a pastor to lead them into that new identity. Immanuel Lutheran Church at Chandler Park and Dickerson has truly become a lighthouse on the east side. I encourage you to visit sometime. Ask Berger Erickson about it. He's been there.

Let's return to our shopping trip, back to trying on metaphors as we at Holy Cross search for a new identity for this next chapter of our life together. Let's look at this metaphor from our Gospel lesson pictured on the front page of our bulletin this morning. "The stone that the builders rejected has become the cornerstone." What is the stone that the builders of Hope Extension and then Holy Cross rejected? What have we as a congregation rejected in the past that may, in fact, be the key to our future? Might it be the notion of "blooming where we are planted?" Might it be to embrace what we rejected in the 1960s and 1970s? Might it be to intentionally embrace new tenants sent to our vineyard -- tenants that reflect a changing face of our community?

I think three outfits are probably enough for one shopping trip. You can take the Gospel off now. Remember, we're not buying anything today. Next time maybe we can try Hudson's -- I mean Marshall Field's. Or, no, I guess its Macy's now. (Does nothing ever stay the same?)

In this vineyard called Holy Cross we are stewards of the Gospel of Jesus Christ. That is our foundation and that never changes. As a steward with you of this Gospel, I will be working with you as I did with Immanuel, to discover a metaphor that captures our new identity. We will translate that metaphor into a new vision and mission for us at this time in this place. This vision will not just be my vision, though I will be a central player in the process, and I will champion the vision once it is discerned. This vision will not be imported from somewhere else. It will not be imposed, let me assure you, by the synod or by a new Bishop. This vision will arise from you and the Holy Spirit, from a careful reading of our context, and the work required by God of you -- a particular people with a particular identity, in a particular place at a particular time, and with a particular set of gifts, called to be accountable for our stewardship of the Gospel of Jesus Christ. You will own and claim the ministry of this congregation as yours, regardless of who the pastor is, in partnership with the Owner/God. Consider this the first installment in a continuing conversation.

If there is anything we take from this shopping trip, from trying on these metaphors of vines and vineyards and tenants and landowners and fruit and harvest, let it be the conviction that it is God's desire that the vine be fruitful, that it bring forth the fruit of the Gospel, the fruit of justice and love, hope and compassion, death and resurrection. God is determined to find faithful tenants. This faithfulness and this fruitfulness are ours already, through faith in Christ. In fact, as Paul says in our second lesson today, anything else we have counts as loss -- as rubbish. We receive and experience both fruitfulness and faithfulness as Jesus offers himself to us at His table this morning.

You know that. You have shown faithfulness and fruitfulness this past year. This next year will bear that out even more as we look toward the future, rooted in the experience, lessons, and promise of the past, even as we will soon sing together yet again:

Let the vineyards be fruitful, Lord, and fill to the brim our cup of blessing
. Gather a harvest from the seeds that were sown That we may be fed with the bread of life.
Gather the hopes and dreams of all; Unite them with the prayers we offer.
Grace our table with your presence And give us a foretaste of the feast to come. AMEN.

Pastor Dana Runestad
2 October, 2005
20th Sunday After Pentecost
Holy Cross Lutheran Church, Livonia, Michigan

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