Pentecost 20                                     Matt. 21:33-46                                     10/2/05

                                          “Christianity: Hobby or Lifestyle?”

Situated among the rolling hills of Glyndon, just a few miles outside Baltimore , is an estate, called “Sagamore Farm”.  On it Alfred G. Vanderbilt raised Kentucky Derby and Preakness winning race horses, including the famed, “Native Dancer” as a hobby.  When my children were young the public was welcome to tour the stables and paddocks, even picnic on the lovely grounds of the Vanderbilt estate.

On a visit one day I was enjoying the sight of a mare and her foal in one of the paddocks.  While I was watching the little foal scamper around his mother, a man dressed in farm work clothes came up.  We started talking about the horses and the farm.  After a most enjoyable conversation with this very knowledgeable “farm hand”, I excused myself and started off to find my children and head home.  I was only a few yards away when someone came out of the barn and called, “Mr. Vanderbilt.”  I had been talking to one of the wealthiest men in America and hadn’t had a clue.

A while after that I heard a comment made about Alfred Vanderbilt.  Someone said he was a man who made a hobby his lifework and made his work a hobby.

Some people do a variation on this with Christianity.  They make a hobby their lifework and Christianity a hobby.  They’ll spend hours on the golf course, and when they’re not part of a foursome, they’re at the practice range trying to perfect their swing.  When they can’t play golf, they spend their time reading golf magazines and watching golf matches on TV.  You could say, they live for golf.

I don’t mean to pick on golfers.  The same kind of devotion is exhibited by some hunters, football fans, collectors, crafters, woodworkers, mystery readers, and others.  Some people have even become so involved in a hobby that they’ve quit their jobs and gone into some kind of business related to their hobby.

Don’t get me wrong.  Hobbies are good (I have a number of them) and we all need outlets in life, things that bring us joy.  Where we run into trouble is when our lives get out of balance and when we lose our perspective about what we are doing and why.

The workers in the vineyard weren’t engaged in a hobby, of course, but they lost their perspective in much the same way.  Notice that the owner of the vineyard did all the foundational work.  He planted the vineyard, built a wall around it, dug an irrigation ditch and put up a watch tower so his fine fruit could be kept from harm.  He then rented the vineyard out to some farmers and went on a trip.

We can assume that he was gone for a few years, at least.  From my research I learned that grape vines must leaf (grow) for three years before they produce enough grapes for even a little wine.  It takes six to eight years before the vines reach their potential.  During those growing years the vines must be pruned and protected from disease, insects and wildlife.  It’s not surprising then, perhaps, that the tenant farmers in Jesus parable started to think of the vineyard as their own and resented the intrusion of those sent to collect the owners share of the first harvest. 

As we see when we read the parable though, the farmers’ perspective had really become twisted and out of whack.  They not only abused and killed the owners’ servants who had been sent to collect, they killed his son.  Somehow, their obsession with keeping it all for themselves and being their own bosses became so great that they were willing to kill to have what they wanted.  They were so rejecting of the owner’s authority that they considered him already dead and thus, in killing his son they would be able to do with the vineyard what they pleased.  They had another think coming.  They would suffer for what they did.

This was, of course, a parable and not a news story.  Jesus was talking primarily to the Pharisees and other religious people of his day.  He was trying to show that no matter how much work they put into their religion, it was not theirs to do with as they like.  They were workers in God’s kingdom and were expected to bear fruit for Him.

God had designated a people to be His own.  He had blessed them and given them directions about the work they were to do.  He sent the prophets including John the Baptist to remind them who was in charge and to straighten out their thinking when it became corrupted.  Israel killed the prophets, including John, and would soon kill Jesus, thus rejecting God’s authority and ownership of His vineyard.

But, this is not just a parable directed to Israel or the Pharisees.  It’s not just a teaching for the Jews of the first Century who were rejecting Christianity.  It is a parable for our time and for us as well. 

The vineyard is the Kingdom of God and the Kingdom of God is now.  The vineyard is His.  We are merely people He designated to work in His vineyard and the time is drawing near when He will call us to account.  If we’ve let our perspective get out of whack and started thinking that our lives are our own to do with as we please, that we don’t owe God anything, we need to read this parable again.

As Lutherans we take pride in the teaching of salvation by grace alone.  We are prepared to fight anyone who would try to tell us that we must work to earn our ticket to heaven.  And this is most certainly true.  But, that does not mean that God has turned the vineyard – our lives and His world – over to us to do with as we like.  He will call us to account and He will not look kindly on us if He sees that we have made Christianity a hobby.

We are not free to be Christians and practice our faith when we feel like it or when we have time or when we can fit it around the really important stuff of life.  God intended that Christianity be a lifestyle.  It is to be the center of our lives and a part of everything we do.  God hasn’t gone on a long trip and left His cell phone and pager at home.  God is with us all of the time. 

This knowledge isn’t meant to scare us into obedience, like it used to scare children who were told God was watching them so they better be good.  Knowing that God is with us is meant to inspire us to see all of our lives as opportunities to relate what we do to our relationship with God and to grow in that relationship.  It meant to be a call to see our lives as vineyards where we work to produce the finest fruit we are capable of for the pure joy of it.  It is meant to help us keep our perspectives straight and remember that all that we are and all that we have belongs to God.  It is meant as a notice that God does expect His fair share of our lives – that all of it. 

We can make Christianity a hobby or we can make it a lifestyle.  The quality of our lives, the joy we experience even in times of hardship, the fruit we bear, will show which we choose.  May we each know the joy of returning a bountiful harvest to our Lord.  Amen