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Except
for a couple of college years and a few widely-spaced vacation
weeks, I have never been a renter. But I have been a landlord.
During two separate periods of our lives, Kris and I have
owned small homes that we have made available to others. One
was in the wilderness of Lake County. The other, a tiny bungalow
in Redford Township.
Our experiences
were mixed. We made a little money. We suffered a little grief.
We learned a bit about the housing business. We learned a
lot about the people business. We dealt with some wonderful
folk. And we dealt with a scoundrel or two. We ended up holding
more than one limp check. And we listened to more than one
lame excuse. We dealt with one man who carried a gun (don't
ask me why). We dealt with another who, unbeknownst to his
wife, moved his girlfriend into our house. But we let go of
both houses, not because we soured on renting, but because
it was time to expand our capital elsewhere.
One of
the things that made renting easier was that we had a limited
personal investment in both houses. In fact, the Redford house
was purchased solely as an investment. We never slept a night
under its roof. If pressed, I doubt I could re-create its
floor plan. The hardest thing I had to learn about owning
a rental house was not to become emotionally involved with
it. "Don't think of it as any place you would ever live."
That's the advice that was given me by experts. "Buy
a solid house, keep it in good repair, and offer it at a fair
price. But don't improve it to your personal tastes. After
all, it's a business."
So that's
how we treated it. At that emotional distance, renting was
easy. When we got out of the Redford property to build our
home up north, we continued in the practice of short-term
rentals. We even put the Elk Rapids house in the hands of
a management company for the entire first year. Each succeeding
summer we made several prime weeks available to renters via
ads in the newspaper. We have long since ceased that practice,
limiting our rentals to friends and persons made known to
us through church or family.
Did we
have a bad experience? Only once. And that can happen to anybody.
But it was enough to make us realize how much of our hearts
were in that property. The money was nice. But it couldn't
cover the escalating costs of our peace of mind. 6642 East
Harbor Drive was no longer just any house. It was our house.
To this day, we love having people in it. We also love sharing
it. But we would rather share it with people who know us and
who see the house as an extension of the relationship they
have with us. That doesn't mean that nothing will ever happen
to the house. People are human. Accidents are inevitable.
Life goes on. Those of you who know us, know that Kris and
I are not even remotely into possession-worship. But we just
feel better having this particular possession in the hands
of people who (as renters or guests) are happy to be momentarily
sharing a piece of our lives.
All of
this occurred to me following my one previous sermonic foray
into this powerful story from the 20th chapter
of Luke. I found it odd, on that occasion, that I preached
an entire sermon on a tenant/landlord issue and never saw
the connection with my own experience. That's one reason for
returning to this text. Another is the realization that this
is one incredible parable.
I don't
need to labor overly long on the story. Neither do I need
to dwell on the image of the Christ figure introduced at the
end of the narrative. Every preacher does that. Instead of
focusing on the killing of the owner's son (which was surely
the ultimate insult, prompting the great line about "the
rejected stone eventually becoming the cornerstone"),
I want to direct my focus to the relationship between the
absentee owner and the tenants themselves.
It is
clearly the owner's vineyard. He planted it. He nurtured it.
He built protective walls around it. He designed a wine press
in the middle of it. There is just enough descriptive material
to tell us that this vineyard is a promising operation. This
is not a few rows of sour grapes in hard clay. Neither is
it a slum apartment with a non-working toilet. The vineyard
represents a place that was planned, productive and potentially
prosperous. Then it was leased to tenants while the owner
went away.
As I regularly
point out in Bible study, the owner "goes away"
in any number of biblical stories. The "absentee landlord"
is a common theme. But "going away" is not meant
to suggest indifference. The owner still cares. Rather, the
purpose of "going away" is to give those who are
left-in-charge, sufficient space in which to operate. The
owner never crowds the tenants, the implication being that
"going away" is more for their benefit than his.
If you doubt that interpretation, consider the words of Jesus
to his disciples on the eve of his dying, to wit: "It
is for your benefit that I go away."
Even from
a distance, however, the owner remains emotionally invested.
He is invested in the property. But even more, he is invested
in the people to whom he has entrusted the property. He expects
they will share that investment. This is more than just a
business deal to him. This is a relationship ... a relationship
that means something. His mistake is in assuming they feel
similarly. That's why their thrice-repeated failure to honor
his request for a portion of the harvest is such an insult.
I doubt that he needs the wine or a portion of the income
derived from its sale. But he can't believe their callous
indifference to his claim. Three times he makes an overture.
Three times his overtures are refused. After they have thoroughly
thrashed and maligned his envoys, he decides to send his son.
Notice (however) the words that accompany the dispatching
of his own flesh and blood. "Perhaps they will respect
him," the owner says. That's what this is all about.
Respect! Not rent! Rent is incidental. Respect is everything.
The son,
of course, is killed. The tenants assume control. Authority
changes hands. And it appears there is nothing the owner can
do. All of which brings us to what Joe Harding calls life's
toughest question: "Who owns the vineyard?" To whom
does it really belong? It is the question of sovereignty.
It is hard to answer any other question until you answer that
one.
Who owns
the vineyard? Who owns all the stuff you take for granted
in your life? Here is the Bible's answer. "Beware, lest
you say in your heart `my power and the might of my hand has
gotten me this wealth.' You shall remember the Lord your God,
for it is he that gives you the power to get wealth."
Look for yourself. You'll find the reference in Deuteronomy
8:17.
Or try
Psalm 50, where God says: "For every beast of the forest
is mine, and the cattle on a thousand hills."
Or consider
I Corinthians 6:19: "(even) you are not your own. You
are bought with a price."
Who owns
the vineyard? The Bible is ringingly clear on the answer.
It is also clear that sin rests in the failure to answer the
question correctly. Sin is not, at its elemental level, such
things as skipping class, missing church, cheating on the
spouse or hoisting a few too many Budweisers at the Memorial
Day picnic. Sin is taking the vineyard for ourselves and living
as if there is no other owner. Like most sin, this one doesn't
spring into flower all at once. It blooms slowly ... imperceptibly
... but with a quietly unfolding sense of arrogance. Let me
illustrate.
Many of
you know who Bill Russell is. He is now to be found in the
suit-and-tie side of professional basketball. But his mark
in that sport was made as a player. Twice an all-American
at the University of San Francisco, Bill Russell anchored
a team that won 55 straight games and back-to-back NCAA championships.
He went on to play the pivot on Boston Celtics teams that
won 11 championships in 13 years. Five times he was voted
the league's most valuable player. As a pivotman, nobody was
more intimidating. As a human being, few have been more outspoken.
There is a difficult edge to this man. But there is also an
insightful softness. Both come out in his autobiography entitled
Second Wind: Memoirs of an Opinionated Man. Permit
me one extended story.
I often
got in trouble over my mother's banana pudding. She would
whip up a big round bowl in the afternoon, leaving it to
cool while she and Mr. Charlie (my father) went visiting.
"Don't you eat none of that banana pudding," she
would say. "It's for supper."
Alone,
I'd walk back and forth by the table, looking at it, wondering
how it tasted. I knew (of course) how it tasted in general.
But I wanted to know how this particular batch had turned
out. Finally, I'd say to myself: "Well, she made this
pudding for me because she knows I love it so much. So I'll
just have one little serving." Which would be gone
in a flash, and I would taste it all the way down to my
stomach. When the last mouthful was finished, I'd run outside
to play, knowing that it was the only way to control myself.
But
after a while I'd come back into the house and the pudding
would still be there. So I'd eat another little bit. This
helping, I decided, was my parents' fault instead of mine
... for leaving me alone. Pretty soon I'd have eaten about
half the pudding. This would bring me to the critical moment
when I'd think long and hard and finally say to myself:
"Hey, I'm going to get a whipping anyway, so I might
as well eat the rest."
What
I had eaten would then begin to feel as heavy as a cannonball
in my stomach. I'd find myself growing sluggish, just when
I needed to be sharp to plan my strategy. Usually my strategy
was to lock myself in the house and not let my folks in
when they came home. "Come on, son," they'd yell.
"We know you're in there. Open up. You've been in that
pudding again, ain't you, boy?"
What a
picture! The little kid who has eaten the banana pudding now
locks his parents out of their own home. Who owns the house?
That can be a hard question to answer when you've got banana
pudding all over your face.
Let's
be honest. You can lock the owner out. You can commandeer
the vineyard. You can put your thumbs under your breast pockets
and proclaim yourself to be a self-made individual. You can
probably have your pudding and eat it, too. But eventually
you end up alone in the house ... without God, mama or Mr.
Charlie. And that can be a lonely way to live.
The very
first commandment (of the ten big ones of Moses) declares:
"Thou shalt have no other gods before me." That
prohibition was written in a day when every mountain, every
bush and every tree was alive with deity. Were the same commandment
to be framed today (said Henry Sloane Coffin), it would probably
read: "Thou shalt have at least one God."
My friends,
I commend to you the God who owns the house. Why not swallow
your pride, forget about protocol, take your sleeve, wipe
the pudding off your face, unlock the door, and let that God
in.
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