The King's Produce
Pentecost 19, Proper 22
Fr. Tim Nunez
October 8, 2023
May my spoken word be true to God’s written word and bring us all closer to the living word, Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.
This morning’s parable presents significant challenges. Jesus is in the Temple, just days before his crucifixion, confronting the chief priests and Pharisees in their failure to produce the harvest The Lord seeks from their stewardship of his vineyard, which is Israel. He is confronting their historic failure to heed the many prophets God has sent to get Israel’s leadership back on track. He’s confronting their brewing plot to kill God’s Son, Jesus himself. He warns them that God is going to find new tenants to produce “the fruits of the Kingdom.”
Our challenge arises from the way this message rolls forward across generations. Who are the tenants today? We are! What is the fruit of the Kingdom? We are! At any point in time, we are in an ongoing process of being the new tenants even as we are also the (hopefully) ripening fruit of the harvest, while raising up more harvest who become tenants and ripening fruit.
That’s a constant flow as individuals grow in their faith, as generations overlap among different families, and sometimes within a family. How are we doing?
When we learned on August 31st that our new Bishop, Justin Holcomb, would be visiting on October 22nd, we had just seven weeks to prepare. I asked Lisa Carter to look at our new adult members since Bishop Brewer’s visit in the fall of 2021 and youth to compile a list of potential confirmands. That initial list had 74 adults and 19 youth on it, which was pretty great.
But that list did not include people we knew were already confirmed Episcopalians or children too young for confirmation. I asked Lisa to compile a total this week of every new since October 1, 2021. We have 127 new members since then, 36 of whom are children and youth. That is more than double the size of the average Episcopal parish. The average parish would be lucky to have any children and youth.
They have come for many reasons: our international teachers, friends inviting friends, people new to the area, families returning to Lake Wales or to Good Shepherd, our Alpha program, some found us online during the pandemic. Some had babies and decided it was time to connect with a church.
This is really Good News!
They have felt the Holy Spirit alive and moving among us, often through the warmth and fellowship we share in ministries and hospitality. I’m most thankful for the extraordinary health of this parish built over decades by Fr. Tom Seitz and the other clergy who serve and have served here, as well as the extraordinarily faithful and capable lay leadership including our staff who are also members.
This creates an ongoing challenge to make sure our preaching, teaching, programs and facilities all serve the singular purpose of producing fruit of the Kingdom for The Lord.
For example, we recently had our stained glass caulking redone for the first time since it was installed 40 or 50 years ago. That’s not just to keep the church pretty and free from leaks. The stained glass is meant to reflect the beauty of all the saints who make up the Kingdom. Read “The Story in the Glass”’ each week or get one of the booklets that explains each window.
Just this week, after decades of looking and hoping, we finally have new wood front doors. That, too, is not merely pretty. The doors are red to remind us that we enter sanctuary and rest through the blood of Christ.
Also this week, construction has begun to modernize the Campbell Building, where we teach our elementary children on Sundays and Wednesdays. We’ve also recently added more children’s tables and chairs in the parish hall because we needed them!
Our Youth building hasn’t been remodeled, but it has been reconfigured and refurnished to accommodate our new Youth Band, who will make their debut at our 10:30 service on October 29, as well as the new grief ministry group, which grew out of the Alpha program.
This fall, Matt and M.L. Brown felt called to run a parenting class, which is attracting over 20 parents on Wednesday nights.
We are currently in the process of expanding our Thrift Shop ministry. That is all we can say at the moment but stay tuned. We also have finalized blueprints and have received bids for remodeling our kitchen to make it flow better and have much better air conditioning for all the people who use it.
These are all great programs and projects, but let’s turn back to Jesus in the Temple.
In their construction method, the walls were built using stones without mortar. The structural integrity of walls depended on weight holding them in place. Cornerstones were big, heavy stones that could work in two ways. They could serve as the strong base or anchor of walls, the same way we use footers today. And they would have heavy cornerstones on top of the wall to make use of its weight to tie the walls together. In any case, falling onto a cornerstone or having one fall on us would be rather painful.
All of our improvements and programs are helpful if, and only if, we continue to build on the chief cornerstone, Jesus himself. We will remain in continuous production of faithful, capable Christians, dedicated to The Lord, even as each of us is fruit ripening on the vine for Him.
AMEN