This parable disturbs me. Apparently, this is what Jesus intends-to afflict the comfortable, not to comfort the afflicted. Welcome to Peacemaking Sunday. Every commentary I consulted this week gave this parable the same title: the Parable of the Wicked Tenants. Wouldn’t “The Dumb Landowner” be more appropriate? Not just because he made the capital improvements and abandoned the place to tenants, but because he continued to send messengers to get beat up. Then, what is the talk about a bum stone becoming a cornerstone, one that falls on people and crushes? When you read this parable with today’s passage from Philippians, you realize they are essentially asking the same question, “What’s the most important thing in the word to you?” It’s something we need to ask ourselves. What is the most important thing in the world to you? This time in the elections, the dinner-time phone calls always seem to be people asking that question. They’re getting paid to ask the question, but they have a funny way of asking the question. “Do you think the education tax plan the Democrats have proposed is a) hare-brained, b) really stupid, c) misguided, or d) undecided?” It’s the sort of thing that makes me mad. Don’t ask my opinion if you won’t let me say my opinion!

So, what’s the most important thing in the world to you? Because, what is important to us, is what determines what we do. You know the “right” answer to that question. It’s the answer given in Jesus’ parable today, the answer given in Paul’s letter to Philippi. The right answer is, “to do what God asks me to do.” The parable puts what we are supposed to “do” in terms of “bearing fruit for the realm of God.”

Do you think the so-called “wicked tenants” realized the terms of the contract they’d signed with their absentee landowner? Significantly, this landowner doesn’t send for “his share of the produce.” At the harvest, this landowner expects to collect his produce. All of it. This is one demanding guy! Is this what we have signed on for? Everything we do, all that we work for, is due the landowner? Yes.

This is about accountability. It is human nature to try to avoid accountability. Accountability in significant relationships is what makes us think we have every right to believe the other will keep the commitments they’ve made. Child-rearing books stress teaching it to children. Business management systems do accountability by setting goals, which employees meet or suffer consequences. Accountability is what goes haywire when corporations hide things in their profit and loss statements so the stockholders don’t find out. Think Enron. We like accountability for other people, but it’s a little harder to stomach for ourselves.

Christians are held accountable both corporately and individually. Jesus’ parable reads that all the tenants are called to pony up the produce, not just the individual tenants. So it is with us. Individually, we are to love God with all our mind and heart and strength, and to love our neighbor as ourselves. In addition, we are held accountable corporately for the mission of the Church. We are to be the light of the world. Cool. That’s vague enough that we can hope for vague accountability as well. Don’t hope too hard. Our landowner can be pretty specific. There are enough specific references in scripture for us to believe that as the “light of the world,” we are expected to specifically do justice, in detail to evangelize and make peace not war. For the last hundred years or so, Presbyterians have summarized the Church’s corporate mission as “The Six Great Ends of the Church.” At seminary, we learned these Ends up one side and down the other, and believe me, by sheer volume, they sound intimidating. In ordinary, human language, these “ends” are very simple. They are the sort of things Springwater has been trying to do since its very beginning in 1889: to tell everyone about Jesus, to worship God, to teach others “how” to be a Christians, to stand for the truth, to work for the welfare of others, to be an example of God’s light in the world (that is, to do justice, to show righteous living, to hold out the hope of salvation).

It’s almost embarrassing to tell you these things, you know them so well, because you do them. But it’s good to hear them periodically, because those Six Great Ends are what we as the tenants in God’s “vineyard” are supposed to do. This is bearing fruit for the realm of God. These ordinary, everyday, little things are life-and-death important. We are the tenants who have been given the run of the vineyard. But the landowner is coming and will want all of the produce, because it all belongs to the owner. It’s what we signed on for in our baptisms.

Do you know what “integrity” is? It is telling the truth with more than words. It is how we act in truth, not just avoiding lying. We bear fruit for the kingdom when we act with integrity (even if we don’t happen to mention we’re doing the right thing because we’re Christians and this is what Jesus expects of us). We bear fruit when we come to church, Sunday after Sunday, even though it’s our only day to sleep in. When we teach Sunday School and hold the babies downstairs. When we invite friends to come with us, and when they say “no” the first couple of times, we think of more interesting ways to invite them. We bear fruit when we invite new members to work with us on church or mission projects. When we are hospitable to strangers and new comers. When we cook at the Senior Center or bring meals on wheels or deliver Resource Center food to folks. When we make a commitment to help out and we keep that commitment and keep on keeping it.

Here is good news. God does not expect us to be perfect. We are expected to aim at being perfect, but God isn’t going to hit you with a bolt of lightning if you don’t make it, because you’re not going to. We aren’t called to be “successful,” we are called to be faithful. God is going to keep promises to you. But God knows that learning how to live righteously is a process. It’s not something one accomplishes quickly, even with a lifetime of practice. God does expect us to keep on with the process. That is bearing fruit for the realm of God. That is giving all of the produce to the absentee landowner. Faithfully keeping on.

Today’s text is not a threat. God is not going to drop the cornerstone (whatever that is!) on your head. On the other hand, by the rules of the rental agreement, God will not stop us if we insist on engaging in self-destructive behavior. We’ve signed on for the care of the vineyard. We can weasel out on the agreement to care for the vineyard. We can beat the messengers when they come to collect what belongs to the landowner (ignoring the call to accountability). Or, like the apostle Paul, we can say, “I do not consider that I have made it on my own; but this one thing I do: forgetting what lies behind [that is, letting our pasts be forgiven] and straining forward to what lies ahead, I press on toward the goal for the prize.” In other words, single-mindedly keeping on with faithful living. We know what is the most important thing in the world to us. This meal we share today is a token of that most important thing in the world. We believe that God keeps promises to us, and because of that, we promise to faithfully keep working at bearing fruit for the realm of God. Thanks be to God.