Sermon for the Nineteenth Sunday after Pentecost, Proper 22 (October 4, 2026)
Transcript
This transcript was generated by YouTube AI and further edited by AI for readability.
May only truth be spoken here and only truth be heard. In the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit.
Amen. Please be seated.
You know, we picked this gospel reading because it is so exceptionally perfect for a baptism. Don't you think?
[Laughter.]
Just so. As though to remind all of us that we receive the scriptures and are given this tradition to wrestle with, and to seek, through the guidance of the Spirit, a blessing in all the scriptures that have been passed down as treasure in this church from one generation to the next.
So let's see what we can do today.
What I notice about this story—I mean, this is an exceptionally violent parable, probably reflecting some of the reality of the political and economic violence that the people to whom Jesus is preaching, his own people, were experiencing living under the Roman Empire.
One of the realities reflected in this parable is the absentee landlord. Galilee was full of absentee landlords, often with tenants who were living in somewhat desperate circumstances and disconnected from the person who was supposed to care for and provide for them: the person who had the power and the land on which they tried to eke out their own living, and with whom they were supposed to share the fruits of their labor. But often these were people who were far away and had proven themselves not to care.
The landowner leased it to tenants and went away to another country. All of the people watching Jesus tell this story to the religious leaders knew what he was talking about. Some of them might have lived it. And it's not an easy way to live.
The troubling part is that we often think about God as being the landowner in this story, right? And the traditional interpretation is, well, God sent the prophets, and the people kicked them out. God sent more prophets, and the people had them killed. And finally, God sent his Son, and they killed him, too. Right?
Is God absent?
Does God create and take care of us, and then go away?
There's a lot of scripture that the people Jesus is speaking to would understand, where we find reflected the human experience of God's absence, and the human question that arises when we look around at the violence and the wreckage that we manage to create around ourselves.
Where we wonder: Where is God? Where was God?
The end of this parable: everybody is dead on the ground, right? Even the son.
So this parable is inviting us again to wrestle with the question of God's absence, and then to ask ourselves: What happens? What do we do? How do we behave when we believe that God is no longer involved?
And I don't mean just when the cat's away, the mice will play, which is a really easy way to interpret this parable. No, more than that.
What happens when we start to feel desperate and frightened and alone too often?
You can look around at the world. You can watch the news. You can read history books to find your examples. Too often, when we feel frightened and alone, and when we feel God is not present, we turn on one another or on ourselves.
And that is exactly what is happening in this parable. Tenants who feel frightened and alone and disconnected from the one who is supposed to care for them turn on one another and on all of the landowner's representatives.
One of the things that happens in baptism is that we remember, and we remind ourselves and one another, that we were never meant to do any of this on our own as human beings.
We are, by our very nature, created to care for one another, to receive care from our wider communities, and to understand that this care is the image of God given to each of us as our birthright, as our inheritance.
We are made to care for one another as beings made in the image of God, who cares for us.
And when life becomes too much for us, and caring for ourselves and one another feels like too great a burden to bear—because we all know those times when we have fallen short of properly caring for ourselves or for the people God has given into our care—we are reminded that the image we bear, this image of caring, is a reminder of God's presence and God's care for us.
And that is why, when we make all these promises together today, right? The promises that we are making for this new and beautiful and beloved child of God, we are reminding ourselves that God has given us into one another's care.
When we promise to hold her up in her journey of faith, and when we promise to be for her a whole community that does what people made in the image of God were meant to do, we are making those promises again.
They are promises that were made on our behalf when we were baptized, and that we have made time and time again at every baptism of every precious child of God who comes to this church, whether they are five months old or 75 years old or anywhere in between.
The things we promise to do for ourselves, for one another, and for our communities—to care for one another as God designed us to care—are all done with God's help.
Okay, look at page 11 of your bulletin. These are the promises we make, right?
We promise to continue in the teaching and the fellowship, the breaking of bread, and the prayers.
We promise to keep on resisting evil wherever we find it in the world around us and in our hearts.
We promise that whenever we fall into sin—which we know we are inevitably going to do; it's not if, it's when—we will remember that we always have a way back to God. And that is simply to turn to God again.
That's it. Because God is already holding out God's arms to us.
We promise to proclaim, by what we say and what we do, that there is good news here in this world, with these people.
It is the good news of God's love as revealed in a human-faced Jesus Christ.
We promise to live that out by what we say and by what we do. We promise that we will seek and serve Christ in everyone and love our neighbors as ourselves.
And we promise that we will never cease from striving for justice and peace, and that we will be people who respect the dignity of every human being as God made them: beautiful, diverse, precious in God's sight.
All of these things we promise to do not of our own power, but with God's help.
Because God is not absent, but present.
And baptism is a reminder that it is ours to open our hearts, to be people who are constantly opening ourselves to the help of God.
That is why this prayer at the very beginning of the service is so perfect for us. We say to God, "You are always more ready to hear than we are to pray."
In other words, we forget to ask for help, but God does not forget to give the help.
We forget to pray, but God is constantly regarding us with love and with care.
And we fall short of our commitment to care for one another. But God always cares for us and, day by day, is pouring into our hearts the power to take one another up again and to open our arms to one another.
So I want to thank you that you're here today, because this is a good day, a precious day, a day to celebrate.
Another precious child of God is beginning this walk, and all of us are pledging our care for her in the image of the God who made her and us.
This beautiful and holy family, in the image of the holy family of God.
We are blessed in one another. God is not absent.
If you don't know it already, you will know within the next 30 minutes that God is present.
God bless you.
In the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.