In the Gospels Jesus crafts a parable of God’s persistent patience with Israel. The vineyard Jesus references is a metaphor for God’s people. The harvest of the vineyard is a metaphor for the works of righteousness, forgiveness, and kindness that the people of God do in the world – the evidence of their faithfulness to God – the fruits of the Spirit, as it were.

You know that sometimes it’s hard to see the fruits of the Spirit. The world is a mess, the life of a loved one is a mess, your own pursuits and passions are not what you wanted them to be. You might say that the harvest hasn’t been collected yet. And God has sent servant after servant, prophet after prophet, to help move things along for you me, we who are the people of God.

In the parable, the people of God are the vineyard tenants – who are given to murder, scheming, and covetous greed – led by the leading priests and religious thinkers of Jesus’ day, and led by pastors and politicians and pundits in our day.

Jesus asserts that not only are the people of God neglecting their task, but they are also plotting to take control of the whole operation, to be in charge, to play God. Does that only apply to the people of God of Jesus’ day?

I like that to consider how the Gospel stands out against the Commandments, the broad-stroke beginnings of the Law of God. The heart of our faith is to proclaim boldly the deepest of truths, “You shall have no other gods before me” (Exodus 20:3).

As a people of faith, we recognize Jesus as someone to be anticipated and celebrated, forsaking all other interests and pursuing a goodness that is greater than all of our plans. Sometimes, in striving after God, we unexpectedly run afoul of our own stubborn worldviews, as we come to realize that Jesus brings with him not pleasant platitudes but unyielding demands.

In those moments, we can become aware of a tension between our expectation of God and God’s self-disclosure. God isn’t always who we think God will be. I often think of something my wife said about our son Walker. Several years ago, as we were preparing for our family to grow from two to three persons, my wife and I didn’t know anything about Walker.

We didn’t know if he would be a boy or a girl, or if he had 10 fingers and 10 toes, or his likes or his dislikes, or his birthday, or his hair, eye, or skin color. All we knew was that he was coming into the world. And even as we learned more about him, that he was a healthy weight, had healthy measurements, and was progressing along just fine, we still could only imagine what he would be like.

Now my son has been on this earth for much longer than he was coming into the world, and we’ve gotten to know some of those likes and dislikes, the way he smiles, and what his laugh sounds like. And my wife has often said to him in wonder, “It was you, it was you the whole time. We didn’t know it would be you.”

In time, we were graced to move from mystery to recognition, from making room in our hearts for something still secret to us, to welcoming into our lives something revealed, a child, with a particular set of preferences and habits. We welcomed into our midst something which was once hidden in darkness but which finally came into the light.

That’s how I’m coming to better think about Jesus, who was, after all, everything that the crowds wanted to see and had longed to see – a leader, a messiah – just as my son is what my wife and I wanted – a child. But, my wife and I didn’t know what our son would be like, and the people of God didn’t know anything about Jesus.

We each have a certain understanding of God, something that we assume is true even if we know better. For some, they believe God blesses America more than any other country. For some, they believe God favors the rich more than anyone else. For some, they believe God loves the Orioles more than the Yankees or the Red Sox.

For me, even after years of seminary and a decade of intentionally writing sermons and prayers that are inclusive and expansive in language, I still can’t get it out of my head that God has a beard, and that Jesus actually looks like the figures in stained glass, even though I know better. For all of us, there is a degree of denial, a measure of ignorance, and a little bit of stubbornness when it comes to how we envision God.

When asked what they thought the vineyard master would do to the tenants, the religious leaders of that day, the people who were supposed to have the closest relationship to God, responded, “‘He will put those wretches to a miserable death, and lease the vineyard to other tenants who will give him the produce at the harvest time’” (v. 41).

The chief priests and scribes believed that God will destroy the unhelpful and unfaithful, the violent and greedy. They believed the Roman authorities who taxed Israel would be destroyed in God’s name. They believed that those who failed to measure up against God’s Law would be crushed. They believed that what you and I would do if we were in charge is the same that God would do.

And the people of faith were wrong. God did not destroy the tenants or put them to a miserable death. God was the One who was tortured and discarded, not us.

God’s ways are mysterious to us. They don’t come naturally to us. The mystery to me is how God can forgive the world. Now that I have two sons, as a father it is even harder for me to understand how God can forgive the people of God for the violence committed against the Son of God.

Now that I have my two little ones in my life, I cannot understand how God can have mercy on the world, despite how violently the world rejected the Word of God. The mystery deepens for me the more I get to know my sons, the more I love them each day, the more I realize that my care for them extends beyond reason.

I cannot comprehend God’s forgiveness; I cannot wrap my mind around God. But that is what God does.

The mystery of forgiveness deepens as each of us grows, as we encounter just how difficult it is to forgive those who trespass against us. Yet that’s the enduring promise of God: We are forgiven; we are accepted, just as we are.

And that is good news. This god is worth worshiping, worth following – a god who commands us to leave behind every other hindrance, every other burden, every other distraction from what can truly heal us, what can truly save us, what can truly transform us and the world if we allow it. Will you worship the Lord, who wants no lesser gods of self-interest or self-destruction to come between you and your Creator? I pray you will. I invite your response. Amen.