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“This Isn’t Ours” 

By: Rev. Rebecca DePoe

There are few places where human beings develop a stronger sense of ownership over things they do not actually own than in the church. 

Take, for example, church pews. 

Now, as far as I know, nobody here has a deed to a particular pew.  

There was no closing. No mortgage. No attorney handed you a set of keys and said, “Congrats! The third pew on the left is officially yours.” 

And yet somehow, we know. 

That is where so and so sits. 

Maybe they have been sitting there for 30 years. Maybe their parents sat there before them. Maybe their grandparents sat there before them. At a certain point, church pews begin to feel less like a seating preference and more like ancestral property.  

And heaven help the visitor who doesn’t know. Who walks into church completely unaware that they are about to commit an offense against generations of established congregational tradition.  

They sit down.  

And somewhere across the sanctuary, someone things: 

They’re. In. My. Seat.  

Usually we don’t mean anything particularly sinister by our behavior. We spend enough time somewhere. We care about it. We invest ourselves in it. We develop memories around it. And somewhere along the way, the language changes. Something entrusted to us begins to feel like something that belongs to us. Which is precisely where the trouble begins in the story Jesus tells. Because the tenants in Jesus’ parable have been entrusted with a vineyard.  

And apparently, somewhere along the way, they forgot one very important thing:  

This isn’t theirs.  

And that matters, because these tenants have actually been given quite a lot. Jesus says that a landowner plants a vineyard. He puts a fence around it. He digs a wine press. He builds a watchtower. In other words, the owner has invested in this place. 

Then he leases the vineyard to tenants and goes away. 

And for a while, the tenants do exactly what they are supposed to do. 

They tend the vines. 

They maintain the property. 

They produce the grapes. 

They make the wine. 

The problem in this parable is not that the tenants have neglected the vineyard. The problem comes when harvest time arrives and the owner sends his servants to collect what belongs to him.  

Suddenly the tenants behave as though the vineyard belongs to them.  

They beat one servant.  

They kill another. 

They stone another. 

The owner sends more servants, and the tenants do the same thing again. 

Finally, the owner sends his son, thinking, “Surely they will respect my son.” But when the tenants see him coming, they say something that reveals just how badly things have gone wrong in the vineyard. “This is the heir. Come, let us kill him and get his inheritance.” 

Somewhere along the way, stewardship has become ownership. The tenants have worked this land for so long that they have forgotten whose land it is. They have cared for the vineyard for so long that they have begun to believe that caring for it gives them the right to possess it.  

And, if we are not careful, we can read this story and keep the tenants safely at a distance. Can you imagine? We ask in horror. Can you imagine being entrusted with something that belongs to someone else and eventually becoming convinced that it belongs to you? 

Actually, I think we can.  

Because we do it all the time.  

We say my pew, our building, our traditions.  

And some of that language is perfectly natural. This is our church in the same sense that Coraopolis is our community and these are our neighbors. We love this place. We invest ourselves in it. We take responsibility for it. But there is a subtle spiritual danger when our church begins to mean our possession. 

Because this church existed before any of us did. And, by the grace of God, it will belong to people we will never meet. The church was entrusted to generations before us. For this particular stretch of time, it has been entrusted to us. And someday, we will hand it to somebody else.  

For me, the central question of this parable, is what are we doing with the things that belong to God? Because the vineyard was never theirs. And neither is this. We are stewards. We are caretakers. We are tenants entrusted with something precious for a little while. And faithfulness means remembering whose vineyard this has always been.  

And perhaps there is no better Sunday to remember that than today. Today is World Communion Sunday. Today, Christians around the world are gathering at the Lord’s Table. They are gathering in enormous cathedrals and tiny country churches. They are gathering in churches that have existed for centuries and congregations that are just beginning.  

Some of them will receive a piece of bread.  

Some will receive a gluten free wafer.  

Some will tear bread from a loaf. 

Some will drink from a common cup. 

And all of us, in all of those places, are coming to the same table.  

Not because we interpret Scripture the same. Not because we have figured out how to be one perfectly unified Church. Instead we come because the table does not belong to any of us. It belongs to Jesus.  

And I think we need that reminder. Because Christians have spent an extraordinary amount of time deciding who belongs where. We have divided ourselves by denomination, theology, nationality, yes even worship style. By disagreements that mattered deeply and disagreements that, generations later, hardly anyone remembers.  

We have drawn lines around the vineyard and then occasionally forgotten that we did not plant it. But every time we come to this table, Jesus reminds us: 

This isn’t ours.  

We did not bake ourselves into the body of Christ. 

We did not earn the cup.  

We did not create the grace offered here. 

We are here for the same reason Christians are gathering around tables all over the world today: Because we have been invited. And maybe that changes the way we understand what it means to belong to the Church. 

Because if this were our table, then our first question might be: 

Who should we let in? 

But if this is Christ’s table, the question becomes: 

What kind of people should we become because Christ has welcomed us? 

People who receive what God gives with gratitude.  

People who tend what God entrusts to us with faithfulness.  

People who understand that the vineyard exists not simply so that we can preserve it, but so that it can bear fruit.  

That is what the tenants forgot.  

They became so concerned with possessing the vineyard that they forgot why the vineyard existed in the first place. 

It was supposed to produce fruit.  

So perhaps the question for the church is not simply whether we can keep our buildings standing. Perhaps the deeper question is: 

Is the vineyard bearing fruit? 

Are people being fed? 

Are lonely people finding community? 

Are our neighbors experiencing the love of Jesus Christ because the church is here? 

Because those are the things that matter to the owner of the vineyard.  

And when we remember that, “this isn’t ours” stops sounding quite so threatening. It begins to sound like freedom. We don’t have to save God’s church. We don’t have to control God’s grace. We don’t have to protect the vineyard as though everything depends upon us.  

Our job is simpler than that.  

Tend what God has entrusted to our care. 

Bear the fruit God asks of us.  

And when the time comes, hand the vineyard on to someone else.  

Because it was never ours to begin with. 

It belongs to God.  

In just a few moments, we will come to this table. And when we do, we will come alongside Christians we will never meet, in palaces we may never see, speaking languages we may never understand.  

And together, we will receive a gift that none of us owns.  

For this bread is not ours. This cup is not ours. This table is not ours. This church is not ours. The grace we receive here is not ours to control or contain. It all belongs to God. And thank God for that.  

Because if this were our table, it could only ever be as wide as we were willing to make it. If this were our church, it could only ever become what we were capable of imagining. If this were our grace, there would never be enough to go around.  

But it isn’t ours.  

It belongs to the God who planted the vineyard. It belongs to the Christ who welcomes us to the table. It belongs to the Spirit who is still at work bearing fruit in places we cannot see and among people we do not know. So come to the table today not as an owner, but as a guest.  

Come with empty hands.  

Receive what you did not earn. 

Share what you cannot possess. 

And remember: 

The vineyard if God’s.  

The table is Christ’s.  

And by grace- there is a place here for us. 

Thanks be to God. 

Amen.