October 5^th, 2008                                         God’s Plan for the Consumer

 

Isaiah 5:1-7

Matthew 21:33-46

 

            I’ll never forget when I, as a wet-behind-the-ears college student, stepped into the office of a very powerful and influential health care executive in Minneapolis. I was there to interview him for a paper I was writing on care for the elderly.

 

            It was intimidating, waiting in the foyer for a half hour, and then being escorted by the secretary into this elegant office. This big, gruff, bear of a man gestured to me to sit down in a chair across from what seemed like a two-acre desk. I tried to calm my nerves, and pulled out my notebook to begin the interview.

 

            But before I could ask my first question, this guy leaned across the desk and glared at me. “What are you going to do with your life?” he demanded.

 

            I have no idea how I answered that question. Which is a good thing since it saves me from the embarrassment of reliving what must have been a splendid exercise in incoherence. I was irritated at him for the question. I wasn’t expecting it—no one had ever asked me a question like that. How could I have been ready for that?

 

            Except I was wrong. Someone had asked me a question like that—in fact someone had asked me that very question.

 

            And not just someone. It was God who asked it, in these readings from Isaiah and Matthew. The question is clear and stark and demanding: What are you going to do with your life? 

 

            In Isaiah, God describes a vineyard he has prepared. He went to great effort to do everything possible to make that vineyard a success—digging, clearing, planting, weeding, protecting. What more was there to do for my vineyard that I have not done it, he asks.

 

            It was all set to produce fruit. Good things were going to come from this vineyard. Instead, nothing happens. The vines produce no fruit. The master is so upset with this that he threatens to destroy the whole thing and start over.

 

 

 

 

 

            The point is clear. God created this earth for a reason. God created this church for a reason. God created you and me for a reason. God went to a great deal of work and trouble to make the conditions right for us. Why? So that we could produce something.

 

            The question hangs in the air. What are you going to produce? What are you going to do with your life? And it’s not just a question for young people planning their future. God’s question hits us square in the face every day.

 

            I wonder sometimes if the study of economics hasn’t steered us away from this question by coining the word consumer. All of us are constantly referred to in economic terms as consumers. We live in a consumer society. Consumers demand choice and quality and service. Consumers expect people to provide them with what they want. In a consumer society, our only job is to make sure we make enough money so that we can afford to make everyone else do their job, which is to make sure that we are satisfied.

 

            The very word consumer strikes at the heart of what God is trying to accomplish in the vineyard. A consumer is one who takes for his own benefit. A consumer is one who takes resources out of play, who uses them up. A consumer does not give back, a consumer does not produce anything. A consumer is exactly what God does not want in his garden. When all the plants in the garden become consumers instead of producers, God is upset, so upset that God wants to get rid of the whole garden.

 

            Granted, we are all consumers of some sort; we need to be in order to stay alive. But when we allow ourselves to be defined by the word consumer, then we become exactly what God does not want or need in his garden.

 

            If that sounds like a demanding, harsh, law-based attitude, then we haven’t been paying very close attention to Scripture. Is God like the corporation that places such intense demands on all its employees to produce for the company that it fires the least productive 10% of its work force every year? Does God try to squeeze work out of people by threatening to burn the least productive part of his work force in hell?

 

            No. God isn’t using us as pawns in a scheme to accomplish some larger purpose. God prepared the vineyard for us. God is working with us to bring joy and peace and prosperity to all the world. And the greatest part of that joy and peace and prosperity comes in the sheer act of producing fruit, of doing something with our lives.

 

 

            Perhaps we can illustrate that truth in the stories of everyday people.  

 

            Webster is a middle-aged guy who hates to get up in the morning. Every day is the same old, same old. He doesn’t dislike his job but he doesn’t really like it either. It’s a living. He puts in his time so he can collect his money so that he can afford to do the things he likes—work on old cars, take the boat out, spend a night on the town, couple of hobbies. The rest of the time, he just wants to be left alone with his entertainment center.

 

            Gretchen is a very elderly woman living in a nursing home who hates to get up in the morning. She hates the morning because its arrival means she didn’t die overnight and so she has to face another day. She can’t move very well or hear very well, and her eyesight and appetite are both going. She doesn’t do anything during the day except watch television and nap, and wonder why God doesn’t take her now.

 

            Jed is a teenager who hates to get up in the morning. He’s always tired; school is way too early for him. School days are long and boring. He can’t stand doing homework and doesn’t know why he has to take subjects like math that he’s never going to use in his life. He likes spending time on-line on his computer, or playing video games, or watching DVDs late at night, weekend parties with friends (drinking is usually involved). He thinks he might want to be a vet but doesn’t want to be in school for all those years.

 

            Three people who don’t have a good reason to get out of bed in the morning, for whom the arrival of morning means another day at the grind.

 

            Compare their lives to the businesswoman who has been saving up for years to start her own business, and now has her chance and can’t wait to get started each day to make it a success.

            Or the teacher who knows there are kids whose lives he can change, and who sees it as his mission to find some way to get through to a few.  

            Or the social worker who has cancer, who knows her time is limited and has dedicated every last one of her remaining days to making a difference for the poor and disadvantaged.  

            Or the well-driller in Tanzania who wakes up every morning knowing that today he can take another step in his mission of getting that well in place that will give 20,000 people who have no safe water a decent chance at life. 

            Or the young college activist who gives up a year of his life to spend long days and nights working as a volunteer for a candidate he believes in.

 

 

            Or the retired person who has decided it is her mission in life to spend part of her days bringing joy to the sick and the home-bound and institution-bound.

 

            What is the difference between those two groups of people? It’s simple: purpose.

 

            The first group of people are just trying to get through the day. They don’t really have a reason to live. They see themselves as consumers, trying to get what they can out of life.

 

            The second group are those who are actively engaged in life. They have a reason to live. They spend their time trying to produce something. It is an undisputed fact: People who have a mission in life, who have a burning passion to build up the Kingdom of God, are the people who find the most joy in life.

           

            The biggest lie our generation has been fed and that we continue to feed our children is that good life consists of consuming. Of acquiring the best of everything: house, food, vacation home, car, entertainment center, season tickets, etc. What happens to the world run by consumers, when it’s everyone grabbing for what he can get?

            We find ourselves in a world that revolves around greed. Like the vineyard of Isaiah, we become overrun by problems, society collapses. And we wonder why we can’t find peace or happiness in this world.

 

            The pressure is strong to make the same mistake with children and grandchildren. So many of us are primarily concerned with how much we can give our children. We want them to get the best out of life, and so we give and we give. In so doing, we teach them to be nothing but consumers, who know only how to take things from the world.

 

           

            The truth of the Isaiah passage is that happiness lies not in what we can consume, but in what we can produce. Not what we can extract from our world, but what we give. Not that we’re better off for having lived in the world, but that the world is better off for us having lived in it. 

 

            If the goal of parenting is to raise children to be happy, joyful and at peace with God and the world, then our goal has to be to teach them the ability and the desire to produce—to do something with their life.

 

 

            People who engage with life, who live with a purpose and a mission in life are never bored. Frustrated, overwhelmed, and occasionally discouraged, but never bored.  

 

            In Matthew, Jesus also tells a similar parable of the vineyard that is set up to succeed, all the work done, but it never produces. He adds something to this story, however.

            In this case the fault lies not with the plants but the workers. In this story, the master sends people to the vineyard to get it to change. When that fails, he sends his own son to get vineyard to produce. They reject him and kill him.

            Which was a stupid and short-sighted thing to do. It leads to their death, and garden that they schemed to get for themselves was given to others to work.

 

            Here’s an interesting theological note: According to this parable, Jesus was plan B. The whole idea was for the vineyard to produce fruit. God set it up to work that way. When it didn’t happen, God disappointed but he did not give up. He sent prophets get to the vineyard to produce. When that failed, God tried another angle. He sent Jesus to turn the workers from consumers to producers.

 

            Notice how general the goal of the master is: The goal is for everyone to produce fruit. There isn’t a vineyard for grapes and a garden for carrots and an orchard for apples. Just a vineyard and fruit. Very general, and I think that’s no accident.

 

            I think it’s a danger to make God’s will too specific, like programming instructions. Sometimes we wonder what God wants us to do with our lives. We ask God, Show me what you want me to do. Should I take this job, move to this place, go for this career?

 

            God has made it very clear what God wants us to do. Bear fruit. Accomplish something for the kingdom of God. God has given us the freedom to determine how we’re going to do that, what fruit we want to bear. I honestly don’t think it mattered to God one bit if I became a pastor or stayed with a writing career. What mattered was that I produce fruit, and it seemed to me that at this time in my life, I could probably produce a little more doing this than what I was doing.

 

            The question for today is what are you going to do with your life? God is very clear on what will give you the most joy and peace. Produce fruit. Not just for God’s benefit or the world’s benefit, but for your own.

 

 

            In difficult times, we often hear people ask for God to send us a leader, someone who can guide us out of the problems we’re in. When will God send us the leaders we are waiting for? That’s a consumer mentality; what service can God perform for us?

 

            God prepared the vineyard well, done everything to ensure it can be successful. What more could I have done for my vineyard that I have not done it? Who else could I have sent to show you what needs to be done?

 

            And yet we, the consumers, demand more services from God.

 

            The story of the vineyard suggests that maybe, just maybe, we are leaders we have been waiting for. 

 

            God created this earth for a reason. God created this church for a reason. God created you and me for a reason. God went to a great deal of work and trouble to make the conditions right for us. Why? So that we could produce something.

 

            What are you going to do with your life?