Sermon Sunday 27 September 2020

In the world of social media, there are two ways to show people something new. The first way is to pay for it. There’s advertising everywhere, some of it quite subtle. You can pay for people who like poodles and live in Cunderdin to see your Cunderdin Poodle-grooming business page. You can pay for small business owners who don’t follow the social media account of one political party to see an ad for another political party. But this costs money. So the holy grail when it comes to disseminating a message is ‘organic reach’. That’s when you create content – maybe an image or some words or a short video – that people like so much, they want to share it around. Sometimes it’s blatantly an ad for fizzy drink, but it’s funny or sexy so people share it with their friends. Sometimes it’s inspirational. Sometimes it is something nefarious, designed to influence people’s perceptions and the way they vote. These bits of content which are shared organically are called ‘memes’. The definition of a meme is a small piece of information that self-replicates. 

An example of this was during the lockdown period of the pandemic. Someone, somewhere came up with a phrase relating to older people that went something like ‘They went to war for us, let’s stay at home for them’. This phrase was paired with a picture of a battlefield, then a burial site, then a nice old man with war medals, then a lovely picture of a granny with her grandchild, and it was off! Pretty soon that phrase was everywhere. People were making their own versions of it, and no one could control where it would go next.

Remember the ice-bucket challenge to raise money for motor neurone disease? That was a particularly successful meme. It was fun and a bit naughty to pour iced water on your head, then tag some of your friends to do it next and invite people to donate to a charity. It grew exponentially because it was perfectly designed to do so, and it raised a bunch of a money for a good cause in the process. But you can see, can’t you, how creating and sharing memes is not always completely organic? The ice bucket challenge was a meme designed by a marketing and fundraising team, with good intentions. But if they can do it, so can the Russian government or Al Qaeda or mining companies or banks, or tobacco companies or arms manufacturers. We are all suckers for interesting, engaging content – so there is a constant battle to create content that will be self-replicating. The meme wars are upon us.

The stories and sayings of Jesus were memes. They were short – even the longest parable is only the length of a one minute video today. And they self-replicated. Jesus’ close team, the apostles, could tell and retell the stories and sayings, and many people who came to hear Jesus teach could share them too. The content was pithy and memorable, so it spread quickly. We don’t know for sure, but in all likelihood Jesus told many more stories and offered many more sayings than the ones we have in the four canonical gospels and the gospel of Thomas. Like any content generator, he would have been assessing which content worked. What stories got spread the fastest? Which sayings did people repeat again and again? He and his team would have discussed among themselves the best way to tell and frame stories, which ones to use on which day and in which place. They were on a mission, and they would have been taking their messaging very seriously.

By the late first century when the gospel we call Matthew is being compiled, the memes of Jesus would have existed in multiple forms. In the memories of people in the movement, in some written texts we no longer have, and perhaps they were recited or enacted ritually, perhaps during meals or at prayer services. Certainly, the words ‘this is my body’ and ‘this is my blood’ were in regular use at the love feasts, and one can imagine that other stories and sayings were shared, particularly as a way of inducting people into the group. 

So when the author or authors of the gospel in Antioch came to write things down, they had a lot of content to draw on, but they could choose how they arranged it and they could choose what editorial comments they might add. One of their editorial decisions was to put three vineyard parables in close proximity. 

Last week we heard the parable of the workers in the vineyard – the one where the landowner hires workers at different times of the day but pays them all a denarius. This week it’s the parable of the two sons of the vineyard owner – where one son says he will work but doesn’t and the other says he won’t work but does. Next week, it will be the parable of the wicked tenants – where the landowner sends his son as a messenger, but the tenants kill him.  

The placement of these parables is very important. In the narrative of the gospel of Matthew, Jesus tells the parable of the labourers in the vineyard, then enters Jerusalem riding on a donkey – the events that we call Palm Sunday. Then he heads to the temple to overturn the tables of the money changers. The next day he heads back to the temple (murdering a fig tree on the way) and is teaching inside the temple precinct. This is an intentionally provocative act. Jesus just sets up shop inside the temple area, having already damaged property the day before, and sets up an impromptu classroom in an area owned and dominated by the priestly class. It is not a nice thing to do, and its not meant to be. Jesus gets into an argument about his authority, but, in Matthew’s story, the priests don’t want to antagonise him because they are afraid of the crowd. Then Jesus tells the story we heard today, of the two sons, closely followed by the parable of the wicked tenants.

The intent in the narrative is clear. The vineyard is a traditional symbol for Israel. The temple authorities are the son who said they would work in the vineyard, but didn’t. The tax collectors (traitors) and prostitutes (sinners) are the son who said they wouldn’t work in the vineyard, but had a change of heart. In the next story, it is clear that it is the temple authorities are to be understood as the ones who kill the landowner’s son. 

Just to be clear – temple authorities bad, ordinary people following Jesus good.

All of this is delivered, right in the middle of the temple with the temple authorities looking on. That is pretty damned gutsy, and a little bit rash. Let’s imagine that Jesus has been telling these stories all over the province. They’re spreading widely. People are telling the stories as a way of resisting and critiquing the temple system, and the Roman occupiers with whom they are colluding. They are telling the stories as a way of emphasising that its not the formal temple system that matters, but fidelity to the covenant. They are telling the stories to identify Jesus as, at least, a prophet or messenger from God. And now, bold as brass, having incited a riot in the temple market, Jesus is now having a teach-in right there under the noses of the temple bosses.

Is it any wonder they had him killed? 

This short parable of the two sons, in the context of the gospel we call Matthew, is a call to do God’s work, even if at first we are reluctant or unwilling. It is not enough to say we will do God’s work, to fulfil the rituals correctly or say the right things. In fact, it is better if we resist at first, then come around, than to commit but not follow through. We are better to let God work on us over time, than think we have it all sorted out on day one.

This is the trouble with self-replicating content. If it is true, and if it is transformative, it gets under our skin. Slowly but surely, it changes us. The stories are infectious, and as we hear them again and again, we apply them to their own lives - even when the political and religious systems would prefer we didn’t. I hope that the stories keep doing their work on you (and me) even if at first, we are resistant.

The Lord Be With You