What more should God do?
According to the church historian, Diana Butler Bass, there is no evidence of Christians up to A.D. 170—there is no evidence of Christians—belonging to the Roman army.  So, why should that be the case?  Well, part of the reason is our one scripture reading from Matthew 21 and the wider context of Matthew’s gospel.
That reading from Matthew’s gospel, which I just read to you, can be understood from a variety of perspectives.  For example, the opening words of the parable involve a quotation from Isaiah 5, which is known as the Song of the Vineyard.  Almost exactly the same words.  But the similarity stops there, because, according to the passage from Isaiah, this vineyard was planted; the landowner looked for grapes to be produced; and only wild grapes were the result.  Whereas in Jesus’ parable, there is no problem with the actual vineyard.  The problem is with the tenants of the vineyard, who refuse to give from the fruit of that vineyard to the landowner.
Another way of looking at the parable is, of course, in terms of the various servants who are sent by the landowner, and then, with the climax being the sending of the son.  It’s difficult not to see in that parable a representation of the prophets—God’s sending of the prophets to the people of Israel—and then God sending his own Son.
In fact, the prophets received a difficult reception, in many cases.  And so also does the Son, as becomes obvious towards the end of Matthew’s gospel, where Jesus is put to death by the authorities.
Just a reflection on some of those earlier prophets.  It’s not actually said in the Bible what happened to the prophet Isaiah.  But there is a tradition that he was killed by king Manasseh, who was the king who followed king Hezekiah, Hezekiah being one of those kings who, according to the Second Book of Kings, did what was right in the sight of the Lord, whereas the king Manasseh was known just precisely for his extreme wickedness.  Another prophet, Jeremiah, ended up in the bottom of a hole, imprisoned, basically, for what he had to say.  And so, the prophets did not always receive a very favourable hearing.  In fact, sometimes, the hearing resulted in their own death—especially if we read this parable in terms of that.
Now, another way of looking at this parable of Jesus is to read it somewhat politically or, shall we say, sociologically, because the land of Judah, and the land of Galilee were Roman provinces in the time of Jesus.  Therefore, they were occupied territory.  And, it was natural that there would be hostility against the occupying forces.
The parable presents a picture of an absentee landlord, collecting rent.  Well, there is resentment, apparently, on the part of the tenant-farmers, who will not give their fruit in due time, in the time that is expected, but, instead, do violence against those people who are sent in the name of the landlord.
This political or sociological reading of the parable receives further emphasis in Matthew’s gospel with what follows in the gospel.  So the immediate sequel to our parable is the parable of the wedding banquet.  Now, when we read this parable in Luke’s gospel, we hear of a village notable, who is wanting to have a wedding reception, a wedding party, for his son.  But, in Matthew’s gospel, what we hear about is a king, a king who is hosting a wedding for his son.  In both cases, both in Matthew and Luke, many people do not respond to that invitation.  But, in Matthew’s gospel, when they do not respond, the king sends out forces which destroy that people, and which raze the city.  It’s not hard to see in that parable, as presented by Matthew’s gospel, the eventual destruction of Jerusalem and its temple by the Roman authorities.
So, we have three different ways of looking at that parable, then—different perspectives.  But they can all actually be streamlined into one.  And the one message that can be taken from this passage is that God calls us to a response to him, and to our neighbour, which is non-violent.
Well, how do I get there?  Well, when you look at the message of the prophets, Isaiah says [the words at the beginning of the service]:
	See, I am laying in Zion a foundation stone,
		a tested stone,
	a precious cornerstone, a sure foundation:
		“One who trusts [one who has faith] will not panic.”
Isaiah proclaimed to one of the kings of his day, king Ahaz, that he needn’t fear these princelings to the north, who were threatening him.  Just ask for a sign, Isaiah pleaded with Ahaz.  But Ahaz would not comply; he would not ask for a sign; instead, he made an excuse that he didn’t want to “test the Lord”, which frustrated Isaiah to no end.  So Isaiah proclaimed a message of faith rather than attending to military alliances with, for example, the power of Assyria.
So that was in one period.  And then Jeremiah, in a somewhat later period, at least a hundred years later, at the time of the besieging of Jerusalem by the Babylonians—he preached the unthinkable.  He preached the capitulation—capitulate to the Babylonians; go out and make peace with them.  But the king of that day would have nothing to do with that message.  That king was Zedekiah.  And the result was the total destruction of Jerusalem, the total destruction of the temple as part of it, and the exile of all the people who were not killed to Babylon, leaving only a very few poor individuals in the land.
So both of those prophets had preached a message which was non-violent—no alliances with military powers like Assyria [Isaiah]; capitulate to this power of the Babylonians—that was the message of Jeremiah.
And the message of our parable concerning the wicked husbandmen, as it is sometimes called, is similar, in the sense that, if people simply had listened to the non-violent message of Jesus, their city, their temple, would not again have been destroyed—in this case, by the Romans.  Jesus was not a revolutionary.  He was not one of the Zealots, who planned insurrection.  Instead, he proclaimed a non-violent response to others.  For example, you will remember from the Sermon on the Mount, “If someone forces you to go one mile with him [like a Roman soldier], go the extra mile.”  You have heard it said, “You shall hate your enemies.”  I say to you, Pray for your enemies.  Bless those who persecute you; do not curse them.”:  There is the message—the strong message—of non-violence.
And, of course, Jesus himself exemplified this non-violent approach to the world by his own submitting to death on a cross—surely the ultimate form of acceding to what was happening to him—and finally, thereby, overcoming evil, overcoming the powers of violence, by good.
So, returning to Diana Butler Bass, who remarked that, not before the year AD 170 is there any evidence of Christians ever serving in the Roman army.  Those early Christians believed strongly that they were to follow a non-violent course of action.  And it was only with Augustine and Ambrose, two somewhat later theologians, who spoke of a “just war” and that sort of thing, that Christians eventually became part of military service.  But, initially, it wasn’t like that, if we are to believe the evidence [or lack threof] that is before us in the early history of the Church, the post-apostolic age.
Well, people have practised non-violence, and where has it got them?  Remember the Jews of the Holocaust.  One of the things that is said about them is, “They didn’t resist!”  Why didn’t they resist?  And then all of them, or a great many of them, were simply put to death.
And Israel now has gone the other way.  It’s become one of the most militarized states in the world.  And one wonders, at times, whether Israel is in the process of losing its soul, by erecting walls, by being such a militaristic nation.  One wonders that, at least.
Others have practised non-violence, and they too have suffered death as a result.  But we follow the One who is the non-violent One par excellence, namely Jesus Christ our Lord, who went to death on the cross for our sake, but who is raised from the dead.  And so, in our relations with others, in whatever circumstance it is, we are to choose at least first and primarily the course of non-violent response to others.  Instead of reacting violently to situations which may involve us, we are called to take an approach of overcoming evil or anger or whatever it may be, with good, following in the way of Jesus Christ, our Lord.