27th Sunday in Ordinary Time (Harvest Sunday)

Rather uncomfortably, this morning’s Old Testament lesson and Gospel reading, when taken together, form a dangerous duo of proof-texts for supersessionism, the idea that Christianity has replaced Judaism. The logic of the thing is disarmingly simple. According to the Hebrew Bible itself, the vineyard is the house of Israel, in which bloodshed is found in place of justice, which in turn warrants its own destruction. And then, in Matthew’s Gospel, this vineyard, this house, is taken from its tenants, and given away to somebody else.

There are obvious biblical and theological resources against supersessionism. Even here in Isaiah, the vineyard of the Lord of hosts is—in the present tense—the house of Israel; and nowhere does the prophet ever declare the relationship severed; quite to the contrary, the offer of and hope for redemption is ever-present. And in Matthew, the vineyard itself—Israel itself—is not destroyed, but its tenants—those who are meant to be its stewards—are removed and replaced: and we are told a few verses after our reading ends, the chief priests and Pharisees figured out that the parable was about them. Besides all of which, despite hints of it even in the New Testament itself, Christian anti-semitism has never been theologically tenable: there is no escaping the fact that Christianity was a sect of Judaism, whose founder and earliest leaders were all Jewish. Supersessionism turns out to be parricide.  

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It will not have escaped your notice that nationalism and xenophobia are on the rise, in various parts of the world, but also here on our isles. In a recent survey of 107 countries, the UK ranked highest—by quite a long shot—in terms of how many people thought that immigration was their biggest national problem. And a poll last year found that 40% of Brits thought the UK would be stronger if we stopped immigration, up from 31% in 2021. Though in that study, we actually turn out looking much less xenophobic than lots of other countries. In my home country of Malaysia, 57% figured the country would be better off if they shut their borders. 

There are several drivers of anti-immigration sentiment, and we will briefly consider two. The more economically rational is the idea, hinted at earlier, that we would be “better off” with fewer immigrants, simultaneously stealing our jobs and exploiting our welfare, those darned hardworking, over-qualified, incompetent, burdens on society. But it is the other possibility that is more relevant for us this morning, not least as it seems to apply here in Britain: and that is the fear of cultural displacement by immigrants. Recall the two studies earlier: here in the UK, on one hand, we are really worried about immigration, and think it’s our biggest national problem—but we seem less keen than others on the idea that immigrants make the country weaker. We seem able to recognise the material benefits of immigration, while fearing it anyway. 

There is something commendable about this, if it implies that it is not always right to be obsessed with might. It’s not just all about the economy, but also about less tangible, less quantifiable things like language and religion and values, perhaps. On the other hand, there is no small irony here, in a former colonising superpower now afraid of being colonised: supersessionists worried about being superseded. Or maybe that’s the way it should be; it is apt to fear that what we have done to others will be done to us, which is the dark side of the Golden Rule. 

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I loved rural ministry. As some of you may know, while I was temporarily away from here, I spent five years ministering to four little villages in West Sussex: the largest of my villages was home to just over 400 souls. We had pheasants and deer in our garden, and the fete was held there too. No one really came to church on Sundays, but everyone seemed to know when they needed their priest. It was lovely: and I learnt a lot there.

Among the things I learnt was something about the ambivalence of Harvest Sunday, which is—in its hymnody and liturgy, certainly as it is offered in traditional agricultural communities—all about how our produce, our property, our land, is not quite ours, not really; but God’s, from whom all things come, and to whom all things ought to be offered. And yet Harvest Sunday itself is a part of an inheritance people feel very strongly about, which we find very difficult to let go. It is a symbol then, of a broader reluctance to relinquish what we deem to be ours by right, even by birthright. 

In my first year in Sussex, EU free movement ended, resulting in an estimated £61.6 million in crop wastage. Just before I left, there was a significant political swing there towards an anti-immigration platform, which is—according to a poll in Farmers Weekly, an actual magazine I know about—the most popular party among farmers at 40%. Ask me about how academics and priests vote later. 

I don’t know if I ever figured out how to resolve the tension, or even to speak into it effectively and with integrity. But I know also that it is not a contradiction we avoid just by moving to the city, not even a city as cosmopolitan as this one. We too are rather precious about what we produce, what we possess: our land, and our buildings, and the institutions that inhabit them, and the traditions they perpetuate.

And so the observance of a Harvest Festival, in which we add a few things to our weekly shop to pop over to the Community Emergency Food Bank—a good thing to do, to be sure—risks serving as a distraction from asking tougher questions about what it means to be stewards of the things we really, really hold dear; and indeed, what it means to hold them at all, and for what and for whom. 

That is, after all, the concern of both our readings, which warn us never to forget who we are and what we are about. We are vineyards, cultivated for a purpose; we are tenants, who hold what we hold in trust—and not just for ourselves nor for our appointed successors, but for those intended beneficiaries of the gospel whom God entrusts to us. As a church, if we fail to ask what it means for us to have been given these great gifts, this great embarrassment of riches, and how it is that we are meant to bless others with them, then we really do deserve to be superseded. So help us, God, to know that our bounty is truly not our own but Christ our Lord’s, who gave even himself for the sake of the world.