Tuesday In Holy Week

In 1994, nineteen famous preachers were invited to contribute to a book entitled If I Had Only One Sermon to Preach. That concentrated their minds. Imminent death also concentrates the mind. Tuesday in Holy Week was the last whole day of teaching that Jesus gave. Each thing he said, each parable he told, hit a nail on the head. It had to be a bulls-eye, so that as many people as possible would be as clear as possible who he was, why he came, what the implications were for them – for the Jewish people and temple religion, for Jesus’ present and future disciples, for the world through succeeding centuries.

In the parable of the vineyard Jesus likens Planet Earth to God’s vineyard. He recruited most able people to steward it. Instead, they neglected it and turned their backs on the One who had entrusted them with this task. Even when he sent his only son to them.  So the task of tending the earth was extended to anyone –(‘a New Israel’) who sought to care for the earth because they cared for Jesus.

Climate Emergency campaigners get the first point – that we must cease to mis-use the planet or we will destroy it.  The second point is even more urgent – all of us need a relationship with the One whose creation it it, and who alone can show us how to live well on earth.