The first commandment

• 24^th Sunday after Pentecost

Isaiah 5:1-7 and Matthew 21:18-22

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• The church’s exterior was looking dingy and a wedding was coming up, so the pastor hired a painter…Painter set up scaffolding and got all kinds of painter gear out, began to do the task, but he didn’t do the calculations correctly, and he realized he didn’t have quite enough paint to finish the job, and it was getting late in the day. He’d have to take his stuff down, buy more paint, and come back two days later to finish the job. Or he could use a little paint thinner to spread out the paint he had left. So that’s what he did. Well there was a storm that night, and of course the section where he’d used the thin paint washed out. He came back to survey the site, and as he looked at the ruined job he cried out, “O God, what am I going to do?” when a voice from heaven replied, “repaint, and thin no more…”

The end result did not match goal, the painter did not produce the desired outcome.Therefore the pastor will hire someone to do the job right.

• This event with Jesus is not about a fig tree…
Matthew uses “fruit” metaphor 17 times, and never literally.

This event is warning and judgment @empty leadership
Looks productive ("Jesus is coming! Look busy!")

(Like pastor/painter) God has desired goal in mind: righteousness
see reading from Isa 5, also the first commandment:

Be fruitful & multiply… fill the earth and subdue it…
rule over every living thing…
and it was very good. (Gen 1:28)

• (candidates keep talking, my hope that the things they say will reveal to voters who is not qualified to be leader of nation)

• God has goal of righteousness in mind,
selected people to live with & shine righteousness,
Jesus has been teaching about righteousness,
community, against oppression.

The community that does not uphold Jesus’ teachings
will dry up! Removed!

The community that DOES uphold Jesus’ teachings
will produce fruit! Blessed!

• This event is also not @miraculous mountain moving
but again, warning & judgement @empty leadership.
Though the empty leadership may be powerful & pretty,
it is the righteous shall prevail.
Pray for righteous leadership.

• Our goal in mind: all the First Commandments you know…
be fruitful… no other gods… Love God with heart soul mind and strength.

Pray and plan to produce.

• Hymn 539 O Spirit of the Living God

Matthew 21:18-22 Common English Bible (CEB)

¹⁸ Early in the morning as Jesus was returning to the city, he was hungry. ¹⁹ He saw a fig tree along the road, but when he came to it, he found nothing except leaves. Then he said to it, “You’ll never again bear fruit!” The fig tree dried up at once.

²⁰ When the disciples saw it, they were amazed. “How did the fig tree dry up so fast?” they asked.

²¹ Jesus responded, “I assure you that if you have faith and don’t doubt, you will not only do what was done to the fig tree. You will even say to this mountain, ‘Be lifted up and thrown into the lake.’ And it will happen. ²² If you have faith, you will receive whatever you pray for.”

Isaiah 5:1-7   Common English Bible (CEB)

5 Let me sing for my loved one a love song for his vineyard.
       My loved one had a vineyard on a fertile hillside.
² He dug it, cleared away its stones, planted it with excellent vines, built a tower inside it, and dug out a wine vat in it. He expected it to grow good grapes—but it grew rotten grapes.
³ So now, you who live in Jerusalem, you people of Judah, judge between me and my vineyard:
⁴ What more was there to do for my vineyard that I haven’t done for it?
       When I expected it to grow good grapes, why did it grow rotten grapes?
⁵ Now let me tell you what I’m doing to my vineyard.
I’m removing its hedge, so it will be destroyed.
I’m breaking down its walls, so it will be trampled.
⁶ I’ll turn it into a ruin; it won’t be pruned or hoed, and thorns and thistles will grow up. I will command the clouds not to rain on it.
⁷ The vineyard of the Lord of heavenly forces is the house of Israel,
    and the people of Judah are the plantings in which God delighted.
God expected justice, but there was bloodshed;
    righteousness, but there was a cry of distress!