Church Staff
 
Rev David Diller preached “Double Vision” from Matthew 21:33-46. Double vision means looking at things again. Children depend on others & want everything for themselves. Teenagers want everything for their group to the exclusion of others. Adults want positive ways to care for all others, for they know “abundant life” means forgiving & giving.
People who come to faith as teenagers usually carry the attitude of us-verses-them superiority, self-righteousness & legalism into the Church. Like the Temple authorities in Jesus’ day, they hide behind religious orthodoxy, hoping that will justify their cold hearts & wicked behavior toward outsiders.
Jesus carries his message of God’s positive all-inclusive love from Galilee to Jerusalem. He expels the powerful “insiders.” Then he welcomes the blind, the lame, whom the religious leaders had neglected & excluded. Jesus tells the story of God, the adult landowner, & the teenage-minded tenants. He sums up by saying, “The Kingdom of God will be taken away from you (teenage-minded Temple insiders) & given to (mature outsiders) who will produce the fruits of the Kingdom.” God wants the adult qualities Paul calls the “fruits of the Spirit” in Gal 5:22, “love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, generosity, faithfulness, gentleness, & self-control.” When we live this way & our religious communities show these traits in our dealings with others, we bear fruit fit for the Kingdom of God.