Historic First Lutheran Church of Pasadena

In the Name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, Amen.

My all-time favorite singer, Mr. Jimmy Buffett, sings a song called “Gypsies in the Palace.” It’s an old-fashioned ballad type of song that tells a story. It starts off like this, “In days of old, when knights were bold and journeyed from their castles, trusty men were left behind. Knights needed not the hassles. They helped themselves to pig and peach and drank from the King’s own chalice. Oh, it was a stirring sight, these gypsies in the palace.” From that Old English type of ballad, the song goes on to tell the story about two guys who were hired to watch a house while their boss traveled. During their stay, they treated his house as their own. They drank all his liquor. They ate all his food. They even broke into his locked closet to get at “the good stuff” he had carefully hidden away to keep it out of their reach. They threw a loud party for lots of people, until the telephone rang. The telephone call informed them that their boss was coming home early. Suddenly the scramble was on to get everything back the way it was before he left.

Maybe it’s because I have been getting ready for my vacation just a month from now and have been playing a lot of Jimmy Buffet lately, as always, but when I read our three Scripture readings for today, I had to laugh and say to myself, “These are talking about gypsies in the palace.” Although he’d be horrified to hear this speculation, maybe our three Scripture readings today are exactly where good old Jimmy got inspired for his song.

Jesus’ parable today, which picks up a thought originally spoken by the Prophet Isaiah [Isaiah 5:1-7], tells the story about a perfect vineyard that had been entrusted to some share-croppers. They lived on the property . They worked the fields. Once a year, at harvest time, the owner of the vineyard would want his share of the harvest in lieu of monthly rent. For whatever reason, after many years of that being the standard expectation, suddenly one year the share-croppers decided they no longer liked that arrangement. They, after all, were the ones watching out for the vineyard. They were the ones doing all the work. They thought to themselves, “Besides his simple ownership of the property, what entitles the landowner to a share of our labor? Who does he think he is?” So when the collection agents were sent to them that year, they got run off quicker than federal agents from a house in the hill country of Tennessee during Prohibition.

Do you see what I mean? They had become gypsies in the palace. They had forgotten one basic, essential point. That basic, essential point was that they vineyard was not theirs. They had no legal right to the property. They had no legal right to unilaterally change the terms of the contract the landowner had negotiated with them. For all intents and purposes, they basically stole this land and everything it produced
and claimed it as their own

Does that sound familiar? According to St. Paul [Philippians 3:4-14], it probably should sound familiar because it tends to be a common human fault.

St. Paul testified that it was a failing among the Jewish people. They were God’s chosen people. In fact, God had chosen them multiple times. God had hand-sculpted Adam and Eve, making them His own people. God would again choose their posterity as He rescued Noah and family on the Ark. Then there was Abraham and the promise that his descendants would be as numerous as the stars in the night sky. Through Moses, the children of God were led out of their Egyptian slavery and given the 10 Commandments. God gave His children the Promised Land, that land of milk and honey, driving out enemy nations before their very eyes. God seated David and Solomon on the Throne of Israel, promising, through them, a righteous King Who would reign forever. Over and over again God spoke that promise, renewing in His mind and in their minds His great love for them, but on that silent and holy night as the stars twinkled over Bethlehem and a baby was born – the Baby – the Messiah – the King – God’s own chosen people mainly missed it. As St. John conveys, “He came to that which was His own, but His own did not receive Him” [John 1:11]. They had become Gypsies in the Palace. They took what was God’s and claimed it as their very own.

St. Paul saw that in his own life, the confidence he placed in his own flesh, the confidence he placed in his own accomplishments, the confidence that soon had no place for his landowner, Who, in the end, just as predicted in Jesus’ parable, sent His own Son to collect what was rightfully His. Even the Son was beaten and killed, the thought being that if the heir to the property was dead the landowner would have no one to leave the land to except them, the squatters on the property, the Gypsies in the Palace. What they didn’t anticipate was the righteous anger and vengeance of the property owner, Who, in the Words of Jesus, “will bring those wretches to a wretched end and rent the vineyard to other tenants” [Matthew 21:41].

By God’s grace, Paul was rescued from that dangerous mindset before it was too late. His blue-blooded credentials meant nothing to God. His human achievements, admirable as they were, meant nothing to God. By God’s grace, God’s mindset became Paul’s mindset, especially visible when Paul would proclaim that he now considers all that “rubbish” compared with knowing Jesus Christ, His Lord [Philippians 3:7], He Who owns him, not in an evil, controlling way, but Who owns him in order to bless him and prosper him, He Who freely gives him all things.

Are you a gypsy in the palace? Am I a gypsy in the palace? Have we claimed for ourselves the ownership of things that are God’s? When God tells us to “Go,” do we stay put? When God tells us to read, mark and inwardly digest His Holy Word, do we set our Bibles as a pretty centerpieces on our coffee tables or night stands? When God invites us to spend time with Him every Sunday morning, do we inform Him that we have other things that need to be done? When God calls us by name and whispers in our ear that He needs us in His service, do we whisper back that we’re already over-committed? When God reminds us that all that we are and all that we have belongs to Him, do we remind Him how much we’ve worked for everything we have and that it is our names that are on those deeds and titles and ownership papers? Are we gypsies in the palace?

I think we are, each of us to a different degree and over different issues. However, as St. Paul discovered, our human weaknesses, our corrupted mindset, our sinful claims of illegal ownership are not greater than God’s grace. While His righteous anger and vengeance burns against “the wretched gypsies” who think it’s all about them, God, in Jesus, became one like us. He entered our existence. He tabernacled among us. He took all our gypsy thoughts and gypsy lives in His hands and gave them back to God as He suffered and died and rose again for you and for me, to remind us that we are God’s, that we belong to Him, that He gives us all that He has, and, through the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ, we will one day become true gypsies in the palace, His Heavenly Palace which He gives us in Jesus Christ.

In the Name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, Amen.

Pastor Christopher Schaar
Historic First Lutheran Church of Pasadena