Anglican Cursillo Tasmania

Open Hands

Exodus 20:1–2; Matthew 21:33–46

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Before the first "you shall not" in Exodus 20, there is an "I am": "I am the LORD your God, who brought you out of Egypt, out of the land of slavery." God does not begin with a demand. He begins with a rescue.

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That order matters. The commandments are not the entrance fee to God's favour; they are the habits of people who have already been set free. The Hebrew word for "slavery" in that verse shares a root with the word for worship. We are never rescued from serving into idleness, only from a harsh master to a generous One.

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In Matthew, Jesus tells of a landowner who plants a vineyard, builds a wall, a winepress and a tower, then trusts it to tenants. Everything is gift. All he asks is a share of the fruit at harvest. Yet the tenants forget they are tenants. They begin to treat the vineyard as theirs, and every request from the owner feels like a threat.

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It is a surprisingly easy mistake to make. My time. My money. My gifts. My church, and my way. When something given becomes something owned, we grip it, and a gripped hand cannot receive anything more.

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Jesus offers a different picture: the apprentice. The word "disciple" means learner, someone who attaches their life to a master in order to become like him. An apprentice knows the tools belong to the master and is simply glad to be trusted with them. And Jesus, the Son the tenants rejected, becomes the cornerstone: the one who did not grasp, but gave himself away. The fruit he asks of us is not something we manufacture by gritting our teeth. It grows naturally in branches that stay joined to the Vine.

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None of this happens alone. Apprentices learn beside others: in kitchens, over cups of tea, in the phone call that asks, "How are you really?" Ask who you might learn from, and who you might quietly take alongside you.

What have I begun to treat as mine? Where might God be asking for a share of the fruit: an hour, a gift, an apology, a welcome?