Text: Matthew 21:33-43
Date: October 18, 2020
Event: The Twentieth Sunday after Pentecost, Year A
Matthew 21:33–43 (EHV)
33“Listen to another parable. There was a landowner who planted a vineyard, put a fence around it, dug a winepress in it, and built a tower. He leased it out to some tenant farmers and went away on a journey. 34When the time approached to harvest the fruit, he sent his servants to the tenants to get his fruit. 35The tenant farmers seized his servants. They beat one, killed another, and stoned a third. 36Then the landowner sent even more servants than the first time. The tenant farmers treated them the same way. 37Finally, he sent his son to them. ‘They will respect my son,’ he said. 38But when the tenant farmers saw the son, they said to each other, ‘This is the heir. Come, let’s kill him and take his inheritance!’ 39They took him, threw him out of the vineyard, and killed him. 40So when the landowner comes, what will he do to those tenant farmers?”
41They told him, “He will bring those wretches to a wretched end. Then he will lease out the vineyard to other tenants who will give him his fruit when it is due.”
42Jesus said to them, “Have you never read in the Scriptures:
The stone the builders rejected has become the cornerstone.
This was the Lord’s doing, and it is marvelous in our eyes?
43“That is why I tell you the kingdom of God will be taken away from you and given to a people that produces its fruit.”
God has Given You His Kingdom! Live Like It!
We’re not always great at showing gratitude on our own, right? Children have to be taught from a young age to say “Thank you!” when given a gift or when someone does something kind for them. Adults need to remember to express their gratitude to someone in an appropriate way lest they show themselves to be ungrateful and thoughtless—or at least give that impression about themselves.
But it’s not just a social norm to show gratitude, right? There is—or should be—a true desire in each of us to thank someone when they’ve done something for us, big or small. Whether it was something expected or unexpected doesn’t matter. If what happened is as routine as someone making or buying dinner or as unexpected as someone sweeping in out of the blue to help us with a problem we thought had no solution, we want to show by words and actions that we are thankful for what that person did for us.
This principle is no more clear than when we think of our relationship with God. He has given us everything—life, talents, forgiveness, and eternal life. We would certainly want to show our gratitude to him! And yet, sometimes we don’t, right? Sometimes we live our lives ignoring and forgetting what God has done and is continuing to do for us. Sometimes our lives reflect active animosity and contempt for God and his will. And it’s these troubling attitudes that Jesus has in mind with our parable for this morning.
We are once again in the midst of Holy Week, Jesus’ final run of teaching before he spends time with his disciples ahead of his death and subsequent resurrection. This parable, in fact, takes place immediately after the parable of the two sons we spent time on last week and evolves the point that Jesus made there. In last week’s parable, Jesus urged everyone toward repentance—whether you loved sin or thought you had no sin.
Today’s parable is again urging people to listen to the call of God and to live with a proper response to it. Jesus sets up a landowner who goes to an extraordinary amount of work to setup a beautiful place for people to live and work: There was a landowner who planted a vineyard, put a fence around it, dug a winepress in it, and built a tower. There is nothing left to do, nothing to provide, no provisions that need to be set in place. Everything is done. And then tenant farmers come in to live and work.
The expectations of the tenant farmers is that they work and enjoy what is prepared, but they are also expected to give the landowner a portion of the crop. It is made very clear very quickly that they are unwilling to do that. When the landowner sends his servants to collect what is his, the farmers abuse and kill them, even up to and including the landowner’s own son! They were unwilling to give the fruit of the harvest to the one to whom it was owed, they waged war against that landowner, and thought themselves to be winning the day. The experts in the law are right on when they predict what the outcome will be for those farmers: “He will bring those wretches to a wretched end. Then he will lease out the vineyard to other tenants who will give him his fruit when it is due.”
Here, Jesus is pleading with the religious leaders. God had given them everything! He had been with them since the time he first called Abraham more than 2,000 years before Jesus told this parable! He had made them his special people. And yet, they refused to listen to him. They refused to live a life of humble repentance and trust in him. They refused to acknowledge him as the giver of everything good and instead desired to take credit for it all themselves. This had led to spiritual disaster and would eventually lead to eternal disaster—a wretched end. Jesus does not want that for them, but he warns them that’s what they’re doing. By rejecting him as the Savior they are rejecting the cornerstone of God’s plan of salvation. Without Jesus, they have no hope of eternal life. Jesus sternly warns them that, despite being God’s chosen people, “the kingdom of God will be taken away from you and given to a people that produces its fruit.”
There’s a lot of people in our lives who we see fulfilling the role of the tenant farmers, right? People that love the world and life around them but pay no heed to God. People who love and even worship the creation but ignore or actively reject anything to do with the Creator. People who live their lives assuming they can have it all while ignoring the one thing that is truly needful.
But I don’t want you thinking about any of those people today. I want you to look soberly at yourself and your life. Where are you the tenant farmer? Where are you refusing to bear the fruit of the kingdom of God? Where are you not living like God has given you his kingdom?
Let’s take just a moment to review what God has done for us. He hasn’t planted and vineyard and built a tower; he’s done so, so much more. Luther outlined the physical and spiritual blessings that God gives well in his explanations to the three articles of the Apostles’ Creed: I believe that God created me and all that exists, and that he gave me my body and soul, eyes, ears, and all my members, my mind and all my abilities.... [He] preserves me by richly and daily providing clothing and shoes, food and drink, property and home, spouse and children, land, cattle, and all I own, and all I need to keep my body and life. God also preserves me by defending me against all danger, guarding and protecting me from all evil.... [Jesus] has redeemed me, a lost and condemned creature, purchased and won me from all sins, from death, and from the power of the devil, not with gold or silver but with his holy, precious blood and with his innocent suffering and death. All this he did that I should be his own, and live under him in his kingdom, and serve him in everlasting righteousness, innocence, and blessedness, just as he has risen from death and lives and rules eternally.... [The Holy Spirit] has called me by the gospel, enlightened me with his gifts, sanctified and kept me in the true faith. In the same way he calls, gathers, enlightens, and sanctifies the whole Christian church on earth, and keeps it with Jesus Christ in the one true faith. In this Christian church he daily and fully forgives all sins to me and all believers. On the Last Day he will raise me and all the dead and give eternal life to me and all believers in Christ. (SC Creed I, II, III)
That’s a lot, isn’t? Again, life, talents, forgiveness, eternal life, even the faith to trust it all are gifts from God. It’s more than we can even comprehend. But, do we live each day, each moment, thanking God for that? Does our life reflect a joyful appreciation for all that God has done, or does it tend to look more like the tenant farmers, annoyed that God would butt in on our lives, dictating what we should or should not do? Are we happy to honor God with our thoughts, words, and actions, or only do so begrudgingly or even refuse to do it at times?
Unlike the farmers who had a certain season to bring the crop to the landowner, our whole lives are to be one of producing fruit to the God who loves us and saved us. Yet, we too fight the war against God. We ignore the messengers he sends—be it avoiding worship, Bible study, or home devotions. Or even if we do have those things regularly in our lives, we dismiss what they say or apply it to others rather than to us.
What’s the end result of a constant war and refusal to produce the fruit in keeping with repentance? A wretched end. When we let sin rule our hearts, actions, or words, we are, like the leaders of Jesus’ day, rejecting the cornerstone of God’s plan of salvation. And it’s not always overt to the world’s point of view that this is happening. It might express itself in big things or little things. Staying away from church or being content to let it hit your ears but not change your heart. Cheating on your spouse or using pornography and allowing untamed lustful thoughts. Physically hurting other people or harboring and fostering grudges in your heart. Abandoning your family or being short in responses to your spouse or children. None of these have any place in the life of a Christian.
My dear brothers and sisters, God has given you his kingdom! Live like it! Bring every sin, every part of your life that is not bringing the fruit to God that he should receive and lay it at the foot of the cross. Because there Jesus died to pay for even those sins. You are forgiven, fully restored, not because of anything you’ve done but because of the love that God has shown to you—love that you did not deserve.
You and I stand today in the midst of the vineyard, newly planted and fortified. We’ve been given everything physically and spiritually by God. So what is our goal moving forward? In every interaction, everything you do, every conversation you have, ask yourself, “How can I honor and thank God with this moment? How can I let God’s love and light shine in how I conduct myself? How can I prioritize my Savior over what I would naturally like to do or how I might normally react?”
Don’t let laziness or selfishness turn you into one of the tenant farmers. Live like the child of God, the heir of God, the dearly-loved by God that you are. And do it day by day, hour by hour, minute by minute, not to earn his favor and forgiveness but to thank him because he’s already given his favor and forgiveness to you, freely and completely. He continues to call, correct, and love us through Word and sacrament. Let us enjoy that, share in that, and encourage each other in that together! Amen.
