Listen to the sermon with the player below, or, download the audio.
+ + + In Nomine Jesu + + +
Please join me in prayer: May the words of my mouth and the meditations of our hearts be pleasing in your sight, O Lord, our Rock and our Redeemer. Amen.
Dear Brothers and Sisters in Christ,
Grace to you and peace from God our Father and from the Lord Jesus Christ.
Here in East Texas, vineyards and their leasing arrangements may not be a part of our daily life, but most of us probably still know something about “letting out” or otherwise leasing land and things such as the mineral rights that go with the land. That knowledge can help us understand “The Parable of the Wicked Tenants” that Jesus teaches in today’s Gospel Reading, but we have to be careful not to apply the parable to ourselves wrongly. As we this morning consider “The Wicked Tenants and the Rejected Cornerstone”, we instead will come to realize how the warning Jesus spoke to the Jewish leaders applies to us properly.
“One day, as Jesus was teaching the people in the temple and preaching the Gospel, the chief priests and the scribes with the elders came up and” asked Jesus to tell them by whose authority He did things—things such as cleanse the Temple, as He had done earlier that week after entering Jerusalem to waving palm branches and the shouts of Psalm 118. Jesus responded by asking those Jewish leaders whether John the Baptizer’s authority was from heaven or from man, and, when they answered that they did not know, Jesus told them that neither would He tell them by what authority He did the things He did. (Luke 19:28-20:8) And then, with the Jewish leaders still standing right there, Jesus told the people “The Parable of the Wicked Tenants”. Reaction to that parable led Jesus to quote and interpret Psalm 118’s statement about the Rejected Cornerstone. The Jewish leaders then responded to that warning by further conspiring to have Jesus killed, but how do we respond to that warning?
Our response to the Rejected Cornerstone is really the key question, since the Jewish leaders are not exactly a part of our daily life here in East Texas. “The Parable of the Wicked Tenants” applies chiefly to them and to the others to whom the care of the vineyard has been given. (You can hear more about that aspect of the parable if you come to the special Divine Service here at 9:30 Thursday morning!) The Jewish leaders as tenants had essentially forgotten that the vineyard of Israel was God’s and that they were only its caretakers. They not only ignored God’s authority delegated to the prophets as servants God sent to them, but the Jewish leaders as tenants also beat those servants, treated them shamefully, wounded them, and sent them away empty‑handed. Their killing the Lord of the Vineyard’s Beloved Son in an attempt to gain the inheritance for themselves would lead to the inevitable result of the Lord of the Vineyard’s coming and destroying them and His giving the vineyard to others, despite the wish or prayer of someone in the crowd. In an intense, dramatic moment, Jesus looked directly at the Jewish leaders and asked rhetorically about the meaning of the Stone that the builders rejected becoming the cornerstone, and, drawing on the Old Testament (Isaiah 8:14-15; Daniel 3:34-35; 44-45), Jesus indicated that, either actively or passively, one’s destruction would result unless one believes in that Rejected Cornerstone.
You to whom the care of the vineyard has not been entrusted as it was to the Jewish leaders do not risk losing the care of the vineyard, having it given to others, as did the wicked tenants. However, we all individually are at risk of either falling on the Rejected Cornerstone and being broken to pieces or having the Rejected Cornerstone fall on us and crush us. Such “falling” is not having the right relationship with the Rejected Cornerstone, a right relationship that begins by recognizing we are all sinful by nature and deserve death now and for eternity and continues by believing in Him (Isaiah 28:16). Anyone who does not turn in sorrow from their sin, believe God will forgive their sin for the sake of that Rejected Cornerstone, and want to do better—anyone who does not so repent and believe—will either fall on that Stone or have Him fall on them. Those who do repent and believe will not be broken to pieces or crushed but rise and live eternally.
Earlier in St. Luke’s divinely‑inspired Gospel account is Simeon’s prophecy to Mary, Jesus’s mother, that Jesus was appointed for the falling and rising of many in Israel (Luke 2:34). As God the Father made clear at Jesus’s Baptism and Transfiguration, Jesus is His Beloved Son (Luke 3:22; Matthew 17:5). As in the parable, the Lord sent His Beloved Son as a gracious last attempt to win people over. The Jewish leaders may have plotted His death thinking His inheritance would be theirs and tried to catch Him in something He said about paying taxes to Caesar, but the governor saw through their charges about taxes as lies (Luke 23:1-4), and Jesus gave Himself up to death on the cross so that He could save us from our sins. From His first personal prophecy of His Passion, Jesus spoke of being the Rejected Cornerstone (Luke 9:22), but that rejection leading to His death and His subsequent resurrection were prophesied long before. Jesus fulfilled all such prophecy, even down to the parable’s detail about the Beloved Son dying outside the vineyard (Hebrews 13:12-13). When you and I individually believe that Jesus died and rose again for us, God forgives our sins and, as today’s Epistle Reading described, gives us the righteousness that comes from Him by faith in Jesus (Philippians 3:8-14).
God forgives our sins and gives us the righteousness that comes from Him by faith in Jesus through His Word and Sacraments. The Jewish leaders refused to be baptized and so were not in a right relationship with the Rejected Cornerstone. For most of us, Baptism is where we know God made us His children. St. Paul writes to Titus that we are saved by this washing of regeneration and renewal of the Holy Spirit so that we might become heirs according to the hope of eternal life (Titus 3:5-7), what St. Paul elsewhere calls “fellow”, “joint”, or “co-heirs” with Christ, members of the same body (Ephesians 3:6). The Jewish leaders lost their stewardship of the vineyard, but the Lord of the Vineyard gave it to others, who now are faithful stewards of the mysteries of God (1 Corinthians 4:1)—not only Baptism, but also preaching, Holy Absolution, and the Sacrament of the Altar, where bread that is Christ’s body and wine that is His blood give us forgiveness of sins, life, and salvation. In these ways God forgives our sins and gives us the righteousness that comes from Him by faith in Jesus.
In these ways God forgives our sins and gives us the righteousness that comes from Him by faith in Jesus, but in these ways God also grows His Church. Today’s Old Testament Reading describes both God’s destroying and His making alive, and it describes His forming for Himself a people to declare His praise (Isaiah 43:16-21). Whether the figure of speech for the Church is a building founded or topped with Christ, or whether the figure of speech for the Church is a body headed by Christ, Christ is what matters. We who repent and believe are forgiven and made righteous in Him. We do not fall on Him, as the Rejected Cornerstone, nor does He fall on us. We will still sin, but we live every day with repentance and faith and so God forgives our sin in Him. As “fellow-heirs” we suffer with Him in order that we may also be glorified with Him (Romans 8:17), and that day of our full and final glorification is coming.
This morning we have been careful not wrongly to apply “The Parable of the Wicked Tenants” to ourselves but instead to realize how the warning of “The Rejected Cornerstone” properly applies to us. You are not like the Jewish leaders, at risk of losing your stewardship of the Lord’s vineyard, but you and I by nature are at risk for falling on the Rejected Cornerstone or having it fall on us. We thank and praise God that He has called us to repentance and faith and through His Word and Sacrament preserves us in that state of grace, also growing His Church that we might declare His praise, both now and for eternity.
Amen.
The peace of God, which passes all understanding, keep your hearts and minds in Christ Jesus. Amen.
+ + + Soli Deo Gloria + + +