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+ + + 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. (Amen.)
The scene in today’s Gospel Reading is dramatic! Jesus had come into Jerusalem acclaimed as the King Who comes in the Name of the Lord (Luke 19:38). He entered the temple courts and drove out those who sold (Luke 19:45). And, He was teaching daily in the temple courts (Luke 19:47a). The chief priests and the scribes and principal men of the city were seeking to destroy Him, but they did not find anything that they could do, for all the people were hanging on His words (Luke 19:47b-48). One day, as Jesus was teaching the people in the temple courts and preaching the Gospel, the chief priests and the scribes with the elders came up and apparently interrupted Him by asking Him by what authority He did the things He did, or Who it was that gave Him the authority. Jesus answered them by asking them whether the baptism of John was from heaven or from man, and, when they answered that they did not know from where John’s baptism came, then Jesus said that He would not tell them by what authority He did the things He did (Luke 20:1-9). Then, as we heard in today’s Gospel Reading, Jesus told the people what is usually called “The Parable of the Wicked Tenants” (confer Matthew 21:41 KJV), tenants who did not give “The Lord of the Vineyard’s fruit”, essentially answering the Jewish leaders’ question about Who gave Jesus His authority (Plummer, ad loc Luke 20:9-19, p.458). And, after the Parable was ended, Jesus looked directly at the Jewish leaders and warned them of their being subject to judgment prophesied in the Old Testament (Psalm 118:22), but they nevertheless sought to lay hands on Him at that very hour, though they feared the people, and they tried to deliver Him up to the authority and jurisdiction of the governor.
The Parable is often taken as distinguishing between, on the one hand, the people of Israel as God’s vineyard, as in the Old Testament (for example, Isaiah 5:1-7), and, on the other hand, the Jewish leaders of the day, as those to whom God had entrusted the care of the vineyard, His Kingdom (confer Matthew 21:43). The Jewish leaders implicitly were not giving to God His “share” of the fruit of the vineyard. That fruit can be understood as thoughts, words, and deeds related to repentance (for example, Luke 3:8), arguably both the Jewish leaders’ own repentance and the repentance of the people under their care, who were repenting as they were led by the Holy Spirit through the preaching of John the Baptizer and Jesus. And, along with those who came before them, the Jewish leaders, in increasingly violent ways, had rejected the servants whom God had sent, and, based on their faulty reasoning, they were conspiring to kill God’s Son. They did not have a right relationship with the servants or the son and so, ultimately, they did not have a right relationship with the owner, or “lord”, of the vineyard.
By nature, neither do we have a right relationship with our Lord. You may not have a calling of spiritual oversight as I do, but we all are accountable to our Lord and subject to the judgment and temporal and eternal destruction described in terms of either our falling on the stone that the builders rejected and being broken to pieces or that stone’s falling on and crushing us. Whoever resists God’s saving purpose will be so destroyed! No matter our calling, God has entrusted to our care resources and relationships that we should use to His glory, but we do not always so use them. Having heard the preaching of God’s law and Gospel, each of us is responsible for whether or not we respond with sorrow over our sin, faith that trusts God to forgive our sin, and at least the desire to stop sinning. The Parable makes clear the Lord’s astounding patience, wishing that no one would perish (confer 2 Peter 3:9), including the Jewish leaders and each one of us. When we repent, then God forgives us. God forgives our sinful nature and all our sin—our sin of poor stewardship of what He has entrusted to our care, our sin of previously not repenting, or whatever our sin might be. God freely forgives us for Jesus’s sake.
In telling the Parable, Jesus makes clear that, as Isaac was the beloved son of Abraham (Genesis 22:2), He is the Beloved Son of God (Luke 3:22; 9:35, confer Matthew 17:5). Jesus is both true God in human flesh and the long-promised Messiah, the Christ, the Savior. As such, He was sent out of God’s great love for even the fallen world (John 3:16), to be rejected by the Jewish leaders, be killed under the authority and jurisdiction of the governor, and on the third day be raised, as He Himself had prophesied previously (for example, Luke 9:22; 18:31-33) and, at least in part, prophesied again in the Parable. The Stone the builders rejected is the cornerstone, as it were, of the new temple, the new people of God (Michael, CPR 26:2, 19). The Lord, Who, as we heard in today’s Old Testament Reading (Isaiah 43:16-21), both had delivered His people from slavery in Egypt and done a new thing by returning His people from exile in Babylon, does an even‑newer thing by delivering all sinners from slavery to sin. We who repent receive the benefits of His death on the cross, in the words of today’s Epistle Reading (Philippians 3:4b‑14), a righteousness from God that both comes through and depends on faith in Christ. He is the appointed heir of all things (Hebrews 1:2), and we are made fellow‑heirs with Christ, those who in some sense inherit with Him.
Holy Scripture points us especially to Holy Baptism as to how we are made fellow-heirs with Christ (for example, Galatians 3:29; 4:7). At the Font, by water and the Word, God makes us His true children. He works forgiveness of sins, rescues from death and the devil, and gives eternal salvation to all who believe His words and promises about Holy Baptism. Holy Scripture especially points us to eternal life as what we inherit (for example, Titus 3:7). Eternal life also comes with the forgiveness of sins in Holy Absolution and in the Holy Supper, where bread is the Body of Christ given for us and wine is the Blood of Christ shed for us. In all of these ways, the Lord, through His servants whom He sends, forgives and transforms us so that we give Him the fruit that He is due.
In the Parable, the man’s “letting out” his vineyard to tenants was in exchange for some of the fruit of the vineyard, either a fixed amount or a proportion or percentage, though the proportion or percentage is said to have been more subject to disputing and dishonesty. In our cases, we give back to our Lord a proportion or percentage of what He has entrusted to our care. We refer to first-fruits, a proportion or percentage not of what is left of our income but off the top of our income, even before taxes are taken out. Our portion or percentage may be one‑tenth, or less, or more. We are mindful of the congregation’s need, both for her called worker, not mistreating him, and for the current and future care of the building and property, things such as windows and pavement. We can give sacrificially, like St. Paul in today’s Epistle Reading, counting everything as loss because of the surpassing worth of knowing Christ and being willing to suffer the loss of all things and counting them as rubbish, in order that we may gain Christ and be found in Him. Our lives are not our own, and we are willing to suffer even as Christ did so that we may also be glorified with Him (Romans 8:17). God forgives us who repent when we fail to do those things, and ultimately He answers the petition of the Collect of the Day, evermore governing and preserving us in body and soul.
Though none quite like the dramatic scene in today’s Gospel Reading, there are other dramatic scenes in the verses that follow in St. Luke’s Divinely‑inspired Gospel account. For example, in the next passage, having just talked about giving to God the things that are God’s, Jesus says to give to the government the things that are the government’s (Luke 20:21-26). We do both. Especially, we give “The Lord of the Vineyard’s fruit”. And, we recognize, as the Lord described through Isaiah in today’s Old Testament Reading, that we are people He formed for Himself in order that we might declare His praise, now and forever.
Amen.
The peace of God, which passes all understanding, keep your hearts and minds in Christ Jesus. Amen.
+ + + Soli Deo Gloria + + +