The Parable of the Wicked Servants

[00:00:01] Grace, mercy, and peace be to you from God our Father, and from our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ. Amen. [00:00:10] We have multiple images in our readings this morning that coalesce. They all kind of fit together. They work together. [00:00:20] And we're going to kind of try and make that happen and see if it can happen naturally. [00:00:27] Let's start off with the gospel reading and the vineyard. So the Master has a vineyard. Now, throughout the Old Testament, God called Israel his vineyard. [00:00:39] In an image like this, he talks about Israel as a vineyard that he's cultivating. [00:00:46] So his people are plants that he's growing. So we'll just point out in Isaiah, God's talking about sending water in the wilderness, which makes plants grow. Okay, so we've got this sort of growth theme going on. And what does God want? He wants. [00:01:03] Well, he wants lush growth, right? And not just that, but fruitful growth that brings us all the way back to the Garden of Eden. I mean, Eden, where his people were whole and. And healthy and happy, where they were just as God had created them, living in obedience to him in a fruitful orchard. Not just a garden, but an orchard. [00:01:35] So while here in the Gospel reading, he's speaking to the religious leaders of Israel. The. The leaders who are supposed to be cultivating this well, this vineyard, this fruit, they're supposed to be making the vines fruitful, helping them to be fruitful, pruning and doing whatever else you would do in a vineyard to make the grapes be healthy. [00:02:05] But they're not. They're not doing the right thing. And so the. [00:02:09] Well, they won't give him any fruit. It's like they're keeping the fruit for themselves. So the Master sends servants and they kill the servants. [00:02:16] And so anybody hearing Jesus say this then knew Israel's the vineyard. They knew that. And then they heard that the leaders of the vineyard were the tenants of the vineyard were killing the ones sent by God to the vineyard, to Israel. And they heard the prophets, the prophets who were killed for speaking God's word or severely mistreated. You know, Jeremiah comes to mind. He's persecuted, thrown into a pit. And then essentially, when the Babylonians come and destroy Jerusalem, they save Jeremiah from his own people. All right? So the religious leaders, they hear Jesus question, so what then will the owner of the vineyard do to them? [00:03:16] Now that the tenants have killed his messengers and now his beloved son, what do you think that the master of the vineyard's going to do to them? [00:03:25] Now the tenants are thinking, we killed his messengers, we killed his son. Now maybe he'll give us the vineyard, which is completely illogical. You know, it's silly for them to be thinking that way. [00:03:43] But when the religious leaders hear the answer, they're surprised. What then will the owner of the vineyard do to them? He will come and destroy those tenants and give the vineyard to others. Now, a perfectly natural reaction, right? But listen to the reaction of Jesus listeners when they heard this. They said, surely not. [00:04:08] They're surprised because they're the religious leaders, they're the tenants that Jesus is talking about. [00:04:15] And they're thinking, oh no, no, no, surely not. But he looked at them directly and said to them, what then is this that is written? The stone that the builders rejected has become the cornerstone. Everyone who falls on that stone will be broken to pieces. And when it falls on anyone, it will crush him. [00:04:36] This gets into some other imagery, but Jesus has come and, well, you want to be on Jesus side. You want to be built on Jesus, not trying to build apart from him. [00:04:54] Alright, so we've got the vineyard and God. Jesus has come to make the vineyard fruitful. Jesus has come for the sake of the vineyard. [00:05:05] Jesus has come to restore paradise. [00:05:10] Paradise is a Greek word that means like an orchard. It's looking back to Eden. Think of Jesus on the cross, saying to the criminal next to him, who believes in him. Today you will be with me in paradise. [00:05:26] Today you'll be with me in Eden. Essentially. [00:05:32] So all of this, this is all well, so let's just look at Isaiah real quick here. [00:05:41] Remember not the former things, nor consider the things of old. Behold, I am doing a new thing now. It springs forth. Do you not perceive it? I will make a way in the wilderness and rivers in the desert. [00:05:54] There will be fruit. Finally, finally the vineyard of Israel will be fruitful. Eden will spring up again, streams in the wilderness. [00:06:05] This is what God is working. [00:06:08] So all of this is. It's like a path home. [00:06:12] It's a way home for God's human creatures. We who left Eden and went down into the wilderness, we who left the mountaintop and went down, fell into sin, left God. [00:06:29] We are being restored through Jesus Christ to Eden, to paradise. Today you will be with me in paradise. [00:06:38] So this is really like a journey. We can think of this like a journey. That's where we're bringing in Philippians 3. This is all kind of headed toward somewhere. We'll get there. So Philippians 3, Paul's talking about having left everything else. It's like there's one goal and that's to. That's in Jesus Christ. Like, forget Everything for the sake of Christ, just to know the power of his resurrection and then to seek to be found in him, not having a righteousness from something else, like Adam and Eve wanted, going out into the wilderness and following their own desires and looking for paradise somewhere else. But to be found in Christ, having the righteousness that comes through faith, knowing the power of his resurrection, becoming like him in his sufferings, so that by any means possible, I may attain the resurrection from the dead. Then he uses traveling imagery to flesh that out. He says, I'm not there yet. [00:07:48] Not that I've already obtained this or am already perfect. But I press on to make it my own, because Christ Jesus has made me his own brothers. I do not consider that I have made it my own. But one thing I do, forgetting what lies behind and straining forward to what lies ahead. I press on toward the goal for the prize of the upward call of God in Christ Jesus. [00:08:16] This journey. Forgetting what lies behind, counting everything else as loss for the sake of knowing Christ. Forgetting what lies behind and straining forward to what lies ahead. Namely, the back of Jesus as we follow him. [00:08:32] Namely, the goal of our journey, paradise to which we're returning Eden, to which we're returning God's family. [00:08:42] This journey that we're on is everything. Forget what lies behind, strain forward to what lies ahead. Namely, we press on toward the goal for the prize of the upward call of God in Christ Jesus. Jesus Christ is leading us on an upward journey, a journey home. [00:09:07] Now, one of the reasons that I wanted to kind of take this winding path to this image, okay, we're journeying home to paradise is Haven's name. Alright? This is, you know, that's what a haven is. It's like, it's the goal of a journey for a ship specifically. I mean, there are probably lots of ways you can use the word haven, but the way I'm thinking of it is a ship at sea, right? Ship at sea is, well, is vulnerable to storms and danger and shipwreck. What that ship needs is to arrive safely at a haven in a protected space. [00:09:56] We all are like ships. We're like ships journeying somewhere. [00:10:04] We're not just journeying anywhere. [00:10:08] And it's a good image for faith because we can be aimless in our journeying. We're all journeying somewhere. We can be aimless and end up with shipwreck. [00:10:21] We can have an aim, a goal. And our goal is, well, is the haven. It's to be led home. Home to paradise, to safety, to fruitful fruitfulness. This is the journey that Jesus is leading us on. And Haven has joined this journey. Haven bears the name of the goal, what Jesus Christ has for her. Haven has just begun her journey here. Having been born pretty recently, she's real young, and there's a lot left that will happen in her life. A lot more will be thrown at her. [00:11:04] There will be storms and difficulty. There will be challenges. [00:11:10] How is she going to face those challenges? What will be taken away from Haven throughout her life? Just as you and I experience loss, hardship, sooner or later, we face our own mortality. [00:11:25] We have Jesus Christ beside us who says to us, today, you will be with me in paradise. [00:11:32] You will reach the haven following me. Our journey is not aimless. [00:11:38] We know our goal. [00:11:40] We strive for the goal of the upward call, the prize of the upward call of God in Christ Jesus. We have Jesus in front of us. We fix our eyes on him, the author and perfecter of our faith, who went before us, who for the joy set before him, endured the cross, the loss of all things, despising the shame, and is seated at the right hand, the throne of God. [00:12:06] Now, she doesn't travel alone. [00:12:11] We are all traveling together. [00:12:14] This is why we come together. [00:12:17] This is why we share our life together. [00:12:20] It's because we don't make the journey alone. We are together, built on Christ, the cornerstone. And Haven is too. So she's just starting this journey through the wilderness, back to paradise, following Jesus Christ, but she's nestled in among all of us. [00:12:38] You know, we all answered a bunch of questions for her earlier in the service here, right before her baptism. And it seems a little funny. Why doesn't she just answer for herself, you know, and of course she can't answer for herself. So then why do we ask the questions? [00:12:57] And it's because her journey is not a journey that she takes alone. She's. She's part of us. [00:13:04] She's part of our family. [00:13:06] So we're all together as her spiritual family, as the body of Christ, as God's family. Together. We're all raising her up in the faith, supporting her parents. [00:13:21] She is nestled into the group, into Christ's body. [00:13:26] And so baptism is just. It's just the beginning of her life in Christ with all of us, her life in Christ, hearing God's word and receiving his gifts. Her faith isn't formed maybe like yours is yet. I mean, she's got a lot to learn and will be growing throughout her life as she encounters challenges and as Christ brings her through the storm, as Christians leads her. And as you all speak, God's word to her, teach her in Sunday school, ask her how school's going in 10 years, you know, but in our life together, the faith that we laid out, asking her those questions. Do you believe in God, the Father Almighty, maker of heaven and earth? That faith is the faith that. That we all live in. It's what makes us alive together. It's what we all hold to together and marinate in as we consider God and all he's done for us. And it's the faith that Haven's going to grow up in among us. [00:14:39] For each one of us baptized into Christ, we have the same journey. We have the same goal. [00:14:49] We experience the same losses. I mean, with, you know, some variety, individual experiences. [00:14:58] But we're on the same journey through the wilderness together. And we have the same destination, paradise. So that means a lot about our life together. What I was just describing for Haven, that's true for each one of you. It's true for me. I need you. I need you to sing hymns like you mean it. You know, to sing God's word so that I hear you and go, yeah, this is real. Thank God. [00:15:27] I need to see your faith. You need to see my faith. We need to together speak God's word to one another and live in Christ and to love one another, to embody him, for one another, to embody him together. In Jesus name, Amen.