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Episode Transcript
[00:00:00] Would you pray with me, Lord? Now open our ears and our hearts to hear your word. Draw us near unto you.
[00:00:08] Let the words of my mouth and the meditation of all of our hearts be acceptable in your sight, O Lord, our rock and our redeemer.
[00:00:18] Amen.
[00:00:20] Please be seated.
[00:00:26] Well, the parable that we heard today is full of surprises.
[00:00:32] I don't know if you noticed that or not. First of all, the very fact that it's a parable. And parables are to teach us about God's grace and his love and his mercy and about what Jesus has come to do. But it doesn't sound anything like grace and mercy at the end, does it?
[00:00:54] Sounds more like crushing and brokenness.
[00:01:01] Well, that's the truly amazing thing about this parable, isn't it? I mean, the actions of the tenants are just like the evil that we see in our world today and every day. In fact, the news is so full of evil, we kind of get numb to it.
[00:01:26] Another mass shooting.
[00:01:29] Another crazy trying to take over an airline and crash it into ground. Another peaceful or mostly peaceful protest.
[00:01:39] Some bloody coup in some other part of the world.
[00:01:44] Oh, change the channel.
[00:01:47] Same thing, same thing.
[00:01:53] And then who knows what kind of evil will be invented for tomorrow.
[00:02:01] Here's saddest of all we see. Evil grabs for power and the right and wealth.
[00:02:12] Even in the Christian church.
[00:02:18] Sinners live here, too.
[00:02:23] So those tenants of that vineyard, no surprise there.
[00:02:31] It's our world.
[00:02:33] But now, the master of the vineyard, his actions in that parable are truly the surprising part of today's story. The arrangement, you have to understand, it's very common. Wealthy landowners who lived in some far off country or land, they would rent their land out to someone, and those workers would take care of that land and grow something on it for a percentage of the harvest as their pay. So sending his servants to collect his share, well, completely expected. There's no surprise there. But instead of keeping their agreement with the master, the tenants, they took his servants and beat one and killed another and stoned a third one.
[00:03:28] Now here it comes.
[00:03:31] At that kind of point, the sheriff ought to have been called, right?
[00:03:39] Armed men, someone to storm the vineyard, arrest these jokers who have mistreated his servants and bring them to justice.
[00:03:49] Because abusing his servants, well, it's an insult to his honor and he's bound to deal with the matter somehow.
[00:04:09] Well, the question is, what will he do?
[00:04:18] Surprise, he sends more servants.
[00:04:25] Now, it's not what we would expect, but the master doesn't allow his enemies to dictate how he's going to respond.
[00:04:34] And he doesn't use his power in that way. He sends more servants.
[00:04:40] Yeah. The unspoken idea is that if he receives the fruit that he is owed this time, that'll be the end of it. All will be forgiven.
[00:04:50] And yet the tenants do it again.
[00:04:55] They think this master is weak.
[00:04:57] They think he's powerless. And they've got experience now. And so they're all emboldened to do the same thing again.
[00:05:07] To which we would say, enough is enough.
[00:05:11] The anger, the frustration, the rejection, the desire for justice, the will to act.
[00:05:22] But again, surprise.
[00:05:25] Instead of doing what he could do and had every right to do and what we would expect him to do, he does the most shocking thing of all.
[00:05:37] He sends his son alone, unarmed. And we would say, why?
[00:05:46] The English translation that we had, it says, they will respect my son.
[00:05:53] Perhaps a better rendering would be, they will be shamed by my son.
[00:06:00] See, the master hopes that his son's presence will cause them to understand his indescribable goodness, his patience, his kindness, his nobility.
[00:06:10] He doesn't really expect them to respect him, but, I mean.
[00:06:16] Go back and read it again. How could he? But he does hope to turn them with his grace.
[00:06:24] And again, the unspoken assumption is that if he just were to receive his share of the fruit, all would be forgiven this time as well.
[00:06:36] Now listen again to the text.
[00:06:39] When the tenants saw the son, they said to themselves, this is the heir. Come, let us kill him, and we'll have his inheritance. And they took him out, threw him out of the vineyard and killed him.
[00:06:56] Well, of course we're talking about Jesus.
[00:07:03] He's the Son sent into the world alone, unarmed, and was killed, crucified by us.
[00:07:19] But just as we kind of grow numb and used to the evil in the world around us, we can also grow numb to this incredible, indescribable love of God for us.
[00:07:33] God sent his Son for us. We just sang it in a hymn that really ought to be renamed for us, because we sang for us by wickedness betrayed for us in crowns of thorns arrayed he bore the shameful cross and death. For for us he gave his dying breath.
[00:08:00] Yeah, yeah. Jesus died on the cross for me.
[00:08:04] Yeah, yeah. My sins are forgiven. You preach it, Pastor.
[00:08:13] But today's lesson is there for us to think about the fruit that we produce, what kind of attendant you are.
[00:08:24] Yes, you throwing out or ignoring those parts of the word of God you don't like, or throwing Jesus out of the parts of your life that you think he doesn't necessarily belong. Like when you have your church life and you're not in church life or speaking and acting one way when you're here, but another way when you're outside of those doors, when you choose sin and do what you want instead of what your Father in heaven wants. When you take the indescribable goodness and love of God for granted.
[00:09:06] Our text again. So when therefore, the owner of the vineyard comes, what will he do to those tenants and the listeners around Jesus? I don't know if you caught this, but they kind of indict themselves when they say he will put those wretches in a miserable death and let out the vineyard to other tenants who will give him the fruits in their season.
[00:09:28] That's what we expect.
[00:09:31] There will be retribution, there will be justice.
[00:09:37] But not before Jesus has one more surprise for us.
[00:09:43] Notice he doesn't say, yep, that's right. That's exactly what's going to happen.
[00:09:50] No, he has a different answer to the question. He answers his own question this way. He said to them, have you never read the Scriptures? The stone that the builders rejected has become the cornerstone. This was the Lord's doing, and it's marvelous in our eyes.
[00:10:06] So in other words, there is still hope for these wicked tenants. The rejection of the Son is not the trigger for revenge or a miserable death, as they said, but the cornerstone of pardon.
[00:10:21] In Jesus you see the incredible, the indescribable love of your Father for you. In Jesus you are called to leave your sin, to leave your rebellion and return to Him. In Jesus, all is forgiven.
[00:10:41] All your sins, no matter how deep, no matter how broad, no matter how high, the forgiveness and love of God is greater. Yes, in Jesus, all is forgiven, all means all. That's all. All means.
[00:11:08] And as the text says, this is the Lord's doing.
[00:11:14] He didn't have to send His Son. He wanted to.
[00:11:18] And he knew what sending His Son into this world would mean.
[00:11:23] But he did it anyway, using the rejection, the death, for a marvelous good. The death of the Son meant life for the world, which is what the Master in the parable wants, isn't it?
[00:11:40] Maybe later on, in a quiet moment. Review Ezekiel 33, where God had Ezekiel write these words. As I live, declares the Lord, I have no pleasure in the death of the wicked, and that the wicked turn from his way and live. And that's how it is for you and for me. Jesus is the stone of stumbling that we heard about, that we hardened and miserable sinners we trip over, and we fall and be broken. And see and realize our sin and rebellion and its seriousness. And repent that we may be raised up with Jesus to a new life built on the cornerstone of the Father's indescribable, incredible love and forgiveness. A new life of faith where love and forgiveness and mercy that we receive produce the fruit of love and forgiveness and mercy in our own lives. A new life where sin and death and vengeance don't have the last word, but forgiveness and life mercy do.
[00:12:56] Of course, the alternative is mentioned there as well. To simply be crushed, crushed now and forever. And for what? What is worth in this world such a crushing.
[00:13:10] What pleasure, what honor, what possessions, what friendship, what position, what power?
[00:13:18] No, Paul was right. He said, I count everything as loss because of the surpassing worth of knowing Christ Jesus, my Lord. For his sake, I have suffered the loss of all things and count them as rubbish in order that I may gain Christ and be found in him.
[00:13:36] And that's the surprising love of God for you as well.
[00:13:42] And it is marvelous.
[00:13:47] The question for you today, is it marvelous in your eyes, Is Jesus worth tripping over for the surprising new life that he has for you?
[00:14:04] Think of it this way. Remember that sign that got put over the cross when Jesus was crucified?
[00:14:10] King of the Jews.
[00:14:14] It was intended to be. One final joke on this would be Messiah.
[00:14:19] But the thing is, this is the king.
[00:14:24] His cross is his coronation. He dies to untie the great knot that sin thrust upon his creation. He died to undo death, to deliver his people, all people, from our true enemy, death.
[00:14:49] Behold the king who reigns from a cross over what I'm going to call a backward kingdom.
[00:14:59] Surprise.
[00:15:01] Yeah. It is a backward kingdom. And isn't it marvelous where the king is punished for the sins of his subjects, where we don't get what we deserve, where what we reap is sown by another.
[00:15:16] And in this backward kingdom, death is no longer an enemy.
[00:15:22] For in the backward kingdom of our Lord Jesus, life reigns forever and ever and ever. Jesus triumphing over the grave, who lives and reigns to all eternity, he can never die again.
[00:15:38] And he gives that same gift to those that he has made his children.
[00:15:49] And then there's this.
[00:15:52] Jesus says that when he returns, when his kingdom comes in glory and this world is made new, reborn, when the last of God's enemies are judged, and when you and I and all creation are raised to life and clothed in a new body, when this world is reborn, Jesus says, all of us who have followed him shall rule and have dominion over God's new creation.
[00:16:19] Can you imagine in other words, it'll be like a return to paradise.
[00:16:31] You remember you read that creation, that God, that garden, that God handed over to Adam and Eve and charged them to rule and have dominion over all.
[00:16:48] Dear brothers and sisters of Trinity Lutheran Church, we who have entered the kingdom already by the washing and waters of regeneration, our baptisms live. Backward kingdom, lives after the pattern of our King Jesus.
[00:17:12] Like this, not to be served, but to serve.
[00:17:16] To actively seek out ways to serve the poor, the homeless, the troubled, the uneducated. The least of these, we see this example in our Lutheran Women Women's Missionary League. We see this exampled in our school here and in the many, many ways that people serve over and over here in this parish and in his kingdom, the world.
[00:17:57] The calling is to bless the world as we have been blessed, confess our sins, give of our time, our talents, our treasures.
[00:18:12] Embrace suffering and frailty as something that does not escape the view of our Lord and Savior.
[00:18:25] This is the way of the backward kingdom.
[00:18:29] And it is simply the fruit that the king who reigns from the cross is looking for.
[00:18:37] Marvelous, isn't it?
[00:18:43] Amen.