+ Lent 5 – April 7, 2019 +
Beautiful Savior Lutheran, Milton
Series C: Isaiah 43:16-21; Philippians 3:8-14; Luke 20:9-20
In the Name of the Father and of the + Son and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.
Anyone who’s spent time around children knows they love play different parts from stories they watch or read, or pretend to be moms, dads, teachers, or police officers. They play house or church echoing things we’ve said or done. They pretend to be Moana sailing beyond the reef to find Maui, even if it’s just a wheelbarrow in the back yard.
In other words, they want to see themselves in the story.
When it comes to Jesus’ parables, we do the same thing. We try to find ourselves in the story. We identify with the younger or older son, or both when we hear the parable of the prodigal son. We see ourselves as the lost sheep that Jesus our Good Shepherd finds and brings home. We are the pearl buried in the field for whom Jesus gives all he has to buy the field and find us.
Most of the time, it’s easy to find our place in Jesus’ parables. But when we hear the parable of the wicked tenants in Luke 20, this proves to be more challenging. Where do we find ourselves in a parable that Jesus delivers to the religious leaders of his day?
We know the Pharisees saw and heard themselves in this parable, just as Jesus intended them to. Only they didn’t like what they heard.
On the one hand, it’s a parable about the salvation history of Israel; about God’s pursuing, persistent, and patient love for his people. And yet, on the other, it’s a tragic story of rejection, rebellion, and unbelief.
A man planted a vineyard and let it out to tenant farmers who were supposed to tend it and give a share of the harvest. He sent a servant to collect, and he was beaten and sent away empty-handed. He sent another, and he was mocked and scorned and sent away empty-handed too. He sent a third, and they wounded him and cast him out. Finally, he sent his son. “His beloved son.” And they took one look at the son and said, “This is the heir. Let’s kill him and the inheritance will be ours.” And they threw him out of the vineyard, and they killed him.
It's no accident Jesus tells this parable during Holy Week. Like a raging river next to a levee, Jesus’ confrontation with the religious leaders has been swelling for years now. As the week inches towards the Passover and Good Friday, the religious leaders’ unbelief and rejection of Jesus reaches flood stage and crests. As Jesus proclaims this parable he knows the dam is about to burst. Rejection, mockery, pain, along with sin and death will pour over him like Noah’s flood. Jesus will be rejected, thrown out of the vineyard, and killed, just as he promised.
The Pharisees were right. Jesus spoke this parable against them. What then will the owner of the vineyard do to them? He will come and destroy those tenants and give the vineyard to others.”
To the religious leaders this was a word of judgment. A warning. A call to repentance.
Jesus was against them, but in order to bring them abandon their rejection of him, and instead find redemption and rescue. Jesus only brings down the gavel on those who foolishly reject the free salvation Jesus brings thinking we are saved based on our own goodness or badness, our works and our bookkeeping. For the world is saved only by Jesus’ passion, death, and resurrection, not by any of the devices of unbelief that the Pharisees or we take refuge in.
And so in a grand paradox, Jesus comes not to judge but to be judged in our place, and this is precisely why he’s rejected. Yet, in his rejection by the religious leaders, he dies for all, even those who rejected him.
“‘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.”
This is what the Pharisees missed. There’s no way around Christ the cornerstone. Either you fall on Jesus in broken hearted, empty handed, beggarly repentance or you get crushed by the weight of your own salvation crashing down against the resistance of your own self-justification. Either way, you’re going to be broken when you encounter Jesus.
And that brings us back to the question we started with. Where do we find ourselves in this parable? What does a parable directed against Israel’s religious leaders in the 1stcentury have to say to us in the 21stcentury?
Quite a bit, in fact. For Jesus’ parable is a reminder of who we are and why we are here. It’s not my church. It’s not your church. We are the Lord’s church, his vineyard. He’s the vineyard owner; we’re simply tenant farmers. Stewards of God’s abundant gifts in all our callings in life: home, church, in our communities, at work, and wherever our Lord sends us.
We are the new tenants, not by our doing reason or strength, but by God’s baptismal grace in Christ. You are heirs, not by your doing, but by the death of the Son.
And that’s the twist of this parable. The death of the Son becomes the life of the world. The death of Son grants the inheritance. The death of the Son is our forgiveness, our life, our salvation, our justification.
Jesus becomes the tenant on your behalf. Jesus puts himself into the story of this fallen world to take on our sin and death. The shameful mistreatment of the servants? Jesus pays the price for that. The covetous greed that wants the vineyard for yourself? Jesus claims that sin from you. The murder of the vineyard owner’s son? Jesus takes the fall for that too. Your mistakes? Excuses? When you hurt others? Whether intentionally or not? Your brokenness? Jesus takes it all.
Jesus is the one who has the vineyard taken away. He is the one whose life is taken away. He is the one who is destroyed. Killed on a cross. And in Him, our role is re-written. Jesus performs a great exchange: he trades our unholiness for his holiness. Our sinful badness for his goodness. Our death for his life. The Son is killed and the inheritance is yours, now and forever.
In the Name of the Father and of the + Son and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.
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