"The Lord and His Vineyard"
Grace, mercy, and peace to you from
God our Father and from our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. Amen.
A
man planted his seed and it found good soil.
But instead of caring for his newly planted vineyard, he rents it out to
tenants. There must not have been much
of an application process because, it seems, he rented it out to the first guys
who showed up- who happened to be wicked.
The wicked tenants were given charge of the vineyard while the lord of
the vineyard left and went to a far away country. Who would do this?
But
it gets even crazier. At the appointed
time, at the time of harvest, the time for lord of the vineyard to collect his
fruit, he sends two servants, whom they flog and cast out. The third servant is wounded severely. So what does the lord of the vineyard
do? We get a glimpse into this thoughts
and it sounds like he’s nuts. After
these three servants were treated severely by the tenants, the lord of the
vineyard says to himself, “What shall I
do? I will send my beloved son; perhaps
they will respect him.”
In Jesus’ parable,
the vineyard is the nation of Israel, whom God planted on the earth. The tenants are the religious people of
Israel, such as the scribes, the chief priests, and Pharisees; those given to
cultivate in the people the fruit of faith in the Lord. The servants are the many prophets God sent
to His people, who were often beaten and killed because the people often didn’t
like what God had to say to them.
Israel was meant to be a place of God’s grace, through whom
His loving kindness would be showed to all nations. Israel was supposed to be the nation that
lived by grace through faith for the sake of Christ who was promised to them,
and it was the job of the priests and religious teachers to remind the people
of that fact. They lived by mercy not by merit, to be an example to the world
to trust in the promise of God and to look for the coming Christ. But when God sent His prophets, they were
mistreated, or even killed, especially if they were calling the nation to
repentance.
Yet,
when God sent His Son. The very same
Pharisees and scribes, who were to point the people to Jesus -the fulfillment
of God’s promise- they saw to it that was killed. So, Jesus speaks this parable against
them. “What then will the owner of the vineyard do to them,” Jesus says, “He will come and destroy those tenants and
give the vineyard to others.”
Israel
squandered the grace of God. The Pharisees
and scribes, along with many others in Israel rejected the Son, acted as if
they were His friends, while plotting behind His back. They turned God’s mercy into merit. “Work hard enough in the vineyard and you’ll
be rewarded,” they might say. So, the
stewardship of God’s vineyard is taken away from the blood-line of Abraham,
Isaac, and Jacob, and placed into the care of the New Israel- to Gentiles whom
God grafts into His vine by water and the Word- Holy Baptism. That’s you and me. God takes His kingdom away from Old Testament
Israel and makes for Himself a new nation, consisting not of the pure blood of
ancestry, but by the blood of Jesus and through faith.
The Stone that the
chief priests and Pharisees rejected is the cornerstone of our salvation. The Stone that the builders of Israel
rejected has become our chief cornerstone, upon which the Church is built.
Now
as the people of God, how do we regard the Lord of the vineyard’s beloved Son? For we too reject Him. It wasn’t only the scribes and Pharisees that
put Jesus on the cross, but your sins and mine.
Our Lord has entrusted us the vineyard to cultivate and nurture the
fruit of faith and our sinful nature won’t have it. We too reject the Son. We don’t have to beat Him up or kill Him. It was our sin for which He was placed on the
cross. We reject the Son, placing His
Word on the shelf, not coming to hear and receive what He has to give:
forgiveness, life and salvation, ignoring what He has to give to us. We act as if the vineyard belongs to us,
instead of the Lord. We invent our own
religion, trusting in our own words instead of His, seeking to justify
ourselves apart from Jesus and His cross.
We, too, reject this Cornerstone.
Yet,
by God’s grace, by His Word, we are brought to repentance. That’s what His Word does to us, it turns us
from ourselves to Jesus, who had died for you.
Sin isn’t your Lord, Jesus is.
And His Word causes us to look up from our own fleshly desires, to
Jesus, who has taken away your sins.
We
repent and look with confidence and trust to Christ who has placed Himself on
the cross for you. That by His bloody
agony and death on the tree of the cross, winning for us the fruit of
forgiveness. “And where there is
forgiveness of sins,” Luther writes, “there is also life and salvation.”
God
established His Church in the nation of Israel.
He then established His church wherever His Word is proclaimed in its
truth and purity and His gifts distributed ritely. And He shall, one day, at His coming, harvest
the fruit. At the appointed time, at
just the right time, when the horn blows, Jesus shall come, and the angels
shall reap the harvest all who bear the fruit of faith. He shall gather you, His faithful, into His barn
to live amongst all of God’s saints forever in the Church Triumphant, your
inheritance
Israel rejected the Lord of
the Vineyard’s Son, but not you. Whereas
the chief priests and scribes sought a reward for their own labors, you come
here as weary laborers, looking to receive forgiveness and mercy. And you have it, your sins are forgiven
through the Lord of the Vineyard, who sends His beloved Son into certain death
on a cross, all for you. Amen.
The peace of God, which surpasses all understanding, keep
your hearts and minds in Christ Jesus unto life everlasting. Amen.
