The text this morning is from the Gospel according to Matthew, the 21st chapter:
“Hear another parable. There was a master of a house who planted a vineyard and put a fence around it and dug a winepress in it and built a tower and leased it to tenants, and went into another country. When the season for fruit drew near, he sent his servants to the tenants to get his fruit. And the tenants took his servants and beat one, killed another, and stoned another. Again he sent other servants, more than the first. And they did the same to them. Finally he sent his son to them, saying, ‘They will respect my son.’ But when the tenants saw the son, they said to themselves, ‘This is the heir. Come, let us kill him and have his inheritance.’ And they took him and threw him out of the vineyard and killed him. When therefore the owner of the vineyard comes, what will he do to those tenants?” They said to him, “He will put those wretches to a miserable death and let out the vineyard to other tenants who will give him the fruits in their seasons.”Thus far the text.
Dear friends in Christ,
Our Father, who art in Heaven, is apparently insane. Jesus is telling a parable, which is an earthly story with heavenly meaning, and the Father is clearly the master in the parable. And after having sent two teams of servants, and consequently hearing that they’ve been killed by His tenants, He sends a single, solitary man, His Son, to set everything straight. This is crazy. The master, who is clearly a rich man in the parable, should have hired an army, slaughtered the entire farm, and taken it over. He should have done this after the first servants died, much less after He sends His Son!
This is the act of a crazy man, sending a son to take care of business against a horde of murderous, vicious tenants. You see, in this parable, as in our reading of Isaiah 5 today, we hear about the care of the vineyard. The Master, the Lord, our Father, planted a vineyard. That’s the Church, the Assembly, the Israel whose promises are now fulfilled in Christ. This vineyard was precious to the Father, and so He protected it. He put a fence or a hedge around it, to protect it, He gave it promises to guard against all the animals and men who would trample the vineyard. Those promises would disarm all who would come to do it harm because nothing can prevail against the promises of God.
And He put a wine vat, a winepress, in the middle of it, a place to put all the goodness that the vineyard is to produce, where all the tenants can find the life-sustaining and joy-producing wine of life. And He put a tower in it, a watchtower, so that those defending the vineyard, the Church, could sling the arrows of death at the enemies and call out danger that is seen, thereby calling the Church to arms against false doctrines, and false teachers, and the wolves that would come to be in our midst.
You see? Our Lord loved His Church. And He loved the vineyard so much, He even gave it to men to be in charge of it, to steward it, to take care it, to guard it, and love it as much as our Lord does. These men, in Jesus’ time, were the chief priests and the elders of the Church, Israel. This is who Jesus is talking to all through Matthew 21. And our Lord expected them to take care of the Church so that they would continue to produce the fruit of the vine, the fruit of the righteousness of God.
Yet, this is not what the Lord got. Isaiah 5 tells us that the Lord got wild grapes, sour grapes, vinegar, not righteousness but gall. Jesus’ parable tells us that the Master expected the harvest, but He got nothing but death. The Lord sent His servants, the prophets, to the chief priests and elders, to warn them of their wickedness, to preach to them repentance as He did through Jonah in Nineveh, but what did they do? They beat the prophets, the killed the prophets, they stoned the prophets.
The servants came to preach God’s Word and instead met death. This is where we should expect our Lord to wipe them off the face of the map. Instead, in His mercy, He sends more servants, more servants to give the Master His desired harvest, a harvest of righteousness. He prays they accept these prophets, these servants of God, but the tenants kill them, too.
Certainly now, the Lord is going to send the armies to destroy these wicked tenants, right? No, in His mercy, the Lord believes that sending the Son will work, the Son who had the same message as the prophets, the Son who had the same goal as the prophets, bringing in the righteous harvest, calling the tenants to repentance and the forgiveness of sins. This Son had all the authority of the Father. He had everything the Father had. He is the heir of the entire vineyard. You would expect at least some air of authority that would make the tenants tremble.
Yet, when they saw the Son, walking alone down the road towards them, the plotted even more deviously to kill Him than they did the prophets. Here, they desired to steal the Son’s inheritance, they desired to steal the Church with their false piety and doctrine, they would steal it through fear and false mercy. They would steal the Church because the Son would never enter into that place again.
But, when they killed the Son, finally the Lord acted. He would not let it stand. And so He wiped those tenants out, He made the Church desolate, despondent, empty, without hope, without anything good. He razed the Church to the ground, and built it back up again, and gave it to new tenants.
This is how our Lord dealt with the Church before and during the time of Jesus. He was patient, He was merciful, He was giving. And yet, when the appointed time came, He sent His Son to bring His people back to Him. He sent His Son to preach repentance and the forgiveness of sins in Christ’s name, and those who heard Him killed Him. They pierced the Son, they whipped the Son, they broke open the Son’s back, they mocked the Son, they defiled the Son, and they killed the Son. And expecting to get away with it, the wicked tenants of God’s Church, went their merry ways, thinking all their problems were taken care of. Yet, this was not the end.
For the Son of God, who took upon His shoulders the sins of the entire world, would not stay in the grave, but rose after three days. This Resurrection, good news for all who believe in Christ, is the most terrifying thing to an unbeliever. For the Son rose from the grave with healing in His wings, yes, but He rose with a sword in His mouth, a sword that would decimate whole peoples who have rejected Him. We think of a nice Jesus, a kind Jesus, and He is to us who believe in Him, but He shall judge the living and the dead, as we confess in the creed, and those who have done the righteousness of Christ, given to us from the very cross itself, will enter into eternal life. But those who have done evil, those wicked tenants and all who have rejected our Lord and His righteousness, will enter into eternal fire. This is also in the creed.
Our God is a God who gives to people exactly what they ask for. For those who ask to be judged by their own righteous deeds, God will do so and find them wanting. If they desire not to rely on Christ, God will allow that and allow for them to stand and be judged according to their sinful works. And they will get what they have earned. They will receive hell.
But, for those who plead Christ’s righteousness, plead the blood, plead the body, plead Jesus for me, Jesus for you, God will give you this as well. He will give to you the righteousness of the Son, the inheritance of Son, and you will be welcomed into everlasting life with His Son. God gives us what we ask for in this way.
But, let us be careful, yes? We do not desire to be like the wicked tenants, rejecting the Lord’s prophets, rejecting the Lord’s Word, rejecting the Lord’s Sacraments. Our churches should not be vineyards where we chew up and spit out the Master’s servants. Rather, when His servants come, we hear the Word of the Lord. We repent, we receive forgiveness, and we get Jesus’ righteousness.
We get these wonderful gifts, all of us sinners, even though we’d rather do everything on our own. We really would, if we’re honest with ourselves. We’d rather judge ourselves and our own works as good than say that we’re poor, miserable sinners with nothing to offer to our God. But we are. We are poor. We are miserable. We’re sinners. And yet, you're in God’s protected Church, you're in His beloved vineyard. You are His fruit. He uprooted the old tenants, placed new overseers in His Church, overseers who would believe and teach of this Resurrected Son of God. And in that preaching, in that teaching, these preachers would take those grapes who would be wild to make vinegar, and the preaching of the Son would make these grapes into the most amazing vintage ever, a vintage that tastes, unsurprisingly, like the blood of the Son.
This is our righteousness, my friends. We are strengthened in Christ to produce such righteousness and righteous works. But, our righteousness, our works, are Christ’s. They are good only because of Him. And as He comes to us today in His body and blood, know that this body and blood are for you, are for your forgiveness, to tame you, to strengthen you, to forgive you, to bring you to Himself.
For though we would kill Him, He went willingly to the cross for you so that He would bring you to Himself at this altar, in this Church, in this amazing vineyard that He loves. Though it seems insane, God the Father sent His Son for you, His wild grapes. But, this is not insanity; this is our Lord. He loves each and every grape, each and every one of you, for in Christ, He declares His righteousness from the cross, the righteousness of the Son of the Master of the vineyard, the Church, all for you. In Jesus’ name, amen.
Now may the peace of God which passes all understanding keep your hearts and minds in Christ Jesus, our Lord! Amen.
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