Lent 5 Luke 20:9-19
March 13, 2016
By now it’s obvious that we’re in an election year. Political debates and TV ads talk about saving our country from the opposing party or from their fellow candidates, who will surely destroy it. Voters cast their ballots at caucuses and primaries to narrow the field, and every day there’s another appeal for money in the mail, by phone, and by email.
Most appeals ask something of us, but this morning God makes an appeal to have him do something for us. His appeal comes through the gospel and is proclaimed by his messengers until the end of time. Like the apostles of old, God’s messengers today, “…are… Christ’s ambassadors, as though God were making his appeal through us. We implore you on Christ’s behalf: Be reconciled to God.” (2 Corinthians 5:20) Jesus makes that appeal in a familiar parable this morning.
This was Tuesday of Passover Week in Jerusalem. Jews and converts to Judaism were there from all over the world, especially all the religious leaders – Pharisees and Sadducees, teachers of the Law, synagogue rulers – anyone who had some hand in teaching God’s Word to the people. They and all the people flooded into the city to celebrate the greatest event in their history: God’s great deliverance of the children of Israel from cruel slavery under the Egyptians. The highlight of the week would be celebrating the Passover Meal – a victory meal that retold the history of the night when the Israelites killed lambs for the meal and brushed the blood on the doorposts of their houses so that the angel of death would “Passover” their homes and spare the firstborn in their families.
This time, however, the religious leaders weren’t focused on the Passover. They were there to find a way to get rid of Jesus. His popularity was out of control. Two days earlier he had ridden into the city riding on a donkey amidst shouts of “Hosanna! Blessed is he who comes in the name of the LORD!” It was time to put him down. By Friday their work would be done. Jesus would die on a Roman cross.
Jesus did not go into hiding. In fact, every day you could find him at the most public place in the city, the Temple courts. There his enemies mixed in with the crowds and looked for ways todiscredit him because “all the people hung on his words.” (Luke 19:48) Today they questioned his authority to teach the gospel. How strange – the people knew he was from God, but their religious leaders failed – or refused – to see it.
While the leaders were there, “He went on to tell the people this parable: "A man planted a vineyard, rented it to some farmers and went away for a long time.” It was very common for someone to purchase some land, plant crops, grapevines, or fruit trees and use it as a source of income and rent out the land so others could tend it for him. At harvest the tenants would pay their rent by giving him a portion of the produce and they would keep the rest. So, At harvest time he sent a servant to the tenants so they would give him some of the fruit of the vineyard. But the tenants beat him and sent him away empty-handed. Maybe there had been some kind of misunderstanding, so He sent another servant, but that one also they beat and treated shamefully and sent away empty-handed. He sent still a third, and they wounded him and threw him out.”
This is outrageous! If I were in the crowd that day would have shouted out, “Call the police already!” But Jesus isn’t telling a story about ordinary people. He’s telling a story about God and his love for a world of sinners. Jesus is talking about them - how God had made them his special people and had sent them many prophets to proclaim his word to them over the centuries. Through them God would call them to repentance and faith, but most of the Jews refused to listen to God’s Word and rejected, abused, and even killed many of those prophets. Nothing had changed. After John the Baptist was killed, Jesus wept, “Jerusalem, Jerusalem, you who kill the prophets and stone those sent to you, how often I have longed to gather your children together, as a hen gathers her chicks under her wings, and you were not willing.” (Luke 13:34)
Now here’s where his story goes off the charts. After every servant was beaten up, the owner of the vineyard said, `What shall I do? I will send my son, whom I love; perhaps they will respect him.' Is he kidding? No human father would put his son at risk like that, and any human son would run the other way. But the father did, and the son went. "But when the tenants saw him, they talked the matter over. `This is the heir,' they said. `Let's kill him, and the inheritance will be ours.' So they threw him out of the vineyard and killed him.
By now Jesus’ hearers sensed where his parable was going. The landowner was God the Father. The vineyard was their nation. The servants were the prophets and Jesus claimed to be God’s Son. Just as they had despised God’s Word in the past, they would now despise the fulfillment of God’s Word, the promised Savior, his one and only Son. If the religious leaders of the people had their way, Jesus would be dead by the end of the week. Then they could have it all – a religion of their own making without any more interference from God.
But that wasn’t the end of the story: "What then will the owner of the vineyard do to them? He will come and kill those tenants and give the vineyard to others." The tenants would finally get what’s coming to them. They would lose everything. Jesus’ hearers got the point. One day Jerusalem would answer for despising God’s Word and his incredible patient, persistent love. God would take it all away and give it to others. There would be death. There would be hell. When the people heard this, they said, "May this never be!" Jesus looked directly at them and asked, "Then what is the meaning of that which is written: "`The stone the builders rejected has become the capstone'? Everyone who falls on that stone will be broken to pieces, but he on whom it falls will be crushed."
We sang those words from Psalm 118 this morning. Anyone who rejects Jesus, the cornerstone of the Church, will be broken to pieces or crushed by the God’s judgment. As the Jewish saying goes, “If a pot falls on a rock, end of pot. If the rock falls on a pot, end of pot.” Jesus told this parable as a strong warning to those who were plotting his death, urging them to repent.Yet even this warning and urgent appeal fell on deaf ears.The teachers of the law and the chief priests looked for a way to arrest him immediately, because they knew he had spoken this parable against them. But they were afraid of the people.
We need to remember that Jesus was talking to people in the visible church – churches just like ours today. Is it possible that any of us would turn a deaf ear to God and his Word and become complacent and self-centered? Is it possible that we could abuse God’s grace by coming to worship on Sunday and going the rest of the week without giving him another thought? Is it possible to think that God will not call us to account for living anyway we want and having no shame or remorse for it? Is it possible for those who have so many spiritual blessings to end up crushed under God’s judgment? It happened to the Jews. It happens to all to turn away from Jesus. And when we hear his warning we cry,"May this never be!"
And it doesn’t have to be. Today is another precious day of grace in your life and mine, and Jesus is here this morning making his loving, urgent appeal through his Word. As your pastor, I am one of Christ’s ambassadors, as though God were making his appeal through [me]. [I] implore you on Christ’s behalf: Be reconciled to God.” (2 Corinthians 5:20). Through his Word I can walk with you to that Friday and watch from a distance as the Father’s Son is put to death by the tenants of Jerusalem’s vineyard. We can watch as he suffers until he dies, bearing the wrath of God for our sins. We can hear him cry, “It is finished” with his final breaths. We can walk to the empty grave to see the proof that he was put to death because of our sins and was raised to life because God accepted his payment for all our sins. We can come back to our present day, where we are at this moment, and know that “we are reconciled to God through the death of his Son.”And we know that all our sins are forgiven for time and eternity.
Could we ever turn and walk away from so great a salvation? "May this never be!" Can we share God’s appeal with those who are turning away? May this always be! Amen!