Sermon for the Fifth Sunday in Lent, A+D 2010

Readings for this sermon are available here.

Grace, mercy, and peace to you from God the Father and the Lord Jesus Christ. Amen.

Listen to the parable of the vineyard, a parable Jesus tells about a landowners and his tenant farmers. "A man planted a vineyard, and let it out to tenants and went into another country for a long while" (v.9). As Jesus tells the story, he begins first of all with a note of grace. The landlord plants the vineyard. He does all the preparation, all the work to guarantee a harvest. The tenants simply have to tend the plants, harvest the fruit, and pay the owner his agreed-upon share.

But the relationship between tenants and landlords is rarely easy. In part because most of us would rather be owners than renters. It makes sense. Renters pay out rent, while owners collect rent. Owners control the property while tenants are under another's control. And let's face it, we do not like to be at another's mercy, even when the other is God Himself.

Which, of course, is the actual case. We are all tenants, after all, not owners. Everything we have is on loan from God. We might imagine that we're owners: "It's my money and I can spend it as I please." "It's my body and I can do what I want with it." "It's my life and I don't need God or the Church or anyone to tell me how to run it." But that's the myth of this age. But the truth is that God is the owner; we are his tenants. We are simply stewards with a responsibility to use His gifts faithfully.

Anyway, in the parable, the tenants stage a revolt. When harvest time comes, the land owner sends a servant to collect his share. Instead, though, the tenants beat him and send him away empty-handed (v.10). When the owner tries again they beat that servant up and send him back (v.11). A third time this takes place (v.12)!

Clearly this method of collection has failed. It's at this point that most landlords would give up and take legal action. But this landowner goes one more step, hoping against hope to receive a harvest instead of hostility. "What shall I do?" he says to himself. "I will send my beloved son. Perhaps they will respect him" (v.13)

Of course, there's nothing in the track record of those tenants to suggest they would. And you have to stop and wonder. What kind of father would send His beloved Son to a bunch of thugs who've already beaten up three others? What sort of father would send His beloved Son to a bunch of murderous deadbeat tenants?

• "God so loved the world that He gave his only-begotten Son, that whoever believes in Him would not perish but have everlasting life" (John 3:16).

• "God demonstrates his own love for us in this: that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us" (Rom. 5:9).

• "In this the love of God was made manifest among us, that God sent his only Son into the world, that we might live through him. This is love: not that we loved God but that he loved us and sent his Son to be the atoning sacrifice for our sins" (1 John 4:9-10).

While we were still His enemies, turned against Him in rebellion, the Father sent His Son into the world, to take on our humanity, to become one with us, to save the very world that rejected him. Even after Israel had beaten and stoned and killed God's prophets! But that's the nature of God's mercy. He keeps coming back again and again, seeking the fruit of repentance and faith, risking everything.

The parable's not yet done, of course. When the tenants see the son, they assume that the owner's dead. They come up with a plot: "This is the heir. Let us kill him, so that the inheritance may be ours" (v.14). It sounds crazy, but it's actually not. If the landowner died and left no heirs, the tenants could claim title to the land free and clear. Provided, of course, they could first get away with the son's murder, which is why they killed him off the property.

It's a picture of Jesus' impending death. Within a few days of speaking this parable, the religious authorities of Jerusalem would stir up Jesus' crucifixion at the hands of Pilate, on a hill named Golgotha outside the city. The parable would become reality. God sent His Son to His vineyard, to His Israel, and His Son was despised and rejected and killed outside the city gates.

"What then will the owner of the vineyard do to them? He will come and destroy those [ingrate] tenants, and give the vineyard to others" (vv.15-16). The message is this: reject the Son and there's nothing but judgment. Jesus is God's last Word to the world. There is no other way to the Father except through Jesus (see John 14:6). There is no other Savior from sin and death but Jesus, the beloved Son of God, who came to His own, who was rejected and crucified, whose death the Father received as the atoning sacrifice for our sin. To reject the Son is to reject the Father's will to save you.

The tenants in the parable are condemned (not because they were worse tenants than any other in the neighborhood... not because their harvest was poor... they were condemned) because they rejected the Son. The parable is a warning to the religious leaders of Jesus' day and to the Church of every age not to take God's grace for granted, not to reject the Son who comes to us in the name of the Lord, not to despise His Baptism or the Supper of His body and blood or His Word of forgiveness. God forces His grace on no one. He forces no one to be saved from death and hell. He gives His gifts; He sends His Son; He gives us the Holy Spirit who delivers all that Jesus died to win for us.

Your Lord God, the heavenly Father, awaits the harvest: the harvest of broken and contrite hearts, the harvest of faith in His Son Jesus, the harvest of love for one another. Don't be deceived by appearances. The Son may appear weak. God's servants may appear as the wimps and losers of this world. The Church may look like a fractured and failing institution against the backdrop of this world's success stories.

Jesus said, "the stone that the builders rejected has become cornerstone" (v.17) and "everyone who falls on that stone will be broken to pieces" (v.18). We must be broken, if we are going to be made whole again. We must die, daily to ourselves in repentance, if we are going to live. The alternative to falling on Christ in repentance is to be crushed by Him. Verse 18: "And when [that rejected stone] falls on anyone, it will crush him." Either receive the forgiveness, life, and salvation Jesus won for you by His death on the cross, or... be crushed resisting and refusing Him.

Dear friends in Christ— every sin has been spoken for in the death of Jesus. Every sin is forgivable. Every sinner has been died for. Only unbelief is unforgivable because unbelief is rejecting the forgiveness Christ won on the cross.

Trust in the Son, that rejected Stone who is now the cornerstone of your salvation. Fall on Him with all the brokenness of your life, for He was broken for you. He will raise you up and give you life, "just as He is risen from the dead, lives and reigns to all eternity."

The peace of God, which surpasses all understanding, guard your hearts and minds in Christ Jesus. Amen.