Fifth Sunday in Lent

Fifth Sunday in Lent (C)

April 6, 2025

Text: Luke 20:9-20

            The Parable of the Wicked Tenants is one of only two that appear in all three synoptic Gospels (Matthew, Mark, and Luke).  The other is the Parable of the Sower.  Synoptic, by the way, means seen together, and refers to the fact that these three Gospel writers cover much of the same material, like three witnesses giving their own unique perspective on an event (or in this case, events) they witnessed (though, it’s true, in the case of Mark and Luke, they are relying on the eyewitness testimony of others).  At any rate, that all three synoptic writers include this particular parable would seem to indicate that it’s pretty important.  And, indeed, it is.  It is, maybe, Tuesday of Holy Week, and Jesus is teaching in the Temple… the Temple He had just cleansed… anticipating His suffering and death.  The Chief Priests and scribes are ever more intent on arresting Jesus and doing Him in.  This parable will be among the final straws.  What is the parable about?  It is nothing less than a summary of all of salvation history, of God’s interaction with His chosen people, of His pleading with His people to return to Him. 

            The vineyard is Israel, and specifically Jerusalem.  We might also call it, the Kingdom of God.  Incidentally, the Jews would have known immediately that Jesus is riffing on a very famous passage from Isaiah chapter 5 on the Vineyard of the LORD.  We don’t have time to deal with that this afternoon, but it’s worth looking up sometime this week, and comparing it with our Holy Gospel.  In any case, the vineyard owner is God.  The tenants are the Jewish religious leaders… in other words, the Chief Priests and scribes.  And the fruit the owner expects from the tenants is a faithful people.  That is, a people living by faith in their merciful God, the only true God, forsaking all idols, and living a fruitful life.  The LORD expected such a harvest, and the tenants’ only job is to raise such a crop.  Much like a pastor’s only job is to foster a crop of Christians who have no other God than the One who sent His Son in the flesh to die for our sins, who is risen from the dead, who lives and reigns… a crop of Christians living by faith in Him alone, and ordering their lives accordingly.  Any pastor who is not concerned to tend such a crop has no business being a pastor, and you should have nothing to do with him.

            The vineyard owner expected the fruit of such a crop, but the tenants weren’t giving it.  So the owner sent a servant.  And when that servant was beaten and sent away empty-handed, he sent another.  And another.  These, of course, are the prophets.  God sent prophet after prophet to His people Israel.  In Matthew’s version, the servants aren’t just beaten and treated shamefully and sent away empty.  The first one is beaten, the second one is killed, and the third is stoned (Matt. 21:35).  Yet the owner sends even more servants.  And while this refers to the prophets in general, many have pointed out that there may be a particular reference to Isaiah with the one who is killed (sawn in two, according to tradition), and to Jeremiah with the one who is stoned (unwillingly dragged to Egypt, where he preached the people should not go, and dispatched there).  Whether or not the reference is to them specifically, the fact is, prophet is a hazardous occupation to undertake.  Very few prophets died of old age, and none of them lived a peaceful and quiet life.  They faced rejection and persecution at every turn.  People don’t like to be preached to.  And, of course, in rejecting the prophet, the tenants were rejecting the prophet’s message.  And in rejecting the message, they were rejecting the One who sent the message via the messenger.  They were rejecting the vineyard owner.  They were rejecting God. 

            Still God sent His messengers, His prophets.  This is just how God deals with people… This is how He deals with us!  Behold His patience.  Behold His lovingkindness.  He is longsuffering.  He is merciful.  Once again, we witness His prodigality… His recklessness, His wastefulness, His extravagance, out of love for us.  If we were the vineyard owners, we’d have called the cops or sent in the army after the first servant was abused.  But what does God do?  He just keeps sending more servants. 

            Then He gets a really bright idea.  “I know!  I will send My Son!  Though they have rejected every servant I sent, abused them, killed them, nevertheless… surely they will respect My Son!”  If we didn’t know this is God, we’d call Him foolish.  But we do know this is God, and as Paul says, “the foolishness of God is wiser than men, and the weakness of God is stronger than men” (1 Cor. 1:25; ESV).  What do they do to the Son, these tenants (the Chief Priests and scribes!)?  They say, “This is the heir. Let us kill him, so that the inheritance may be ours” (Luke 20:14).  And they throw Him out of the vineyard… take Him outside the city walls of Jerusalem… and kill Him… Crucify Him. 

            How could God do this?  How could He allow it?  What on earth is He trying to accomplish?  Surely He knew this would happen!

            Yes, He did know.  And behold, the great surprise.  In killing the Son, the vineyard is given… well, not to the tenants.  That is over.  The tenants have sealed their fate.  The owner will destroy those wicked tenants, and that is a prophecy of the Roman siege of Jerusalem and the destruction of the Temple in AD 70.  But the vineyard will be given to… others!  And who are the others?  How about the tax collectors and sinners Jesus was always criticized for hanging around, eating and drinking with them.  The poor.  The unclean.  Those in need of healing and mercy.  And most scandalous of all in the first century Jewish mind… Gentiles! 

            And what has happened is the fulfillment of Psalm 118, one of the great hallel Psalms sung at the Passover, maybe even the hymn Jesus sang with His disciples on His way to the Garden of Gethsemane.  “The stone that the builders rejected has become the cornerstone.  This is the Lord’s doing; it is marvelous in our eyes” (Ps. 118:22-23; cf. Luke 20:17).  That isn’t just a saying.  Jesus is that stone.  A cornerstone joins wall to wall, length and width, at its very foundation, and determines the construction of the whole house.  In His death on the cross, Jesus joins Jew and Gentile, whosoever believes in Him, into the New Israel, the Body of Christ, the Holy Christian Church.  The others are the Church.  The vineyard… we might call it the Kingdom of God… is given to the Church.  Which is to say, to you.

            Now, be warned.  Whatever there is in you of the Chief Priests and scribes that wants to keep all the fruit for yourself, reject His messengers, and therefore His message, be your own god, worship other gods, keep back your sins from His merciful atonement, insist on your own righteousness, rely on your own righteousness rather than His justification by grace, etc., etc. … Whatever there is in you of that, must be broken in pieces on Christ, the Cornerstone.  You must be broken in pieces on Christ… in repentance.  Otherwise, the Stone will crush you on the Day of Judgment.  Either way, you must come to the end of you.

            But then, here we are again at the foolishness of God, aren’t we?  What happens when you are broken in pieces?  What happens when you die to yourself?  When you die with Christ?  The Lord, who specializes in resurrection from death, picks up your shattered pieces and puts them back together again, better than ever.  He builds you into His building, His House, His Temple, His Body… as a living stone, to quote St. Peter: “As you come to him, a living stone rejected by men but in the sight of God chosen and precious, you yourselves like living stones are being built up as a spiritual house, to be a holy priesthood, to offer spiritual sacrifices acceptable to God through Jesus Christ” (1 Peter 2:4-5).  Or, as St. Paul puts it in his letter to the Ephesians, you are “members of the household of God, built on the foundation of the apostles and prophets, Christ Jesus himself being the cornerstone, in whom the whole structure, being joined together, grows into a holy temple in the Lord” (Eph. 2:19-21).

            That is what God was doing when He sent His Son.  Giving you the vineyard.  Building you into His Kingdom.  And now, note… He is not a tyrannical Landlord, demanding we give Him all the fruit of the vineyard, while we enjoy none of it.  No.  As it turns out, in another great surprise, in giving Him the fruit, it all becomes ours.  He gives it to us.  He gives us to enjoy the fruit, now, with Him.  Not as tenants, but as members of His Household.  His children.  His heirs with Christ, and in Christ.  Well, what else did you think you were doing when you come to the Lord’s Supper?  Taking your place at Table in your Father’s House.  In the Name of the Father, and of the Son X, and of the Holy Spirit.  Amen.