Grace to you and peace from God our Father and from our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. Amen. The text is the Gospel lesson.
A landowner is trying to collect what is His: his harvest. He sends out three servants: the first is beaten up, the second is beaten but he is also shamed – I imagine he was probably stripped and sent home naked - and yet a third servant is sent; this one is actually wounded. That is when the landowner decides to send his son.
I don’t think it would matter where you told this parable – from the ancient Israel to Inez, from Jerusalem to Junction – or when you told it – from 2000 years ago to this morning – anyone hearing this parable recoils at the landowner/father’s decision. He is 0-3 in sending emissaries to these ungrateful tenants. Their behavior is growing more violent. It’s bad enough he sent the third servant. There is no reason to suspect that the tenants will become suddenly remorseful and surrender their rent. In fact, their increasingly violent behavior is demonstrating a likelihood that the next messenger will get an even worse treatment. So, the fact that the landowner/father sends his son to such reprehensible, violent tenants is inconceivable. It simply wouldn’t be done.
Yet the father does exactly that: his son is the one who is sent next. The son, in his innocence, is quite literally sent into enemy territory. The father sends his beloved son into the hands of terribly wicked men who plot to kill him, thinking – mistakenly – that by killing the heir, they will inherit the land instead.
So, this begs the question: why does this landowner, why does this father, risk sending His son to tenants who are predisposed to rejecting the landowner and his servants? There is, frankly, no rational explanation for why the Father would send His son into a dangerous place where death is likely.
Well, that’s not quite true. There is one reason – one, very good reason why the Father would send his son. Perhaps the tenants will repent. When they see the son, maybe they will realize the seriousness of the situation and turn from their wickedness, from their greed, from their selfishness, from their stealing from the landowner, and return to the landowner what is rightfully his. Perhaps the tenants will change. Then the relationship can be restored.
The one reason, the only reason, the landowner does this: he loves the tenants and wants them to repent. That is why the landowner sends his son: so the tenants might repent.
Sadly, they do not. They see an opportunity, alright, but not for repenting and being restored. Instead they see an opportunity to improve their situation. Get rid of the heir and they think they’ll inherit the land for themselves.
There was a strategic mistake. For them to inherit the land in lieu of the son, the landowner must first die. He does not. The father is very much alive and he is now very much angry. His anger against the tenants, his jealousy for his share of the harvest, his compassion for his servants scorned, and his deep love for his son murdered all rise up and burn hot against those fools. He throws the wicked tenants out of his vineyard and kills them, giving the vineyard to others instead.
Parables are stories that help us understand the kingdom of God. It doesn’t take any great difficulty to understand that the parable. We can quickly identify the characters: the landowner is God; the vineyard represents His people, Israel; the tenants are the leaders of Israel – the priests, the pharisees, the teachers of the law; the servants are God’s prophets; the son is, of course, Jesus. The parable is both history and prophesy. As history, it is an illustration of how God sent His prophets to Israel to call His people back to Himself. He has great blessings to bestow on His people. Three servants are mentioned - it’s not about which specific, three prophets were sent and abused. Three is the number of wholeness in the Bible. God sent exactly enough prophets to Israel. All are rejected. More than that, God is rejected. So, out of His great love and compassion for His people, God sends Jesus into the world.
As a parable of prophesy, it speaks of Jesus’ rejection. This morning’s Gospel lesson takes place during Holy Week. The Palm Sunday rejoicing of the crowds quickly gives way to Jesus weeping over Jerusalem. He cleanses the temple from the money changers. Jesus’ authority has been challenged, and He challenges the Jews back, causing Him to tell this parable. Some parables that Jesus told were told in a deliberate way so that they were hard to understand. This one is painfully easy, so much so that the scribes and chief priests recognized it and sought a way they could turn Jesus over to the government for capitol punishment.
We are in the depths of Lent. We are only days from Jesus’ celebrating the Passover with His disciples, His arrest and sham trial, His crucifixion. The parable reminds us plainly and clearly that the reason Jesus came. But it also speaks and reminds us plainly and clearly that the message of God’s Word, Old and New Testaments, is one of repentance.
We are not ancient Israel, nor are you the leaders who rejected the prophets and Jesus. In fact, the exact opposite is true: you are the new Israel, the Church, and you receive Christ with thankfulness. Why repent?
Because if it were not for Christ’s vicarious atonement – his substitutionary sacrifice – we would have to face God’s wrath for our sins. If it were not for Jesus, we would be the cut-off ones, the sent-out ones, the destroyed ones.
In His mercy, God sent His Son – His only begotten and beloved Son - to rescue us, to take the Father’s wrath upon Himself, and carry it to the cross and die the sinner’s death there, alone. The gifts of God have been delivered to us through the very Messiah that Israel rejected.
In the parable, the landowner/father delivers the vineyard to a new owner. The Heavenly Father delivers the Church to the Son. He was willing to die to rescue the vineyard for the Father. He was willing to die to rescue you from anything that would separate you from the Father. He died to save you.
In the name of Jesus. Amen.
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