1.
Grace, mercy, and peace to you from God our
Heavenly Father and our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. The message from God’s Word this 17th
Sunday after Pentecost is taken from Matthew 21:33-46 and is entitled, “Be Ready for God’s Harvest Day.” Dear brothers and sisters in Christ.
2.
After
telling his parable of the wicked tenants in the vineyard, Jesus asks the chief
priests and Pharisees, “What will [the
master] do to those tenants?” Their self-condemning response, “He will put those wretches to a miserable
death” (Mt 21:40–41), calls to mind King David’s response to the parable
told him by the prophet Nathan, after David had taken Bathsheba and murdered
her husband, Uriah. In that parable (2 Sam 12:1–4), Nathan tells the story of
two neighbors, a rich man and a poor man. While the rich man had huge flocks,
the poor man had only one lamb, which he and his family loved very much as a
pet. When a traveler came to the rich man, the rich man took and prepared the
poor man’s single lamb, rather than take one from his own flocks to prepare for
the traveler. Upon hearing this parable, King David said to Nathan, “ ‘As the Lord
lives, the man who has done this deserves to die, and he shall restore the lamb
fourfold, because he did this thing, and because he had no pity.’ Nathan said
to David, ‘You are the man!’ ” (2 Sam 12:5b–7a). King David condemned
himself by his own words, just as did the Pharisees in this Gospel text. Unlike
the Pharisees, though, by God’s grace, David repented, and Nathan was able to
speak to him God’s forgiveness. My friends God always desires when we stand
condemned: that we would repent and receive his unlimited forgiveness in Christ
Jesus. Today, Jesus tells us the Parable
of the Tenants to help us get ready for God’s
Harvest Day!!!
3.
As Jesus moved among men, He spoke to them significant truths by
parables. A number of these parables
were told during Jesus’ last visit to Jerusalem. Some of these aren’t as appealing as others
because through them, Jesus speaks severe judgments upon the church
leaders. Such is the parable of the tenants that we see in
today’s Gospel reading from Matthew 21. It’s
not warm like the parable of the Lost Sheep
or sentimental like the parable of the
Prodigal Son or pleasant like the parable
of the Good Samaritan. Nevertheless,
it stresses the limitless patience of God’s love. “Finally
he sent his son to them.” And him
they killed. The parable carries with it
a sting the chief priests and the Pharisees keenly felt, as we see from the
closing remarks of the parable.
4.
The vineyard in the parable represents the Jewish people. God had done much for Israel before He sent
His Son Jesus. He’d given Israel the Law
on Mount Sinai. God had promised them the Messiah. He had blessed them with
privileges. And, God had divinely
protected them from their enemies through the centuries. They had Moses to lead them, Elijah to call
them to repentance, Isaiah to plead with them, and Jeremiah to warn them
patiently.
5.
The tenants are the leaders to whom the people had been entrusted. But they made Israel sin. The tenants were unfaithful and selfish. The servants sent by the master of the house
are the prophets, who plead: “Turn back,
turn back from your evil ways, for why will you die? (Ezek. 33:11). Last is the Son and Him they crucify.
6. Jesus let the priests and
Pharisees know that He was fully aware of their plans and plottings. They couldn’t deceive Him. But, we must
remember that the
parables aren’t given only to Israel.
They are recorded in the sacred Scriptures for our learning and warning. And now, 2,000 years later, Jesus’ words are
now the old parable for us. Jesus tells
us this parable to get ready for God’s
Harvest Day.
7. Like God’s people of old, we, too, have been
placed in God’s vineyard/kingdom by his grace.
In this kingdom, God graciously supplies us with those things that
nurture His fruit in us through His Word and Sacraments of the Lord’s Supper
and Holy Baptism. And, God continually
sends us his servants—pastors—just as God sent the Old Testament prophets. Above all, God sent us his Son.
8. We retell this old parable among us today to
move us to produce the fruit of the vineyard and receive those whom he sends to
us, especially his Son. What’s the fruit
of the vineyard? The fruit of the
vineyard is repentance and the love toward God and neighbor that flows from the
faith we have received by the power of the Holy Spirit through God’s Word and
Sacraments. All of this is what Christ,
God’s Son, came to nurture in us.
9. But, too often, we also fall into the same
tragic ending of the old parable. We
show ourselves to be unfaithful tenants of God’s kingdom whenever we don’t
demonstrate love toward God and neighbor as the fruit of faith and whenever we
don’t receive God’s Son, who comes to us through Word and Sacrament. We prefer
the bright lights of Sodom & Gomorrah and the pleasures of this world to
our Lord Jesus the Sun of Righteousness.
We busy ourselves all too often with getting and buying the things of
this world, letting the gifts of God’s creation become our idols and our god, rather
than our Lord and Creator Himself. We
tire ourselves with Saturday night’s parties—we bypass Jesus. Oh my friends, how patient God is with us! He is looking for fruit in His vineyard and
finds none. Yes, sins like this should cause us to lose
the kingdom and be put to eternal death.
10. But God sent his Son, Jesus, to save the
vineyard and its tenants. Jesus was
perfectly faithful in his calling and mission to seek and save the lost. Though he was rejected and killed, God raised
him from the dead and placed him as the cornerstone of his Church. Today you are blessed, once again, that God’s
Son is coming to you through his Word and Sacrament. Now as
faithful stewards of His grace, we are to come, bring others, tell all who will
listen, pray daily for grace and growth, and support Christ’s kingdom with our
earthly possessions. My
dear brothers and sisters in Christ, let’s Get
Ready for God’s Harvest Day, may we remember that we’ve been placed in
God’s vineyard by grace through His Son Jesus and now we receive His Son Jesus
as our Savior. Amen. Prayer: Heavenly Father, keep us united by faith to Christ,
our source of life, lest we ever turn away, reject Him, and so lose our hope of
salvation. Let us be thine forever, our
faithful God and Lord; Let us forsake thee never, nor wander from thy
Word. Lord, do not let us waver, But
give us steadfastness, and for such grace forever Thy holy name we’ll
bless. Amen.
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