1. Grace, mercy, and peace to you from God our Heavenly Father and our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. Amen. The message from God’s Word for this 5th Sunday in Lent is taken from Luke 20:9-20, it’s entitled, “Crushed Dreams & Dreams Fulfilled,” dear brothers and sisters in Christ.
2. Young children can have big dreams. “I wanna play in the Final Four!” “I’m gonna swim in the Olympics!” “I’m going to be a fireman when I grow up.” “I’m going to be the first woman president!” Ok, so these dreams often don’t materialize. Life goes differently than we’d planned. Gifts and abilities don’t match up with desires. At some point, the dreams kids have get shattered. We know about that at any age! The parable of the vineyard here in Luke 20 reminds us that the dream envisioned isn’t always the dream fulfilled. Fortunately, God crushes our dreams and rebuilds them into something worth dreaming.
3. Like the tenants in the parable, we may have our own dream (Luke 20:9–12). The tenants didn’t want to give the fruit to the owner. They had a comfortable arrangement: solid employment and a secure future provided to them by an owner who set everything up. Of course, the owner had a right to his share. He sent servants. He even sent his son (v 13). But the tenants respond with disdain (v 14).
4. The tenants were dreaming their big dreams. They wanted the inheritance. They were even foolish enough to think that killing the son would get it for them. And they do kill him (v 15a)! Will that make their dream come true (v 15b)? We may not hold a position or privilege we seek to sustain, but we still have dreams. Maybe there’s an area in your life that you may be struggling. It could be an issue with your family, dreams for retirement, or for your career, a vacation that you’ve been planning, you are trying to get more financially stable, or an illness or an important surgery that you are facing. Maybe you are at a crossroads of a difficult decision you have to make, or you are having difficulty letting go of an issue or a grudge.
5. Many colleges have courses that students view as “weed-out” courses. They’re so named because they’re intended to weed out the average student. They’re made to be difficult to pass and even more difficult to get a good grade. Tests have to be curved just so some students will pass. The courses are that difficult.
6. These courses are the object of much derision. Students complain that they’re impossible. The administration warns departments against having them. But, the courses are helpful. They produce humility in students who need to be humbled, and they crush dreams that were misguided. Sometimes, students think more of themselves than they ought or misunderstand their gifts and abilities. These courses help weed out those students who need to go in a different direction and realize the more appropriate educational path that awaits them.
7. Today in Luke 20, in the parable of the vineyard, we see Jesus coming to crush misguided hopes and dreams. He destroys the goals of the wicked tenants—and even our own self-centered goals. But in so doing, he lays a cornerstone from which we are built up, together with all the Church, to a much better goal (Lk 20:13–18). We are built up to life with God, life that has God-centered and other-centered, rather than self-centered, goals.
8.
This text shatters the
tenants’ dream and maybe ours. The master comes to destroy those servants.
Luke 20:15b–18 says, “And
they threw him out of the vineyard and killed him. What then will the owner of
the vineyard do to them? He will come and destroy those tenants and give the
vineyard to others.” When they heard this, they said, “Surely not!” But he
looked directly at them and said, “What then is this that is written: “‘The
stone that the builders rejected
has become the cornerstone’? Everyone who falls on that stone will be broken to
pieces, and when it falls on anyone, it will crush him.” That will shatter their dreams! Surely not? May it never be? What
else could they possibly expect?! The stone shatters those who fall upon it and
crushes those upon whom it falls. The tenants can’t have it their way! No
inheritance, no vineyard, no future! Jesus is declaring how God will shatter
the evil dreams of the real tenants, the Jewish leaders.
9. Their system—and it had become their system rather than God’s—is going to be destroyed. The temple will be destroyed. Jerusalem, the headquarters of the establishment, will fall as well (Lk 19:41–44; 21:6). The way the leaders liked it and envisioned it to be—a comfortable arrangement with them in charge, with them enjoying the adoration of the people—will be no more. Repent? Turn away from the evil dream against which Jesus was warning them? No, that wasn’t in their plans. Luke 20:19–20 says, “The scribes and the chief priests sought to lay hands on him at that very hour, for they perceived that he had told this parable against them, but they feared the people. So they watched him and sent spies, who pretended to be sincere, that they might catch him in something he said, so as to deliver him up to the authority and jurisdiction of the governor.”
10. They would cling to their dream and still try to seize the inheritance—they will kill the Son, but he will be raised after three days. The temple will be restored, but it won’t be like before (Eph 2:19–22). A new King is crowned, but he bleeds and suffers for the people. Lk 23:38 says of Jesus our Savior as He is being crucified on the cross, “There was also an inscription over him, “This is the King of the Jews.”
11. All this may shatter our dreams as well. As we draw near to the cross, we realize those dreams get shattered as well. The cross doesn’t allow for things to be “my” way. It does not allow dreams to be self-centered. The cross changes the picture and forces the end of “my” way, the end of self-centered dreams.
12. Children’s dreams do get shattered. Not enough spring in the legs. Not enough speed in the swimming stroke. Not enough votes even for freshman class president. But the dreams are transformed and become much greater than we ever could have imagined. The dreams change to fit the personality and gifts of each of us. They change to fit the needs of society. A fireman becomes a foreman. Swimming in the Olympics becomes teaching swimming lessons at the Y. President becomes addressing pressing issues of safety and fairness in your hometown. A trip to the Final Four becomes finally seeing four kids you’ve raised marry faithful Lutheran spouses and begin their own Christian families. In so doing, there is fulfillment.
13. Yes, this text crushes dreams—maybe ours. But, rather than being swept away, these crushed dreams are transformed and fulfilled. The death of our dreams isn’t exactly what we wanted. But in death there is life. The cross was God’s plan from all eternity, and it must shatter us (Lk 9:23–24; Gal 2:20). St. Paul says in Gal 2:20, “I have been crucified with Christ. It is no longer I who live, but Christ who lives in me. And the life I now live in the flesh I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me.” The cross gives us life, true life. Christ has become our cornerstone. From that stone, he builds us up to be his Church. We are a new creation. We are being transformed into what God dreamed us to be—now and forever in heaven.
14. Life is much better than the death we lived. We get to experience, live, and care for others God intended from the creation of the world. We get to see God’s mission and be about his work with others in mind and not ourselves, our institutions, or our pride. We get to bear the fruit God had sought from Israel, the fruit that is in keeping with the righteousness Christ has given. God has shattered our dreams, and it is good! He transforms them into life and something worth dreaming! Amen. Now the peace of God that passes all understanding guard your hearts and minds in Christ Jesus until life everlasting. Amen.
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