1. Grace, mercy, and peace to you from from God our heavenly Father and from our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ. Amen. The text for our final sermon in our series, Parables for Pentecost, is the Gospel lesson from Luke 20, I’m going to include verses 1 & 2 for context: One day, as Jesus was teaching the people in the temple and preaching the gospel, the chief priests and the scribes with the elders came up and said to him, “Tell us by what authority you do these things, or who is it that gave you this authority.” (Lk 20:1–2) Jesus answers them in his interpretation of Isaiah’s vineyard song, Is 5:1–7, and Psalm 118’s cornerstone. “And [Jesus] began to tell the people this parable: ‘A man planted a vineyard and let it out to tenants [vine growers] and went into another country for a long while’ ” (Luke 20:9). The message is entitled, “Vine Grifters,” dear brothers and sisters in Christ.
2. It was a long time since this vineyard had been planted. (Is 5:2). Even Isaiah the prophet referred to it in the distant past—so long ago that the vine growers forgot that they were tenants but imagined they were the owners. Ever do that? This parable was Jesus’ answer to those same tenants who asked, “Who do you think you are? Where do you get the authority to preach this ‘gospel’?” (Luke 20:2). The story Jesus told them would be too incredible to believe had we not known it came true: When the time came, he sent a servant [slave] to the tenants [vine growers], so that they would give him some of the fruit of the vineyard. But the tenants beat him and sent him away empty-handed. And he sent another servant. But they also beat and treated him shamefully, and sent him away empty-handed. And he sent yet a third. This one also they wounded and cast out. (Luke 20:10–12)
3. Has anyone ever heard of an owner like this? I would have invaded with tanks after my first servant was beaten. Sometimes I fancy myself as patient with people, even patient with fellow sinners, not realizing that all that time it was I who was trying the Lord’s patience. He has put up with me, and put up with you, and put up with his people Israel.
4. The evil tenants aggressively exploit the owner’s patience. Instead of receiving fruit, the owner receives the opposite: his prophets are abused and disregarded. Why? Peter said, “The Lord is not slow to fulfill his promise as some count slowness, but is patient toward you, not wishing that any should perish, but that all should reach repentance” (2 Pet 3:9). Just when you think the patience has run out, and the owner should cut his losses, “the owner of the vineyard said, ‘What shall I do? I will send my beloved son; perhaps they will respect him.’ But when the tenants saw him, they said to themselves, ‘This is the heir. Let us kill him, so that the inheritance may be ours’ ” (Luke 20:13–14).
5. It’s bad enough that they killed the owner’s son, but they knew he was the owner’s son and still killed him! And Jesus knew that they knew! The leaders of Israel knew he was the Messiah. This wasn’t ignorance, like the Romans or the Greeks. This was evil. Follow the logic. Oh, wait, there isn’t any. Because sin is insanity, and it makes us do insane things. What fairy tale did Jesus’ contemporaries live that they believed they could kick the Lord out of his own world? “Let us kill him, so that the inheritance may be ours.” The very same lies confront us: Let’s strip every mention of Christ from our land and the country will be ours. Let’s strip every mention of Christ from our conscience and our lives will be ours. Let’s strip every mention of Scripture from our movies about Christ and we can retell his story to suit our audience. But history bears out that it never works. “And they threw him out of the vineyard and killed him. What then will the owner [the lord] of the vineyard do to them? He will come and destroy those tenants”—and that generation did not pass away without seeing Jerusalem fall in AD 70. It’s history. “And [he will] give the vineyard to others.” (Luke 20:15–16a)
6. “When they heard this, they said, ‘Surely not!’ [‘May it never be!’] ” (Luke 20:16b). That’s the kind of talk that comes from those who will throw away their own brothers if it comes down to that. These temple officials say, “May it never be!” as if they didn’t recognize the history Jesus was recounting. They acted shocked as if they had never read Isaiah 5, about the Lord who expected his Vineyard to produce good grapes, but it produced only worthless ones.
7. So, what gives Jesus the authority to rip the Vineyard away from the rulers of Israel and give it to those whom he named apostles? The same thing that gives him the authority over all history: his crucifixion. And while we receive the body and blood of Christ, the Lamb of God, “they sang a new song, saying, ‘Worthy are you to take the scroll and to open its seals, for you were slain, and by your blood you ransomed people for God from every tribe and language and people and nation’ ” (Rev 5:9). Worthy by the very authority of his crucifixion. Those who threw him out of the Vineyard and killed him were the unwitting instruments of God to give the Vineyard to the ones he made holy, precisely by that murder.
8. The work of the Lord’s Vineyard, the preaching of the Gospel, is authorized by the very crucifixion of Jesus that is preached. “For I decided to know nothing among you except Jesus Christ and him crucified” (1 Cor 2:2). The cross is the only power we have in our work in the Vineyard, given to the children of God and taken from the tenants, who said, “May it never be!” Jesus said, “What then is this that is written, ‘The stone that the builders rejected has become the cornerstone’? ” (Luke 20:17). When we read “cornerstone” in the Bible, it’s not the same thing as the modern cornerstone with the date etched on it. This is about the square block that the first two walls rest on and rise from. Jesus becomes the cornerstone by being rejected (Lk 2:34).
9. Opposed when Peter healed the man at the Beautiful Gate and was questioned by the same rulers that threw the Son out of the Vineyard (Acts 4:8a, 10b–11). Jesus was the cornerstone that held up that persecuted Church. He is the cornerstone who joins the two together, the Jews and the Gentiles, so that one building and one house results. Christ is a cornerstone because, in the Church, he brought the Gentiles and the Jews, who were mortal enemies, together. “Everyone who falls on that stone will be broken to pieces; and when it falls on anyone, it will crush him.” 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. (Luke 20:18–19)
10. The risen Cornerstone said: “All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me” (Mt 28:18) 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. For it stands in Scripture: “Behold, I am laying in Zion a stone, a cornerstone chosen and precious, and whoever believes in him will not be put to shame [disappointed].” So the honor [value]is for you who believe, but for those who do not believe, “The stone that the builders rejected has became the cornerstone.” (1 Pet 2:4–7) So says Peter, the first living stone built on that Cornerstone, on that Rock. We do not bear him. He bears us.
11. And when they got their hands on him, they threw him out of the Vineyard and killed him and thought they were rid of him. But Jesus’ Authority Comes from His Rejection and Crucifixion. And what a nice history lesson that was. But what is the lesson for us? Do we really believe that Jesus’ authority comes from his rejection and crucifixion? Then why the tolerance for modern vine grifters, purging the Church of both Jesus’ cross and rejection? Jesus said, “For this reason the Father loves me, because I lay down my life that I may take it up again. No one takes it from me, but I lay it down of my own accord. I have authority to lay it down, and I have authority to take it up again. This charge [command] I have received from my Father” (Jn 10:17–18). It’s in losing his life, being rejected, crucified, risen, all the while being the Son of the Owner, wherein lies all Jesus’ power and authority. This is why St. Paul said, “I decided to know nothing among you except Jesus Christ and him crucified” (1 Cor 2:2).
12. The modern vine grifters have kidnapped the people of God, just like those who killed the prophets, killed the Son, corrupted the Church in the Middle Ages in Martin Luther’s day. Let’s get rid of the cross and any notion of rejection, and grow and prosper and get rich in the process. And in so doing, the Church is robbed of Jesus’ authority. People want to be “woke” now, so they will be thought well of by the world. Many churches will “do good” in the community—long as they don’t have to bear the reproach of Jesus. And they’ll preach anything except the off-putting message of the cross, which both brings to light sin and sets God’s grace as all in all, leaving no room for spiritual pride. But if the cross and sharing in Jesus’ rejection is eliminated from the Church, her purpose, power, authority, reason for existing are gone. The bride’s husband is gone. The church is used and abused by lying shepherds who get rich at her expense, while she clings to the lie that she is good. She is blind. The light within her is darkness, and how great is that darkness!
13. But the Owner’s Son Jesus still has wounds. He gives his blood for wine. Alleluia! Rejected, crucified love, risen to find those who didn’t want him. There is his authority. That’s the Jesus that ever lives in the true Church. To repent to Jesus’ authority is to take the love and live. That’s rejection I can live with. 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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