What More Could He Have Done?

Eighteenth Sunday after Pentecost

October 8. 2017

Matthew 21:33–46

What More Could He Have Done?

In the name of the Father and of the ☩ Son and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.

³³“Listen to another parable: There was a landowner who planted a vineyard. He put a wall around it, dug a winepress in it and built a watchtower. Then he rented the vineyard to some farmers and went away on a journey. ³⁴When the harvest time approached, he sent his servants to the tenants to collect his fruit.

MATTHEW 21:33–34 NIV 1984

Everything so far was routine. A typical business arrangement that should have worked for both sides. Then things quickly got out of hand. As you listen, ask yourself, “What could the landowner have been thinking?”

³⁴When the harvest time approached, he sent his servants to the tenants to collect his fruit. ³⁵The tenants seized his servants; they beat one, killed another, and stoned a third. ³⁶Then he sent other servants to them, more than the first time, and the tenants treated them the same way.

MATTHEW 21:34–36 NIV 1984

The tenants, who had already agreed to return some of the fruit as their rent, attacked the servants. Without any moral grievance or legal right, they broke their agreement with landowner and became his enemies. They became violent and worse, it was premeditated. As far as the story goes, we can assume time. Time for news of the violence to reach the landowner. Time for him to decide what to do. Time for the next servant to go and approach the vineyard. In all that time, the tenants never repented of their violence and lawlessness. Instead of asking for mercy, they escalated their planned violence: beating, killing, stoning.

This story is about the Jews. Jesus was speaking to His own Jewish people about their own history of violence. Looking back on the time before Jesus Christ was born—the Old Testament—the author of the letter to the Hebrews wrote:

[Some of the prophets] were tortured and refused to be released, so that they might gain a better resurrection. ³⁶Some faced jeers and flogging, while still others were chained and put in prison. ³⁷They were stoned; they were sawed in two; they were put to death by the sword. They went about in sheepskins and goatskins, destitute, persecuted and mistreated—³⁸the world was not worthy of them. They wandered in deserts and mountains, and in caves and holes in the ground.

HEBREWS 11:35A–38 NIV 1984

The reason for this violence, which went on for a long time, was that these prophets told the truth. They told the truth about sinners and their sins. Evil queen Jezebel chased after the prophet Elijah to murder him for exposing her useless gods (1 Kings 19). King Joash stoned the faithful prophet Zechariah after Zechariah exposed Joash’s betrayal of the true faith (2 Chronicles 24).

Perhaps the worst example comes from about 600 years before Jesus was born. The kingdom of Judah—the southern part of the Holy Land—has a king who was a psychopath named Manasseh. He murdered innocent people. He indulged in the pagan rituals, including burning his own son to death. Worst of all, he set up idols to false gods in the sacred Temple of Solomon. So the Lord sent prophets to tell the truth, among them Isaiah.

¹⁰The Lord said through His servants the prophets: ¹¹“Manasseh king of Judah has committed these detestable sins. He has done more evil than the Amorites who preceded him and has led Judah into sin with his idols. ¹²Therefore this is what the Lord, the God of Israel, says: I am going to bring such disaster on Jerusalem and Judah that the ears of everyone who hears of it will tingle. ¹³I will stretch out over Jerusalem the measuring line used against Samaria and the plumb line used against the house of Ahab. I will wipe out Jerusalem as one wipes a dish, wiping it and turning it upside down. ¹⁴I will forsake the remnant of My inheritance and hand them over to their enemies. They will be looted and plundered by all their foes, ¹⁵because they have done evil in My eyes and have provoked Me to anger from the day their forefathers came out of Egypt until this day.”

2 KINGS 21:10–15 NIV 1984

The Lord allowed Manasseh to die in his bed after being king for 55 years(!), but not before Manasseh is said to have sawed the prophet Isaiah into two halves. And soon after this evil king’s peaceful death, his whole nation was destroyed.

So we see how Jesus’ story played out. His own people forsook the true faith, that trusts in the true God who places us into a good vineyard, a good place and good situation. And instead they produced bad fruit. Most were not monsters like Manasseh, but they accomplished just as much evil with their indifference and indecision. They said nothing while babies were being murdered. They refused to teach their children the story of salvation and the comfort of the coming Savior. Instead they taught themselves that many gods and many lies can all be true. They lived like money would make them happy. Then they lived their lives like they would just go on forever, and when that didn't work out, they became bitter. And worst of all, whenever a true prophet or preacher came along, sometimes they would angry at him, but mostly they just ignored him.

The more things change, the more things stay the same.

So what could the landowner have been thinking? He kept sending servants. In the story the servants who keep getting clobbered were God’s prophets to Israel. Now, what’s the definition of insanity? Doing the same thing over and over again with the same results. The landowner keeps doing the same thing. Here's the thing: the only insane people in the story were the tenants—they thought murdering the owner's slaves would make them the owners of the vineyard. But since he dealt mercifully with these insane tenants, the owner ran the risk of looking crazy himself.

And even more strangely the landowner, like the tenants, decided to escalate. No more servants; now his son.

³⁷Last of all, he sent his son to them. ‘They will respect my son,’ he said. ³⁸But when the tenants saw the son, they said to each other, ‘This is the heir. Come, let’s kill him and take his inheritance.’ ³⁹So they took him and threw him out of the vineyard and killed him.

MATTHEW 21:37–39 NIV 1984

What more could he have done? The landowner who represents the Lord God Himself, sent His only-begotten Son, Jesus Christ, on a mission that certainly would end in His death. And it did. God’s enemies killed His Son in His day and now lie about who Jesus is. On the other hand, God’s friends—you—are killed with Him in His death and raised to life in Holy Baptism and now speak the truth about the Son. He gives you His vineyard, a good place and a good situation, to produce good fruit, not to save yourself, but because you already are saved.

For even the Son of Man did not come to be served, but to serve,

and to give His life as a ransom for many.

Mark 10:45

There Is a Third Son for You

Seventeenth Sunday after Pentecost

October 1, 2017

Matthew 21:23-32

There Is a Third Son for You

In the name of the Father and of the ☩ Son and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.

I hope many of you will stay for our Bible study later this morning. It's about a son who said yes to his father as to his future and then didn't do what his father wanted. Instead this son did what he thought his heavenly Father wanted. Instead of pursuing a life as a respected professional—what his father wanted—the son tried to get his heavenly Father's approval by performing religious acts. These acts of religious piety often were so over-the-top that they were concerning or even annoying to the son's new religious community.

Over time, the son began to realize that his religious performance did not please his heavenly Father. The son felt lonely and isolated from his heavenly Father. He had traveled the path of self-correction and self-perfection and it left him without hope.

Fifteen hundred years earlier, Jesus spoke with this son's fellow travelers. They called themselves Pharisees. At that time Pharisees had only good connotations. Pharisees looked good. They helped people. They lived upright lives. People liked them. People wanted to be like them. They were outwardly kind and compassionate people (and some were doubtlessly truly caring).

But Jesus saw through them. He saw what really drove them as individuals and as a group. They driven by their desire to please other people and their heavenly Father with their religious performance. They talked a good game, but they were not about their Father's business. Jesus laid it out for them like this:

²⁸What do you think? There was a man who had two sons. He went to the first and said, ‘Son, go and work today in the vineyard.’ ²⁹He answered, ‘I will not,’ but later he changed his mind and went. ³⁰Then the father went to the other son and said the same thing. He answered, ‘I will, sir,' but he did not go. ³¹Which of the two did what his father wanted?”

MATTHEW 21:28–31 NIV 1984

The Pharisees did not miss Jesus' point. They were the second son. They respectfully said, “Yes, sir!” to the father, but then they did not do what he asked them to do. On the other hand, there were other sinners, who had rudely said no to the father at first, changed their minds and later did what he asked them to do. Sinners, really bad people, were turning to Jesus' heavenly Father and were doing His will.

What is His will? In the story the father asked them to work in his vineyard. And Jesus explained that this vine work was confession and repentance.

³²Jesus said to them, “I tell you the truth, the tax collectors and the prostitutes are entering the kingdom of God ahead of you. For John came to you to show you the way of righteousness, and you did not believe him, but the tax collectors and the prostitutes did. And even after you saw this, you did not repent and believe him.”

MATTHEW 21:32 NIV 1984

Many Pharisees had heard John the Baptist preach the way of righteousness. This way means calling sin, sin. This way means calling yourself what you are: sinner. And this way means receiving forgiveness from God Himself. Dr. Luther explained this righteous way in two parts:

The one is that we confess our sins; the other, that we receive absolution or forgiveness from the pastor as from God Himself, not doubting, but firmly believing that our sins are thus forgiven before God in heaven.

SMALL CATECHISM V:1

Even though this righteous way is life for all who trust in the Lord, there are many who find this way off-putting and tiresome and even wrong. The Pharisees thought their performance of right deeds would force God to honor them as VIPs in heaven. Martin Luther, the son who disobeyed his earthly father, was taught the same.

Today many cultures still revere their religious performers, such as Buddhist monks or Hindu gurus or yourself. It is easy to spot idols if Indiana Jones grabbing a golden head off of a bobby trap, so it is easy to be sad about those self-righteous actors in our world, whether from Kathmandu or Hollywood or Washington. But it's much harder to spot idols or actors when they live in Davenport. Or in your house. Or look at you in the mirror.

We are these two sons. We say yes and we say no. We do our Father's will because He has made us alive to do His will, but we also sin and do our own good things that really aren't so good.

We don't want to be the guy who says yes and then goes off to do his own thing. But we aren't saved by saying no to the Father and then saying yes to Him later with our good deeds. That risks becoming a religious performance, too. Our salvation is not about us, the two sons. Our salvation comes from the other Son, not mentioned in Jesus' parable. We are saved by the Son who said yes to His Father and then did His Father's will all the way to the cross.

For even the Son of Man did not come to be served, but to serve,

and to give His life as a ransom for many.

Mark 10:45

Getting Paid with Jesus

Sixteenth Sunday after Pentecost

September 24, 2017

Matthew 20:1–16

Getting Paid with Jesus

In the name of the Father and of the ☩ Son and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.

Everywhere on earth good men expect: “First come, first served.” But it is not so in the Kingdom of Grace. Here the last will be first and the first last.

This seems awful. The innocent will be punished and the guilty will escape? But it is quite wonderful when we realize that the only Innocent One is Jesus Christ and we are all guilty.

In this Kingdom we who didn’t work get paid as though we did, and we are even invited to remain in the vineyard. On the other hand those who come and demand to be paid their fair wages, those who insist on justice, they get only what they deserve, and nothing more, and they are sent away.

¹²They said, ‘These men who were hired last worked only one hour, and you have made them equal to us who have borne the burden of the work and the heat of the day.’ ¹³But he answered one of them, ‘Friend, I am not being unfair to you. Didn’t you agree to work for a denarius? ¹⁴Take your pay and go.

MATTHEW 20:12–14a NIV

Jesus’ “last-come-first” way is a scandal to good men because the Kingdom is not earned by the industrious or the good. It is given to the wasteful, to the lazy, to sinners. The only way to get in is through humility and repentance. It is to simply trust that vineyard owner will give us whatever is right. Those proud in their own goodness cannot obtain the Kingdom. Only those receive the Kingdom as a gift from the Lord’s generosity come in. That is the definition of grace. Grace is the undeserving last rewarded as first.

We can read this story and try to link up the workers to real people in our lives. The first workers can be lifelong Lutherans, the later ones are adult converts, and the last hired are deathbed conversions. But this would be a misreading of this story. The point is here, when the Master is explaining what had just happened:

‘Friend, I am not being unfair to you. Didn’t you agree to work for a denarius? ¹⁴Take your pay and go. I want to give the man who was hired last the same as I gave you. ¹⁵Don’t I have the right to do what I want with my own money? Or are you envious because I am generous?’ ¹⁶So the last will be first, and the first will be last.

MATTHEW 20:13b–16 NIV

The response to the pay is the key. Unbelievers treat the denarius as though it was theirs’. Just like last week’s unmerciful servant who thought he just needed to time take back what was his own, these all-day workers wanted to be paid for their time. They think they belong to themselves. They think they have value independent from Christ Jesus. And receiving His gift would destroy their illusion of independence.

We are tempted into this illusion. When things don’t go our way in life, after we have been so good, we are tempted to grumble like the older brother in the Parable of the Lost Son. When the father rejoiced in the return of the sinful young son, the older brother fumed that he never got paid for all his obedience.

Look! All these years I’ve been slaving for you and never disobeyed your orders. Yet you never gave me even a young goat so I could celebrate with my friends.

LUKE 15:29 NIV

Like the prodigal father, the people of this world see our heavenly Father as unfair. And they’re right, but not in the way they think. God’s way is the way of grace and the cross. He makes the first last. All one of them: Jesus. And He “unfairly” makes the last first. All of us.

For even the Son of Man did not come to be served, but to serve,

and to give His life as a ransom for many.

Mark 10:45