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

Forgiving Our Debt with His Payment

Fifteenth Sunday after Pentecost

September 17, 2017

Matthew 18:21–35

Forgiving Our Debt with His Payment

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

At the heart of this parable is the difference between justice and mercy. Justice is getting exactly what you deserve; mercy is getting the opposite of what you deserve. The servant stands before the king and which one does he ask for? Does he ask for mercy or justice?

²⁴As he began the settlement, a man who owed him ten thousand talents was brought to him. ²⁵Since he was not able to pay, the master ordered that he and his wife and his children and all that he had be sold to repay the debt. ²⁶The servant fell on his knees before him. He begged, ‘Be patient with me, and I will pay back everything.’

MATTHEW 18:24-26 NIV

This servant shows that he didn’t believe that he needed to be forgiven because he didn’t ask for forgiveness. He asked for patience. He thinks that the king has simply done him a favor that he might have done on his own, if only he were given enough time. So he is not repentant. He doesn't really think that the king has forgiven him, because he doesn't think he really had something wrong with him. He probably would have said that the king was a nice guy, but his freedom and his righteousness were his own, and that he would have gotten free eventually on his own.

This is a warning to us. By faith we will be generous and merciful to other people, but that we also see our place in God's kingdom: we are beggars. We cannot dig ourselves out of this hole. We sins are too much for us. We were dead in our trespasses and sins. So we need His mercy, not more time to dig ourselves deeper into debt.

In short, we need Jesus. We need Him to forgive our debt, our trespasses, our sin. It is too much for us, but Jesus has forgiven it all.

²⁷The servant’s master took pity on him, canceled the debt and let him go.

MATTHEW 18:27 NIV

So, dear beggars and now also servants of the true everlasting King, Christ hasn’t give you justice, but mercy. He has given you the opposite of what you deserve: instead of prison, He has given you a place in His kingdom.

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

For a more complete treatment of this text,

see Pr. David Peterson's Sermon.

Willing to Be Thought of as Mean

Fourteenth Sunday after Pentecost

September 10, 2017

Matthew 18:15-20

Willing to Be Thought of as Mean

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

What is the worst thing that another person can think about you?

Cheap? Lazy? Smelly?

How about mean?

Being thought of as mean is the worst possible outcome in life. I don’t think this used to be the case, but it sure is a fear of many today. I mean, you’re afraid of being thought of as mean, right? So am I.

We should be self-aware enough to care about how we come across to others. But when this fear of being thought of as mean forces you not to tell the truth, that’s a problem.

Now there are three ways you can end up being thought of as mean.

You can actually be evil or

you can tell the truth to hurt someone else in order to make yourself feel better or

you can tell the truth out of love for someone’s safety.

Before the flood, Noah was called a “preacher of righteousness” (2 Peter 2:5 NIV). Very likely when his neighbors came around to see the ark being built, Noah preached to them about what was coming and why it was coming.

By faith Noah, when warned about things not yet seen, in holy fear built an ark to save his family. By his faith he condemned the world and became heir of the righteousness that is in keeping with faith.

HEBREW 11:7 NIV

He condemned the world by faith, because faith is agreeing with God. And Moses recorded what God had said about the world.

⁵The Lord saw how great the wickedness of the human race had become on the earth, and that every inclination of the thoughts of the human heart was only evil all the time. ⁶The Lord regretted that He had made human beings on the earth, and His heart was deeply troubled. ⁷So the Lord said, “I will wipe from the face of the earth the human race I have created—and with them the animals, the birds and the creatures that move along the ground—for I regret that I have made them.”

GENESIS 6:5–7 NIV

Noah preached not his own condemnation. He didn’t speak about his own personal disgust for the world’s evil; he preached the judgment of the Lord, so that some might be get on the ark and be saved. Noah didn’t care if his neighbors thought of him as mean; he just didn’t want them to drown and go to hell.

Fast forward to a decade or so after Jesus ascended into heaven. The early Church is being torn apart by those who insisted that Christ dying and rising for salvation wasn’t enough. They were insisting that you had to follow the old laws of Moses to be a “real” Christian. So to be a “real” believer you had to be circumcised and you had to eat certain foods and avoid others.

Even Peter had been taken in by this false teaching, so Paul had to speak the truth in love. He confronted Peter “face-to-face” not out of anger, but out of concern for his soul. He loved Peter enough to risk being thought of as mean in order to set him straight back onto the full and free Gospel of Jesus, who lived, died, and rose for our sins.

You care about your neighbors. Care enough about them to risk being thought of as mean. When one of them sins against you, speak the truth in love to them. Speak clearly and calmly about the sin in question and then speak clearly and joyfully about the forgiveness of that sin that we receive in Christ’s dying and rising. He died for all sin, including the sin in question. He knew the sinner by name and the sin in question when He willingly suffered and died.

If your sinner won’t listen, get back-up from a trusted fellow believer. This is someone who can be trusted to keep the matter confidential. If your sinner still insists on calling their sin not-sin, then it’s appropriate to get the Church involved. And if your sinner clings to their sin even then, then they must be shown and not just told that they are in danger. This is what Jesus said:

¹⁵“If your brother sins against you, go and show him his fault, just between the two of you. If he listens to you, you have won your brother over. ¹⁶But if he will not listen, take one or two others along, so that ‘every matter may be established by the testimony of two or three witnesses.’ ¹⁷If he refuses to listen to them, tell it to the church; and if he refuses to listen even to the church, treat him as you would a pagan or a tax collector.”

MATTHEW 16:24–25 NIV

When you do this, you’re taking a big risk. The one who sinned against you will very likely think of you as mean. They will think your trusted believer is mean. And they will think the Church and her pastor are mean. This is a risk we must take. By faith we sacrifice our reputation to the scorn of committed sinners and of the world. As Paul wrote to the Christians in Rome:

¹Therefore, I urge you, brothers, in view of God’s mercy, to offer your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and pleasing to God—this is your true and proper worship. ²Do not conform to the pattern of this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind. Then you will be able to test and approve what God’s will is—his good, pleasing and perfect will. ³For by the grace given me I say to every one of you: Do not think of yourself more highly than you ought, but rather think of yourself with sober judgment, in accordance with the faith God has distributed to each of you.

ROMANS 12:1-3 NIV

When we remember what we are and what we were, we will warn our fellow sinners out of care and love, risking ourselves in the process. Why? Because of our Savior, who risked and lost everything for us! Not only did lose His life, He also risked His good name. Indeed His reputation continues to be trampled on by the unbelieving world. But risk and lose did not stop Him because He loves you.

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 Behind Jesus’ Dying

Thirteenth Sunday after Pentecost

September 3, 2017

Matthew 16:21–23

Getting Behind Jesus’ Dying

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

There are times in life when frustration or sadness leads you to share secrets that later on you wish you hadn’t shared. At the time it seemed like you had to tell someone this secret doubt or opinion or frustration. And maybe for a while sharing the secret did make you feel satisfied.

But then as time goes by, you start to wish you had keep this private thought private. You realize that what you thought was so important or insightful at the time wasn’t as brilliant or accurate as you thought. And you wish you could take it back.

If you know what I’m talking about, then you probably can relate to the Apostle Peter. He often over-shared, as we’d say it today. And in this account he really was out there.

By this point in his life he had seen so much that Jesus had said and did. He had seen Jesus feed thousands of people and heal many more. He had seen Jesus calm stormy seas. He had felt Jesus’ hand grab his own and pull him up out of water and carry him on water to safety. Surely a Man like this, indeed the Son of the living God, would never let Himself die. And Peter expressed his secret opinion to his friend.

²¹From that time on Jesus began to explain to His disciples that He must go to Jerusalem and suffer many things at the hands of the elders, chief priests and teachers of the law, and that He must be killed and on the third day be raised to life. ²²Peter took Him aside and began to rebuke Him. He said, “Never, Lord! This shall never happen to You!”

MATTHEW 16:21–22 NIV

Jesus’ reaction is startling. He doesn’t talk Peter down or try to soothe him. He could have explained, “Yes, Peter, it seems impossible, after all you’ve seen, but believe Me, this is going to happen. So thanks for sticking up for Me, but it’s going to be okay.” Instead He delivers one of His most crushing rebukes, looking right into Peter’s eyes:

“Get behind Me, Satan! You are a stumbling block to Me; you do not have in mind the things of God, but the things of men.”

MATTHEW 16:23 NIV

The Greek word that in English is heard as “stumbling block” is an interesting and even complicated word. It originally meant the stick that propped up a box trap. And soon it meant the trap itself. What is clear is that the Devil did not give up his attempts to trap Jesus after the tempting in the wilderness. The Devil is still trying to get the cross out of the picture. He wants Jesus to gloriously and bloodlessly rule the world. And Peter agrees with the Devil. This is why Jesus says what He says: “Get behind Me, Satan!”

When anyone tries to stop Jesus from going to the cross or in our day deny that central fact of Jesus’ dying and rising, that is the Devil speaking. The Devil’s trap is to feel forgiven and good without Jesus and certainly without His bitter suffering and death. This is the danger for those who never miss the joy and glory and fame and razzle-dazzle of Easter Sunday, but make it a point to boycott the hearing of the Good Friday account of Jesus’ cross and dying. In their own way, they agree with Peter: “No, Lord! That never should have never happened to You!” They know that rising from the dead assumes a death, but that’s the problem—they assume it. Good Friday and Easter together is the Gospel, Jesus died and rose. Assuming either one is dangerous, because the Gospel assumed is the Gospel denied.

Peter denied Jesus’ actual—and now clearly laid out—reason He came to Earth. He took on our flesh and blood, so that He might shed His blood as a sacrifice. This sacrifice is what makes us pleasing to His Father. Peter wanted life without death and without sacrifice. He wanted to save his life without losing it. Perhaps he realized that if Christ must carry a cross and die, so must His followers.

Do not deny Jesus’ cross. Instead confess His cross, His death, His resurrection with joy. And carry your crosses faithfully. These are the things in life that the Devil uses to raise doubts in your mind as to whether Jesus truly loves you.

A hurricane.

A positive result on a biopsy.

A child who will not listen.

Everything is washed away, but you still have Jesus.

You might die sooner than you thought, but you still have Jesus.

Years of frustration may lie ahead, but you still have Jesus. And so does your child.

When crosses come to bear, turn to Jesus and listen to Him as speaks to His disciples, which is you:

“If anyone would come after Me, he must deny himself and take up his cross and follow Me. ²⁵For whoever wants to save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for Me will find it.

MATTHEW 16:24–25 NIV

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

Lutheran Satire: Luther, the Pope, and James 2