The Grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Love of God, and the Fellowship of the Holy Spirit be with you all. Amen.
Luke 20:9 “And He began to tell the people this parable: ‘A man planted a vineyard and rented it out to vine-growers, and went on a journey for a long time. 10 And at the harvest time he sent a slave to the vine-growers, in order that they might give him some of the produce of the vineyard; but the vine-growers beat him and sent him away empty- handed. 11 “And he proceeded to send another slave; and they beat him also and treated him shamefully, and sent him away empty-handed. 12 And he proceeded to send a third; and this one also they wounded and cast out. 13 And the owner of the vineyard said, ‘What shall I do? I will send my beloved son; perhaps they will respect him.’ 14 But when the vine-growers saw him, they reasoned with one another, saying, ‘This is the heir; let us kill him that the inheritance may be ours.’ 15 And they threw him out of the vineyard and killed him. What, therefore, will the owner of the vineyard do to them? 16 He will come and destroy these vine-growers and will give the vineyard to others. And when they heard it, they said, May it never be! 17 But He looked at them and said, ‘What then is this that is written, ‘THE STONE WHICH THE BUILDERS REJECTED, THIS BECAME THE CHIEF CORNER stone’? 18 Everyone who falls on that stone will be broken to pieces; but on whomever it falls, it will scatter him like dust. 19 And the scribes and the chief priests tried to lay hands on Him that very hour, and they feared the people; for they understood that He spoke this parable against them.” (NASB)
When Christian Herter was governor of Massachusetts (1953 to 1957), he was running hard for a second term in office. One day, after a busy morning chasing votes (and no lunch) he arrived at a church barbecue. It was late afternoon and Herter was famished. As Herter moved down the serving line, he held out his plate to the woman serving chicken. She put a piece on his plate and turned to the next person in line. “Excuse me,” Governor Herter said, “do you mind if I have another piece of chicken?” “Sorry,” the woman replied. “I’m supposed to give one piece of chicken to each person.” “But I’m starved,” the governor said. “Sorry,” the woman said again. “Only one to a customer.” The Governor was a normally a modest and unassuming man, but this time he decided he would throw a little weight around. “Do you know who I am?” he said. “I am the governor of this state.” “Do you know who I am?” the woman responded. “I’m the lady in charge of the chicken. Move along, mister.” (Bits & Pieces, May 28, 1992, pp. 5-6.) (A.U.)
The point is that the governor possessed one kind of authority over certain things and the church chicken lady possessed another kind of authority over certain things.
Human beings emerge from the womb with an authority problem. It’s one of those human paradoxes. On the one hand, human beings, children in particular and adults in general seek structure and authority. That’s why people naturally gravitate to other people who are leaders and authoritative structures. It is part of the created order. God built order and authority into the cosmos.
On the other hand, as sinners human beings have a natural inclination to rebel against authority. Some schools of thought in psychology teach that part of human growth and development and the recognition of self often manifests itself in a rebellion against authority. We all know that little children learn the “no” pretty quickly.
By the time we get to the parable of the Wicked Tenants and the Landlord’s Son, the problem of authority had been simmering for three years. In the next few days—or, in our church year, in the next two weeks—the authority problem between God and sinners is going to boil over into the crucifixion of God’s Only begotten Son.
By Luke 20, Jesus is no longer preaching and teaching in small towns in Galilee. It’s Tuesday of Holy Week and Jesus is Jerusalem the seat of Jewish power and the seat of Roman power in the region. He is in the temple teaching in plain view of the most powerful men of Jerusalem, men with the authority of religious and political offices.
That won’t quite Jesus though. All authority had been given to Him so He went right ahead and told this parable. “A man planted a vineyard and rented it out to vine-growers, and went on a journey for a long time.” That was not an unusual thing. Sometimes business men bought farms and vineyards in an area where they did not live. They would invest in the land and farming operation, then rent the whole thing out to tenants.
Normally those tenants would have the good sense to take care of the business in a mutually beneficial relationship with the owner. He owned it. They worked it. They each shared in the profits.
10 “And at the harvest time he sent a slave to the vine-growers, in order that they might give him some of the produce of the vineyard; but the vine-growers beat him and sent him away empty- handed.”
It is obvious that the servants in the parable are the Old Testament prophets. The workers are the religious leaders in Jerusalem throughout Israel’s history in the Old Testament. Jesus had said as much when He entered Jerusalem. Matthew 23:37 “Jerusalem, Jerusalem, who kills the prophets and stones those who have been sent to her!”
Second there is an interesting grammatical construction and word used here in the telling of this parable. The verb dosousin, means “they would give,” as in they would give him some of the produce. It’s not the language of rent, or even the language of a payment that is owed.
The verb tells us something about the vineyard owner. He wants His relationship to be on the basis of gift, not an obligation. The vineyard is a gift from him to them and they an offering from them to him.
That idea is further supported by the warning in verse 16. The owner “will come . . . and give the vineyard to others.” Giving is his way of doing business. In this case, the only thing the tenants give back at the sending of the first servant is a beating– beating the owner’s servant.
At the very outset of the parable, the tenants decide that the master’s authority over his vineyard stands in the way of them having the vineyard themselves (vv 9–10).
From the outset of Jesus’s earthly ministry, His work in the vineyard of God’s people the religious leaders challenged Jesus’s authority. In fact the religious authorities had just challenged Jesus’s authority to teach a few moments earlier (Luke 20:2). “Tell us by what authority You are doing these things, or who is the one who gave You this authority?”
“And he proceeded to send another slave; and they beat him also and treated him shamefully, and sent him away empty-handed. 12 And he proceeded to send a third; and this one also they wounded and cast out.” Three servants. All three mistreated. Each subsequent servant is beaten and dealt with more severely than the previous one. The first sent away empty handed. The second was beaten and his manhood attacked. The third one beat him to the point where they could physically throw him out.
In the parable, the rightful authority of the landlord is delegated to his servant. All three are beaten and driven off. The Owner sends on servant after another (i.e. Elijah, Elisha, Jeremiah, John the Baptist, and others) and all of them are rejected by Israel.
What to do now the owner says to himself. This question is one of two nuclear kernels that drive the whole parable. “Perhaps they will respect [my son].” That is either naïve or strategic. What makes him think that. That seems counterintuitive to us.
As for the “respecting” of the son, the verb for respecting is entrapesontai and has various meanings, interpretations, and applications. The word is likely pointing to the respect they ought to have for the son with a connotation of being ashamed of some kind of wrong doing.
The owner’s son (vv 13–15), obviously represents God’s Only Begotten Son, Jesus the Christ. God’s tenants, Israel, would kill the Son just three days later.
By sending three servants and his son, the vineyard owner is giving the tenants an opportunity to repent and time to repent. The whole think is about grace, the grace and patience of the Lord God toward His people. It’s all grace.
Throwing off the authority of God was in fact the stuff of the fall. Adam and Eve wanted to be like God, knowing good and evil. Old Testament Israel was like a rebellious child pushing up against and stepping over God given boundaries and sometimes living in outright rebellion to the Lord God.
As we can now see in our own day and age, there comes a time when people think they can cast off God’s authority, His order of creation, His words and deeds, and take what does not belong to them and play god, like the people who built the tower of Babel.
So also people today, including Christians and churches are at odds with God ordained authority inside and outside the church, with God Himself, His words, His doctrine, and His work. We live in a day of rebellion against all the is good and right and wholesome.
Everyone of us is often colluding with the world. We hear about a cause that sound just and right so we buy into it. We’re too lazy to do any real research into it. We’re just told by the world it is the morally right thing to support. It offers the appearance of godliness so we join the parade. But in reality the cause is opposed to God given authority, to the order of creation, to that which is good for our neighbors and family.
When faithful pastors and laity rightly identify the threat, those people are at best humored and ignored. At worst they are treated like the prophets of old. The tenants murdered the son in the parable. The religious leaders who heard Jesus speak and some of the people in Jerusalem said to each other, “‘This is the heir; let us kill him that the inheritance may be ours.’ And they threw him out of the vineyard and killed him” on the cross of Calvary.
“What, therefore, [Jesus concludes] will the owner of the vineyard do to them? 16 He will come and destroy these vine-growers and will give the vineyard to others. And when they heard it, they said, May it never be! 17 But He looked at them and said, ‘What then is this that is written, ‘THE STONE WHICH THE BUILDERS REJECTED, THIS BECAME THE CHIEF CORNER stone’? 18 Everyone who falls on that stone will be broken to pieces; but on whomever it falls, it will scatter him like dust.”
For those who live in rebellion to God, His Son Jesus Christ, and His duly established authority Jesus makes it clear. All that they have will be taken away. The Master will utterly destroy them. They will be like dust under a heavy stone when He is done.
Upon hearing that parable, the Pharisees and scribes “tried to lay hands on Him that very hour, and they feared the people; for they understood that He spoke this parable against them.”
Rather than responding in repentance, the religious elites harden their hearts. But for their fear of the people, they would have tried to kill Jesus right there in the temple. They would have showed themselves to be exactly like the vineyard workers in the parable.
The parable is concerned exclusively with people who reject God and His Son. For the Christian, Christ’s death and God’s judgment is not the end of the story. The resurrection is the end.
Christ Jesus died for us. All we like sheep have gone astray. He died for all our acts of rebellion. He holds no good thing back from us! He gives us everything we need as a gift. God wants us to understand that this is how He always wishes to exercise his authority.
Jesus even gave us, His Church the authority. Matthew 28:18-20, “All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to Me. 19 Go, therefore, and make disciples of all the nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit, 20 teaching them to follow all that I commanded you; and behold, I am with you always, to the end of the age.”
John 20:22-23 “And when He had said this, He breathed on them and *said to them, “Receive the Holy Spirit. 23 If you forgive the sins of any, their sins have been forgiven them; if you retain the sins of any, they have been retained.”
In the stead, by the command and authority of Christ Jesus, I forgive you all yours sins.
AMEN
May the peace that surpasses all understanding keep your hearts and minds in Christ Jesus. Amen