What Will the Owner of the Vineyard Do?
“Then 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.’ 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” (Luke 20:13-15).
Grace
to you and peace from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ!
Do you
remember last week when I told you the key to understanding any of the parables
is to look for the point where it departs from everyday life? Well, good luck
with this one! No one behaves in the way that we would normally expect them to
behave. I mean, what landowner would keep sending his servants to collect the
rent when they’re being so mistreated. Couldn’t he send a couple of big guys with
swords? Maybe the sheriff? Or the militia? And then he’s even so naïve as to
send his beloved son! What kind of father would do that?
And
the tenants. “Oh, we’re not paying any rent. Get lost! And here’s a little
beating just to show that we mean business.” Then they get so crazy that
somehow in their mind, they think that if they just kill the son, if they just
get rid of the heir, they will somehow get the owner’s inheritance. Who could
be that foolish? That rebellious? That bloodthirsty? It could never, ever happen.
Or could it?
The parable
itself is allegorical. It describes the history of Israel in the same way as the
song of the vineyard in Isaiah 5:1-7. God is the Lord of the vineyard. The
vineyard is Israel, especially the city of Jerusalem. The tenants are the
Jewish religious establishment, namely, the Sadducees and chief priests in
charge of the public temple ministry in Jerusalem and the Pharisees and scribes
who govern the people’s piety outside Jerusalem.
As Jesus
relates this parable, Luke has just noted that the chief priests,
scribes, and
the Sanhedrin are seeking to destroy Jesus but are reluctant to do so because
the people are carefully listening to Jesus’ teaching (19:47). Jesus had just
entered Jerusalem to the cheers of the crowd. He had wept over the city as He
reflected on the destruction of Jerusalem that would be coming because of its
rejection of Him as Messiah. He had driven out of the temple those who had
turned God’s house of prayer into a den of robbers. In the verses immediately
preceding, these religious leaders challenged Jesus as to what authority He had
to these things.
The
first four stanzas of the parable retell the history of God’s work through the
prophets for the salvation of Israel. Every time God sent a prophet to Israel,
it created a “critical time,” a “right season,” because prophets speak for God.
They declare His intentions to save and His judgment upon those who reject Him,
setting up a time that is right for bearing fruit of the faith.
The
three servants who are sent into the vineyard represent all of God’s prophetic
activity during the Old Testament era, when the prophets called people to
repentance and to show fruits of repentance, but when that call fell so often
on deaf ears. The servants are mistreated and sent away empty-handed. In the
words of Isaiah 5:7, “For the vineyard of the Lord of hosts is the house of
Israel, and the men of Judah are His pleasant planting; and He looked for
justice, but behold, bloodshed; for righteousness, but behold, an outcry!”
Now it’s
time for God’s own beloved Son to visit the vineyard.
In the
phrase, “beloved Son,” there are echoes from both the Old Testament and the
ministry of Jesus. The near sacrifice of Isaac, Abraham’s beloved son, foreshadowed
Christ’s bloody sacrifice (Genesis 22:2ff). But the most significant echo is
from the Gospel itself, where the Father said at Jesus’ baptism, “You are My beloved
Son; with You I am well pleased” (Luke 3:22). Jesus, the beloved Son, will not
be treated any better than the prophets who went before Him.
After
Pentecost, the vineyard will not be leased to new farmers but will be given to
them (Luke 12:32). Those new farmers do not include the previous abusive
tenants. They begin with the twelve apostles who, through their commission go
out into the world to make more disciples through baptizing and teaching, thus reconstituting
the Church as the new Israel.
The people’s
response is fear. “Surely not!” probably refers to all three events: the
killing of the Son, the killing of the farmers, and the transfer of the
vineyard to others. But it must happen, for the unstoppable plan of God calls
for His Son to die just outside Jerusalem.
Jesus
looks at the people to communicate nonverbally that these words are for them. Jesus
looks with enlightened eyes at the crowds because He know the end of the story
and meaning of Scriptures. But do they? Jesus asks them in a form of a question, “What
then is this that is written: ‘The stone that the builder has rejected has
become the cornerstone’?” (Luke 20:17).
Jesus
gives no answer, because the events of His life in the next few days will
provide the answer. The people and the religious leaders already have had the
answer for a long time in the Scriptures. After the resurrection, Jesus will
chide the Emmaus disciples as “foolish ones, and slow of heart to believe all
that the prophets have spoken” (Luke 24:25). They should have known that
according to Moses and all the prophets, it was “necessary that the Christ
should suffer these things and enter into His glory” (Luke 24:26).
At the
beginning of Luke’s Gospel, Simeon predicts: “Behold, this child is appointed
for the fall and rising of many in Israel, and for a sign that is opposed” (2:34).
Throughout Jesus’ ministry, we see this come true time after time as those one
would most expect to receive Jesus reject Him instead, while those who seem
least likely to believe that Jesus was bringing the kingdom receive Him in faith.
From
the moment Jesus entered Jerusalem, the scribes and Pharisees were seeking an
opportunity to seize Him. His teaching in the temple—particularly this parable—confirmed
how dangerous Jesus was for them. But they were equally aware that many
believed His teaching, and they were afraid to arrest Jesus because of how the
people might react.
More
importantly, these religious leaders were fully aware that Jesus told this
parable against them. They even may have been aware that Jesus’ reading was in
accordance with the Scriptures. Jesus spoke the parable as a warning call to
repentance and faith in Him who would become the cornerstone. In their unbelief
and rejection, the parable’s application to them was only Law.
And so,
how do these “tenants” in the crowd respond? They want to kill the Son that
very day; and in a few days, they will.
And
what does the “owner of the vineyard” do? He takes the vineyard from them and
lets it out to other tenants. True to His Word, He uses the death of His beloved
Son for the good of sinners. Rather than stomping the world out of existence
like an annoying bug, God uses His Son’s death as the Sacrifice for the sins of
the world. The Son dies on the cross for the sins of the terminally foolish and
faithless tenants who kill Him. Then He rises again three days later. Why? To
judge and condemn? No, judgment will eventually come; but for now, He rises to
declare peace, to declare that His death was for the sins of the world, and that
whoever believes in Him will be saved. The Lord uses the murder of His Son to
gain redemption for the sinners who rebel against Him. Now that’s crazy!
But upon
further review, maybe the parable isn’t quite so outlandish after all. That’s
because it’s not about how people are supposed to treat each other. If it were,
the parable is just crazy. But the parable is about how sinners treat God and
how God treats sinners.
Sinners
treat God terribly with disrespect and irreverence. God gives them daily bread
and they fail to be thankful. God gives them things to use in service, and they
hoard it for themselves and use it to boast of their accomplishments. God gives
them bodies and minds to be used for honorable purposes, and they misuse and
pollute them both for temporary pleasure in self-destructive ways. God gives spouses,
and sinners covet those that they’re not married to. God gives family and
friends and neighbors to serve, and sinners neglect them or take advantage of
them for selfish gain. The Lord warns of sin so that sinners repent and don’t
die, and sinners get ticked off that the Lord would try to save them from death.
The Lord says, “Here I am” in His Word and Sacraments, and sinners say, “There’s
really other stuff that I consider more important.”
That’s
how sinners treat God.
If you
examine yourself, you’ll confess that that is how you treat God, too. And if
your first response is, “No, I don’t!”, it is only an echo of the scribes in
the text saying, “Surely not.” Apart from the Holy Spirit, there is no one who
seeks after God. This is not a pleasant truth to confess, but it is true all
the same and important to confess. As long as you hold onto sins, discount them
as something that God doesn’t care about, or resent God for telling you they’re
wrong, then you are not forgiven. You may well be saying, “Jesus died to take
away all of my sins,” but you’re also saying, “I don’t want Him to take away quite
all of my sins.” If you hold onto your sins, then you are not forgiven; and on
Judgment Day, you will be crushed. You will not be crushed because God wants
to, but because you’ve refused the gift of grace that He has given to you time
and again.
For
this is how Jesus treats sinners: with patience, mercy, and grace. 2 Peter 3:9
declares: “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.” He patiently waits. He continues to send His Word and
preachers to proclaim it. He patiently showers you with forgiveness in His Word
and Sacraments to keep you in the true faith, even as He patiently gives this
dying world more time so that more might hear and be saved.
You
will be tempted to believe that God doesn’t care; that God doesn’t care about
sin because He doesn’t punish your sin immediately; and that God doesn’t care
about you, because He doesn’t punish those who sin against you immediately. But
it is certainly not about neglect. It is the patience of God, who suffers long
to give grace to the sinner, you and others—even when it means suffering the
death of His only, beloved Son to win that grace in the first place. He does
not want you to be crushed in judgment. He desires that you be built upon the
Rock, Jesus Christ, for eternity. Forgiven for your sins, you are in His vineyard
forever.
One of
the Lord’s many prophets, Joel, declared, “Return to the Lord your God, for He
is gracious and merciful, slow to anger, and abounding in steadfast love” (Joel
2:13). His grace, His mercy, His patience and steadfast love are all yours for
the sake of Jesus; because, for the sake of Jesus, you are forgiven for all your
sins.
In the
name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit. Amen
Unless
otherwise indicated, all Scripture quotations are from the Holy Bible, English
Standard Version, copyright © 2001 by Crossway Bibles, a publishing ministry of
Good News Publishers. Used by permission. All rights reserved.
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