Redeemer Lutheran Church

The basis for God’s Word to us today is our Gospel reading.

 

Let us pray…Speak O Lord your words of life to us and may the words of my mouth and the meditations of our hearts be acceptable to You, our Rock and our Redeemer. In Jesus’ name we pray. Amen.

 

Like perhaps many of you, Beth and I have granite kitchen countertops and if you drop anything breakable on it, it will not be the granite that breaks. It is an unforgiving surface.

 

There is an ancient Hebrew proverb that goes something like this, “Should the stone fall on the jar, woe to the jar! Should the jar fall on the stone, woe to the jar! In either case, woe to the jar!”

 

We might again say that the stone in the proverb is unforgiving in either case.
In today’s Gospel reading Jesus quotes Psalm 118, when He says,

 

“‘The stone that the builders rejected
has become the cornerstone’?

 

18 Everyone who falls on that stone will be broken to pieces, and when it falls on anyone, it will crush him.”

 

The Jewish leaders of Jesus’ day would most likely have known that Psalm well and they would have been able to continue what Psalm 118 says…

 

“This is the LORD’s doing; it is marvellous in our eyes. This is the day that the LORD has made; let us rejoice and be glad in it.”

 

Now from our perspective its obvious in quoting this Psalm that Jesus is referring to himself as that cornerstone and so the implicit question he is asking of his listeners is this, “Will you reject that stone, or will you stand on it and rejoice and be glad in it?

 

As listeners to God’s Word today that is also a question to us because Jesus speaks to each of us whenever His Word is proclaimed. Of course, if what Jesus says is easy to hear, we will say, “Amen!” but if what Jesus says today hits one of those raw sinful nerves in your life, what will you do then? What will be your response?

 

Pastor Fritsche will be back next Sunday, Palm Sunday, the day we will celebrate, not only Pastor’s return, but more importantly, Christ’s triumphal entry into Jerusalem. Next Sunday will be the beginning of Holy Week. Sometimes that Sunday is also called Passion Sunday.

 

Now today’s parable of the vineyard and the wicked tenants is one Jesus taught after His Triumphal Entry into Jerusalem. And this parable ends rather tensely.

 

19 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. 20 So they watched him and sent spies, who pretended to be sincere, that they might catch him in something he said, so as to deliver him up to the authority and jurisdiction of the governor.

 

These people did not like what they heard. The truth is not always easy to hear, even for us. It’s quite common for people to dismiss the truth by saying things like, “Well, that’s your truth!” or even worse, getting angry at the bearer of truth.
The issue with the Truth here proclaimed by Jesus, is that it is the capital “T” Truth that doesn’t belong to me or you. It is during Holy Week, the week leading up to Jesus’ crucifixion, that Jesus prays…

 

Father…17 Sanctify them in the truth; your word is truth. – John 17:17
John would begin his Gospel by referring to Jesus in these terms (John 1:1)…
In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.
Jesus is the Word of God.

 

And as the Word, while He is with His disciples that Thursday night, Holy Thursday, Jesus says of Himself…(John 14:6)

 

“I am the way, and the truth, and the life.

 

Not “a” way, “a” truth, and “a” life, but the way, and the truth, and the life.
So, when faced with the Word of God, faced with Jesus the Word, the only begotten Son of God, how will people respond to the Truth? How will you or I respond to the Truth, especially the truth about us?

 

The parable Jesus tells is not one of those parables where you have to ask, “What is Jesus talking about here?” No, this is one of those parables, perhaps like a sermon you may have heard at one time, where you’re left wondering whether the pastor had been listening into your life and is now preaching about you.

 

This particular parable had an Old Testament parallel in Isaiah 5…

 

Let me sing for my beloved
my love song concerning his vineyard:
My beloved had a vineyard
on a very fertile hill.
2 He dug it and cleared it of stones,
and planted it with choice vines;
he built a watchtower in the midst of it,
and hewed out a wine vat in it;
and he looked for it to yield grapes,
but it yielded wild grapes.
3 And now, O inhabitants of Jerusalem
and men of Judah,
judge between me and my vineyard.
4 What more was there to do for my vineyard,
that I have not done in it?
When I looked for it to yield grapes,
why did it yield wild grapes?
And so that those who are listening know exactly who the Lord is talking about and who he is talking to, Isaiah (5:7) writes a few verses later…
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 Jesus’ parable parallels what God had said about these Israelites, and they don’t have to ask, “Is he preaching about us?” because they know he is.

 

The wild grapes of Isaiah are the wicked tenants who over the years have beaten and sent away empty-handed all the prophets God had sent to them. They have refused to give to God what is His, what belongs to Him from His vineyard, they have refused to give their very lives. Instead, they keep themselves for themselves, and disrespect all who are sent to them, who remind them that they were bought with price, and they are not their own.

 
Jesus, who had just entered the city of Jerusalem to the cheers of Hosanna! “Please, Save us!,” is the very one of whom the owner of the vineyard in this parable says,
“I will send My beloved Son; perhaps they will respect Him.”

 

When Holy Week arrives, I invite you to listen to whether these men will respect their Messiah or whether they will disrespect Him. How will they react when face to face with God in the flesh.

 

Unfortunately, today’s parable is a spoiler because it tells us of what that reaction will be; it speaks of the wicked tenant’s response to the owner of the vineyard’s Son…

 

14 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.’ 15 And they threw him out of the vineyard and killed him.

 

Now at this point, these religious leaders may be trying to hide their cards up their sleeves, but before the assembled crowds gathered around them, Jesus openly tells these leaders and everyone listening what will happen; what they will do.

 

This parable and its aftermath carry the same kind of drama that one of those western movies at high noon often display, with good and the bad guy facing off. Wicked tenants against the beloved son of the owner of the vineyard.

 

These tenants are the ones whom Isaiah says (5:20-21)…

 

20 Woe to those who call evil good
and good evil,
who put darkness for light
and light for darkness,
who put bitter for sweet
and sweet for bitter!
21 Woe to those who are wise in their own eyes,
and shrewd in their own sight!

 

In Jesus’ day, they are the ones who would rather kill Jesus than consider the truth he was proclaiming. They believed themselves to be the corner stone and Jesus to be the jar, but in reality, it is the other way around.

 

Now do we have the same situation today? Do we have “scribes” and “high priests” who would rather see this Jesus as dead than alive, who would rather silence Him than allow Him to continue to speak, who would prefer God’s Word to vanish in a puff of smoke than glow as the fire of Truth? I think we have those people in our society, those who work against the faith that we confess.

 

But on a personal level we must ask, “Do we also become like those scribes and high priests when we claim to be wiser or more clever than God’s Word?” I’ve heard it from time to time even in our LCC. For example, people expressing that they didn’t like what St. Paul had to say as if it was his opinion and not the inspired Word of God. I think there have been times when each of us perhaps silently or maybe even openly questioned the Word of Truth and in so doing, all of us who fail to listen to God’s Word are as guilty as these scribes and Pharisees of setting ourselves above God, and above Jesus.

 

The Word of God and everything that comes with it, including the Ten Commandments, levels the playing field for all of us because it applies to all people. God isn’t just speaking to “them” out there, but God’s Law and Gospel equally applies to the rich and the poor, to the old and the young, to male and female, to those who are here and to those who are not, to all.

 

For all of us Jesus is both the cornerstone that can crush us and the cornerstone that can hold us up to eternal life.

 

Now when I drop a plate or wine glass on my granite countertop and it smashes into a million pieces, I may grieve over it if it were something special, but in the end, I’ll toss it in the garbage. This is not the case with Jesus though.
When we fall upon Jesus as sinners. When we fall on our knees to confess our sin and acknowledge our sorrow over it, we are broken apart. This is what the Lord desires as David wrote in Psalm 51…

 

For you will not delight in sacrifice, or I would give it;
you will not be pleased with a burnt offering.
17 The sacrifices of God are a broken spirit;
a broken and contrite heart, O God, you will not despise.

 

However, when we break before our Lord and Saviour, Christ the cornerstone does not sweep us up and toss us in the garbage. Instead, our Cornerstone pours his sacrificial blood upon us and binds up all our pieces, forgiving us and making us whole again. Christ the cornerstone is not unforgiving but forgiving.

 

Psalm 147 (2-3) promises this…

 

The Lord builds up Jerusalem;
he gathers the outcasts of Israel.
3 He heals the brokenhearted
and binds up their wounds.

 

Today you may have come as one of those broken people. Your sin may have crushed you this week. Your guilt may be weighing you down. To you who are repentant and sorrowful, I speak Jesus own words (Matthew 11:28-30)…

 

28 Come to me, all who labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest. 29 Take my yoke upon you, and learn from me, for I am gentle and lowly in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. 30 For my yoke is easy, and my burden is light.”

 

You see, at the cross all your sins were cast on Jesus and Jesus is far greater than your sin, no matter how bad that may be. At the cross it is your sin that is broken into a million little pieces along with the rest of you, but when Jesus puts you back together through His forgiveness He doesn’t add that sin back in. Instead of you being placed into the garbage can, it is your sin that is swept up and tossed as far as the east is from the west.

 

Your sin is thrown out but you dear ones are not.

 

Of course, those who reject the forgiveness of God in Christ will suffer what Jesus warns in the parable, they will be brought to ruin, destroyed, and be put out of the vineyard. But as John says in his Gospel (1:12-13)…

 

12 But to all who did receive him, who believed in his name, he gave the right to become children of God, 13 who were born, not of blood nor of the will of the flesh nor of the will of man, but of God.

 

Dear children of God, God the Father in Christ Jesus His beloved Son has given the vineyard to you and it is here, within the household of God, that you can praise, thank and obey Him, your Saviour.

 

In the name of Jesus+. Amen.