Sermon for Judica Sunday (Lent V)

[TriuneUnity]

Sermon Text: Luke 20:9-20

Grace, mercy, and peace to you from God the Father and our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ!
At the time of festivals, nonresidents were not allowed to stay overnight in the city limits of Jerusalem because of the large numbers who came to worship at the temple. Some scholars’ estimates put the figure as high as one million people. So, many of the pilgrims camped on the hillsides that surrounded Jerusalem, easily available for attending whatever important events were happening in the city.
Jesus had entered Jerusalem on the Sunday of the Passover festival, riding on a donkey, in deliberate fulfillment of Zechariah’s prophecy. He had been received with acclaim by those who expected Him to assert Himself, overthrow the Romans, reestablish the Kingdom of Israel, and rule on David’s throne.
Instead, He went to nearby Bethany to stay the night with His friends. Jesus returned on Monday and cleansed the temple of the concessionaires who were selling animals and birds for sacrifice and changing Roman money into temple coins. To them, He said, “It is written, ‘My house shall be a house of prayer,’ but you have made it a den of robbers’” (Luke 19:46).
Luke says Jesus “was teaching daily in the temple” and that “the chief priests and the scribes and the principle men of the people were seeking to destroy Him, but they did not find anything they could do, for all the people were hanging on His words.”
These religious authorities confronted Jesus and demanded, “Tell us by what authority You do these things, or who it is that gave You this authority.”
As He often did, Jesus turned their demand back on them, asking them, “Was the baptism of John from heaven or from man?”
More concerned about maintaining their positions of authority than upholding the truth, they were unwilling to respond one way or the other. So Jesus told them, “Neither will I tell you by what authority I do these things.”
It is in this context of conflict and confrontation that Jesus speaks His parable to the people who were gathered in the temple courts to hear His teaching.
There was a beautiful vineyard, its vines bending, laden with the weight of rich, swollen grape clusters. For the owner had planted a good vineyard. He had chosen a vigorous, hardy stock of vine. He had well prepared the soil to guarantee a good harvest. Yes, the vineyard had rich, productive vines in the arid soil of Israel.
But all was not well in that vineyard. For the tenants had revolted against their generous landowner. When the harvest came, the landowner sent one of his servants to collect the harvest. But they didn’t give the servant what they owed. Instead, they beat him and sent him away with nothing.
Again, the owner sent another servant. And the rebellious tenants also insulted him, beat him up, and sent him away with nothing. So the landowner sent a third servant, whom the tenants wounded and sent away with nothing. Such terrible tenants, rebelling against the owner, rejecting the servants sent to collect the crop. Each rejection escalating in its violence and shameful rebellion.
Desperate, the owner sent his own son, thinking, “Perhaps they will respect him.” But when the tenants saw the son, they assumed the vineyard owner had died. And they hatched an evil plot: “Let’s kill him, so the inheritance can be ours.”
What shameful tenants! Yes, a mutiny was afoot in the vineyard!
The story is transparent. Jesus’ parable condenses the history of Israel. Israel ignored the Word from the prophets. Israel continued to treat the vineyard as if it belonged to itself and not to God. And the prophets, who called the people to repent, faced the people’s wrath. They stoned some of the prophets; others they beat. More than a few suffered death. The prophets were despised and rejected, sent away empty-handed. Finally, God had sent His beloved Son, and they were not only rejecting His message, but plotting how to overthrow Him as well.
With this parable, Jesus confronts every smug and complacent sinner within earshot. Our text makes it very clear that the scribes and the chief priests understood this. “[They] sought to lay hands on [Jesus] at that very hour; for they perceived He had told this parable against them, but they feared the people. 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” (Luke 20:19-20).
But Jesus was not just speaking to the scribes and chief priests or the people gathered in Jerusalem the day for the Passover; He is also speaking to us. And the text forces us to ask, “How are we treating God’s vineyard today?”
God has a dire warning for us. God’s grace is undeserved kindness because of Jesus, not because of you or me. Without Christ, there is no mercy, no grace, no forgiveness, and no kindness. In the parable, Jesus has a warning for the Church, God’s Israel of the New Testament. You can’t have a bride without a groom. You can’t have the Church without the Lord Jesus Christ.
What does this mean, as our Small Catechism so often asks? It means this: the church today that doesn’t proclaim the death and resurrection of Jesus for the forgiveness, life, and salvation of the sinner has the same fate in store for it as Old Testament Israel, the same fate as the wicked tenants of the vineyard in our text.
That’s scary isn’t it? For most churches today don’t preach Christ and Him crucified for our salvation. That’s boring stuff people don’t want to hear. That’s not relevant to our post-modern understanding of religion and life.

 

[TriuneUnity]

And so liberal mainline churches preach about social justice and creating a utopian society. Many, including some who still claim the name “Lutheran,” call into question the veracity of God’s Word as they deny the miraculous and excuse sins like sexual immorality and abortion in the name of tolerance and choice.
So-called conservative evangelical churches preach about reestablishing a “Christian nation” and offer practical steps for self-improvement and better families. Seeker-sensitive churches follow the latest fads and hope that business marketing techniques will bring more people in through their doors. Emergent churches discard sound doctrine and turn people inward with mystical practices like contemplative prayer. Word of Faith preachers hawk a prosperity gospel of health, wealth, and personal success.
In our Old Testament reading, Isaiah speaks of a time when the Lord would do a “new thing.” God would make a way in the wilderness among the wild beasts. He would put water in the dry desert and give drink to His chosen people. That would be something new—a new covenant, a new chosen people, a new way, built on the old foundation, but still new nonetheless. And those who would cling to the old covenant would miss it. Their ears won’t hear it. Their eyes won’t see it.
That was the problem of the religious leaders of Jesus’ day, the Judaizers with whom Paul is dealing in today’s Epistle. They refused to hear the message of salvation by grace through faith in the crucified and risen Christ, but turned the people back to the Law and their own works of righteousness. They were wickedly rebelling against the Lord of the Vineyard.
By God’s choosing, He has given us a place in His vineyard of grace, His Church. The vineyard is a place brimming with life amid a barren world. It is an oasis of refreshment in a dry desert. Here, God blesses us with the life-giving waters of Holy Baptism, which washes away the dirt of our sin. Here, God nourishes us with His Word. Here, God gives us to drink wine from the cup of salvation, the blood of His new covenant.
But remember this well: we aren’t the owners of the vineyard. We’re just the tenants, and we may not treat His Church as if it’s our own to do with as we please. There’s only one way to live in Christ’s Church—and that’s by following Christ Jesus by faith. He is the vine; we are the branches. Only as we are joined to Him, do we yield fruit. It is His Church, not ours. He is the head of the Church.
Yes, the stone that Jesus talked about is Himself. And those who stumble over Christ and His ways “will be broken to pieces.” Christ and His cross are a stumbling stone to those who want their own way. The cross is a stumbling stone to those who want to live according to the world, operate by its rules, and let such ways run the Church and their lives. The cross of Christ says no to all that.
Are you in mutiny against God? Are you rejecting His ways for the ways of the world? Is the allure of success, as the world defines it, drawing you away from the cross? Are you looking for a message that is more exciting and relevant than the same old teachings of Law and Gospel you’ve heard for years? Are you looking for a “gospel” that is less offensive to your sensibilities than the one about the sinless Son of God who was bloodied, beaten, and killed for sinners?
If so, be warned! What was true for the Old Testament tenants of God’s vineyard is also true for you. You will be booted out from His kingdom if you live in rebellion and mutiny against Him and His ways. That’s what Jesus meant when He said, “The stone that the builders rejected has become the cornerstone” and “Everyone who falls on that stone will be broken to pieces, and when it falls on anyone, it will crush him.”
When you presume God’s grace, living in fallen, worldly ways, looking no different from the rest of the world, refusing to repent in a broken and humbled spirit, then only judgment follows. To such hardheartedness, to those who tell God how to do things, God says, “I will bury you. My Stone will crush you.”
Which Jesus do you want? Do you want a glad-handing, back-slapping Jesus that the Pharisees wanted? They wanted a Jesus who would welcome them and congratulate them on their fine, upstanding lives. They wanted a Jesus who would bless and affirm what they were doing? Do you want a Jesus who will affirm and bless what you think about yourself? Is that the Jesus you want?
Or do you want the Christ of the Scriptures? Do you want a Jesus who speaks the truth even when it hurts, when He says, “Watch out, My Stone can crush you!” Do you want this stern Jesus, the One who didn’t turn His back on sin, but calls sin what it is, and willingly died to save you? Do you want the Savior who set His face like flint toward Jerusalem, who died, saying, “It is finished!”?
Turn away from your rebellion and sin, and trust in the Christ who cleanses you from all unrighteousness. For Jesus, your Lord, has given up His sinless, obedient life to pay for you disobedience and rebellion. In the water and Word, He baptizes you into His death and resurrection. Now He feeds and nourishes you with His life-giving Self in Word and Sacrament—His very body and blood given and shed for you for the forgiveness of your sins and the strengthening of your faith.
Why would you want to try to be the illegitimate owners, when the real owner of the vineyard, Jesus Christ, is here, lavishing you with His mercy and grace? Why would you want to trust in your own righteousness and works of the Law?
No, like St. Paul, you can count everything else as loss and rubbish because of the surpassing worth of knowing Christ as your Lord. Indeed, today and every Divine Service the very Son of God, your crucified and risen Savior is here with this Good News: You are forgiven of all of your sins in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.