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Sermon: Luke 20:9-19

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Sermon: Luke 20:9-19 Sermon: Luke 20:9-19 Series C: Sunday of the Church Year: Lent 5 Sunday Theme: “God Offers Us the Precious Treasure of Salvation” First Lesson: Isaiah 43:16-21 (God Makes a New Kingdom) Second Lesson: Philippians 3:8-14 (Everything Trash, Except Jesus) Gospel: Luke 20:9-19 (Parable of the Tenants) Preaching Date: March 21, 2010 Preaching Place: Our Savior, East Brunswick, NJ Dear fellow believers: Here is a parable we can understand. It’s on the comparison of landlords and renters. It’s important that each both parties involved carry out their responsibilities for this legal arrangement to work well. Besides, this parable helps us with our world view. So open your ears and hearts to the Word of God and … “Be a Good Tenant” I’d like to discuss this parable on three levels: The narration, the interpretation for the people of Jesus’ day, and the application to us. I. The narration A. Jesus told the story of a landowner “A man planted a vineyard, rented it to some farmers and went away for a long time (Luke 20:9). 1. This is a common practice even today. Someone owns a house and they are not living in it so they rent it out. 2. It was a simple business arrangement. There were responsibilities on both sides. The landowner permits the renters to use his property to grow grapes. They are under obligation to care for the fruit, pick it, produce the product, and sell it or use it personally. In return the renters are to give a portion of the income to the landowner in payment for using his property. Transition: If the payment is not made, the landlord sends someone to collect the rent. But when the collector came to the land, something unusual happened. B. The renters did something unexpected. At harvest time he sent a servant to the tenants so they would give him some of the fruit of the vineyard. But the tenants beat him and sent him away empty-handed. He sent another servant, but that one also they beat and treated shamefully and sent away empty- handed. He sent still a third, and they wounded him and threw him out. (Luke 20:10-12). 1. Could you imagine that happening today? We would involve the law immediately. But it was a different culture. The landowner also was an unusually patient man. He tried again and again to make things right. He gave his renters multiple opportunities for paying the rent. 2. Each time the renters increased their assault on the collectors. They sent them all away without paying what was due to the landlord. Each time they beat them. Transition: We would have done something drastic. But the landlord wanted to try one last time. C. He decided to send someone they should respect as much as much as they would respect him. “Then the owner of the vineyard said, ‘What shall I do? I will send my son, whom I love; perhaps they will respect him.’ 1. You would have thought this would work. You would think that there would be a certain amount of fear and respect connected with this messenger. 2. What comes now sounds crazy to me. “But when the tenants saw him, they talked the matter over. ‘This is the heir,’ they said. ‘Let’s kill him, and the inheritance will be ours.’ So they threw him out of the vineyard and killed him.” (Luke 20:14-15). 3. This was premeditated murder – malice aforethought. Perhaps possession was nine-tenths of the law back then too. Or perhaps they thought the landowner was a pushover. He didn’t do anything when they bludgeoned the servants. Maybe they interpreted his patience as weakness. Transition: Did they really think they would get away this killing the landowner’s son? D. There were consequences to their crime. 1. This is one of those interactive parables where Jesus asks for crowd participation. “What then will the owner of the vineyard do to them?” (Luke 20:15b) 2. More than one had the obvious answer. He will come and kill those tenants and give the vineyard to others.” (Luke 20:16a). 3. Could you image how the smirks on their face turned to fear when they saw the soldiers of the landowner at the gate of the vineyard? In their terror they knew would soon meet their maker. Transition: The crowds could understand this parable. In their minds they had an interpretation. II. The interpretation A. Remember this is a parable. It needs interpretation. 1. The word “parable” means “to put one thing alongside another and compare the two”. Jesus told this story and then the people were to place it along side of what they saw happening during this last week before Jesus died. 2. The people understood the comparison. The response that Jesus heard reveals their shock at what Jesus was saying. “May this never be!” (Luke 20:16b). 3. But what Jesus was saying had been prophesied by men of God centuries before this. He quoted Psalm 118:22. Psalm 118 is one of the foremost Messianic psalms. It was the last psalm of the Passover collection (J. Brug, The People’s Bible: Psalms vol.2, page 185). As Jesus told this parable it was Passover week. The people would be hearing this verse in their worship. It pointed to the events that would become reality in just a few days. “The stone the builders rejected has become the capstone.” He again told the people that the leaders were rejecting him. They would bring him outside the city walls and kill him. 4. The builders, those who were to build up God’s kingdom, were responsible to God for the care of God’s people. God was the owner. The spiritual leaders had their people on loan from God. God expected the leaders throughout the history of Israel to take good care of the souls. B. Throughout the history of Israel, God sent messengers to the leaders to remind them of their obligation. 1. These messengers were the prophets. Time and again God would send his servants. Time and again they would be treated poorly. 2. Listen to an account of the harsh treatment that the heroes of the faith had to endure: [They] were tortured and refused to be released, so that they might gain a better resurrection. Some faced jeers and flogging, while still others were chained and put in prison. They 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 – the world was not worthy of them. They wandered in deserts and mountains, and in caves and holes in the ground. (Hebrews 11:35b-38). Transition: Finally came the best representative of all. C. God sent his Son. 1. Now the leaders of the people were jealous of him. They wanted the hearts and honors of the people. If they could kill Jesus, they thought everything would go back to the way it was. They would be in control. The religious scene would be theirs. They thought they would inherit the kingdom. 2. So they plotted together to do away with God’s Son. As this parable was being spoken there were plans on how to arrest Jesus and put him to death. How significant it was that Jesus was taken outside the city of Jerusalem, just as the son of the landlord was taken out of the vineyard to be killed. 3. But of course God has a way of turning evil into good. God used their evil to pay for the sins of all people. Transition: Now notice how Jesus was reaching out to them with a severe warning. D. There will be a final reckoning. 1. What would the landowner do to those who killed his son? He would bring destruction on them. 2. Jesus spoke these words out of love, not out of vengeance. That is evident from the first words Jesus said from the cross to these same leaders: “Father forgive them, for they don’t know what they are doing” (Luke 23:34). Transition: God has preserved this story for 2,000 years so that we might apply the words to ourselves. Here is the application. III. The application A. We have been given messengers. 1. We have the commands of God. These are God’s servants through the apostles and prophets speaking to us. The law demands obedience to God. It tells us everything we have – our possessions, our children, our parents, relatives and friends, including every moment of the day. They all belong to God. When we think of our heart, soul, mind, strength – the demand of the owner is this: “Love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, with all your mind and with all your strength” (Mark 12:30). None of us has given God his due. So when you read this parable, don’t think of a people long ago and shamefully didn’t pay God his due. We need to think of ourselves. Each of us where put Jesus on the cross. Our sins needed to be paid for. 2. But in its place God has given us another possession. We have been given the Gospel. We heard that message through the servants of God his prophets and apostles. God has sent his servants in the form of parents, Sunday school teachers, pastors and a multitude of witnesses.
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