I know I’m dating myself and many of you with this question, but do you remember “Must See TV?” “Must See TV” was an advertising slogan used by NBC in the 1990’s to promote its Thursday night lineup of shows anchored by “Seinfeld” – the show about nothing. (Now, don’t let your mind go wandering off to your favorite “Seinfeld” quote or episode.) I only bring up the “Must See TV” slogan because in the original Greek text, Jesus tells his audience that they “must hear” another parable. So, let’s listen.
While Jesus telling us that we must hear this parable is why we must hear it, the bigger question is how should we hear it? How did you hear this parable? I’m nearly certain that you heard it as a business transaction. The landowner planted a vineyard and then leased it out to some tenant farmers and went away. And when he came back he sent his servants out to get his fruit. We hear a business transaction here because we understand business transactions. So did the chief priests and the Pharisees – the two groups Jesus was addressing (Matthew 21:45). They understood the kingdom of God – including forgiveness and salvation – as a business transaction. Rather than remembering that the only reason Israel was God’s chosen people was because of his free and gracious choice, they saw the agreement made at Mt. Sinai as a transactional way to remain in God’s favor (Exodus 24:3). The Pharisees figured they were doing their part by their tithing, their dieting, and their shunning of sinners. The Sadducees believed that as long as they ruled Israel civilly and spiritually – and especially maintained a friendly relationship with their Roman occupiers – they were keeping their side of the bargain and retained God’s favor.
But we hear this parable more accurately when we understand that the landowner was – according to the Greek – actually the “master of the house.” And he didn’t really lease [his vineyard] out for rent, he “gave it out,” freely. That this is a free giving becomes clear when Jesus says at the end of the parable that the kingdom of God will be taken away from you and given to a people that produces its fruit where the same rare word clearly refers to a free giving, not renting.
What is Jesus’ purpose in telling this parable? He was trying to lead these Jewish leaders to rethink their relationship with God. To help them understand that they possessed power and glory and leadership over his people – his vineyard – not because they had earned it but only as a gift of his grace. A little story can help to illustrate the difference between a business transaction and a family relationship. A little boy who viewed himself as quite the entrepreneur and decided that his relationship with his mother should operate more like a business than a family. At the end of the day, he left a bill on the kitchen table. Emptied the dishwasher – $1. Took out the trash – $1. Cleaned my room – $2. Total: $4. Signed, your son. Then he goes upstairs to his room and finds his mother’s “bill” on his bed. Made your breakfast, lunch and dinner – no charge. Washed two loads of your laundry – no charge. Driving you to and from school – no charge. And it finally dawns on him that his relationship with his mother wasn’t based on his effort but on his mother’s love. And that’s the first thing we “must hear” – that our relationship with God is also based on his grace, not our effort.
Second, you “must hear” what fruit the master of the house sent his servants to get. And he sends a lot of servants. Remember, this parable is about God and Israel – so the servants are the OT prophets. Jeremiah wrote repeatedly about how many prophets God sent to Israel to gather fruit. From the time your fathers left Egypt until today, I have sent all my servants, the prophets, to them again and again (Jeremiah 7:25). The LORD sent all his servants the prophets to you again and again, but you have not listened or paid attention (Jeremiah 25:4). I have sent my servants the prophets to you again and again. They told you to turn from your evil ways, to reform your actions, and to stop following other gods in order to serve them (Jeremiah 35:15). The question is: what was the fruit that God expected to gather from his people, the people of Israel?
Well, we know that he wanted their offerings and sacrifices; their service and their obedience to his commandments. And so we assume that that’s the fruit God was looking for, right? But that would be an incorrect assumption. What does the Lord say in Psalm 50? I do not need to take a bull from your barn or goats from your pens, because every animal in the forest is mine, the cattle on a thousand mountains…If I were hungry, I would not tell you, because the world is mine, and all that fills it (Psalm 50:9-10; 12). The fruit God was looking for was not sacrifices and offerings but…what? What fruit does God look to gather from us? In other words, what is the only thing we can really claim as our own? Our sins! Yes, even in the OT, this is the fruit he was looking for: come now, and let us reason together, says the LORD. Though your sins are like scarlet, they will be as white as snow. Though they are red as crimson, they will be like wool (Isaiah 1:18). Just as Jesus would later say, God wasn’t looking for the healthy, but the sick; not for the righteous, but sinners (Matthew 9:12-13). From Adam to Malachi, from John to Jesus – this was the single, uniform message God sent prophet after prophet to proclaim to his people. He sent one after another to gather a harvest of sinners to be saved by his grace. He was looking for the fruit of repentance and faith. And we must hear that repentance and faith are the fruits God wants from us, too.
Let’s reset the scene. Jesus told this parable on the last Tuesday of his life. You can think of Tuesday of Holy Week like the media day before the Super bowl. Jesus is holding court in the temple, being interviewed by the people and the leaders, answering their questions and pleading with them to believe in him as their Savior. And yet, even as he’s pleading with them to repent and believe and be saved, what are they planning to do? That’s the next thing you must hear in this parable – and you must hear how absolutely absurd the rest of the parable is. Jesus tells them that the master of the house sends servants to the tenants to get his fruit. The tenant farmers seized his servants. They beat one, killed another, and stoned a third. But he didn’t stop there. Then the landowner sent even more servants than the first time. The tenant farmers treated them the same way. Whether you think of Elijah running and hiding for his life (1 Kings 19:3) Isaiah getting sawn in half (according to tradition) or Jeremiah being dropped into a well (Jeremiah 38:6) – this parable is a brief summary of Israel’s bloody history with the prophets.
But that wasn’t enough. The master wasn’t ready to give up on those tenants quite yet. After they had persecuted or killed every last prophet who called them to repentance, faith and freedom from sin, death and the devil: finally, he sent his son to them. ‘They will respect my son,’ he said. That’s absurd, isn’t it? Would you ever send your child to collect a bill after the debtors had already abused and killed your employees? No reasonable person would – but that’s the point. Grace is not about what is reasonable but about what God has freely chosen to do out of pure, unfathomable, absurd love.
The fact that so many details of this parable are absurd – that is, contrary to normal human experience – tips us off that Jesus isn’t talking about earthly but heavenly things. Maybe the most absurd part is how Jesus leads his enemies to pronounce a damning sentence on themselves: When the landowner comes, he asks, what will he do to those tenant farmers? They told him, “He will bring those wretches to a wretched end. Then he will lease out the vineyard to other tenants who will give him his fruit when it is due.” Picture the scene – Jesus is holding court in the Temple – and he’s just told a parable so absurd that he’s led his enemies to confess their own sins and confess what they deserve from God – before an audience of hundreds if not thousands. Do you know what’s just as absurd? We do the same thing every single week. We admit, we confess that we are wretched sinners who deserve nothing better than for God to come and bring us to a wretched end in this life and give us a wretched place in hell for all eternity. It’s absurd to confess such things in public. So absurd that it can’t be anything other than the work of the Holy Spirit in us.
And the absurdity continues. Jesus shifts his metaphors – from agriculture to architecture; from a vineyard to a construction site. He quotes from Psalm 118. This wasn’t a random selection. Every Jew in Jerusalem would have been singing this psalm as a part of their Passover celebration. More importantly, every Jew knew that this psalm was about the promised Savior, the Messiah, the Christ. They knew that the stone the builders rejected would become the cornerstone and that it would be marvelous in [their] eyes. The song they had been singing was coming true right in front of their eyes. And yet the Jewish leaders remained utterly blind to the truth.
How? Why? Because they had an unclear, a low-definition view of their own sins and God’s grace. To them, everything about Jesus was absurd. It was utterly absurd that the Messiah should be born to an unmarried peasant girl, be raised by a carpenter father (in Nazareth, of all places), hang out with sinners and gather around him a band of Galilean hill-billy’s as disciples. Even more, it seemed to them to be the height of absurdity that the Savior, the Christ could be arrested, convicted and finally nailed to a cross. And they’re right. It is absurd that God sent his Son to the earth knowing that the very people he came to save would kill him; that God’s perfect Son should have to suffer hell and die in the place of his rebellious people. It is absurd. It’s absurd to everyone except to those who clearly see how evil and wicked they have been. Only those who see how truly wretched they are can look at the Son of God, bleeding and dying on a tree, and see it as marvelous [in their] eyes. It’s absurd to everyone except those who recognize that while they may be able to avoid being infected with Covid-19, they cannot escape the death sentence hanging over their heads, and that the only cure is found in that lowly Jew who provided the cure to death itself by his resurrection to life.
The last thing we “must hear” is that we are in this parable. We are the recipients of the vineyard. We are the people to whom it was given so that we might produce its fruit. How can we be so sure? All who are baptized into the death and resurrection of Christ are given a share in God’s kingdom. All who hear and believe the announcement of forgiveness have been vindicated, justified before God. All who receive the body and blood of the Son of God in communion are receiving the fruits of the kingdom – and…they also produce the fruits of the kingdom. Make sure you get that order right. God doesn’t look for fruit from people who are outside of his kingdom, his vineyard. He only looks for fruit from those to whom he has already given the best fruit he possessed: saving faith in his Son as Savior.
The chief priests and the Pharisees refused to receive this gracious fruit from God and so they were unable to produce any of their own. That’s not you. You have received the forgiveness Jesus won for you by his perfect life and his innocent death. Having been forgiven, you can’t help but forgive others. Having been given all the riches of God’s kingdom you can’t help but put your riches to work in the kingdom. Having seen how Jesus prioritized your salvation above all things you can’t help but prioritize his Word above everything else in your life. Having received the life’s work of God’s Son through faith, you can’t help but diligently produce fruit in whatever corner of the vineyard God has placed you. These are the fruits God is looking for. These are the fruits God is producing in you right now – even if you don’t realize it. These are the things you must hear in this parable – and when you hear and understand these things, then you also understand that this is not just a parable…this is reality. Amen.
