Grace, mercy and peace be to you from God our Father and from our Lord Jesus Christ! Amen!
Dear brothers and sisters in Christ:
[Luther on Christianity]
“When people become secure, danger lies ahead. To be sure, they hear the Word but let it go into one ear and out of the other; they can talk a great deal about it, but no improvement in life and no fruits of faith follow, as we see now before our eyes.”[1]
Those are the words of Martin Luther. Even almost 500 years later, those words still ring true to this day.
Are you secure and confident in your faith in Jesus Christ as Lord? Are you improving in your faith life? Are you yielding fruits of faith?
It is so easy to be content in your life when things are going good. You may think, why should I attend the Divine Service weekly? Why should I attend a Bible study weekly? My life is perfect. But when things turn for the worse, what do you depend on? Yourself, or the true God? Now, we should depend on God when things are good and when things are bad.
Martin Luther was concerned for the salvation of everyone. He was no hypocrite. He meant what he said and said what he meant. He was never quiet when salvation was at stake.
As Christians, we should be yielding fruit of the Spirit, which are love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control. (Galatians 5:22)
You
see, Luther was very concerned with those people who called themselves
Christians and when asked basic questions about Christianity, they were
dumbfounded. They didn’t know the answer. They didn’t know the basic theme of
Holy Scripture, nor did they know basic Christian doctrine:
·
They
didn’t know the Ten Commandments
·
They
didn’t know the Lord’s Prayer
·
They
didn’t know the Creed
· Really, they didn’t know pure doctrine from heresy.
Yet, they consider themselves to be Christian, without knowing anything. That is the case with much of American Christianity today.
Now, without knowing what the one true Christian faith believes, you cannot yield any fruit. You are a vineyard that only produces wild grapes. You are a garden that can’t produce any fruit.
Luther would respond to them likely this way: If you do not know Christian doctrine or you refuse to follow Christian doctrine, you are not a Christian.
Luther is not saying that we should be perfect Christians, which we should strive to be, but he is saying that we should at all times and all places do our best in being faithful to God.
[Parable of the Tenants]
In this morning’s gospel, Jesus continues from last week’s gospel lesson as He speaks to the Jewish chief priests and elders. Last week, we heard Jesus tell them about the Parable of the Two Sons. Today, Jesus gets even more explicit and obvious with His Parable of the Tenants.
Our Lord Jesus Christ tells the Jewish chief priests and elders that it was God who planted the vineyard, which is Israel. He tells them that it was God who has done everything for that vineyard. But, then something changed. Something went wrong.
“There was a master of a house who planted a vineyard and put a fence around it and dug a winepress in it and built a tower and leased it to tenants, and went into another country,” Jesus said.
But this vineyard’s tenants did not see themselves as sharecroppers, but instead as the owners of the vineyard. The tenants believed they were in control of the vineyard. They did not fear, respect or acknowledge their landlord, the owner of the vineyard.
So when it was harvest season, the owner of the vineyard sent his servants to the tenants to bring back his fruit. But the tenants did not respect the servants and beat one, killed another, and stoned another.
Instead of arriving in person in wrath for what was done, the owner shows patience and sends more servants, but to no avail as they too were beaten, stoned and killed.
Then one day, he sent his son to them to bring back his fruit and said, “They will respect my son.”
And how did the tenants react to seeing the owner’s son? They took him and threw him out of the vineyard and killed him in hopes of stealing his inheritance. You see, according to Jewish law, the tenants stood a good chance on inheriting the land when the owner died, if there was no heir.
So Jesus puts the ball back in the court of the chief priests and elders and asks them, “When the owner of the vineyard comes, what will he do to those tenants?”
They respond saying that the tenants will be put to a miserable death and the vineyard will be leased out to other tenants who will give him the fruits of their seasons.
Exactly. Jesus says, “Therefore I tell you, the kingdom of God will be taken away from you and given to a people producing its fruits.”
Later the chief priests and elders realized that the parable was about them. They are the tenants of the vineyard. The stiff-necked attitudes of the Jewish leaders led to the beatings and death of the servants – God’s prophets, who instead of being listened to were beaten and murdered.
[Historical Parallels]
Now, this parable has some possible parallels in the history of the Church, as well.
As centuries went by, the Roman Church became corrupted with tradition and the papacy seen as more important than God’s inerrant Word. In fact, very few people had actually seen a Bible. At this time, every Western Christian assumed that what the pope said must be true. This parable may have some parallels to those clerics who spoke out against corruption and errors in the Roman Church.
One of those clerics was a Bohemian named John Hus. He preached the word of God in the language of his people, he tried to restore true devotion among Christians, he fearlessly attacked church corruption and he gave his parishioners both the body and blood of Christ in Holy Communion. For all of this, he was condemned as a heretic and later burned at the stake in July of 1415 and his ashes were flung into the Rhine River. Do his reformation ideas sound familiar? Hus’s attempted reformation may have been forgotten except for one man who came on the scene 100 years later.
You see, Luther was accused as being a follower of Hus and a heretic himself by the Roman Church.
Now, Luther’s reformation did not end the same way as Hus’s attempt at reforming the Church, as we all know. Luther was protected and had many influential friends and allies.
[Good news]
Now, returning to the Parable of the Tenants.
You may wonder in the parable, where is the good news? It sounds like Jesus is only pronouncing God’s judgments. Well, there are a lot of judgments. We have beatings, death and a vineyard taken away.
Also, for those who disbelieve, Jesus is pronouncing the judgment of facing the true wrath of God’s Law.
But, there is good news, too.
First off, this parable shows God’s love and patience. You see, He keeps on sending prophets and eventually His own Son.
On top of this, Jesus is telling the chief priests and elders what He will do. He is telling them the plan. However, all that the chief priests and elders understood was that Jesus is threatening to take away their rule over the Jewish people.
Jesus is telling them about His future death and what His death will accomplish.
Jesus said of the tenants, “This is the heir. Come, let us kill him and have his inheritance.” And so they took him out of the vineyard and killed him.
This heir is Jesus and He was sent on our behalf for our salvation.
You see, Christ picks us up. What we regard as punishment actually turns out to be the first step in the healing process. God knows how to turn what’s bad into good.
Christ’s death on the cross outside the walls of Jerusalem, like the son’s outside the vineyard, appears to be a gruesome punishment, which it is. But it is the first step of God’s plan to heal mankind away from sin, death and the devil.
Three days later, Jesus rose from the dead to prove that His death destroyed the power of sin, death and the devil. Through believing in Him and His promises, we have been freely given forgiveness of sins, everlasting life and salvation by grace through faith.
You see, Jesus Christ has redeemed the vineyard – you and me – through His death on the cross and His resurrection from the tomb to Himself.
The death of God’s Son on the cross was not just a plot of men – it was the plan of God. And since the salvation Jesus procured on the cross was for all people, even the people who planned and carried out His execution are included. The inheritance of salvation is for everyone who believes and trusts in Jesus Christ.
So, believe, trust and follow Jesus for only He is our redeemer of the vineyard.
Amen.
The
peace of God, which passes all understanding, keep your hearts and minds in
Christ Jesus, our Lord and Savior. Amen.
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