Matthew 21:33-43 Pastor Nathan P. Kassulke
Pentecost 20 Sunday, October 18, 2020 “Jesus Guides His Church with Incredible Patience”
What word would you use to describe God’s patience? That was a question that needed to be answered as we put together a worship plan for this Sunday, along with the rest of our “Jesus Guides His Church” series. We often think of God’s grace with the adjective amazing, and we sing a well-known hymn about that. A few weeks back, we used a different word, “inconceivable,” which fit as well. Either could be used to describe God’s patience also. Or we could call it unbelievable or astonishing or extraordinary. What’s interesting though, is that it doesn’t really matter what word we use. It’s never going to quite convey the enormity of what we are saying, what the Bible tells us, about God’s patience and his love for us. It is incredible, the word that we have chosen, but it is more than incredible how God deals with sinners. And Jesus once told a story to illustrate just how incredible God’s patience really is. You heard it read already in today’s Gospel from Matthew 21. Let’s think through it again. The story starts with a landowner who determines that his land will be used as a vineyard, so he crafts it to be that. He plants the rows of vines. He erects a fence to protect the land. He adds a winepress so that the fruit could be used productively and builds a watchtower for security and oversight. The vineyard had everything that a vineyard would need. It just needed some farmers to care for the crop. According to a common enough custom of the day, the landowner entered into a lease. Farmers who did not own the land or the vineyard would use it. They could earn a living from the vineyard while also paying the landowner for the privilege of doing so. With that agreement in place, the owner thought nothing of leaving on a journey while the growing season went on. And then came the harvest time. Clearly the arrangement between the tenant farmers and the landowner meant that he would receive some of the fruit as it was harvested. He sent his servants, but instead of being given the fruit, the servants were seized, abused, tortured, and killed. He tried a second time with even more servants, and the very same thing happened again. This is unbelievable from any earthly perspective. What would the farmers hope to gain from killing and mistreating the servants of the man on whose land they were trying to make their living? He had every right to expect the fruit, but they refused to give it. How would you expect the owner to react at this point in the story? Perhaps he ought to work with the courts or with leaders in the area to bring those men to justice. Perhaps he should put together his own army to make sure that the next time they encounter those men, they come out on top. But that’s not what the owner does. In a move that seems reckless and is certainly more patient than those men deserve, he sends his own son. He reasons that they will have to respect the very own beloved son of the master. How could they not? Well, they didn’t. They saw the son and plotted against him, too. They thought that somehow they could benefit if the son was out of the way. They could keep the vineyard that the son would otherwise inherit. They could keep their position and their wealth. So they took the son, threw him out, and killed him, too. To end the parable, Jesus does not finish the story, but askes the people how it should end. “So when the landowner comes, 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.” Jesus does not specifically walk the people through the meaning of the various aspects of the parable, but the verses after this report that the Pharisees, the Jewish leaders to whom Jesus had been speaking, knew that he had spoken the parable against them. And indeed he had. He even told them, “That is why I tell you the kingdom of God will be taken away from you and given to a people that produces its fruit.”