Love’s Obligation

Series on Luke

V The Imminence of the Kingdom

G Tenants

Text: 20:9-19

Introduction

Few parables in sacred Scripture are as clear and to the point as this. Perhaps because our Lord is nearing His death he must place the issue squarely before the people. Our text indicates that they understand him. in verse 16 we read that the people said, “May this never be.” They knew He was talking about their own destruction. Likewise in verse 19 we read that the teachers of the law and the Pharisees looked for a way to arrest him immediately because they knew he had spoken this parable against them. The issues are clear, the crucial nature of their decision is plain and yet in spite of that they will reject him, just as the parable says. They spurned the claims of Christ because they said He was a madman and a liar. The scenes change, but the characters remain the same. The compassion of God always brings the same results. Condemnation to those who reject it and conflict to those who accept it. Let us consider then compassion, condemnation and conflict.

I A Picture of Compassion

Jesus’ parable is a terrible indictment of his own people and their despising God’s mercies, but this is not just for the Jewish people. It is a parable about sinful mankind. The role of the Jewish people is an historical anomaly. It could be any ungrateful family or nation. The real focus here is on the compassion of the man who plants the vineyard, who represents, of course, God Himself. This is not news. God says a similar thing in Isaiah 5:1-7, I will sing for the one I love a song about his vineyard: My loved one had a vineyard on a fertile hillside. He dug it up and cleared it of stones and planted it with the choicest vines. He built a watchtower in it and cut out a winepress as well. Then he looked for a crop of good grapes, but it yielded only bad fruit. “Now you dwellers in Jerusalem and men of Judah, judge between me and my vineyard. What more could have been done for my vineyard than I have done for it? When I looked for good grapes, why did it yield only bad? Now I will tell you what I am going to do to my vineyard: I will take away its hedge, and it will be destroyed; I will break down its wall, and it will be trampled. I will make it a wasteland, neither pruned nor cultivated, and briers and thorns will grow there. I will command the clouds not to rain on it.” The vineyard of the LORD Almighty is the house of Israel, and the men of Judah are the garden of his delight. And he looked for justice, but saw bloodshed; for righteousness, but heard cries of distress. The shocking thing about Jesus’ parable is the unreasonable and outlandish behavior of the owner of the vineyard as described in verses 9-14, He went on to tell the people this parable: “A man planted a vineyard, rented it to some farmers and went away for a long time. 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. “Then the owner of the vineyard said, ‘What shall I do? I will send my son, whom I love; perhaps they will respect him.’ “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. The principles of God’s kingdom clash with the principles of this world. It is beyond all human reason to expect that the owner of the vineyard would keep sending more and more servants if they were being mistreated and killed, but that is exactly what God did. In Matthew 23:29-32 Jesus indicts the religious leaders because of their hypocrisy in honoring the prophets, but treating them exactly as he has portrayed in this parable in Luke 20. “Woe to you, teachers of the law and Pharisees, you hypocrites! You build tombs for the prophets and decorate the graves of the righteous. And you say, ‘If we had lived in the days of our forefathers, we would not have taken part with them in shedding the blood of the prophets.’ So you testify against yourselves that you are the descendants of those who murdered the prophets. Fill up, then, the measure of the sin of your forefathers! Furthermore no owner on earth would send his son risking that the farmers would respect him after they had killed all his servants, but God did send his son into a hostile world. The parable leaves no question but that Jesus is that son. This is beyond reason. It is grace, mercy, and compassion. Likewise it is beyond reason that the people who had murdered the servants and the son would expect themselves to be heirs of the estate? How utterly ridiculous! But this is what the parable says and, ironically, it was fulfilled in an unexpected way on the day of Pentecost when Peter preached to the multitude of gathered Jews and says God has made that same Jesus you crucified both Lord and Christ and the people are cut to the heart and ask what they should do. Peter says they should repent and be baptized because the promise is to them and their children. The promise was first of all to the same nation, the same family, the same people who had rejected Him. As I said, this unreasonable, unexpected, unfathomable grace produced two results, condemnation and conflict.

II A Pronouncement of Condemnation

To those who rejected Him Jesus pronounced the final judgment upon their hope as a people. We read in verses 15-18, “What then will the owner of the vineyard do to them? He will come and kill those tenants and give the vineyard to others.” When the people heard this, they said, “May this never be!” Jesus looked directly at them and asked, “Then what is the meaning of that which is written: ”‘The stone the builders rejected has become the capstone’? Everyone who falls on that stone will be broken to pieces, but he on whom it falls will be crushed.” Their fate is epitomized in the quotation from Psalm 118 concerning the stone. They have not really considered what this verse means. The Messiah will be rejected but God will make Him the only help and hope in spite of that rejection. This becomes one of the favorite Old Testament quotes by New Testament authors. The theme is found in Isaiah as well as in the Psalms and is reflected in Simeon’s blessing in the temple at the dedication of Jesus, and by both Paul in Romans and i Corinthians and by Peter in his sermon before the Sanhedrin in Acts 4 as well as in his first epistle. In other words it became a key concept which was well understood later, but here Jesus first confronts them with the meaning of a Scripture they knew well. As he explains it here there is destruction for the present generation which is rejecting Him and for all those in the future who reject him. God’s long-suffering, God’s patience and mercy terminate in Jesus. This was the main burden of Jesus prophetic message. First, the Jewish temple and the city of Jerusalem will be destroyed as a final step to the establishment of the new Church, and secondly he would come again to judge the whole world. The stone is a refuge for those who believe. but it will fall on and crush those who do not. The point of the parable is to emphasize the foolishness, the awfulness of rejecting One who has loved them so much.

III A Portent of Conflict

In verse 19 we see the result of the parable and the explanation. There is an acceleration of the conflict. The teachers of the law and the chief priests looked for a way to arrest him immediately, because they knew he had spoken this parable against them. But they were afraid of the people. The prophecy of the parable is being fulfilled. They have killed God’s servants the prophets and now they will kill his Son. We need to understand that Jesus said that he came not to send peace on earth but a sword. He also said to His disciples, If they hate me they will hate you. I love that passage in Romans 12:18 where Paul says, If it be possible, as much as lies in you, live peaceably with all men. For some living peaceably is an idol. It is peace at any price. They leave out the qualifiers, “If it be possible and as much as lies in you.” The careful qualification of this admonition is given because Paul, better than most, knew the conflict of following Jesus. It is a conflict we too often avoid. Jesus knew that it would lead to his death and he did not shun it. I do not want to put a rubber stamp on all Christian activism, but I can say I don’t agree with the way some people get involved in the political process and so I do nothing. Or i don’t agree with the things some pro-lifers do so i won’t get involved, or i don’t agree with everything done in the name of Christian missions so I won’t support it. Here are some other things I don’t agree with: all the ways people combat pornography, or all the ways they try to feed the hungry, or all the ways they want to combat secular humanism in our schools and institutions, or all the ways they want to rehabilitate criminals, or all the ways they want to stop the use of illegal drugs. But listen if i spend my life looking at what is wrong with the way everybody else is doing something I will end up doing nothing and alas that is what many of us do. To us “living peaceably” is not getting involved. I just want us to see that the proper response to this parable is not simply to accept Jesus so that the stone will not crush us. Those who plotted are killed, but those who receive the vineyard, that’s us, Christians, enter a conflict which in the end is following in the footsteps of the prophets who died and the Savior who was crucified. They do it because of the extraordinary love of God.