Matthew 21:33-46 (John 3:16,17): The Parable of the Tenant Farmers.

Presented to the Nipawin Corps of The Salvation Army, 21 June 2009
and the Swift Current Corps, 25 July 2010 and 08 March 2014
and Warehouse Mission 614 in Toronto, 20 May, 2018
by Captain Michael Ramsay

To read the 2018 sermon, click here: http://sheepspeaks.blogspot.ca/2018/05/mark-1127-1212-mt-2131-46-resentful.html
 
To read to 2015 version of this sermon, click here: http://sheepspeaks.blogspot.ca/2015/03/mark-1127-1212-mt-2131-46-tenant-farmers.html
 
This has been an event-filled week. We are all packed up now and ready to go. Evelyn Waldner, Barry’s mom was called home, she was promoted to glory on Wednesday evening. As sad as it is for us, her friends and family, we know that it is good that at the resurrection there are no more tears, no more death. We encourage everyone to keep the family in your prayers.

Also this week there was a celebration of 25 years of Handi-Works in our community and all that God has used that organization to do in so many people’s lives. It was uplifting to see that the event was opened with grace and closed after re-dedicating Hand-Works, their people and their work before the Lord to His service in the community.

It is neat too that the word for ‘spirit’ many places in the scriptures, including both at creation and at Pentecost, the word for ‘spirit’ - when God, the Holy Spirit shows up at these events - the word to describe Him is exactly the same as the word as the word for ‘wind’ (Acts 2; Gen 1:2; cf. Eze 37:9, 14; Jn 3:8) and I can testify that there was plenty of wind, I thought that it was going to knock the tent over as it filled that place as God was present on that Wednesday evening. I was so pleased to see how our Heavenly Father was involved in the ceremony from the opening grace to the official re-dedication in His name. It is important to honour our Heavenly Father for what He does in our lives and our community and today, of course, is Father’s Day.

Father’s Day is always neat. It is a chance to celebrate with our kids and our fathers and reflect upon some of the commonalities, some of the joys and some of the fun stories. I can remember when I was a child about Sarah-Grace’s age: my dad was my soccer coach. These days another parent and I have been coaching Sarah-Grace’s team. Last year I co-coached with Bryan Hildebrandt, Len and Gladys’ son. Now I’m not necessarily the most reliable coach in that every once and a while I get called away to an emergency or something and I remember last year with Bryan having never coached before, he was hoping to learn a little from me (of all people) only to have me called away on the very first day of the season for Emergency Disaster Relief work of some sort. He had a baptism by fire as it were and he did great. I’m also sure that now that he is a much better coach then am I too.

I think of my role out there as more of an encourager than a coach per sae. I like to try to rally the troops and cheer the team on - celebrate their successes with them. I find myself often calling out from the sidelines ‘Go so and so go!’ ‘Go score a goal!’ or ‘pass to so and so, she’s open’ or more commonly, ‘Goalie wake up!’ ‘Goalie, don’t lie on the ground!’ or ‘Goalie, stop talking to your friend and untangle yourself from the net – the ball is coming’… encouragements like that.

The other week, Sarah-Grace made an excellent header. The ball came right to her and she headed it to her teammate – that was really quite something, particularly at this age, so at the break I complimented her on her head ball and she, in front all the parents, told me her secret. She said, ‘Dad, you know how I did the head ball? …I saw the ball coming to me but I forgot to move out of the way’. I like being a dad. It is a lot of fun. And being a coach of your kids’ teams can be fun and it can be a bit of work too.

Here in Matthew 21:31b-46 (cf. Lk 20:1-19, Mk 11:27-12:12) we read about an employer who, as Jesus tells us, has a bit of a challenging team working for him. This businessman is in the grape business. He is farmer of sorts and it is recorded in verse 33 that he put a bit of work into his farm. (He must love it!) It says that he plants his vineyard, he puts a wall around it, and he even builds a watchtower (cf. Isa 5:1-7 and Ps 80:6-16). It sounds like it is a pretty good setup that he has here. It says in verse 33 that he could even afford to go on vacation or a family trip or a business trip of some sort; it says in verse 34 that he had enough time and money that he could leave the vineyard. This is pretty good especially remembering that all this is happening in first century Palestine. It says that he could afford to go away and hire the fields out to some tenant farmers. Now I realise there are a number of people who do that in this area right?

Now the absentee landlord’s fields, his vines, are doing pretty well. He is still away doing whatever he is doing – sitting in his big corporate office or on the beach in Hawaii or Saskatoon or wherever it is that the rich farmers spend their time when they aren’t at home. The landlord is away and it is time to collect his rent. The harvest is in and he wants his cut. He wants his share so he sends some of his employees up from the big city – briefcases, laptops, and calculators in hand (okay their were neither briefcases, laptops nor calculators then) – to collect the rent and it says in verse 35 that the tenant farmers, the fruit pickers, the contractors working the land, want to renegotiate their contract or something like that…it says in verse 35 that they seize his employees, they seize his servants and they beat one of them pretty severely, they kill another and they stone a third: stoning at that time often involved throwing someone into a pit and then hitting them with large rocks until they were dead. The farmers aren’t very nice to the landlord’s employees at all.

Now when the landlord hears about all this, what does he do? Well, what would you do? What would you do if you rented out your land for a season so that you could head down south and you send some property management company to go get the rent and they wind up getting themselves beaten up and killed? What are you going to do? Call the RCMP, right? Get the authorities. You’re going to want to do something, right? But what does the landlord do?

The landlord sends another group of servants (21:36). Now I don’t know how keen I would be to head out in the second batch of employees to collect the rent after hearing what had happened to the first group. (I think I might rather take that road crew job out near Red Earth first.) Nonetheless the employees are good and the employees, I imagine, know full well the risks ahead. The Landlord sends even more of them this time to go out to get the rent from these surely, stingy farmers just like he sent his earlier employees to try to get the rent before. And just like when the first group of rent collectors headed out, this second group is met with more resistance, more beatings, and more death.

Now. I don’t know about you but if I were the employer I would be getting quite upset right now. I have been a landlord before. I know what it is like when your tenants try to pull the ‘midnight move’ on you. I know what it is like when they don’t want to pay their rent. I also used to be a magazine publisher for quite a few years and I know what it is like when your clients give your commission employees a really bad time and don’t want to pay them – It isn’t good. After all, good help isn’t all that easy to come by – and in our story today those bad farmers are even killing them off. So what does the landlord do? Does he call the residential tenancy board? Does he call the American ATF to storm the compound? This landlord is a powerful landlord. He can do so much more than even that in first century Palestine. He can literally have their heads. He has a lot of sway but what does he do?

As we’re reading this story on Father’s Day and as Jesus, God’s son is telling the story, we read how this landlord, a loving father who has absolute faith in the ability of his son. Verse 37: he says, ‘they will respect my son.’ They didn’t. The tenant farmers didn’t respect his son. Verse 38: “But when the tenants saw the son they said to each other, ‘this is the heir. Come let’s kill him and take his inheritance.” Verse 39, “So they took him, threw him out of the vineyard and killed him.” So Jesus stops the story here and he asks those listening to the story, verse 40, “Therefore, when the owner of the vineyard comes what will he do to those tenants?”

He will have them killed. He will be rid of them once and for all and he will rent out the vineyard to other tenants, to some good farmers, who will pay the rent and give him what is due him (vs. 41).

Now Jesus is telling this parable to the Jewish religious leaders who are a part of the crowd he is addressing. The chief priest, the Pharisees, and the elders of the people (vss. 23, 45) have asked Jesus upon what authority he is doing his ministry and this parable is part of his answer[1] and he tells the elders and he tells the chief priests and he tells the Pharisees who are present – verse 43 – he tells them “…the kingdom of God will be taken away from you and given to a people who would produce its fruit” and – verses 45, 46 – “when the chief priests and Pharisees heard Jesus’ parables they knew he was talking about them. They looked for a way to arrest him but they were afraid of the people because the people held that he was a prophet.”[2]

They knew what he was talking about, it says. Do we know what he is talking about? God, the landlord, sends his prophets, the servants, to check up on the tenants and how they are doing at looking after his vineyard and as we know the Israelites and their religious leaders stoned and even killed many of the prophets of God (cf. 1 Kings 18:4, 13; Jer 26:20-23; 2 Chr 24:21-22; and Matt 23:37; Heb 11:37).[3] God, the landlord, then sends his own son to the people chosen to tend his vineyard and the Israelites and their religious leaders kill him and because they kill him, the religious leaders who reject the landlord and his son, the religious leaders who reject Jesus die outside of the vineyard and the vineyard is given to others (cf. Romans 2, Romans 11).[4]

You and I here today, how are we doing with what God is entrusting us?[5] Do we heed his servants when they are sent with messages or to collect our rent? What do we do when Jesus shows up to tell us what we need to do? Do we obey him? Do we pay our rent?

This is an important question. Matthew’s account of this parable that Jesus tells, answers questions about his authority and who gave it to him (Matthew 21:23; cf. Luke 1:2, Mark 11:28). Jesus has the ultimate authority, as he is God’s only begotten son who was killed (and raised from the dead) and if we reject him like many of the religious leaders of the first century, we will not have the blessing of remaining in the eternal vineyard either;[6] we will die. As this is the case, let us make sure that we submit to our master, that we serve him and that we will live forever with him.

There is even more than this – of course – there is more than is addressed specifically in this parable that we should probably look at on this Father’s Day. Parables only go so far.[7] They parallel the story.

There is even more to the Gospel of Jesus Christ, as Susan promised we would talk about this week: We know that God knows that Jesus is going to die before he sends him to the world (Cf. John 3,15). We know that Jesus’ death is necessary so that anyone can live and have eternal life. We know that He chooses to send His son to die so that we can live. Still some will hear this story and instead of concentrating on the authority of Jesus and the sacrifice of God they will fixate on the fact that God punishes these farmers and ask how come there is so much death? How come God punishes some people? In our world today we often hear the question, how can a supposedly loving God arbitrarily punish people and even condemn some to Hell?”

Well, He doesn’t. You heard me right but listen carefully to what I am saying here… Jesus doesn’t condemn people to Hell (John 3:17). Hell is real but Jesus does not send people there. Those who are going there, like the tenant farmers in our story today who lose their lives in the vineyard, they make that decision all on their own. Those who stand condemned, condemn themselves by denying (like the Apostle Paul makes clear in Romans Chapters 1 and 2) what is plainly obvious to everyone.[8] I truly believe that God gives us all we need to know in this life from our experiences and even creation itself (cf. Ro 1:18-24) just like he sent more and more servants to give the tenants more and more opportunities to repent and submit to His authority and indeed there will actually still be a time when every knee will bow and every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord (Ro 14:11, Philip 2:10) and then some, some who believe in the Lord and obey His commandments will go off to spend eternity with Him[9] and some, some who deny Christ (Matthew 10:33) and do not obey His commandments (John 14:15), some who simply refuse His love will go off to the hear the weeping and gnashing of teeth (Mathew 25:31ff). This is sad.

This is particularly sad because we know that God loves us. John 3:16 says that He loves the entire ‘Kosmos’[10]. He loves us so much that He laid down His life for us (John 15). God loves us so much that He sent His only begotten, his only natural, his only sired Son to die so that we may live.

I can’t imagine how much this must hurt God that some of us do actually perish. I am a father. Many of us are parents here. It is Fathers’ Day today. Think about this scenario for a moment. The house across the street is on fire; there are children asleep in that house. Your child is able to save them. Your son or daughter – your ONLY son or daughter can reach them so you encourage her “…Go, go, go! Save those people.”

Your daughter goes. She goes. She suffers every peril in that burning house that everyone else in there is suffering (Cf. 1 Cor 10:14; Lk 4). There is the smoke – the deadly smoke, there is the fire, and there are the falling beams. She is successful. She gets to where the children are. She can see them. She is able to make an opening in the wall. She points them to the way out. She yells for them to walk through the opening in the wall. She has made a clear path so that all of the kids can be saved - and then she dies. Your daughter dies so that all these kids can be saved. Your child dies so that none of these kids need to die but – here’s the kicker: the children don’t want to be saved. They choose to die. She died so that they could be saved but – on purpose – they die. They did not need to die but they choose not to walk through the opening. They choose to die. Your daughter dies for them and they all die anyway; they refused to be saved.

This is what it is like for God when our loved one’s reject Him. This is what it is like when any of us perish. He sent His son to this house, this vineyard, this world that is perishing. He sent His Son to this house that is on fire – and His Son died so that we may live but yet some still refuse His love for us and some still reject His Salvation. He sent Jesus not to condemn us to burn in the eternal house fire (John 3:17) but to save us but like those children some of us refuse to obey Him and walk to safety. Some of us simply refuse to walk through that opening that Jesus died to make. John 3:18: “Those who believe in Him are not condemned; but those who do not believe are condemned already…” of their own accord because, John 3:19, “people loved darkness rather than light.”

So today we are in the vineyard of that parable that Jesus told 2000 years ago. We are in the privileged position of knowing the truth that the religious leaders of Jesus day were. We have access to the light. We have knowledge of our salvation; so, I ask us in our own lives, when Jesus comes back, when God returns to the vineyard will we experience the same fate as the tenant farmers, those religious leaders in Jesus’ day? Will we experience the same fate of those who choose to perish in the fire or will we accept salvation through the path that Jesus provided and live our life tending to in his perfect vineyard. He is standing at the door. It is time for us to decide. What will we do? Will we turn our backs on Him and die or will we meet him with open arms and live? It is time to decide.

Let us pray.

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* The Swift Current and Toronto versions were not presented on Fathers' Day thus the Fathers' Days references were not included in that sermon; neither were other time or location specific references.
[1] M. Eugene Boring, Matthew (NIB 8: Nashville, Tenn.: Abingdon, 1995), 409: “by adding two additional parables [he incorporates] the woes into the full-blown speech (23:1-25:46).” This parable is not meant to stand in isolation.
[2] Donald A. Hagner, Matthew 14-28. (WBC 33B: Dallas, Texas: Word Books, 1995), 612. The purpose of this series of parables then is “the depiction of the unfaithfulness of the Jewish leaders. It is for this reason Jesus asks the Jewish leaders for their opinion concerning which of these two sons was the faithful one.” The religious leaders’ response in the affirmative to Jesus question is then, through typically parabolic procedure, a self-indictment.
[3] Daniel J. Harrington, The Gospel of Matthew (Sacra Pagina Series 1: Collegeville, Minnesota: The Liturgical Press, 1991), 302: “Mark 12:2-5 has three servants sent individually and then many others. It is pointless to try to identify them as Moses, Joshua, David, and so forth. Matthew simplifies the story by having the master send two batches of servants.”
[4] Cf. NT Wright, “The Law in Romans 2,” Paul and the Mosaic Law, ed. James D. G. Dunn (WUNT 89; Tübingen: Mohr-Siebeck, 1996), republished with English translations of German essays (Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 2001): 136. The equality of the Gentile to the Jew before God, as expressed by Paul in Romans in no way negates the primacy of the Jews (cf. Romans 11:7, 11). Cf. Romans 11:12-13, where it is recorded that it was only “through their stumbling [that] salvation has come to the Gentiles…Now if their stumbling means riches for the world, and if their defeat means riches for the Gentiles, how much more will their full inclusion mean!.”
[5] It is important to note as Douglas J. Moo does that, “contrary to popular Jewish belief, the sins of the Jews will not be treated by God significantly different from those of the Gentiles.” Douglas J. Moo, The Epistle to the Romans (NICNT 6: Grand Rapids, Michigan / Cambridge, UK: William B. Eerdmans Publishing Co., 1996), 126. Cf. also NT Wright, The Letter to the Romans (NIB 10: Nashville, Tenn.: Abingdon, 1995), 440
[6] D.A. Carson, The Expositor's Bible Commentary, Pradis CD-ROM:Matthew/Exposition of Matthew/VI. Opposition and Eschatology: The Triumph of Grace (19:3-26:5)/A. Narrative (19:3-23:39)/8. Opening events of Passion Week (21:1-23:39)/d. Controversies in the temple court (21:23-22:46)/(3) The parable of the tenants (21:33-46), Book Version: 4.0.2 : “that the "son" motif in the parable itself depends on the logic of the story and therefore must not be judged inauthentic…even the most skeptical approach to the Gospels acknowledges that Jesus enjoyed a sense of special sonship to the Father. It is almost inconceivable therefore that Jesus could use this "son" language in defending his mission and not be thinking of himself. It is far more natural to read the "son" language of the parable as yet another veiled messianic self-reference, especially in light of the use of "Son of God" as a messianic title.”
[7] More than one third of Jesus’ recorded teachings are parabolic in nature. They are a ‘casting aside. Cf. Luke Timothy Johnson, The Gospel of Luke (Sacra Pagina Series 3: Collegeville, Minnesota: The Liturgical Press, 1991), 134: These “sayings perform the classic function of Hellenistic histories of interpreting the meaning of the narrative”
[8] Cf. Michael Ramsay. “Paul and the Human Condition as Reflected in Romans 1:18-32 and 2:1-16”. Available on-line at: http://www.sheepspeak.com/NT_Michael_Ramsay.htm#Paul%20and%20the%20Human%20Condition
[9] Cf. N.T. Wright, “Romans and the Theology of Paul,” Pauline Theology, Volume III, ed. David M. Hay & E. Elizabeth Johnson, (Minneapolis: Fortress, 1995): 37.
[10] Gail O’Day. NIB IX: The Gospel of Luke The Gospel of John. ‘John’, p.552.