“What To Do When The Rent Is Due”
Text: Matthew 21:33-46
10-8-2023
In the name of the Father, and the Son, and the Holy Spirit, Amen. Well, here we go again. For the third Sunday in a row now, we’ve had a Gospel reading which contained a parable that had something to do with a vineyard. Last week, it was the 2 sons who were sent by their father to work in the vineyard. The week before it was the landowner who hired men at various times of the day to work in his vineyard. And today we have the wicked tenants who refuse to pay the rent due to the owner of the vineyard. Do you get the feeling that these folks 2,000 years ago were serious about their grapes? They were! This was an important crop because it supplied them with their most common beverage: wine. Contrary to what some of your Christian friends might say, it actually was wine and not just juice that they made with those precious grapes. But that’s not the real lesson behind these parables. Jesus is simply using a vivid illustration that all the people back then could relate to. If we were to substitute corn and soybeans for the grapes, you too would easily get the point, especially in today’s parable. It’s the story of a landlord who leases out his vineyard to his tenants, kind of like today leasing a farm on shares.
You’ll notice that everything was provided in that vineyard. First and foremost, the grapevines are already planted and producing fruit. There was a hedge placed around the vineyard. This usually consisted of thorny bushes to keep the wild boars out because they would uproot and destroy the grape vines. There was a winepress which was basically a vat chiseled out of the stone so that the harvested grapes could be trampled to produce the juice to be made into the wine. And there was a tower which served a dual purpose. It could be used to guard against potential thieves (which ought to show us just how valuable the grape crop was to them!) Or this tower could be used as a lodging place for the workers to get some rest. All the tenant had to do was tend the crop, harvest it, and pay the rent.
But that last item is where things go haywire. It’s harvest time and the rent is due. So, the owner sends his servants to collect his share of the fruit from the harvest. But the tenants will have none of that! They didn’t even try to pacify the landlord with that old routine of saying “the check’s in the mail.” Oh, no. They beat one servant, kill another, and stone the other. Most of us would have taken drastic action after our first servant was abused. And yet, the landlord shows extreme restraint by sending another round of servants who are treated equally as bad. Talk about patience! It’s quite obvious that the wicked tenants know the score. But the landlord gives them the benefit of the doubt. Then he does something that’s totally illogical. After all this mistreatment, he sends his son to collect the rent thinking that the tenants will certainly respect him as the owner’s personal representative. Seriously? This landlord must be an absolute schmuck! Didn’t he foresee what was would happen? The tenants kill his son; not only so they wouldn’t have to pay the rent, but also to steal the son’s inheritance. It was an act of deliberate rebellion.
Jesus has set up the scene. So, He asks the crowd, “When therefore the owner of the vineyard comes, what will he do to those tenants?” You can tell that the people listening were really getting into it and you can sense their moral outrage in their response to Jesus. “Why, the landlord will slaughter those ungrateful, wicked creeps and rent out the vineyard to new tenants who will faithfully pay the rent!” Let me pause for a second to remind you that the religious leaders, the chief priests and Pharisees, were in this crowd. And there’s every indication that they came up with the same response. What they didn’t realize is that Jesus was about to let their own words condemn them. He says, “Therefore I tell you, the kingdom of God will be taken from you and given to a people producing its fruits.”
The chief priests and Pharisees were furious because they finally figured out that Jesus was talking about them. They were the wicked tenants who were refusing to pay the rent to God, the patient vineyard owner. They were the ones who had abused and killed the servants of God, the prophets, sent to them in ages past. They were the ones who were about to kill God’s Son who had been sent to them. And now, using their own words, they were the ones who deserved to be put to death spiritually by a righteous God. To be fair, these religious leaders were not the only ones in Israel who had condemned themselves. No, this parable applied to anyone who had refused to listen to God’s prophets or who had refused to give God the spiritual fruit which He seeks. And it applied to anyone who refused to listen to God’s Son and trust in Him. Jesus warns that if they don’t repent and turn from this evil, the Kingdom of God would be taken from them and given to others.
Did you know that you and I are in that parable? Yes! We are the new tenants whom God has placed in His vineyard. By their rebellion against God and their rejection of Christ, the Jewish people have excluded themselves from God’s Kingdom of Grace. But lest we get cocky or grow lax, we best ask what God expects us to do now as His new tenants. Otherwise, we’ll end up in the same damnable position as the Jews.
As we’ve seen, the vineyard is God’s Kingdom of Grace. Do you remember in the parable how everything was provided in that vineyard? That’s a perfect description of our Christian life. God plants within us the faith to produce fruit for Him. He hedges us in with His protection against anything that would try to uproot our faith and destroy it. He provides us with a winepress so-to-speak in His Church. Through His Means of Grace, He gives us the ability to produce the fine wine from our fruit of faith. And His Word stands as a watchtower to shield us from the evil thief, the devil, who would come to steal that fruit of faith. It’s also a place where we can find rest from our labors. God has provided all this for us, and He expects us to tend His vineyard of grace and produce the fruit He desires. The only question is: “Will we give God the fruit He expects and deserves?”
I suppose before we can answer that honestly, we need to first determine what the “fruit” is that God is expecting from us. It would be easy to turn this into a stewardship sermon by telling you that God expects His “share” of your finances. Give God His rent of 10% or else He’ll kick you out of the Kingdom. But that’s not the fruit of faith that God is necessarily looking for. Well, then, certainly God must be expecting our obedience, right? Well, if that were true then we’d be in BIG trouble because none of us sinners obey God’s commands as we should. Oh, then it must be our worship and praise that God is seeking as the fruit of faith. Nope! Our worship is mainly about receiving more of God’s grace and our praise is simply a grateful response. Believe it or not, all those are secondary to the fruit God is really seeking.
“Well, if those aren’t the things God expects from us, then what is?” Quite simply, it’s the same thing that God has expected from His people throughout the ages. When God sent His prophets to His people in the Old Testament, He was seeking contrition and repentance of their sins. His desire was that they’d receive His grace and be made righteous through His promised forgiveness. He was seeking hearts that trusted in Him totally for their salvation. Instead, they rejected and abused His servants and ultimately killed His Son who came to save them.
Well, we haven’t done any of those awful things, have we? Sorry, but yes, we have. God sends us His modern-day “prophets” in the person of our Pastors who call us to repentance. Anytime we ignore that message or try to excuse a particular sin that we’re guilty of, then we’re refusing to give God the fruit of repentance that He seeks. Anytime that we trust in our good deeds to somehow rectify our problem of sin, then we’re refusing to trust in God solely for our forgiveness. All self-righteousness on our part is ultimately the same as killing God’s Son and trying to seize an eternal inheritance apart from Him. And God won’t stand for it.
The good news is that God is patient as Jesus made clear in the parable. God is not some schmuck landlord who fails to see what’s happening. Rather, His patience is His mercy in action. God will exhaust every opportunity to reach us. He graciously encourages and invites us to repent of our sins and turn from them while there is still time. By the power of His Holy Spirit working in us, He leads us to truly confess our sins and receive His forgiveness. By the power of His Holy Spirit, He teaches us to trust solely in Jesus Christ for our salvation through His innocent death on the cross. That is the fruit which God is seeking from us. And with that fruit of repentance in our hearts, then our offerings, obedience, and worship will flow naturally like sweet wine from God’s vineyard of grace, which greatly pleases Him. How ironic that our gracious God prepared this wondrous vineyard of grace for us and for our benefit. The “fruit” of repentance He expects is for our benefit because by it, He provides us with salvation. May that inspire us to sing His praises. And may we also then be led daily by the Holy Spirit to give God what He seeks—which is, a repentant and grateful heart which serves Him willingly. Amen.
Soli Deo Gloria!