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"Stick and stones may break my bones but
words will never hurt me!" You've no doubt heard
that little rhyme, and you've probably even used it at
times. When I was growing up it was the standard
playground retort to an insult. But of course we all know
that those words were simply a bluff. They had as much
value as the rhyme itself. Words have a capacity to hurt
far greater than any sticks or stones. I'm sure, looking
around the room today, that there are people here who are
still bearing the scars of things people have said to
them in the past; even the long gone past. Not that all
words of insult hurt as much as each other. Words that
come out as a slip of the tongue are not nearly as
painful as those that are premeditated, that are aimed at
hurting us. And the pain is magnified if they come from
someone close to us; from a child, or a brother or sister
or parent. |
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But that sort of insult pales into
insignificance when compared to the insult that Jesus is
telling us about in Luke 20. If you like, this is the
ultimate insult, because it's delivered not against a
fellow human being, but against the loving, the
long-suffering heart of God himself. This is the last
parable in Luke's gospel and perhaps the last that Jesus
ever told. In fact there's some argument about whether
this is a parable at all. Rather it's more of an allegory
where, unlike the other parables, the meaning is barely
hidden in details of the story itself. Certainly, the
scribes and the chief priests, at the end of the parable,
have no trouble working out what it means. So let's look
at it to see what Jesus has to teach us by it. |
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1. The Human Condition |
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You may remember from last week that Jesus told
the parable of the 10 pounds just as he was about to
enter Jerusalem. Well, now he's entered the city with
quite a fanfare, and the first thing he's done is to
drive out the money changers and merchants from the
temple precincts. This of course doesn't make the
Pharisees and Chief Priests very happy, so they challenge
him on where he gets the authority for an act like that.
His response is to turn the tables back on them. He asks
them how they understood John's baptism - was it from
heaven or was it of human origin. In other words, where
did John's authority come from? Well, that puts them in a
bit of a spin, and while they're fumbling for an answer,
he tells them this story. |
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He begins by saying: "A man planted a
vineyard, and leased it to tenants, and went to another
country for a long time." Now for Jesus' listeners
this would have rung loud bells. The vineyard was a
well-known OT metaphor for the Nation of Israel. In Is 5,
God tells them how he planted a vineyard but when he came
to harvest it, all he could find was bad fruit. It was
such a famous parable of the failure of Israel that
Jesus' hearers couldn't have helped but think of it as
they listened to this parable. And as the parable
progresses it becomes more and more clear that he's
pointing the finger of criticism at them. Elsewhere he
accuses them of being no better than their forefathers
who killed the prophets (Lk 11:47-49) and here he goes
further in predicting that they'll even kill God's only
son. |
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At first the story only indicates their greed
and their impudence towards the owner. But as the story
progresses we find the true motivation behind this
incredible act of rebellion. v14: "But when the
tenants saw the son, they discussed it among themselves
and said, 'This is the heir; let us kill him so that the
inheritance may be ours.'" The true motivation
behind their action is this: although they've been placed
in the vineyard as tenants, they don't want to
acknowledge the true owner of the vineyard. They want to
be the owners themselves. |
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Now, the danger when we read a parable like this
is to see what Jesus is saying in the original context,
that is, that the Jewish leaders have rejected God's rule
over them, and are about to reject God's Son as well; and
to leave it there. We think what terrible people these
hypocritical chief priests and scribes were, and we think
that's all there is to learn from it. But that's to miss
the sting in the tale. |
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Because what Jesus is describing here is the
condition of every fallen human being. The vineyard is a
picture not just of Israel, but of the whole world. All
of us have been put on this earth as tenants in God's
vineyard. And what's our response? We don't want to be
tenants, paying rent. We want to be the owners. Adam and
Eve were placed in the garden in the first place and
given the task of tending it and what happened? They
decided it would be good to be like God, knowing the
difference between good and evil. And human beings have
been doing the same thing ever since. The people of
Israel from the moment God liberated them from Egypt,
kept on turning away from the true worship of God to
idols, until, eventually, God expelled them from the
promised land and sent them into exile. The Kings of
Israel present a long line of failure after failure to do
what was right, with the odd exception. And it's
continued right through to our own day. A hundred years
ago, humanist philosophers were predicting a golden age,
where God would be irrelevant, when poverty, disease,
war, would all be done away with. Human advances in
science and medicine and sociology would solve all our
problems for us. Well, 100 years later we look around our
world and see incurable diseases still rife, wars
happening with an increasing regularity, relationships
breaking down at an alarming rate and we wonder how could
things have got so bad? What's gone wrong in God's
vineyard? |
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The answer is clear: People are still wanting to
run the vineyard themselves, rather than follow God's
direction. |
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This is the root source of the ecological
problems in our world. Here is why millions are starving
while a small number waste the world's food resources.
Here's why the socialist dreams of the communist bloc
failed to materialise. Here's why 40% of marriages end in
divorce. Why? Because none of us want to follow someone
else's agenda. We want to be the owners not the tenants. |
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And can I just say that this is just as much a
problem in the Church. Someone was joking recently that
one denomination's method of church growth is to have a
fight and split the church. But it isn't a joke is it?
How many new denominations or independent churches have
sprung up in the past century that way? All because
people didn't want to follow someone else's lead. |
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As you listen to this story you notice 2 things.
First, the insane insolence of the tenants. This is a
rebellion that's doomed to failure. Yet they seem to
think they can get away with it. How can we puny
creatures think we can shake our fists at God and not
suffer any consequences. How can we go on rejecting
anything and anyone that God sends to remind us of the
debt we owe him and think we can get away with it?
There's no way God will put up with that sort of thing!
Is there? Here's the 2nd interesting thing you discover.
The amazing thing about this story is that the owner,
that is God, tolerates their rebellion for so long. |
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Here's the amazing thing about the Biblical
story. God's incomprehensible concern for us. The lengths
to which God will go to keep us on track, to maintain
contact with us, despite our stubbornness and blind
ignorance. And of course the length to which God will go
is to send his own Son on a rescue mission. |
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Jesus' Mission |
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You see the response of the owner to the
repeated refusal to listen to his envoys is to decide to
send his own son in a last attempt to talk reason to
them. Now notice how Jesus at this point answers the
question of the chief priests in v2, as he identifies
himself as that Son, as the unique, the beloved, Son of
God. |
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And notice that that claim is as important today
as it was in Jesus' day. There are still people in the
church today who want to downplay, or even deny, the
deity of Christ. I was talking to someone the other day
who told me about a time his father was talking to his
local minister commenting on the difficulty he had with
the idea of Jesus' resurrection, and the minister
replied, "that's OK I have the same trouble. In fact
I don't really believe the resurrection happened at
all." Well, what sort of a state is the church in if
its leaders don't believe in the deity of Christ? The
leaders of Jesus' day didn't, of course, and as a result,
they put him to death. One can only think that had Jesus
come today his end would have been the same. Rejected by
those he came to save. Put to death because we didn't
want to submit to God's authority. Because we wanted to
be the owners, not the tenants. |
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Jesus Understanding of the Future |
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What's clear in this story is that Jesus
understands what awaits him at the end of the week. He's
clearly predicting his death at the hands of those God
has put in charge of his nation. |
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But equally clear is Jesus' understanding of the
long term future. He knows that the eternal gospel
doesn't allow for anyone to run the vineyard except God
himself. Listen to how the angels in Rev 14 announce the
eternal Gospel: (Rev 14:6-7 NRSV) "Then I saw
another angel flying in midheaven, with an eternal gospel
to proclaim to those who live on the earth -- to every
nation and tribe and language and people. 7He
said in a loud voice, "Fear God and give him glory,
for the hour of his judgment has come; and worship him
who made heaven and earth, the sea and the springs of
water."" The eternal Gospel which has been
proclaimed from the beginning right through to the end is
this: God is to be worshipped and glorified. He is the
only God. Obey him. And the end of history will see God
finally losing patience with those who continue to rebel
against him. God will come and destroy those tenants and
give the vineyard to others. |
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Of course the danger is that we look at events
and think that God isn't doing anything about evil in the
world; more importantly we see that he lets us get away
with evil in our own lives; and we think we can go on
getting away with it. We think we can sin with impunity.
But God is not mocked. He doesn't ignore us. Divine
patience isn't the same as divine indifference. His
patience is merely to give us more time to repent. But a
time will come when time will have run out. When he will
come to judge the world. |
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And notice the basis on which that judgement
will take place. |
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Having heard the punch line, Jesus' hearers say
"Heaven forbid!" Then he looks straight at
them, as if to make his point even stronger, and says:
"What then does this text mean: 'The stone that the
builders rejected has become the cornerstone'? 18Everyone
who falls on that stone will be broken to pieces; and it
will crush anyone on whom it falls." 'The stone that
the builders rejected' is a quote from Ps 118, a psalm
about the Messiah. It's a psalm that tells how the
Messiah appears defeated, perhaps even dead, yet God
lifts him up and makes him King. It was the words of that
psalm that the people had shouted as Jesus entered
Jerusalem a few days earlier. So again, Jesus is pointing
to himself as the issue on which people will stand or
fall. He is the stone on which they'll stumble. And the
bit about the stone falling on those who oppose him
reminds me of the end of the story of Samson when Samson
pushes the pillars apart and the whole building falls
down, killing all the Philistines inside. It's as though
Jesus is saying, if you push me out of the structure, the
structure will fall. If we don't want Jesus at the
centre, what will hold up the religion? Nothing! And the
end result will be that we'll be crushed in the collapse
of whatever it is we've built up. |
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The basis on which God will judge the world will
be the way people have responded to his Son. The basis on
which God will judge me, and you, will be on our response
to Jesus. Have you believed in him as God's only Son?
Have you called on him in repentance and faith to forgive
your rebellion? It's as though Jesus turns now to look
straight at each one of us, just as he did to those in
the crowd that day and asks, "Will you believe in
me? Will you put your trust in me? Will you pay me the
honour and obedience that I'm due?" Our eternal
future depends on our response to that question. I pray
that for every one of us the answer would be "Yes,
Lord, I will!" |
