Sermon on the 17th Sunday of Trinity.

Isaiah 5; 1 - 7

5 Now let me sing to my Well-beloved

A song of my Beloved regarding His vineyard:

My Well-beloved has a vineyard

On a very fruitful hill.

2 He dug it up and cleared out its stones,

And planted it with the choicest vine.

He built a tower in its midst,

And also made a winepress in it;

So He expected it to bring forth good grapes,

But it brought forth wild grapes.

3 “And now, O inhabitants of Jerusalem and men of Judah,

Judge, please, between Me and My vineyard.

4 What more could have been done to My vineyard

That I have not done in it?

Why then, when I expected it to bring forth good grapes,

Did it bring forth wild grapes?

5 And now, please let Me tell you what I will do to My vineyard:

I will take away its hedge, and it shall be burned;

And break down its wall, and it shall be trampled down.

6 I will lay it waste;

It shall not be pruned or dug,

But there shall come up briers and thorns.

I will also command the clouds

That they rain no rain on it.”

7 For the vineyard of the Lord of hosts is the house of Israel,

And the men of Judah are His pleasant plant.

He looked for justice, but behold, oppression;

For righteousness, but behold, a cry for help.

Matthew 21: 33 - 45

33 “Listen to another parable: There was a landowner who planted a vineyard. He put a wall around it, dug a winepress in it and built a watchtower. Then he rented the vineyard to some farmers and moved to another place. 34 When the harvest time approached, he sent his servants to the tenants to collect his fruit.

35 “The tenants seized his servants; they beat one, killed another, and stoned a third. 36 Then he sent other servants to them, more than the first time, and the tenants treated them the same way. 37 Last of all, he sent his son to them. ‘They will respect my son,’ he said.

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.’ 39 So they took him and threw him out of the vineyard and killed him.

40 “Therefore, when the owner of the vineyard comes, what will he do to those tenants?”

41 “He will bring those wretches to a wretched end,” they replied, “and he will rent the vineyard to other tenants, who will give him his share of the crop at harvest time.”

42 Jesus said to them, “Have you never read in the Scriptures:

“‘The stone the builders rejected

has become the cornerstone;

the Lord has done this,

and it is marvellous in our eyes’?

43 “Therefore I tell you that the kingdom of God will be taken away from you and given to a people who will produce its fruit. 44 Anyone who falls on this stone will be broken to pieces; anyone on whom it falls will be crushed.”

45 When the chief priests and the Pharisees heard Jesus’ parables, they knew he was talking about them. 46 They looked for a way to arrest him, but they were afraid of the crowd because the people held that he was a prophet.

Two good questions to keep in mind when reading the bible.

‘What might this have meant to the people who originally read it?’

And, 'what might this mean for us?’

So let’s have a go at that.

In our reading from Matthew we heard a parable told by Jesus about a vineyard rented out to tenant farmers. At harvest the owner sends servants to collect the fruit, but they are beaten, killed and stoned. Further servants sent meet the same fate.

Finally, the owner sends his son, hoping the tenants will respect him, but instead they plot to kill him in the misguided belief that they will gain ownership of the vineyard.

Jesus does not actually complete his story, instead he invites the crowd to do so, asking them, ‘when the owner of the vineyard comes, what will he do to those tenants?’

The crowd answer, ‘He will bring those wretches to a wretched end, and he will rent the vineyard to other tenants, who will give him his share of the crop at harvest time.’

We all like a story that ends with the bad guys getting their comeuppance, but, the question proves to have been a sucker punch. Once the crowd have pronounced judgement Jesus explains they are the tenants, they have pronounced judgement on themselves.

Jesus quotes Psalm 118, saying ‘The stone the builders rejected has become the cornerstone’, and then plainly says, ‘…I tell you that the kingdom of God will be taken away from you and given to a people who will produce its fruit.’

As we heard in Isaiah 5, the vineyard is a symbol for Israel, a symbol that would have been familiar to the gathered crowd. So, the nation of Israel is the vineyard, the servants are the Old Testament prophets, and the son is Jesus - the stone rejected by the builders that will become the cornerstone.

The crowd would have done well to ask, ‘what has this story got to do with us?’ - rather than assuming it was about someone else.

Jesus never tells a parable with the intent of getting us to judge someone else, he tells parables with the intent of getting us to repent.

When Jesus told the story it was as a challenge to his own people. When some years later Matthew retold the story the context and consequently the meaning had moved on.

When Matthew wrote, the Church was being persecuted by the religious authorities. Saul had been hard at work, to quote Acts, ‘breathing threats and murder against the disciples of the Lord.’ Despite these very real challenges, the first generation of Christians, most of whom were Jewish, understood themselves to be the inheritors of God's vineyard, and knew they too must grow good fruit.

If we in our generation are now the tenant farmers in God’s vineyard, what does this mean for us?

What fruit is God expecting from us?

Have we loved each other the way that Christ loved us, so the whole world may know we are his disciples?

Have we made the Church a place where the least are honoured first?

Have we refrained from judging?

Have we acted with forgiveness?

Have we faithfully proclaimed the good news in both word and action?

Have we brought healing to communities and individuals?

Have we opposed evil?

Have we let the little children come to Christ?

Have we worshipped in spirit and in truth?

When the Son comes back…will he find the tenants in his Father’s farm have been faithful servants?

Or will he say to us, ‘…I tell you that the kingdom of God will be taken away from you and given to a people who will produce its fruit’?

Does our vineyard bear the fruit of the Spirit: love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control?

The answer to all the above, in our lives, and in the life of the Church, is certainly not an unqualified ‘yes’.

We need to repent—to turn to God and receive his healing and forgiveness—so that the Spirit may flow through us and bring in the harvest. In Christ the vineyard that once revealed God's judgement becomes the vineyard that reveals His forgiveness – the cup of salvation.Through his death and resurrection the vineyard of judgement is revealed as the vineyard of grace.

Our reading from Matthew concluded with these words, ‘When the chief priests and the Pharisees heard Jesus’ parables, they knew he was talking about them.’

The question is, ‘do we?’

Amen.