Brent Kuhlman

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Fifth Sunday in Lent “C”                                                                                     

21 March 2010                                   

St. Luke 20:9-20

Good grief!  Who would ever run a vineyard like that?  Or a kingdom of God like this vineyard?  Would you?  First of all, you don’t rent the vineyard out to tenants, let alone really wicked ones.  Where’s the judgment in that?  If you’re going to make a go of a vineyard, you’ve got to run the operation yourself.  Second, you don’t take a long trip far, far away.  Being an absentee landowner is just too risky – it’s just plain reckless.  Third, when the harvest comes you don’t send lackeys to collect what’s rightfully yours.  How stupid can you be!

Idiot Owner!  What does He expect?  Three times He sends lackeys to collect.  And each time they are roughed up – the third one is hurt badly – wounded – and all are kicked out empty handed.  Talk about sending a message!  Chicago and New York City mafia bosses would get it.

But what does the idiot Owner do?  The most foolish, bone-headed, moronic thing of all!  “What shall I do?” He asks Himself.  “Here’s what I’ll do.  I’ll send my son – my beloved son.  Maybe these tenants will respect Him.”  Yeah, right!  Talk about reckless.  This owner is out of control!  Send your Son?  The Son you love?  You’ve got to be kidding!

But He’s not.  He’s serious.  Deadly serious.  That’s how the owner of this vineyard operates.  It’s how He does a kingdom on the earth.  Plants a vineyard.  Israel.  Rents it out if you will.  Wants a little something to show for it.  Sends prophet after prophet to this vineyard for the sake of nurturing faith in the promised Messiah.  To have great joy in the promise of salvation through the forgiveness of their sins won by the promised Christ.  And each time the prophets are sent, they are rebuffed, rejected, and sent packing.    

And now comes the climax of the vineyard’s history – the world’s history.  The owner now sends a final emissary.  He sends His beloved Son.  He is the Messiah – Jesus! The owner’s personal ambassador.   Sent for His vineyard Israel.  To rejoice in the vineyard’s fruit.  

But the renters are quick to seize the opportunity.  Can’t put anything past them.  “Look!  There’s the heir.  If we kill Him off the inheritance will be ours!”   

And they do it!  The heave Him out of the vineyard and brutally murder the Boy. 

“What will the owner of the vineyard do to those who rejected and murdered His Son?” Jesus asks.  And before you can spit out an answer Jesus says:  “He will come and destroy these tenants and give the vineyard to others.”

What’s that you say?  You say that could never be?  You bet it can be!  Reject Jesus the Messiah – the Savior – and there are disastrous consequences.  Hellacious results.  Damnatory endings.  Seriously.

When God builds a kingdom, that is to say, a vineyard on the earth, His ways are not our ways.  His thoughts are not our thoughts.  He sends His beloved Son Jesus.  And He is rejected.  Killed.  Jesus is the stone that the builders rejected.  When Israel wanted to build a kingdom of God on the earth, the last person they wanted to rely on was Jesus!  Wanted nothing to do with Him!  But when God does His vineyard-kingdom work the rejected Stone Jesus becomes the very cornerstone of the kingdom!  He is the sine qua non! 

The scribes and the chief priests knew exactly what Jesus was saying.  They knew that He was speaking about their rejection of Him as the Messiah.  He really hacked them off.  They would have laid their hands on Him right there on the spot but they didn’t dare because they feared the people.  So they plotted and schemed.  Pretended to be Jesus’ best friends and very religious while behind His back they hired spies to catch him in some politically incorrect faux pa.  You know, perhaps Jesus would say the “N” word or some other racially charged term.  And then they’d have Him!  And be rid of Him for good! 

Would you get rid of Jesus too?  Could you do without Him?  Do you too believe that your life would be better off without Him?  Does He just infuriate you to no end when He tells stories like this?  Do you pretend to be righteous and one of Jesus’ best friends while you secretly plot and scheme to eliminate Him from your life?  Don’t want to be died for?  Don’t want to be forgiven?    

I hope not.  But if that’s the case then hear again what Jesus Himself says:  “Everyone who falls on Stone Jesus will be broken to pieces.  But on whomever Stone Jesus falls on will be crushed into dust.”   If you don’t want Jesus preached for the forgiveness of your sins – if you don’t want the Gospel of Jesus – then the Owner of the vineyard will take it away from you and give it to someone else. 

If you thought the Owner of the vineyard was foolish, it’s absolute and utter foolishness to reject the Owner’s beloved Son.  Listen -- what sinners like us consider foolish – the sending of the Owner’s beloved Son to the vineyard – is the wisdom of God!  What we believe to be weak is the very power of God! 

Lent is quickly coming to an end.  Holy Week is right around the corner.  The Owner of the Vineyard has sent His beloved Son.  He is Jesus the promised Messiah.  You laid your hands on Him.  Your hands nailed Him to the Tree.  Your hands hung Him on the Cross to die outside the city.  And yet Jesus willingly gave His life into death in just that way for your salvation. For the forgiveness of all yours sins.  There is still time for repentance.  To turn to Jesus in faith.   

What will you do?  Will you continue to live as if the Owner’s beloved Son is a nothing?  And that what He did for you is a nothing?  That He should be kicked out of the vineyard and sent away empty handed?   

It is time to count all things that we falsely believe to be so ultimately important – so everlastingly vital – whatever that is – to be like the stuff we flush down the toilet after we’ve sat there for a while. 

It is time to rejoice in the surpassing value of knowing and believing that Jesus is the Christ.  For you!  And that means dying to sin.  Sin isn’t your lord.  Jesus is. 

It is time that the gaining of Christ and all He won for you on Good Friday be paramount in your lives.  Vital is that you be found in Him.  Critical is that you know Him and the power of the resurrection in your lives.

And there’s no better place to start than by coming to the Sacrament today, Palm Sunday, Maundy Thursday, and every Sunday for the rest of our lives.  To drink the wine from the Owner’s vineyard that is Christ’s very own Blood.  To receive the divine Blood of Jesus the flowed from His crucified Body.  His Blood that cleanses from all sin.  To drink from the cup of wine that is Christ’s new testament promise: “given and shed for you for the forgiveness of your sins.” 

With such divine vineyard forgiveness from the Lord Jesus we press on.  We look forward to what lies ahead.  To obtain the fruit of the forgiveness that comes from Jesus:  the resurrection of the body and the life everlasting.  What a harvest!  What vineyard joy! 

In the Name of Jesus.