Getting the Kingdom, 7: The Vineyard or The Wicked Tenants Scripture: Matthew 21:33-46

-  Last week we talked about the parable of the two sons and we learned that it is better to be an honest sinner who repents than a hypocritical Christian.

- Jesus was warning the spiritual elite, the chief priests, against their coming judgment.

- Matthew gives the parable of the vineyard immediately after Jesus challenged the Sadducees with the parable of the two sons.

- We find the roots of this parable in Isaiah 5:1 to 7 in which the prophet Isaiah, speaking on God's behalf, complains about the vineyard he planted and cared for but which produces worthless grapes. Let's read that passage.

- Isaiah's parable is an allegory about judgment that persuades listeners to judge themselves.

- The vineyard represents Israel, the owner is God, and the fruit is Israel's behavior.

- But there is more: The Dead Sea Scrolls associated Isaiah's song of the vineyard with the Temple, & the later Aramaic paraphrase of Isaiah is more specific in that "the watchtower" becomes "the sanctuary" and "the wine vat" becomes "the altar."   

- The carnage foretold by the prophet is because the Lord removes the presence of his glory, the Shekinah, from the Temple in judgement.

- The chief priests would have immediately understood that Jesus' addition of the tenant farmers pointed to them, and they would have deeply resented it because they would have understood it as an indictment of judgement from Jesus.

- But why does God judge his people?  He judges them because they have not borne fruit for his kingdom.

- Each of God's servants is called to bear fruit for his kingdom.

- Bearing fruit for the kingdom is one of the major points in this parable.

- The parable highlights a few things.

- First, the parable of the vineyard highlights the foolishness and wickedness of tenants who ignore the real owner of the vineyard.

- It seems like nonsense for tenant farmers to think they can get away with robbing the vineyard owner of his share of the harvest.

- But if we understand a little bit of the background of that time, absentee landowners were fairly common and tenant farmers often had to pay as much as 50% of the harvest to the landowner.

- It was also not uncommon for fruitless vineyards to be uprooted and destroyed and replanted later.

- Not only did they think they can get away with fraud, but they thought they could get away with assault and murder.

- Everyone in the ancient world would've looked upon these actions as treachery.

- What could they hope to gain by murdering and assaulting the Master's servants? What could they hope to gain through the murder of the Master's son?

- If it were not so tragic and deceitful, the actions of the tenant farmers border on the absurdly comical. 

- Their reasoning is foolhardy because in the end they will gain nothing and lose everything.

- By thinking they could gain anything through their actions the tenant farmers were only deceiving themselves because the retribution of the landowner would have been certain and swift.

- The chief priests admit that the owner of the vineyard "will put those wretches to a miserable death and let out the vineyard to other tenants who will give him the fruits in their seasons." Matt 21:41 (ESV)

- Jesus has nothing good to say to unfaithful, treacherous servants that refuse to bear fruit for the kingdom.

- Each of God's servants is called to bear fruit for his kingdom.

- Second, God is depicted as too patient, the parable also warns that God will judge corrupt spiritual leaders.

- While each of God's servants is called to bear fruit for his kingdom, not just any fruit will do.

- The fruit that God is looking for is the fruit of righteousness and obedience.

- God has been patient with Israel's disobedience and Jesus highlights that in this parable.

- As we read and reread the stories of the Old Testament, time and again God sent prophets to Israel because she had turned away from him and time and again the prophets get abused, even murdered.

- The landowner in this parable thinks to himself, "they will respect my son," but the tenant farmers have shown no indication that they will do any such thing.

- As the divine son, Jesus has a special relationship with God and rejecting him will spell certain doom upon Israel, especially Jerusalem and the Temple which fell in 70 A.D.

- Each of God's servants is called to bear fruit for his kingdom.

- Third, Israel's leadership will soon be judged.

- The tenant farmers thinking they would inherit the land because they murdered the only son and heir is more than just nonsense; it is madness.

- No law in Israel existed that would give the land over to the ones who had murdered the son.

- In the Old Testament, when Ahab pulled a stunt like that so he could get Naboth's vineyard God called him to task & you can read about that in first Kings 21.

- By having the corrupt leaders pronounce judgment against the tenant farmers; Jesus has them judge themselves because they have not borne fruit for God's kingdom.

- In fact, they have done quite the opposite; they have borne fruit for their own self-centered little kingdoms.

- That is not what God's servants are called to do. Each of God's servants is called to bear fruit for his kingdom.

- After their forced admission of guilt, Jesus again challenged their understanding of Scripture telling them that he himself in kind or type fulfills Psalm 118:22-23.

- This stone that the builders rejected will become the cornerstone for a new building a new nation that will receive Israel's inheritance.

-And the purpose for this new nation is to produce servants of God who will bear fruit for his kingdom.

- In his warning to the chief priests, Jesus told them so: Therefore I tell you, the kingdom of God will be taken away from you and given to a people producing its fruits. Matt. 21:43 (ESV)

- This parable of the vineyard points to four additional significant things.

- First, it points to Israel's rejection of her Messiah and his execution outside the city walls. And they took him and threw him out of the vineyard and killed him. Matt. 21:39 (ESV)

- Second, Jesus is the son, the rejected stone who will become the chief cornerstone. There can be no other foundation than Christ.

-Third, the new tenants for the vineyard are the church. The church represents the new nation, the new people who inherit the promises of God and his salvation.

- Fourth, God's new people are called by God to live righteously before him and produce fruit that will glorify God.

- As I have said all along: Each of God's servants is called to bear fruit for his kingdom.

- What kind of fruit is God calling you to bear and what kind of fruit is he calling this church to bear?

-Let's remember what Jesus told the chief priests: Therefore I tell you, the kingdom of God will be taken away from you and given to a people producing its fruits. Matt. 21:43 (ESV)

- Each of God's servants is called to bear fruit for his kingdom.

Getting the Kingdom, 6: The Two Sons, "Honest Sinners and Hypocritical Christians" Scripture: Matthew 21:23-32

- It was Palm Sunday and Jesus had just entered Jerusalem. Upon coming to the Temple, he drove out the money changers and merchants.

- As he clears the Temple, he alludes to Isaiah 56 and Jeremiah 7, so let's read them: Isaiah 56:1-8; Jer. 7:1-20.

- We need to understand that by referring to these passages Jesus was speaking out in judgement against the entire Temple establishment including the chief priests and Temple itself, not simply the people but the whole nation.

- The ruling priests had failed to live up to God's standard and thereby were unprepared for the new order of the kingdom of God.

- The merchants and moneychangers were set up in the court of the Gentiles; the only part connected to the Temple where Gentiles were allowed to come and pray.

- It was on the authority of the high priest and the ruling priests that the merchants and moneychangers had set up there in the first place.

- Since it was they who kept the Temple from becoming a house of prayer for all peoples, all nations, then they and their generation would be judged, just as the Temple, the ruling priests, and the nation were judged in Jeremiah's day.

- Responding to Jesus words and actions, the chief priests and elders come to Jesus to question him.

- You see, the chief priests, especially the high priest, had absolute authority over the entire Temple complex and mount, so their demand that Jesus explain by what authority he had done this was a legitimate demand.

- But Jesus does not directly answer their question. Instead, he offers them a counter question about the baptism of John.  If they will answer his question, then he will answer their question.

- Because Jesus had caused a disturbance in the temple boundaries, they had every right to question him, but their intentions extended outside of their rights to question him because they longed to convict him.

- If they could get Jesus to admit that he did not have the authority to do what he had done, then they would be able to take action against him.

- But the question Jesus asked about the baptism of John created a problem for the ruling priests.

- Just as their answer would put them in jeopardy, so also Jesus answer to their question would put him in jeopardy.

- But what is really interesting is what Jesus was saying about himself in his question: if John's authority was from heaven, then the authority of Jesus is also from heaven.

- Their answer, "we do not know," shows the hypocrisy of the ruling priests.  Jesus caught them in a dilemma and to protect themselves they did not admit the truth.

- That answer reminds me of today's take-home truth: Better an honest sinner that repents than a hypocritical Christian.

- Jesus responds appropriately in turn by refusing to reveal God's truth to those who have intentionally set themselves at odds against his kingdom.

- That's what hypocrites do; they say one thing and do another.  Hypocrites are play actors, pretending to be someone they are not.  That's where Jesus gets the term from, the theater.

- Jesus then tells them the parable of the two sons: Matt. 21:28-32.

- The phrase, "what do you think," is a familiar one in Matthew's Gospel and it reminds us that Jesus is the one doing the teaching here; he is the one with the authority and to whom we need to pay attention.

- In this parable, Jesus shows the importance of doing what is right above merely talking about it. 

- If we are going to talk the talk, then we need to walk the walk.

- It was expected of children to be obedient and respectful, so when the first son rebels and rejects his father's direction it would've been shocking to any first century Jew listening to Jesus.

- This son more than changed his mind, the Greek expresses regret and repentance, so he later respected his father's wishes and went to work in the vineyard.

- The father goes to the second son and tells him the same thing, asking him to go to work in the vineyard.

- He says, "sure thing, dad," but does he? No, he gives his father verbal respect but this respect is only an illusion; it is false because he never shows up at the vineyard.

- Jesus asks the chief priests which son did his father's will and they answer him, the first son.

- Jesus was more than making a point with this parable; he was summarizing his teaching about the kind of people who enter God's kingdom.

- He forces the ruling priests to give him an honest answer.

- Then Jesus makes another shocking point: “Truly, I say to you, the tax collectors and the prostitutes go into the kingdom of God before you.  For John came to you in the way of righteousness, and you did not believe him, but the tax collectors and the prostitutes believed him.  And even when you saw it, you did not afterward change your minds and believe him."

- There is tremendous shock value in what Jesus is saying here that publicans and prostitutes enter the kingdom of the heavens ahead of powerful religious figures.

- Better an honest sinner that repents than a hypocritical Christian.

- He highlights the self righteousness and self superiority of the religious authorities against the humble sinner who repents.

- The righteousness of the kingdom of the heavens displayed in the person of Jesus Christ turns religious, right-wing, conservativism & left-wing, religious liberalism on their heads.

- Just like the Pharisees, the ruling priests (who were the Sadducees) represent Israel's spiritual and religious elite.

- It was their desire to preserve and conserve the status quo because they were the ones in power second only to Rome and even Rome respected their authority over the Temple.    

- God is interested in conserving, but not the status quo. God is interested in liberating people from their captivity. 

- This goes way beyond anyone's political agendas because it's not about politics, it's about restored relationships.

- It's about the kingdom of God and God is interested in conserving what is right and true as reflected in his kingdom & God is interested in liberty from oppression, injustice, addiction and sin.

- By trying to protect and conserve their authority over the Temple, the Sadducees were excluding the one to whom the Temple points, the Lord of the heavenly Temple, Messiah Jesus.

- In this parable, Jesus reveals that both he and John draw their authority from the same source, and those that reject John's way of righteousness show their claims to be God's servants as false, hypocritical.

- Can you hear the voice of Jesus in this parable? Is God speaking to you today?

- What about us? Do we say one thing then do another? Does our walk match our talk?

- Are we like the first son who obstinately says, "No, I will not go," but later regrets, repents and goes? Or are we like the second son who says, "Yes," then never goes?

- Are we like the ruling priests, the Sadducees who say yes to God with all their display of religion, but inwardly only want to protect themselves and their positions of power?

- Or are we like rebellious tax collectors and prostitutes that regret and repent of our actions so that we may humbly serve our God and his world?

- Jesus wants to clear our hearts and our minds, the Temple of our bodies, so that we will come to understand this truth:

- Better an honest sinner that repents than a hypocritical Christian.

Getting the Kingdom 5, The Laborers in the Vineyard: "Grace Trumps Fairness." - Matthew 20:1-16

- The title of our message for this morning is grace trumps fairness.

- If you've ever played any card games where you have trump cards, then you'll know that when a trump card is played on the other cards on the table it takes them all. The hand goes to the one who played the trump card.

- I want to tell you this morning is that God has the ultimate trump card. It's his grace.

- In God's kingdom, divine grace trumps self-centered fairness.

- Let me tell you what I mean.

- Jesus tells his disciples the parable of the laborers in the vineyard to illustrate his saying, "the last shall be first and the first shall be last" (19:30).

- In the first century, there was a great deal of unemployment. Men often stood around idle, waiting for work because many farmers lost their land and wound up looking for day labor.

- Israel was full of vineyards because the high demand for wine created a commercial grape growing industry.

- Caring for all those vines was demanding work, especially at harvest time when extra workers were needed to gather and bring in the grapes to be crushed in the press.

- The workday would have began at six o'clock in the morning.

- The first crew hired by the landowner agreed to work a full day, that is, a full 12 hours from six till six, which was the regular workday that time.

- Then the landowner goes out again at nine o'clock, the third hour and finds others standing around idle in the marketplace.

- He hires them and agrees to pay them "whatever is right," which told Jesus' listeners and Matthew's readers that those being paid would expect to receive a portion of the normal wage.

- The landowner went out again at 12 o'clock, then at three o'clock and last of all about five o'clock, which would've left only an hour's work.

- At the end of the day, the landowner instructed his foreman to pay the laborers beginning with the last ones hired, the fellows who did only an hour of work.

- Jesus' disciples would have been surprised upon hearing how the wages were paid out.

- The landowner in the parable is extravagantly generous in paying those hired last a full day's wage for doing only one hour of work.

- Jesus was painting a picture for his disciples of a compassionate landowner who knew the needs of working-class people who waited around on the streets for work.

- This compassionate landowner knew no matter when these men started work during the day that they would still need a full day's wage to meet the needs of their struggling families.

- The landowner in Jesus' parable graciously and generously provided.

- Such generosity, however, would have raised the expectation in the disciples that those who worked longer would've been paid more.

- Then there's the other side. After the time of Jesus, in parables that the rabbis told, the ones hired later in the day worked harder and brought in twice as much so they earned the extra pay. This represents the idea that Israel is deserving of extra.

- Not so with Jesus' parable. All the workers receive a denarius, a full day's wage.

- The landowner generously pays a full day's wage to those hired at five o'clock, to those hired at three o'clock, and to those hired at 12 o'clock, and again to those hired at nine o'clock.

- Finally, those hired at six o'clock in the morning received the agreed-upon daily rate, one denarius, but the landowner's generosity had created an expectation in their minds that they would get something more.

- So, in the story, what do these guys do who were hired at six o'clock in the morning?

- They complain, saying, "These last worked only one hour, and you have made them equal to us who have borne the burden of the day and the scorching heat" (12).

- The 'fellas' that worked the full 12 hours cried foul because they thought that they were not being treated fairly.

- "Those guys that you hired at five o'clock didn't have to do much work and the work they did do was during the cool of the day. That's not fair!"

- What is at work in their complaining is not their sense of injustice, but jealousy – envy at the landowner's generosity.

- The laborers had agreed to work for the landowner in his vineyard for the usual daily wage, a denarius. Certainly, there is nothing illegal or unjust about that.

- As the landowner said, "Friend, I am doing you no wrong. Did you not agree with me for a denarius? Take what belongs to you and go. I choose to give to this last worker as I give to you. Am I not allowed to do what I choose with what belongs to me? Or do you begrudge my generosity?" (14-15)

- They worked; he paid them a denarius. Where is the injustice? There is none. He treated them fairly. He backed up his actions by telling them that he kept up his end of the bargain as their employer.

- Then he says to the complainers, "You've got your due. Now, take it and go!" In other words, be off with you!

- Like the landowner, is God answerable for how he rewards his servants?

- What the complainers were really complaining about was not something evil that the landowner had done, no, what they were complaining about was his generosity.

- Is it right to begrudge God's generosity? No, in God's economy, grace trumps fairness every time.

- In God's kingdom, divine grace trumps self-centered fairness.

- Let's pause for a moment and think about the issues in this parable.

- What do we see? We see an attitude of superiority and entitlement. "We've been working hard here all day and what do we get? We get treated the same way as the guys that only worked an hour."

- We see ungratefulness. The complainers received their pay thanklessly because they refused to accept the fact that the landowner could pay the other people he hired whatever he wanted to pay them.

- You know, the world we live in today is the same and so are we.

- We are more concerned for individual rights, i.e., what's fair for me, in today's world than we are concerned for everyone receiving gracious treatment and benefiting from the generosity of others.

- Let me ask this question. Are we happy with God's deal? Are we thankful and content with the grace that God has so generously poured out on us?

- Or are we jealous of the gifts, the resources, the opportunities, and the freedoms of others who serve the same master as we serve?

- Our salvation is a gift of God's grace. The fruit of the Spirit in your life is a gift of God's grace. The gifts of the Spirit are literally grace-gifts. Spiritual gifts are gifts of God's grace.

- If we resent the timing or manner of another's salvation; if we begrudge how God chooses to display the fruit of the Spirit in someone's life; if we complain that we are not as gifted as so-and-so and resent their gifting, then the one we really resent is God and the generosity of his grace.

- The truth is that God does not deal with us on the basis of merit, but by his grace.

- In God's kingdom, divine grace trumps self-centered fairness.

- This parable of Jesus emphasizes more than anything else God's grace.

- Consider this: 11/12 of the pay received by the ones who came at five o'clock was not earned. It was gifted to them by the landowner.

- It does not matter when we respond to God's call to come and work in his vineyard.

- It does not matter if we endure the burden of the work in the heat of the day or the last of the work in the cool of the day.

- No one has the right to be envious of anyone because we all receive the same reward, eternal life in Christ Jesus.

- God's grace is available to everyone no matter what.

- Jesus said "The last shall be first and the first shall be last" (19:30). 

- In other words, God's grace is above every notion of wealth, power, and greatness. His grace comes before everything else.

-  To those who work in his vineyard, God will be gracious no matter what.

- In God's kingdom, divine grace trumps self-centered fairness...every time.

- The apostle Paul wrote will about the kind of pay we earn without Christ. "For the wages of sin is death, but the free gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord." Romans 6:23

- In God's kingdom, divine grace trumps self-centered fairness.

Getting the Kingdom, 4: The Unforgiving Servant, "Forgiveness, the Kingdom Heart." - Matthew 18: 21- 35

- Before we get into the sermon, we need to take a few moments and review the context of the conversation that Jesus had with his disciples as Matthew's 18th chapter presents it.

- So the disciples first come to Jesus and ask him who is the greatest in the kingdom of heaven and Jesus tells them they must turn and become humble like little children.

- Then Jesus talks about how terrible it is to be the cause of sin in someone else's life or even in your own life.

- He spoke of not despising little ones because their angels are always in the presence of God and how God is unwilling to let even one little one parish illustrating with the parable of the lost sheep.

- He talks then about the significance of forgiveness between brothers and of the importance of witnesses and agreement when dealing with sin in the Christian community.

- Then Peter asks how often you should forgive, thinking that seven is a generous amount.

- Really, Peter's question is about the limits of forgiveness. 

- To which Jesus replies 77 times or 70x7 the Greek could be taken either way, but what Jesus was saying is that forgiveness knows no limits.

- Then Jesus launches into our parable.

- In this parable, the first servant owes the King 10,000 talents and the second servant owes the first servant 100 denarii (the plural of denarius which was the daily wage paid to a labor). 

- The king is settling his accounts & the first servant is brought before him. Because he cannot repay his debt, the king orders that his possessions and his family be sold so that at least a portion of the debt could be recovered and make an example of this servant.

- While it was against the law for a wife to be sold, and the law allowed no practice of slavery for debt and torture was also illegal, that does not mean that these things were not practiced in Israel at the time of Jesus and before.

- The Old Testament records a number of examples where people were sold for debt. Herod the Great was known to have torturers in his employ.

- It was also common for whole families to be sold into slavery and torture because of debt in the Greco-Roman world of the first century A.D.

- In light of this information, while we understand on one level that the king may be seen as God because of his compassionate forgiveness, on another level the king reflects the oppressive rulers of the day.

- One of the things that we really need to connect with in this parable is the overwhelming size of the debt of the first servant.

- A talent was a measure of weight for gold, silver, or copper which varied between 60 and 90 pounds.

-10,000 talents would weigh over 200 metric tons.

- Depending on the metal used, a talent was worth about 6000 denarii, so the first servant's debt was 60 million denarii.

- At a denarius a day, it would take 164,000 years for a day laborer to repay that debt.

- "The annual salary of Herod the great was reportedly 900 talents: 200 talents being the tax revenue for Galilee and Perea, 100 talents the tax revenue from the regions assigned to his son Philip, and 600 talents the tax revenue for the areas controlled by Archelaus" (Snodgrass, Stories with Intent, p. 66).

-  Let's take this information from the first century and translate it to today for the average Canadian wage, this is what we would find.

- $46,000 is the average Canadian yearly wage. If we were in the same shoes as the first servant, multiplying that wage by 164,000 years, that would put our personal debt to the King at $7.544 billion.

- That kind of money would put one in the ranks of the 10 wealthiest people in Canada, on par with the Irving's. It is simply incredible. Now imagine you owe this amount.

- The sale of this servant's belongings and his family could not even begin to recover the unbelievably huge amount of money the first servant owed the king.

- About the highest price paid for a slave was 1 talent, but the average was much less, between 500 & 2000 denarii, which is less than 1/10 of one percent of what the servant owed his Master.

- Do you know what 1/10 of one percent of $7.5 billion is?  It's $7.5 million.

- You probably wouldn't get that if you put together all our earthly wealth (@MBC) let alone the first servant's family and possessions.

- So without any hope of being able to repay the debt, he did the only thing he could do.

- He begged for his Master's patience, promising to repay the whole debt which he surely could not do. Certainly, this was overconfidence on the part of the first slave.

- To repay the whole debt would have been impossible, completely insurmountable.

- Unbelievably, his Master forgives him the debt.

- Here is where the parable begins to get sticky because we need to see ourselves in the shoes of the first servant as far as our sin, our debt to God for everything that we have done wrong, is concerned.

- That debt represents our sin in this parable. There is only one Aramaic word for sin and debt, 'hoba.

- No amount of good works can ever repay our sin-debt.

- This is the point that Jesus is making in this parable and this is what Matthew is trying to teach his readers: To forgive from the heart, I must appreciate the grace for me in God's heart.

- Can you hear the voice of Jesus in this parable? Is God speaking to you today?

- The first servant ought to have realized the immensity of the debt that he had been forgiven and appreciated it. How? ...By extending the same grace to others.

- Is that what happens in the parable? No, quite the opposite in fact.

- This same slave goes out and finds a fellow slave who owes him 100 denarii, a hundred days wages. 

- While this amount is not small, it is microscopic compared to the debt the first slave was forgiven, 164,000 years.

- The actions of the first servant are hypocritical.  Clearly, he had not understood that because he had been forgiven of so great a debt he ought to have forgiven his fellow servant.

- His actions do not make any sense of his experience. He grabs his fellow servant by the throat, demanding to be paid what is owed to him and refused to listen to his fellow servants cries for patience and has him thrown into prison.

- And we are left with the same question the king later asks him: "should not you have had mercy on your fellow servant, as I had mercy on you?"

- To forgive from the heart, I must appreciate the grace for me in God's heart.

- Remember that we need to put ourselves in the shoes of the first servant. How are we at showing mercy to others?

- Can you hear the voice of Jesus in this parable? Is God speaking to you today?

- When the other servants heard about the hypocrisy of the first servant, the parable tells us they were greatly distressed.

- In fact, the wording reveals that they were so grieved and angered by the first servant's action so greatly that they reported it to the king.

- And if were really getting into the story we start thinking, "He's going to get what's coming to him." 

- What we don't realize is, so will we, unless we forgive.

- Because of that first servant's unwillingness to forgive, the King does not merely hand him over to the jailors, but to the torturers as the Greek reveals.

- While God in his infinite mercy forgives those who seek his forgiveness, God is also infinite in justice and those who refuse to show mercy and forgiveness will receive the wrath of God's judgment.

- To forgive from the heart, I must appreciate the grace for me in God's heart.

- We are all very comfortable with the notion that God is a forgiving God, but the idea that God is a God of justice and that he will take revenge on those who do not live justly and love mercy makes us very uncomfortable.

- We don't like to think of God as being vengeful or punitive.

- But is God's kingdom truly present if evil goes tolerated and unpunished forever? That day shall surely come.

- What else can we expect God to do after having received his mercy if we refuse to extend his mercy to others?

- Judgment is as much a part of the message of God's kingdom as mercy.

- Forgiveness and mercy are absolutely essential parts of the lives of people who claim to belong to the kingdom of God.

- God shows us that his kingdom comes with limitless grace in this parable, but God also shows us that limitless grace requires a limitless demand.

- "Mercy is not effectively received unless it is shown, for God's mercy transforms" (Snodgrass, Stories with Intent, p. 75).

- Can you hear the voice of Jesus in this parable? Is God speaking to you today?

- To forgive from the heart, I must appreciate the grace for me in God's heart.