In Jesus Holy Name October 5, 2020
Text: Isaiah 5:7 Redeemer
The Vineyard of the Lord
There are times I really appreciate a fine wine. A good Cab with a steak or a soft Merlot with pasta. Great wines are a product of great care. A great winemaker is always concerned about his vineyard. Throughout the year he provides the greatest care. It is a year long process to produce the perfect grapes, the perfect wine. He takes care of his vines with proper pruning, proper fertilizer and water. With the right amount of sun he constantly checks the sugar content before the harvest. A great winemaker is in love with his vineyard. He takes care of his vineyard in order to have the best possible wine.
Isaiah 5 is called The Song of the Vineyard. As the song goes on, it is clear that the farmer loves his vineyard. In Isaiah 5 God is the vineyard owner and the children of Israel and men of Judah are the garden of His delight. God has cared for them through the centuries, from Egypt to the Promised land. Everything is done with great care and love. Isaiah writes: The farmer puts his vineyard on a high hill, which is Jerusalem.
In Isaiah, God was the caretaker of this vineyard. Despite careful attention from the vinedresser (cf. Isaiah 5:4), the vineyard produced only “wild grapes.” The vineyard’s failure to produce better fruit forced the owner to remove his attentiveness (cf. Isaiah 5:5-6). The result was the exile to Babylon. If the land was unable to produce with proper care, what would it do without it?
Nothing was spared to make it fruitful. As many vineyards were planted in rocky and hilly soil, the exertion to gather up the stones and to terrace the vineyard with them demonstrated how hard God had worked with Israel. The Isaiah passage tells us that after God had done the toil of establishing the vineyard. He had hired laborers to care for his vineyard. The labors were the teachers of the faith.
I know we think the outlandish banter between our political parties is terrible. But Jesus has been dealing with the Pharisees and their constant haranguing for three years. They said he wasn’t a real Rabbi. They said: He healed people by the power of Satan. He broke their precious rules which they believed earned them peace with God. Jesus said: "The Scribes and the Pharisees...preach, but do not practice what they preach. They tie up heavy burdens, (which are) hard to bear, and lay them on people's shoulders, but they themselves are not willing to move them (those burdens) ... Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! For you shut the kingdom of heaven in people's faces.”
Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! For you clean the outside of the cup and the plate, (In other words, you appear righteous and clean) but inside you are full of greed and self-indulgence... Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! For you are like whitewashed tombs, which outwardly appear beautiful, but within are full of dead people's bones and all uncleanness... You have turned God’s house of prayer into a place for your own profit. He drives them out! With more than strong words!
In the Gospel of Matthew, chapter 21, The Palm Sunday parade is over. It is Holy Week. Jesus has healed the blind and lame so they could enter the temple. Early in the next morning, Jesus goes to the temple courts to teach (21:23). While He is teaching, the chief priest and elders confront Him, “By what authority do you have the right to teach and heal here in the Temple”?
This exchange between Jesus and the chief priests and elders is set in Jerusalem near the end of Jesus' ministry. The crowds have gathered. Jesus told the best stories. Everyone could understand …farming, masonry, baking, shepherding, finding pearls of great price, making wine. Some just wanted to see another confrontation between Jesus and the Temple authorities. A crowd always gathers to see the school yard fight. (Bad Habits of Jesus Leonard Sweet p. 72) . Jesus then further frustrates the priests by telling two parables: the first one is the Parable of the Two Sons, and the second is the Parable of the Vineyard.
(some phrases from Professor of Biblical Studies Messiah College Grantham, PA)
Culturally, the leasing of land to tenant farmers was a common experience in the first century. Landowners could expect tenants to turn over (a portion of) the crop (cf. 21:34). Those who failed to meet the landowner’s standards would be removed from the land and landowning elite could usually pay others to remove them forcefully if necessary.
In reality, many in Jesus’ audience would have understood the experience of the farmers all too well. If they chose not to “pay” the landowner, as was the case in Jesus’ parable, the landowner would find new tenants (cf. 21:41) without doubt.
Jesus has chosen “The Song of the Vineyard” to make his point. He knows, and Pharisees know that the Song of the Vineyard is about God coming to Jerusalem, the place of His Holy Dwelling to look for the fruit of justice and mercy.
The parable begins with a situation that was business as usual in Roman-occupied Palestine. A landowner established a vineyard complete with a fence, a winepress, and even a watchtower. He then became an absentee landowner, returning to his own country. Tenants were in charge of overseeing the productivity of the vineyard and paying their rent to the owner at harvest time, in the form of a share of the produce. So far, so good: business was working as usual. Then everything came apart!
When the owner's slaves arrived to collect his share of the produce, the tenants attacked them, even beating one and killing another. The owner of the vineyard then simply sent another delegation of slaves to collect the rent.
Those slaves were treated even worse than the first. Surely by now the owner would send in troops or some form of armed enforcement of his rights! But no, instead he sends his son. The owner thinks that the thugs who have abused two delegations of slaves will respect the his son and heir.
In a foolish decision. The tenants reason that if they kill the son, they will get his inheritance. Jesus asks his audience (the chief priests and elders), "Now when the owner of the vineyard comes, what will he do to those tenants?" The answer is obvious, and the tenants offer it: "He will put those wretches to a miserable death, and lease the vineyard to other tenants who will give him the produce at the harvest time" (verse 41). (Comment by Sharon H. Ringe ) Professor Emerita of New Testament Wesley Theological Seminary Washington, DC
God is the farmer, groom, and lover of His vineyard. Only God can command the rain clouds not to rain. God has done all He could for the people of Israel. God saved them from slavery in Egypt. God brought them through the wilderness, fed them with manna and water from the rock, and brought them into the Promised Land, the land of milk and honey. He gave them kings. Who brought the Holy Tabernacle to Jerusalem.
It is plain that the vineyard owner is God, the Father and Jesus is His only Son. Jesus is telling the Jews, I know you are plotting to kill me. I know you have a wrong understanding of God your Creator. They wanted to own their own religion without respect to God. As long as God was held afar off, this was acceptable. But they were not interested in a God who made any demands of them. They would give Him some lip service but wanted Him to stay out of their affairs.
Matthew concludes the telling of this confrontation between Jesus and the Pharisees by writing: “They knew Jesus was talking about them and they looked for a way to arrest Him.” By the end of the week, Judas took the 30 pieces of silver, betrayed Jesus with a kiss. Jesus knew how, at night he would be run through a series of sham trials and sentenced to death. In reality, the tenants would kill the Master's Son; humanity would murder the Christ who had come to save them. A story which was fulfilled just as Jesus predicted. He was condemned, and placed on a cross outside the city walls of Jerusalem, He was murdered.
The Day of the LORD would come in AD 70 when Jerusalem was captured and the Temple destroyed. It would become briars and thorns. Jesus says the vineyard would be taken away. Israel was to be removed and new tenants installed. The stone the builders had rejected would fall upon them and grind them to powder. The new tenants would be Gentiles and Jewish Christians. We are the new tenants of the mercy and justice of God, which must be displayed in our lives.
You and I know that this terrible story does not end with the death of God's Son. Because Jesus was the Son of God; because He had, through His entire life, resisted every temptation put before Him by the forces of evil; because He had fulfilled all the prophecies made about the Messiah; because He had successfully carried every sin we have committed; His sacrifice and substitution for us was accepted by God. Everyone knows John 3:16. But there is another verse like it. It’s found in I John 4:10 “This is love, not that we loved God, but that he loved us and sent his son as an atoning sacrifice for our sins.”
His death on Golgotha’s hill is where God provide the Lamb for the salvation of the world. The owner of the Vineyard has come to His temple. They rejected His love in the person of Jesus. That's why, three days after He was pronounced dead, Jesus returned to life. Sin, death, and devil had been defeated and the risen Savior showed a prideful world the success of His mission. Because Jesus has risen, all who believe on Him as their Savior, who acknowledge Him as their Lord, are forgiven their sinful past and promised the blessings of eternal.
The devil could not stop him, The cross could not defeat him,
The grave could not hold him. Jesus will come again.
