20th Sunday after Pentecost
October 2, 2005
Matthew 21:33-43

^21:33"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 went away on a journey.

³⁴When 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.

³⁶Then he sent other servants to them, more than the first time, and the tenants treated them in the same way.

³⁷Last 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.’ ³⁹So 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."

⁴²Jesus said to them, "Have you never read in the Scriptures: ‘The stone the builders rejected has become the capstone; 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." (NIV).

Will You Produce the Fruit of the Kingdom?

  You surely remember one of the bizarre events of Canadian politics last year. Several high-profile Conservative MPs crossed the floor and joined the Liberal Party. I was shocked because I didn’t know such a thing was possible. But I was also angry. Those politicians were elected to office to represent and further the ideology and policies of the conservative party. That is why the voters voted for them! Had any of them told the voters that they would not remain with the conservative party, the voters would not have elected them! The voters were betrayed! They didn’t get what they voted for. Shouldn’t they be upset?

  That is the situation Jesus addresses in our Gospel reading. The Jewish leaders to whom God had entrusted the care of his kingdom did not do what God wanted. They did what they wanted, something contrary to God’s purpose and plan. They did not produce the fruit of the kingdom. So God took the kingdom from them and entrusted it to others. Now that kingdom has been entrusted to us, the people who make up the Christian Church. And God is looking to us to produce the fruit of the kingdom.

  Since the creation of the world, God has entrusted many things to man. To Adam and Eve, created in his image, God entrusted the governance of the world. God blessed them and said to them, "Be fruitful and increase in number; fill the earth and subdue it. Rule over the fish of the sea and the birds of the air and over every living creature that moves on the ground." (Genesis 1:28).

  After calling Abraham and forming the nation of Israel, God entrusted to them the land of Canaan. They were to eliminate idolatry and all its detestable practices, and to establish a nation based on the worship of the true God and his law. God promised them that if they obeyed him that he would bless them abundantly. If they did not obey him, then he would take the land from them and give it to others.

  In the New Testament we often encounter the concept of a steward, one who manages the property of another. The apostle Paul spoke of himself and the other apostles as stewards. So then, men ought to regard us as servants of Christ and as those entrusted with the secret things of God. Now it is required that those who have been given a trust must prove faithful. (1 Corinthians 4:1-2).

  You see, God has always called upon man to manage his creation. That was his intent and design from the very beginning. Like any good manager, God doesn’t do everything directly himself. He has entrusted much of his creation to us.

  But here Jesus is speaking of a specific part of God’s world, the kingdom of heaven. This is the domain in which God reveals himself and acts to save people it’s the domain of the Gospel. Sometimes the kingdom included land like when God brought the people of Israel out of Egypt and into Canaan. But always throughout history, the main component of the kingdom, the main thing that God has entrusted to our care, is his Word.

  God’s Word is everything that he has revealed in one way or another. It’s all the things he revealed to Moses: miracles, instructions, laws. It’s all the words of judgment and consolation that he spoke through the prophets. God’s word is everything that Jesus--the Word made flesh--said and did. It’s all that Jesus’ passed on to us through his apostles. We have that word in the Bible which has been called "Basic Instruction Before Leaving Earth."

  God’s word is truth! Through the word, God has revealed to us the correct way to live: The righteous will live by faith. (Habakkuk 2:4, Romans 1:17). Those who are faithful stewards of God’s kingdom are those who trust God and therefore do as he instructs. A faithful steward believes that God’s law is good and that God will enforce that law. A faithful steward also believes that God is merciful and forgives our failure to keep his law perfectly. When we repent and ask for pardon because of Christ, God forgives. Teaching and practicing these truths is what managing the kingdom of God is all about. Living by faith and according to God’s will is to produce the fruit of the kingdom.

  Jesus tells this parable about the farmers in the vineyard because most of the Jewish leaders, the Scribes, Pharisees and Chief Priests, were not doing what they were called to do. Like politicians who crossed the floor, they had set aside God’s instruction for their own. As a result, they were no longer teaching and doing what God wanted. They no longer lived by faith in the coming Christ. Instead, they taught their own system of law. Jesus condemned their betrayal.

  "Woe to you, teachers of the law and Pharisees, you hypocrites! You give a tenth of your spices--mint, dill and cummin. But you have neglected the more important matters of the law--justice, mercy and faithfulness. You should have practised the latter, without neglecting the former." (Matthew 23:23). Woe to you, teachers of the law and Pharisees, you hypocrites! You shut the kingdom of heaven in men's faces. You yourselves do not enter, nor will you let those enter who are trying to. . . . You travel over land and sea to win a single convert, and when he becomes one, you make him twice as much a son of hell as you are. (Matthew 23:13-15).

  The really irritating part is that like those politicians who crossed the floor, these men knew what they were doing. They deceived and cheated. They found loop holes for their nit-picky laws so they could get around them but not the poor common people. But most importantly, they recognized and rejected Jesus. "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.’ So they took him and threw him out of the vineyard and killed him. By doing this, they did what their ancestors before them who had killed so many of God’s prophets had done. Jesus said to them, "Have you never read in the Scriptures: ‘The stone the builders rejected has become the capstone; the Lord has done this, and it is marvellous in our eyes’?

  This is why Jesus is so angry and says, "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."

  To whom did Jesus give the kingdom? To his apostles and the Christian Church built on their witness. Once the disciples came to him and asked, "Why do you speak to the people in parables?" ¹¹He replied, "The knowledge of the secrets of the kingdom of heaven has been given to you, but not to them. . . . ¹⁵For this people's heart has become calloused; they hardly hear with their ears, and they have closed their eyes. Otherwise they might see with their eyes, hear with their ears, understand with their hearts and turn, and I would heal them.' ¹⁶But blessed are your eyes because they see, and your ears because they hear. ¹⁷For I tell you the truth, many prophets and righteous men longed to see what you see but did not see it, and to hear what you hear but did not hear it. (Matthew 13:10-11, 15-17).

  "But what about you?" he asked. "Who do you say I am?" ¹⁶Simon Peter answered, "You are the Christ, the Son of the living God." ¹⁷Jesus replied, "Blessed are you, Simon son of Jonah, for this was not revealed to you by man, but by my Father in heaven. ¹⁸And I tell you that you are Peter, and on this rock I will build my church, and the gates of Hades will not overcome it. ¹⁹I will give you the keys of the kingdom of heaven; whatever you bind on earth will be bound in heaven, and whatever you loose on earth will be loosed in heaven." (Matthew 16:15-19).

  Jesus said to them, "I tell you the truth, at the renewal of all things, when the Son of Man sits on his glorious throne, you who have followed me will also sit on twelve thrones, judging the twelve tribes of Israel. (Matthew 19:28).

  We are the Christian Church, built on the foundation of the apostles and prophets. Like men and women elected to office we have been entrusted with something important. God has called us to tend his field. The kingdom is in our care. Will we produce its fruit? If not, God will take the kingdom from us too!

  To produce the fruit God desires is not difficult. We no longer live in a time when the kingdom of God involves land and the government of a particular nation. What God has entrusted to our care is the Means of Grace, the Word and Sacraments. Go and make disciples of all nations, baptising them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, and teaching them to obey everything I have commanded you. There is the secret of bearing fruit in the kingdom of heaven, to fear, love and trust in God above all things and to do what he has commanded.

  This is the kingdom of grace in which God and man are reconciled through the death and resurrection of Christ. We are now one in Spirit. This is the kingdom of truth in which we are delivered from evil. If we abandon God’s word and cross the floor so to speak, to a kingdom of our own making, God will be angry because we have not done what he called us to do. Moreover, having abandoned grace and truth, we will bring evil on ourselves.

  For example, almost every issue of Creation Magazine calls attention to the links between the man-made theory of evolution and great man-made evils such as eugenics, abortion and genocide. Such evils have been considered just when God is out of the picture. God, on the other hand, says that he created man, male and female in his image. All are loved by God, all have been redeemed by Christ and all are accountable to God. Abortion and genocide are the fruit of wishful thinking. Humility and respect for life is the fruit of the Gospel.

  "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." We have been entrusted with the kingdom of God. Will we produce its fruit? Trust in Christ and let his word guide you in all things and you will!