"We Are Tenants" - October 2, 2011 Sermon

Scripture: Matthew 21:33-46

The Sermon:
Jesus is in his final week of life. He has just told a parable about two sons, which I spoke about last week. It was directed at the religious leaders. Today’s parable of the Wicked Tenants is also directed at the religious leaders.

My personal opinion is that Jesus was intentionally increasing the intensity of his ministry in an attempt to remove any doubts people had about his mission and message. He turned the burner on the stove up to high and brought his ministry to a rolling boil! His message was clear!

Let’s go through this together…Who is God in this story? (Landlord)…ok, now, what does the vineyard represent? (God’s kingdom) Who were the tenants representing? (Israel…the religious leaders). Who were the servants? (God’s prophets) Finally, who is the ‘heir’ to the vineyard? (Jesus)

One more thing we need to do is understand what the responsibilities of Tenants were… in fact, let’s talk about what a Tenant is. A Tenant, in those days, was a person or family that farmed a landowner’s property. They had to raise a crop and give the landowner a share of what was produced. In today’s world, it’s like a landowner leasing their property to someone and being paid a fee. After the Civil War, sharecroppers did essentially the same thing. The key factor in this story, however, is that a crop MUST be produced. What do you think the crop is? I want you to think about as I go through the story.

God is like a landlord who has leased his vineyard-his kingdom- to Israel as laborers. The time has come for God to demand His share of the fruit from the workers. The fruit being faith in Him and His promises…repentance of sins and trust in His messengers. He wants His vineyard to produce wine that leaves the boundaries of the kingdom walls and fills the whole world with the goodness of His love and Word!

The problem is that the laborers did not produce a crop…and they ignored His warnings of eviction and murdered His servants, the prophets whom He had sent to represent His interests. Not only that, they murder the Heir, His son. This is called “foreshadowing”, that is, revealing what is yet to come.

Jesus basically says, ENOUGH IS ENOUGH. The time was at hand when the kingdom of God will be taken away from you and given to a people producing its fruits. Israel had been an unfaithful tenant…it was time for new tenants!

You want to know how I understand this parable? It is really a parable about STEWARDSHIP. Think about it. It’s about managing God’s stuff on God’s behalf. There are two aspects of stewardship:

1. the first is what we have been entrusted with
2. the second is what in the world are we supposed to do with it.

As tenants, each of us has been entrusted with the Gospel of Jesus Christ AND our personal, worldly goods. Both come from God and both are to be used in service to God. The Gospel is the message that, despite humankind’s universal rebellion against God’s will, God still desires a reconciled relationship with us. Reconciliation has been made possible through the sacrificial death of His Son on a cross. Because of that, the entire world is invited to enter the vineyard and labor under God’s Love!

We not only have been blessed by God’s message but we are also been made dispensers of God’s message. We also need to recognize that everything from the clothes on or backs to the money in our wallet or purse to the roof over our head belongs to God and are on loan to us from God. We will take none of it with us into the next life. As Psalm 24 says, “The earth is the Lord’s and everything in it.” We are simply leasing or renting for a period of time.

There is more in the parable than just knowing we are blessed and knowing who the owner is. In order to be a FAITHFUL steward, we have to DO something with the Gospel and with our worldly goods ! We have to be sure that we treat the vineyard in such away that brings blessing to the whole world.

With that in mind, I am going to ask a few questions for all of us to ponder. I do not want this to sound accusatory, but I do want it to be something you give thoughtful consideration to and maybe even be challenged a little bit.

1. When was the last time you invited someone to church with you?
2. How long has it been since you last read Scripture with your children, then talked with them about it?
3. Have you matured in your Faith enough to pray for others?
4. How about helping in the ministry of this church?
5. If you were called upon in a gathering, could you talk about your Faith?
6. Do you feel that you have produced a “crop” for the Lord?

We can ask the same questions about the church, collectively. Are we producing a crop? What do we have to show for the vineyard we are in? What kind of tenants have we been? You know, we have been entrusted with a lot, it’s time for all of us to be good stewards.

AMEN