Rev. Charles Lehmann + Matthew 21:33-43 + Pentecost 20
In the Name of + Jesus. Amen.
David once prayed, “The Lord works righteousness and justice for all who
are oppressed. He made known his ways to Moses, his acts to the people of
Israel. The Lord is merciful and gracious, slow to anger and abounding in
steadfast love. He will not always chide, nor will he keep his anger forever.
He does not deal with us according to our sins, nor repay us according to our
iniquities. For as high as the heavens are above the earth, so great is his
steadfast love toward those who fear him; as far as the east is from the west,
so far does he remove our transgressions from us.”
The love and patience of the Lord God King of the Universe is great beyond
anything that you or I can imagine. In the very beginning the Lord planted a
garden in Eden. It was lush, green, and full the Lord's bounty. And early on
the sixth day, probably before Adam had even drawn a dozen breaths, the Lord
came to him and said, “I give you every seed-bearing plant on the face of the
whole earth and every tree that has fruit with seed in it. They will be yours
for food.”
Adam had done nothing to deserve the Lord's favor. In fact, Adam had not
existed long enough to have done anything at all. The Lord simply wanted to
give his gifts to the man He had fashioned from the dust of the ground. From
the very beginning the Lord was rich in grace and poured out his love on his
creation. Even in those moments before Adam and Eve had sinned, the Lord loved
them purely out of grace and undeserved favor. He had created Adam and Eve in
a perfect relationship with Him. The Lord walked in the garden with the man
and his wife. There was no sin to separate them. There was no death. There
was no decay. God lived in absolute perfect communion with the man and his
wife.
But things changed. Adam and Eve ate the fruit of the one tree the Lord
had not given them. In this initial theft, Adam and Eve committed the sin that
would separate them from God and send them and all their descendants into
bondage to death and decay. Things changed greatly for Adam and Eve, but they
didn't change for God. Balaam would later put it this way, “God is not a man,
that he should lie, nor a son of man, that he should change his mind.”
The patience of God is beyond human understanding. Though since the days
of Eden we have provoked our Lord by frequent and continuous sin, He is
merciful to us. He bears with us in our weaknesses. He is slow to anger and
abounding in steadfast love. He gives mercy to us and His wrath is poured out
on His Son instead. Jesus counts us a prize so great that He takes on human
flesh, suffers, and dies. He does all this to forgive our sins and give us
eternal life. He does this because He is not like us. He does not change.
Though we are fickle, God is constant. The Lord doesn't float on the winds of
His emotions showing wrath in one moment and love in the next. Love is
constant with our Lord. When He does chastise us it is because He hates that
our sins hurt us so much. That, dear Christians, is why the Lord's
exasperation in today's reading from Isaiah is so amazing.
The Lord asks, “Now you dwellers of Jerusalem and men of Judah, judge
between me and my vineyard. What more could have been done for my vineyard
than I have done for it?” The Lord of love is wracked with misery because his
vineyard bears bad fruit and its caretakers are neglecting its needs. Both in
today's Old Testament reading and in the Holy Gospel, God's hand is being
forced. He must punish both the vineyard and its minders because if He doesn't
they will surely be destroyed eternally.
In Isaiah the reason for the Lord's outrage was that when He came to the
vineyard looking for good grapes He found only bad. These were the people that
the Lord brought out of Egypt. These were the people who, in Isaiah's own
time, God had delivered from the army of Assyria by killing 185,000 enemy
soldiers in one night. He had done everything for His people, and yet they
still lived as they would have without Him. The Lord forgave all their
iniquity and gave them news lives of holiness and purity, but they afflicted
the innocent and stole the food from the mouths of the hungry and neglected.
He had given them the righteousness that His Son would win for them when He
died on the cross, but He was hearing cries of distress from those whose needs
they ignored.
And so the Lord asked, “What more could have been done for my vineyard than
I have done for it?” The Lord set His love on Israel when they were the least
of all nations. He set His love on you before you even knew Him. He loved you
even when you were counted among the wicked. He has loved even since before He
laid the foundations of the world.
The Lord planted His vineyard in a good land, a land flowing with milk and
honey. He cleared the land of stones by forgiving your sins. He gave you His
Law so that you might walk in the way of safety and not fall into sins. The
Lord's Law is a fence that protects you, His vineyard, from every sin, every
wild beast that might try to uproot you, the Lord's precious vines. He built a
tower so that His watchmen could protect the you from any of those beastly sins
that might try to destroy the vines. And, finally, He built a wine press and a
wine vat so that the grapes could be trodden and the wine stored. What more
could have been done for you, the Lord's the vineyard? Nothing. The Lord has
built the vineyard with meticulous care. He has knit you together in your
mother's womb, and He has forgiven all your sins. He has done all for the
vineyard, for His people, that he could possibly do.
The vineyard of the Lord Almighty is you. The Holy Church is the garden of
His delight. In today's Gospel reading, the Lord had rented his vineyard to
tenants. They were to nourish and care for the vines so that when He sent for
the fruit His servants could bring it to Him. These tenants were the priests
of Israel. They were to read the Word of God to the people, perform the
sacrifices by which the Lord put away their sin, and raise all of Israel's
children in the fear and admonition of the Lord. But the priests became
careless and lazy. The fence broke down. The tower was unmanned. Sins seized
the people of Israel, and their fruit turned sour. Some vines withered and
died. And when the Lord sent His prophets to preach the Word of God to His
people, the leaders of Israel beat and killed them.
Any reasonable vineyard owner would have taken the vineyard back
immediately. He would have driven out the tenants and given the vineyard to
those who would listen to His Word. But not God. His patience extended even
to the point of forgiving those who murdered His servants.
Instead of taking the vineyard away, God the Father sent His Son, saying,
“They will respect my Son.” But the leaders of Israel didn't. They flogged
Him. They beat Him with sticks. They cast Him outside the vineyard, and there
He was crucified for our transgressions. They killed the Author of Life even
though He had come to save us. He came to forgive our sins. He came to give
us life. He came to give us His body to eat and His blood to drink. Jesus
came because He loves us.
You are the Lord's vineyard. You are his pleasant planting. He has
provided for all that you need. He has given you His Word. He has given you
the Law to guard you against sin. And He has sent me to make sure that you are
nourished with the Word of the Holy Gospel. And so, dear Christians, settle
for nothing but what the Lord wants to give. He wants to give you a life of
repentance, so make sure that I preach the Law in all its fierceness. He wants
to give you life, so make sure that I preach the Gospel of life. He wants to
give you salvation, so make sure that I preach what Christ has done for you on
the cross.
Do not allow me to be a wicked tenant. Demand the choicest of food, the
very Word of God. This is harder than it sounds. The Gospel is not what we
really want. We want to hear what makes us feel good. The Law doesn't feel
good. The Law kills, cuts, and lays us bare. But we need it. We must know
our sin. We must know it so that we can hear the Gospel. We have to hear what
God has done to destroy our sins forever.
We have to hear that sin has changed us. We are addicted to it. It's
impossible to deny. We know from our conscience that it's wrong. We know from
our experience that our sins hurt both us and others. We know firsthand that
we deserve nothing from the Lord but eternal death.
But fear not, people loved by God. The Lord is not like me. The Lord is
not like you. There is nothing that could have been done for you, the Lord's
vineyard, that the Lord has not done. Your Savior has said through the prophet
Malachi, “I the Lord do not change. So you, O descendants of Jacob, are not
destroyed.”
It is good that the Lord does not change. If he was like the gods that are
imagined by this world, we would have great cause for fear. The gods of our
imaginations are evil beings that have moods that shift just as much as ours.
God is constant in His love for you. He is reliable. He can be counted on to
keep His promises. Remember the Word that God has spoken. “I the Lord do not
change. So you, O descendants of Jacob, are not destroyed.”
The True God is not the fickle and changeable God that the world accuses
you of worshiping. The Lord loves you. He has loved you since before He laid
the foundations of the world. He knit you together in your mother's womb. He
washed away all your sins in the waters of Holy Baptism. He nourishes you by
His Word. He gives you His body to eat and His blood to drink. He provides
you with daily bread. Your God, the True God, leaves nothing to chance. He
does not change, so you, the Holy Church, are not destroyed.
You have a Savior and because of Him you will never be destroyed. Instead,
you are forgiven. You are loved. Your Savior has done everything for His
vineyard. For you He even suffered death on a cross.
In the Name of the Father, and of the + Son and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.
Rev. Charles R. Lehmann
Pastor, Saint John's Lutheran Church, Accident, MD
http://chaz-lehmann.livejournal.com
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