Pastor Timothy Patoka 5 Sunday In Lent: April 7, 2019 th
May It Never Be! Luke 20:9-19 1) Rejecting Jesus As Faith’s Cornerstone 2) Withholding Faith’s Expected Fruits Parable, an earthly story with a heavenly meaning. That’s the definition I learned in Sunday School. Lately I’ve grown to like how our recently revised Catechism defines it: a story told to teach a spiritual truth or lesson. No matter how you cut it, a parable is a teaching tool. Regardless if it’s true or not, the point of a parable is to teach something that comes from God. But in order to know what a parable is teaching, you first have to identify its details. Because if your identification of the smaller details is flawed, then so is the resulting conclusion from the details. Take our parable before for this morning, the parable of the wicked tenant farmers from Luke chapter 20. We have a vineyard, its owner, and some wicked tenant farmers who won’t share the expected fruit or correctly treat the people sent to them. As we break down those details and its resultant conclusion, we’ll see how we too will say with the crowds, “May it never be!” (Luke 20:16b) First, may it never be that we reject Jesus as the cornerstone of our faith. And secondly, may it never be that we withhold the expected fruits of our faith. 1) Rejecting Jesus As Faith’s Cornerstone If the key to understanding a parable to is correctly identify its details, then let’s start there. We have the vineyard owner who is God above. The vineyard he plants is the body of believers, those who are his children because of the faith he has given them. The tenant farmers are the religious leaders who are supposed to watch over and guide their people. The fruit that God is expecting is the godly living which every Christian should be modeling. The servants whom God sends to the religious leaders are his Old Testament prophets. And the beloved son who’s the last to come and ultimately killed is none other than God’s own Son, Jesus Christ. Now that we’re on the same page about the details, let’s look at the parable again to see what Jesus was trying to teach the Passover crowds in Jerusalem. God graciously gave his gift of faith to many within the Israelite nation and called men to be their religious leaders. Yet the religious leaders were not always good role models. Time after time, Old Testament Israel chased after idols and grudgingly gave God their leftovers. Time after time, God sent his prophets to call Old Testament Israel to repentance to varying levels of success. But the religious leaders always returned to their self-seeking ways despite the prophets’ best efforts. So God decided to send his beloved Son, Jesus Christ, in one last effort to bring Israel to its senses. He warned them about the consequences of rejecting this beloved Son with the words of Psalm 118 and its application, “’The stone that the builders rejected has become the 1
Pastor Timothy Patoka 5 Sunday In Lent: April 7, 2019 cornerstone.’ Everyone who falls on that stone will be broken to pieces, and it will crush the one on whom it falls.” (Luke 20:17b-18 including a quotation from Psalm 118:22) Jesus is this rejected cornerstone and if the religious leaders rejected him, they were rejecting all of God’s blessings. The only thing they could expect in their future was God’s complete destruction by crushing them and breaking them into pieces. But rather than listen to Jesus’ intended point of this parable, which was a warning call of repentance, they instead resolved to put an end to Jesus’ life and kill him just as the tenant farmers killed the son of the vineyard owner. th
We live in a time and place that is far removed from Jerusalem in the 30s A.D. Yet this parable likewise rings a warning bell for us as it did for Jesus’ original audience. May it never be that we reject Jesus as the cornerstone of our faith! Because as important as a cornerstone is for the structural integrity for a building, so is Jesus for that which we hope for and certain of what we do not see (Hebrews 11:1). A cornerstone is important because that is where the weight of two walls all comes together. If that cornerstone is eroded or damaged in any way, there’s a good chance the walls that rest upon it are going to have problems. And if you could surgically remove the entire cornerstone at once, it’s possible the entire building could immediately collapse! When we add anything to our faith or let it deteriorate in any way, we are weakening the cornerstone of our faith and run the risk of rejecting Christ. How is it that we add things to our faith you ask? How about when we seek our priorities first instead of God’s? That’s how the tenant farmers rejected Christ. They wanted to keep the fruit of the vineyard to themselves than give their rent to the vineyard owner’s son. That’s how the religious leaders of Jesus’ time rejected Christ. They would rather listen to themselves and all the laws they added to supposedly added to protect God’s law than listen to God’s Son and rediscover what God’s Word actually said. How might you and I put our wants and hobbies first only to end up with insufficient time to truly think about what God’s Son has done for us? How often has it been since we’ve last cracked open that dusty Bible or updated our Bible app, talked about Christ outside of these walls, or perhaps even come to God’s house? The more we allow false ideas to creep into our faith or time of absence to wear it away, the shakier our cornerstone becomes and our faith. But for those who have Christ as the cornerstone of their faith have nothing to be afraid of. And that’s because of who Christ is. He is God’s own Son who willingly took on flesh in Bethlehem and lived under his parent’s roof so as to do the will of his Father in heaven. As God said at Jesus’ baptism and transfiguration, Jesus is loved by the Father because he has lived as God’s Son should. For 33 years he lived as God demands in his perfect law, resisted every temptation from the Devil, and responded appropriately to those who mistreated him all along the way. And yet he was still to be rejected by the people he came to save, conspired against by the religious leaders of Israel who, out of anyone, should have been the first ones to welcome 2
Pastor Timothy Patoka 5 Sunday In Lent: April 7, 2019 him with believing arms. As Old Testament Israel rejected him by manipulating events so that he died on a cross, so also his Father would reject him by abandoning him. God abandoned his Son because our sins were credited to Jesus’ account; he bore our wrongs. That’s why he died on the cross, because that’s God’s punishment for sin. Yet when he rose from the dead on Easter morning, Jesus proved to us that not only is he worthy to be the cornerstone of faith, but that he is a strong one. He took Satan’s best shot and came out victorious. He went into the grave and left it three days later. May it never be that we reject Christ as our cornerstone! For nothing can defeat him; nothing can replace him as that solid cornerstone. th
2) Withholding Faith’s Expected Fruits And may it never be that we withhold the fruits of faith that God expects from us. We’re now transitioning to the second point that Jesus intended with this parable, that we gladly share with God the blessings that he has freely given to us. Thinking back to our parable, the tenant farmers first got themselves in trouble when they refused to give to the vineyard owner his share of the fruit. Drawing the connection to ourselves today, what is that God expects from his children? It’s that they live a life in line 0with his will, or to say it in another way, a Christian life. God gives us a summary of what this life is to look like with the 10 Commandments: to trust in God alone, to honor him and his name, to make regular time for his Word in our lives, to honor his representatives in authority over us, to protect and promote another’s life, marriage, possessions, and reputation, and to watch the desires of our heart. It doesn’t take till Commandment number 10 before we realize how lacking we are in this regard, how often we fail to produce the fruits of faith that God expects from us. But how can we go about and better produce this fruit of Christian living? Let’s look back to our parable and the history of Old Testament Israel for the answer. What did the vineyard owner do when his first servant failed to come back with his share of the fruit? He sent a second servant, a third servant, and finally his son. Rather than send an ultimatum demanding payment or else get evicted, he patiently and lovingly sent people to them. When Old Testament Israel failed to let their light shine to the world around them, what did God do? He repeatedly sent his prophets to redirect their attention to God’s Word and the cornerstone of faith we find in it. Again, God did not issue a quota saying, “Do this many acceptable sacrifices or else!” He sent his messengers and his own Son so that his people might be enabled and motivated to thankfully produce these fruits of faith. In the same way, let us focus our attention on where our fruits come from: from a faith that calls Christ its cornerstone. Make it a priority in your lives to come to the ways where Christ comes to us. Get familiar with the words of the Bible because that is where God himself speaks to you in black and white. Listen to those who share God’s Word with you whether they be a pastor, Sunday School teacher, family member, or someone else. Treasure the sacraments 3
Pastor Timothy Patoka 5 Sunday In Lent: April 7, 2019 through God creates and strengthens faith in your heart: your baptismal waters when God marked you as his child; the bread and wine of Holy Communion where our Savior gives us his body and blood for the forgiveness of our sins. For it is in these means of grace that God distributes to us the forgiveness and salvation which Christ won for us on the cross. th
And after you’ve recentered your faith on the cornerstone that is Christ, then get about producing the fruits of faith that God expects from every Christian. Look at those 10 Commandments as 10 exemplary ways you can live for God right now. Look at the material wealth that God has freely given to you, wealth that you can not only give back to God but also use to support the sharing and the teaching of this gospel right here in Tucson. Look at the blessed future that God has assured is yours and let that influence you in the ways you shape your priorities and goals in the years you have on this temporary home. Parables can be difficult to read because they are intentionally figurative in the way they teach. How accurately a person identifies its details will determine how well they understand its intended meaning. When the Passover crowds heard Jesus’ parable of the wicked tenant farmers, they shouted, “May it never be!” (Luke 20:16) May it never be that tenant farmers do such wicked things or meet such a wicked end. And after we’ve identified the parable’s details, we too say with them “may it never be!” May it never be that we reject Christ as the cornerstone of our faith! He is God’s beloved Son who faced rejection from all sides as he went to the cross to die for our sins. There is no one better suited to be our cornerstone because it is he alone who paid the price for our sins so that we may have forgiveness. May it never be that we withhold faith’s expected fruits! When we realize how incapable we are to produce such fruits, let us learn from the parable and Old Testament Israel by bringing ourselves to the ways that God creates and strengthens our faith in Christ: to his Word and the sacraments of Baptism and Holy Communion. And after we have recentered our faith on Christ, let us then go back out to produce those expected fruits. But this time, with a spirit of thanksgiving for all that our God has given to us. Amen.
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