“The Religious Leaders finally got it…and so must we.”
Who likes hearing a good story?
Today’s gospel reading comes in a sequence of stories in Matthew’s Gospel that Jesus tells to teach about the Kingdom of God.
In last week’s gospel reading, Jesus told a story about a father who had two sons to teach the religious leaders that the way to the Kingdom of God and his righteousness was only through trusting him. Whereas they had tried so hard to meticulously keep God’s law to win God’s approval, the fulness of divine favour, approval, righteousness, blessing, and grace was right in front of them in the Person of Christ. The religious leaders hadn’t seen that, but those they classed as immoral, like the prostitutes and tax collectors, had. It was the latter who trusted in Jesus’ righteousness and were therefore righteous in God’s sight.
The Religious Leaders were immovable in their thought that only good people—among whom they were the most deserving—should be blessed by God. Instead, it was they who Jesus challenged to repent. What Jesus said infuriated them. This is why they resented Jesus and wanted to do away with him.
That’s what today’s story is about: “A man who was the master of a household planted a vineyard, put a fence around it, dug in it a wine-press in it, built a tower and leased it to some tenants, and travelled away to another country. Then when the time drew near to harvest the fruit he sent his servants to the tenants to receive the fruit.
But then comes a sudden and shocking twist: “The tenants seized the owner’s servants. They flogged one, killed another, and stoned another. Again, the owner sent other servants, more than the first time, and they did the same to them also. Finally he sent his son to them, saying: ‘They will respect my son’. But when the tenants saw the son, they said among themselves: ‘This is the heir, come, let us kill him and have his inheritance’” (v 35-38).
The way the tenants treat this owner and his son is bizarre! It’s remarkable that they would think that killing the heir of the landowner would result in them seizing the vineyard. But just as perplexing is the action of the owner. After the tenants seized the owner’s servants, flogging one, killing another, and stoning a third, the owner still sends other servants! Would you do that? Would you tolerate this repeated aggression? You’d call the police, wouldn’t you? Then even after these servants are treated in the same way as the first, the owner then sends his own son!
Just when this story sounds too far-fetched, this is what actually happened!
The vineyard represents the people of Israel. The master of the house is God. He is the Lord who calls and gathers his people to work for him in his vineyard—the tenants. The servants God sent are his prophets. Through them he called the people to bear the fruit of repentance and obedience that comes from true faith. But throughout Israel’s history God’s people didn’t want to listen. If death meant silencing the prophets, then so be it. Jesus would later lament in Matthew’s Gospel: “O Jerusalem, Jerusalem, you who kill the prophets and stone those who are sent to it!” (23:37).
So God the Father sent his only Son (which the owner sending his son to the vineyard represents). Like the prophets before him, Jesus also proclaims the only way to the Father is through repentance and belief in him. But the religious leaders would not listen to Jesus either. Just as the son sent by the owner in the parable isn’t respected or listened to and is thrown outside of the vineyard, Jesus will be thrown out of Jerusalem.
Jesus would be seized just a few days after telling this parable and be put to death on a cross. John’s Gospel tells us: “Pilate took Jesus and flogged him. And the soldiers twisted together a crown of thorns and put it on his head and arrayed him in a purple robe. They came up to him, saying, ‘Hail, King of the Jews!’ and struck him with their hands. Pilate went out again and said to them, ‘See, I am bringing him out to you that you may know that I find no guilt in him.’ So Jesus came out, wearing the crown of thorns and the purple robe…When the chief priests and the officers saw him, they cried out, ‘Crucify him, crucify him!’ (John 19:1-6). Jesus had done nothing wrong, ever, to deserve such horrific, abusive punishment, guilty verdict, and death sentence.
The religious leaders were the ones who professed to know the Scriptures inside out but refused to listen God who was speaking through them. They used the Scriptures out of context to justify their selfishness and exploitation of others. Instead of shepherding the people to Jesus the Saviour, they were only interested in maintaining and controlling the religious community they had created. Rather than trusting in God and worshipping him in humility, their whole focus was on controlling others through rules and politics to maintain their religious empire and elite social status. Their rule-making was like a therapy to them, self-medicating on piety and legalism.
The true way to God is not through ancestry or heritage, religious performance or pious outward appearance. The true way to God and his divine favour stood right before them in the Person of Christ! Here was One whom the Father had provided for sinners to turn to in the midst of their mess so that they could have their sins taken away. But when God had sent this long awaited Saviour they were so blind to him that they plotted to do away with him!
When the Chief Priests and the Pharisees heard Jesus’ parables they knew that Jesus was speaking about them. Jesus follows the parable with a question: “When therefore the owner of the vineyard comes, what will he do to those tenants?” They said to him, “He will put those wretches to a miserable death and let out the vineyard to other tenants who will give him the fruits in their seasons.” (verses 40-41)
Jesus shows them from the Old Testament Scriptures (Psalm 118) that he is the cornerstone of God’s Kingdom whom they have rejected and stumbled over in unbelief. Jesus continues: “Therefore I tell you the Kingdom of God will be taken away from you and given to a people who will bring forth its fruit. And the one who falls on this stone will be broken to pieces; and whoever it falls on it will crush them” (v 43-44).
The Chief Priests and Pharisees condemned themselves with their answer. The irony is that they wanted to bring an end to Jesus, but it is the religious club they built which will not endure. When Jesus warns them that their identity and privileges as God’s people will be given to those beyond the nation of Israel, they finally get the message. Yet still there is still no change. They still don’t repent. They go on plotting anyway, even though it means sealing their own destruction. “The heart is deceitful above all things, and desperately sick; who can understand it?” (Jeremiah 17:9).
It is not just the Chief Priests and Pharisees of 2,000 years ago who Jesus tells this parable to. “Hear another parable” Jesus says to us today. We need to listen to this parable very carefully. The religious leaders finally got it…and so must we. Because the ways of the Pharisees are not just restricted to this Jewish religious sect from the first Century. Their thinking and principles are entrenched in the will of all humanity. Isn’t it the usual way to think that if we want God’s favour, we should perform well? We’re also tempted to think that the better we perform—the more we pray, the more righteously we present ourselves in public, the better we do—then God will be more pleased with us than he was before we started. We’re tempted to think that because of what we’ve done, we’re entitled to more than the same denarius others get—there should be some extra divine favour, some extra reward on top. We’re tempted to think and behave as if our outward appearance and participation on Sundays proves that we deserve to be here. Are we harsh and critical of sin in outsiders or other believers while making endless excuses for our own faults?
In all of these ways the devil tempts the church to build a human religion whereby approval from God is tied to one’s performance. The human tendency is to place unwritten expectations on others to measure up to our moral ideals. From there it is just a short step to setting up an invisible boundary in the local congregation between those we believe are deserving of God’s blessing and favour (like us) and those who aren’t. When we fall to the temptation to think and live according to these principles, we are just the same as the Pharisees of old. We obscure God’s own word with human rules and expectations. We bypass Christ as the only source of divine favour and righteousness for sinners, and instead follow human, worldly principles of looking good on the outside, while neglecting the true inner spiritual worship of repenting of the idols of pride and desire for control we keep hidden in our heart.
The way to the Kingdom is never by human performance. Earlier in Matthew’s Gospel Jesus had told his disciples: “For I tell you, unless your righteousness exceeds that of the scribes and Pharisees, you will never enter the kingdom of heaven.” (5:20).
If the church locks its doors to sinners, it will always be empty inside. If broken people have to repair themselves before they are loved, then no one is loved by God[1]. That’s why today’s Gospel reading is such Good News. Jesus’ parable in today’s Gospel reading is the gospel. It tells us how God acted throughout history, revealing his saving will for the world through his word, that people might come to know him and share in the fullness of life he gives. God sent his prophets time and time again, to warn his people and point them to the coming Saviour. Because of his compassionate love and grace, God sends, and sends and keeps on sending, until he sent his own Son as the Saviour of the world.
It was while we were unrighteous; while we were could not measure up to God’s holy law and make ourselves pleasing in God’s sight, that God showed his compassionate love for the world and sent his own Son. God’s plans cannot be overcome by people. When it was the religious’ leaders will to arrest and mock, beat and kill God’s one and only Son, this was the very way God’s saving will for the world was accomplished—to redeem the world, ransom it from the jaws of hell and to make his people holy by his Son’s own holy blood.
The promise of Pentecost is “Whoever calls on the name of the Lord will be saved.” God has taken away the kingdom from the religious leaders of Israel (and all who trust in the same moral striving and effort to please God) and has instead given it to a people who will produce fruit. That is the only reason why we are here today. By the power of his Holy Spirit, God reached out and gathered us to Christ. He chose you before the very foundation of the world, and appointed you to produce much fruit that will last—the fruit of lips that acknowledge his name, confessing him as Lord and Saviour.
Through faith in Christ you have the right to be called the children of God (John 1:12), You are Jesus’ brothers and sisters, whom he presents to his Father as holy and blameless, without spot or blemish (Ephesians 5.27). As Jesus’ siblings through faith, you share in the inheritance of God’s one and only Son. You are co-heirs in Christ to eternal glory (Romans 8:17). This inheritance cannot be taken by force as was the case in the parable. In the Kingdom of God thieves cannot break in and steal and take from you what God has promised to give. No one can take your heavenly inheritance from you because it is legally yours, under the new covenant God has bound himself to with his people, signed by the precious blood of his Son.
Why aren’t we swept away with those who threw the Son of God out of the vineyard and killed him on a cross? Simply because your heavenly Father loves you and wants you to know him as closely as the Son, to spend eternity with him. For this, the stone that the builders rejected has become the cornerstone; this was the Lord’s doing, and it is marvellous in our eyes. Thanks be to God! Amen.
Pastor Tim Ebbs
St Paul’s Lutheran Church, Glenelg
19th Sunday after Pentecost, 2026
QUESTIONS FOR FURTHER REFLECTION
“The religious leaders finally got it…and so must we. Because the ways of the Pharisees are not just restricted to this Jewish religious sect from the first Century.”
- Why do you think Jesus quoted Psalm 118:22-23 about the rejected stone becoming the cornerstone?
- In what ways can people today reject God’s messengers or God’s Word?
- Are there areas in your life where you struggle to give God the “fruit” He desires?
- How does this parable fit into the growing conflict between Jesus and the religious leaders in Matthew 21?
- What warning does this parable give to religious leaders and church members today?
- What does this parable reveal about God’s patience and mercy?
- How does knowing Jesus is the Cornerstone affect your daily life and faith?
- What is the inheritance Jesus speaks of in this parable?
- How is this inheritance yours?
- How is it a warning that this inheritance cannot be taken by force? Why is it good news that this inheritance cannot be taken by force?
[1] Langewisch, David (2020) A biblical response to transgenderism (CPH: St Louis) p8
