october 4, 2026

Title: God, the good landlord [Matt 21:33-46]
 
Over this last season many of our Gospel lessons have talked about Pharisees, the Jewish leaders back in Jesus’ time.  Do you even feel sorry for the Pharisees? I mean, in the Bible, there are Pharisees and then there is Jesus.  The Pharisees are always portrayed as the bad guys, plotting to do evil.  But I want to take a closer look at them.  I mean, think about it.  Maybe they were just a bunch of guys just trying to do their best, trying their best, which meant trying to follow the law as best they could.  You gotta know that even just trying to follow the law meant that you had to sacrifice a lot; you had to be really committed.  Maybe these Pharisees, were just trying to do their best.  Was it unfair to always portray them as “the bad guys.”  So, I wondered, what did they do to get such a bum rap? 
 
Well today’s gospel is a parable which seeks to explain this….  It is a parable about some tenants, that is, renters.  When you are a renter, you must pay rent to a landlord.  Why? Because the Landlord is the rightful owner of the house or apartment that you live in.  So, what do you think would happen to renters who decided that they own the house, who decided that they don’t need to pay the rent.  Well, if you don’t pay your rent you will get in big trouble, trouble with the Landlord trouble with his lawyers and trouble with the government.  So, people like these would be evil tenants.  This is precisely what happens in our Gospel lesson.  Jesus compares God to a landlord.  God made the world and everything in it.  So, he is the owner, the landlord.  He gave the world to Mankind to live in.  We are his tenants.  In particular, he is the Lord of the church.  His people are his tenants.  So far, the analogy seems reasonable.  So why is Jesus telling the Parable?
 
The parable is a warning.  You see, a problem had arisen amongst the people of God.  A rebellion was brewing among the tenants, so to speak.  Jesus had been preaching to the people of Israel, and they were so strongly moved that the Pharisees, the leaders of the Jews, became afraid of the people.  So, they had secret meetings to see how to defeat this religious upstart, to bring their political party back into power.  But this was no ordinary political confrontation.  Unbeknownst to them, the person they were going against was Jesus.  And Jesus was God.  Therefore, their secret meetings were a rebellion… a rebellion against God.  And Jesus knew this.  He knew their hearts.  He knew they would not receive a direct judgement of their rebellion.  So, Jesus uses the story of the parable as a warning to the Pharisees.  From Matt 23
“34 When the harvest time approached, [the owner] sent his servant to the tenants to collect his fruit.  .” 
The tenants were to pay the rent with a portion of their harvest.  The landlord was simply expecting to collect what was owed to him.  But something awful happens.  “And the tenants took the owner’s servant and beat [him]”  The farmers don’t even own the land they work.  And yet they are acting as though the vineyard belongs to them they are acting as if the landlord is the unfair one, daring to ask ...  them for rent!  I don’t know what a normal landlord would have done but I think I can guess.  He probably would have started legal proceedings to evict his tenants….  because they didn’t give him what was owed him.  But rather than immediately evicting them landlord in the parable, sends other servants.  After his first servant is roughed up: “[they] killed another and stoned a third.  36 Then he sent other servants to them, more than the first time, and the tenants treated them the same way.”  No way would this ever happen in real life.  Most Landlords would not put up with this.  And that’s exactly the point that Jesus is trying to make in this parable. 
 
The Lord has an incredible amount of patience for sinners, far more than sinners deserve.  With each successive servant sent, the tenants become more and more hardened in their evil.  In the parable, the landlord showed great patience in sending servant after servant.  These servants, who were sent by the owner, represent the prophets who God sent to Israel over the centuries.  And God’s people, just like the wicked tenants for the most part, ignored them, battled with them, and killed them.  This rebellion is recorded in all the Biblical stories of the Kings of Israel and of the Prophets. 
 
The basic sin of the wicked tenants was that they refused to recognize the servants being sent from the owner.  The basic sin of Israel was that they refused to listen to God’s servants, the prophets, sent from God.  They refused the call to repentance.  They acted as if, the church was theirs… to order about for their own wants, and not for the glory of God.  And this was the point of the parable.  This was the warning that Jesus wanted to give to the Pharisees.  The basic sin of the Pharisees in Jesus time, was not that they were like bad or mean people.  Their sin was that they refused to recognize the servants of God.  They refused to hear God’s call to repentance.  They acted as if, the church was theirs… to order about for their own wants, and not for the glory of God.  They refused God.  They refused Jesus.  That was their sin.  That is why they were constantly being portrayed as the bad guy.  They rejected Jesus.  And in rejected Jesus, they were rejecting God.  Having said this, we should not assume that the Pharisees are the only ones who have done this.  This parable contains a warning to us as well.  When we forget that OUR life was a gift to us,….  that we are merely tenants of this life….  when we ignore God’s call to daily repentance.  when we forget that we owe God “rent” that ALL our time, talent and treasures belong to God, then we too can become like the wicked tenants.  We, too, are no better than the Pharisees.  But what a patient Lord we live under! 
 
Back to the parable.  What did the owner of the vineyard do? 37 Finally he sent his son to them, saying, “They will respect my son.”  The landlord bends over backwards for his tenants, giving them one last chance.  He sends one more messenger, His son, his dearly loved son.  Again, the interpretation is easy for us to understand.  Even after Israel mistreated all of God’s prophets, he was compassionate.  Out of sheer grace he was moved to send them his Son, his beloved son, Jesus to save us.  But in the parable, how was the son was treated?
 “But when the tenants saw the son they said to themselves ‘This is the heir,’ Come, Let us kill him and have his inheritance.’ And they took him and threw him out of the vineyard and killed him.” 
 
Jesus was dead-on with the parable.  He knew the intentions of the Pharisees and Sadducees.  He knew their hearts.  He knew they were ready to kill him.  But there is one difference between the parable and the Gospel.  In fact, this is where reality takes a surprising twist.  In the story, the owner assumes that the son would be treated with respect.  In reality, God sent his Son into the world, knowing that He would be rejected and killed.  In fact, it was for the very purpose that He sent his son.  For you see Mankind was in a pickle.  The Bible tells us that the wages of sin is death.  Since the Fall into sin, death was the price of sin.  All Mankind deserved to die.  But God had a plan.  God sent Jesus to die on the cross and to receive our death, and by doing so, restore our relationship with God.  That does not excuse the wickedness of those who crucified Jesus.  But it does tell us that God is always in control.  It tells us that God will bring good even out of situation brought about by evil.  God is always in control. 
 
Now there is an important phrase in verse 39.  It is a very subtle prophecy.  verse 39
“And they took him and threw him out of the vineyard and killed him.”
Remember the vineyard stands for the church.  The Pharisees tossed Jesus out of their church and then killed him.  The leaders because they thought the Church was theirs to use.  because they rejected the servants of God, his prophets, because they rejected God’s son, effectively removed God out of their church.  Jesus was warning the Pharisees that in rejecting him, that God was no longer among them.  This was the warning that Jesus wanted to give the Pharisees.  It was a warning of death.
 
But it is also important to see that warnings are also an act of compassion.  In giving them this warning Jesus is saying, “don’t do it!  Don’t reject me.  It will hurt you more than me!  You are going to lose everything!”  Instead, come to me! I am the good landlord.  His “warning” is a “second chance.”  His warning is a plea to repent and have forgiveness.  The sad part is that they ignore the second chance.  Even so, their loss becomes good news for us.  According to the parable, the landlord then opens his vineyard to other tenants.  You and I are the other tenants which Jesus talks about.  We are the new tenants, who have not rejected the Son who have come to Him in faith, who now live in His vineyard, the church. 
 
Now, as the new tenants of God’s vineyard, as people of God’s church, we have a mission.  Many have heard Jesus’ message and repented, but we also know that many have not - many did not understand or maybe simply refused the message.  There are people in today’s world who are rejecting their landlord.  their spiritual landlord.  They think that they are the masters of their bodies.  They think that they are the masters of their lives.  There are people out there who don’t know that God is the landlord.  They do now know that they are rejecting Him.  There are people out there who have rejected the message of the prophets.  who have rejected the evangelists.  who have rejected Jesus.  And the sad part is many have done so simply because they haven’t heard about or experienced the Love of God.  What will happen to them?...  What will happen to them?...  You know what will happen to them. 
 
But we can do something about that.  Because of Jesus, the vineyard of eternal life is being offered to any who will receive it.  In the New Vineyard, the message is NOT one of condemnation, but of hope.  God so loved the world that he gave his only son that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life.  A message of Hope… If you know someone who doesn’t know Jesus, Invite them to Christ’s New vineyard.  It is our hope that by sharing God’s love comfort and hope, one day they will receive the prophets.  receive the evangelists.  receive Jesus, and in doing so they will be saved.