Tenants in God's Vineyard

Emile Callier was a philosophy professor at Princeton.

And in his early life, even his early academic life,

he was a consummate materialist, a naturalist.

In other words, he studied philosophy for a living

and had rejected all possibility of the supernatural, the transcendent.

He was more or less an atheist.

And this served him well, this worldview, until World War I.

And following the horrors of such a war,

his books, when he came back to them,

didn't sustain him the way they had.

He found the philosophy that he had built his life on to be empty.

He found it to be impotent.

He found it to be incapable of helping him make sense of either the horror that he had seen in the war

or of his own heart and soul.

Then one day, his wife brought home a Bible that she had unintentionally,

sort of almost accidentally acquired at a used bookstore in town.

And here's what he says about it.

And this is after a long period of searching in his life,

searching and searching and searching,

and not finding what he was looking for.

He says,

I literally grabbed the book and rushed to my study with it.

And he opens to the teachings of Jesus,

just randomly opens to a place where Jesus is teaching.

And he says,

I read and I read and I read,

now aloud with an indescribable warmth surging within.

I could not find words to express my awe and wonder,

and suddenly the realization dawned upon me,

this was the book that would understand me.

I needed it so much, yet unaware,

I had attempted to write my own in vain.

The more you spend time reading the Bible,

and some of you know this,

the more you spend time reading the Bible,

the more you will find this to be true.

That the more you read the Bible,

the more it reads you.

It's the only book out there that the more you read it,

the more you try to understand it,

the more you will actually experience it reading you.

And as Callie says,

explaining you to yourself.

It uncovers things in your heart.

It illuminates things that you're not aware of,

that you can't see, that you won't see.

It sometimes illuminates things that are uncomfortable,

things that we don't like to admit.

But the more you read it,

the more you realize it's true.

And one of the places this happens most

is when you read the parables of Jesus,

because that's what the parables are designed to do.

They're stories about everyday things,

and yet they reveal deep, profound spiritual truth.

And so this summer we've been looking at

some of Jesus' parables,

stories about everyday things

and what they reveal.

And tonight we're looking at this parable

that's commonly referred to

as the parable of the wicked tenants

in Luke chapter 20, verses 9 to 19.

Luke 20:9–19

So what I want to do tonight

is to look at a summary of this parable,

and then we're going to look at what it shows us.

It shows us three things.

It shows us first our motives,

and then God's heart,

and then lastly Jesus' mission.

Our motives, God's heart, and Jesus' mission.

Let's pray for God's guidance in this.

Lord, we gather here tonight

from all manner of backgrounds

and assumptions and even beliefs.

Some of us have given our lives to you

and endeavor to follow you in faith.

Lord, others of us here are not sure

what we think about you

or if you're even there,

but we know that of all your great promises,

you've promised to make yourself known

to those who seek you,

to reveal yourself,

to speak to us, Lord.

So we pray that these words

would be for us your word.

We pray that that would happen

by your spirit, Lord,

for our good and for your glory.

And we ask this in your son's name.

Amen.

So first of all,

let's just summarize this parable.

It's one that's probably familiar

to many of you,

but just to give you a quick summary

of the context of this parable.

Jesus presents us with a situation

that is more or less a common situation

really then and now.

Not much has changed

with the kind of arrangement

that we see here.

A man buys some land

with his own money

and then he invests in that land

and he tills the soil

and he plants vines.

And in another version of this story

in one of the other Gospels,

we hear that he sets up

all of the things,

all of the resources necessary

to have a fully functioning vineyard

to produce wine.

You know, he sets up a wine press

and buildings

and all, you know,

storage bins

and everything that you would need.

And he sets all this up

out of his own pocket

and then he brings in,

as was common,

tenant farmers

to work it.

And he goes on a long journey

to a distant land.

And the relationship

that the tenant farmers

would have to the owner

is this.

They were paid,

you know,

sort of an income,

days' wages

to work the vineyard.

And yet the vineyard

belonged to the owner.

And so the expectation

is that they would

oversee and care for the vineyard

according to the owner's instructions,

according to his guidance,

and for his profit.

You know,

ostensibly,

we can assume

that the owner hoped

to turn a profit.

That once he cleared

all of his overhead,

he would actually make

some money off this.

And so the tenants

were there

to govern

according to his instructions

and for his profit.

And then look what happens.

The owner goes away.

Harvest time comes.

The owner sends a servant

to collect some of the fruit.

And what happens?

They beat the servant

and they send him back

empty-handed.

And so the owner

sends another servant

and they treat him even worse.

They not only beat him,

but they treat him shamefully.

We can probably imagine

some of the things

that that would entail.

And they send him back

empty-handed.

So the owner sends

a third servant.

And it says

they wounded him.

It says that in the English,

but the Greek word is

traumatizo.

In other words,

they traumatized him.

And they send him back

empty-handed.

And the owner says,

well, surely if I send

my own son,

they'll listen to my son.

And we know how

the story ends.

When they see the son,

they realize an opportunity

and they capitalize

on that opportunity

by taking the son

out of the vineyard

and killing him.

So Jesus tells this parable

and obviously

his original listeners

would have been shocked.

It's a pretty appalling story.

In fact,

their initial reaction

is to say,

heavens no.

So what we want to do

is ask,

what did this

originally mean to them?

And then how does this

then apply to us?

And as I said,

we're going to ask this

in three headers.

The first of which is,

this story actually

reveals something

about our motives

as human beings.

See,

on one level,

this was about Israel.

Right?

If you look back

in the Old Testament,

the prophets like

Isaiah,

Jeremiah,

in the Psalms,

they refer to,

Hosea as well,

they refer to Israel

as God's vineyard.

So anytime you see

a reference to a vineyard,

think Israel.

And so on one level,

Jesus is talking about Israel.

The leaders of Israel

are like the tenants,

the scribes

and the Pharisees.

And Jesus is saying this,

God has blessed Israel.

God has given Israel

everything

to make it what it is.

He's provided

for his people.

And Israel is like

a vineyard.

And the leaders

were supposed to

govern and lead Israel

in accordance with

God's law,

his word,

and for God's glory

rather than their own

glory,

their own power,

their own prominence.

And so on one level,

Jesus is illustrating

that reality.

But on a deeper level,

this is actually

revealing something deep

about all human beings.

And what it's revealing

is sort of two realities

that clash together

in our hearts.

Two coexisting truths

that can't coexist

and they clash.

And they are this.

First of all,

our life

is meant to be

God's vineyard

in the world.

Your life

is meant to be

God's vineyard

in the world.

There's a beautiful

kind of related reference

in Ephesians 2

where the Greek

is poema

and Paul says

our lives

are God's poems

in the world,

God's poetry

to the world.

Your life

is meant to be

God's vineyard.

In other words,

we are the tenants

of our life.

We're not the owners

of our lives.

We're the tenants.

So all of your,

I mean,

think about your life

for a second.

All of your intelligence,

all of your talents,

I mean,

if you know anything

about this congregation,

this room is filled

with some of the most

intelligent,

talented people

I've ever personally

known,

the concentration

of that in this room

is unbelievable.

But all of your intelligence,

all of your talents,

all of your learning,

all of your education,

all of your creativity,

all of your,

the privilege

that got you

to where you are

in your life,

all of the resources,

that all of that

is God's investment

in this vineyard.

God set it up.

And like any good tenant,

we are meant to live

and to use all of this

according to God's instructions

and for God's,

not profit,

but God's glory.

That's the design,

that's the intention

for his purposes

and not our own.

So that's the first thing

that we see.

Your life,

my life,

is meant to be God's vineyard

in this world.

The second thing,

here's what clashes with it.

Knowing that we are tenants,

we know deep down

that we're tenants,

we hate it.

We hate it.

And you may say,

well,

I'm a Christian,

I don't hate it.

You hate it.

You hate it.

We all hate it.

We hate it

because we all

want to be owners.

And so we hate God

because we're not.

We hate God

because

every reminder,

every reference

to the very fact of God

implicitly tells us

you don't own your life.

You don't own this vineyard.

You see the ultimate motive

of the tenants

in verse 15.

It says,

when the sun comes,

they say,

this is the air.

Let us kill him.

Why?

So that the inheritance

may be ours,

right?

All human beings

are tenants

who live like owners.

We're tenants

and we live like owners.

Whenever you feel

a sense of

try as you might not to,

superiority,

whenever you feel

a sense that,

you know,

we don't boast outright

but we're really good

at things like social media

at kind of

the humble brag,

sort of very

indirectly letting people

know about our accomplishments,

you know.

Whenever we're tempted

to do that,

we are being tempted

to think like owners,

you know.

Those of you,

and many of you,

you know,

you're right at this phase

in life.

Many of you,

where you're beginning

to arrive,

you know.

You know,

I hear more and more,

as opposed to

eight years ago

when we started,

I hear more and more

sort of people

who are at the beginning

of their careers

are starting to get

to the place

that they wanted to be.

You know,

I studied,

I went to school,

I prepared,

and now I'm arrived.

I'm where I wanted to be.

I'm here.

And I wonder if deep down

when we realize that,

we don't think,

I made it because of me.

I got here.

I did this.

It's because I'm unique

and I made it happen

by the sweat of my brow.

We don't think about

the fact that

your intelligence

and your ability

and the resources

that brought you

into the world

and the education

and all that you had,

you have no more

to do that

than the color of your hair.

You had no say in that.

Our anxiety,

most of our anxiety

is a result of what?

Us trying to control

things that we can't control.

Trying to control the future.

Trying to control

future outcomes.

Trying to think through

every possibility,

every contingency

and be ready for it.

Or we try to control

the opinion

that other people have of us.

We try to manage that.

All of the reasons

that we have anxiety

and we could go on

and on about that

are ultimately about

us trying to have control

over things

that we don't have control.

In other words,

trying to live like owners

rather than tenants.

Our country was founded

in part on ideals

about liberty

that can be traced back

to the late 14th century.

William of Ockham,

famous for Ockham's razor.

And Ockham was one

of the first people

to articulate something

called nominalism.

Nominalist philosophy.

And via his influence

on people like John Locke

and Thomas Jefferson,

these seed ideas

have over the last

several hundred years

sloured into

defining assumptions

that shape all of us

in how we think.

Assumptions that we don't

even question.

They're in the background.

They're fundamental.

But they're shaping

our lives,

they're shaping

our worldviews,

they're shaping

our entire culture.

This kind of view

that Ockham sort of

gets credit

for first articulating

is summarized

perfectly actually

in a Supreme Court

decision written

by Justice Kennedy

way back in 1992.

He says this,

at the heart of liberty

is the right to define

one's own concept

of existence,

of meaning,

of the universe,

and of the mystery

of human life.

This is back in 92.

At the heart of liberty

is the right to define

one's own concept

of existence,

of meaning,

of the universe,

and of the mystery

of human life.

In other words,

by this definition,

liberty

means living

like we own the place.

Liberty,

true freedom

by this definition,

is having the freedom

to define

the most fundamental

aspects of existence,

including existence,

any way we choose.

it's living

like we own the place.

And the kind of

corollary to this

is it says,

I can't be free

unless,

I can't be free

unless

I'm the owner

of my life.

Anything that tells me

I'm not in charge,

anything that would

presume to define

these things for me

is a prison.

And that's something

that needs to be

escaped from.

It needs to be,

we need to break

out of that.

So freedom

equals the freedom

to choose

at the deepest level.

That is built

into the DNA,

that's not a liberal thing,

it's not a conservative thing,

that's built into the DNA

of our culture,

of our country.

It is so deep

that we don't even question it.

It's in our bones,

it's in our marrow.

And as technology advances,

our confidence

in this grows.

We have the rise

of movements

like the transhumanist movement,

which I think

the church needs

to be talking

a lot more about.

Transhumanism,

which is the belief

that through technology

we will improve upon

humanity.

Humanity 2.0,

3.0,

10.0.

Right?

We can overcome death.

It's everything

from extending

the life

of human beings

infinitely,

which some people

believe that we can do

with enough money

and enough technology.

There's big money

going into that,

all the way to

genetically engineering

our children.

The transhumanist movement.

And the question is,

if we're the owners

of our lives,

if we're the owners

of the vineyard,

then why not?

What's to stop us?

What reason is there

possibly not to do this

if we're the owners,

and if that's the only

way we can be free?

But,

what the Bible says

is the Bible shows us

that this concept

of human independence

and autonomy

didn't start with Ockham.

You go all the way

back to Genesis chapter 3,

Genesis 3 · chapter mention

the story of the fall,

and this is exactly

what happened.

This is when this

definition of freedom

originated.

When human beings

said to God,

we would rather decide

for ourselves

right from wrong.

We'll still worship you,

but we want to do it

on our terms.

That's Genesis 3.

Not on your terms,

on our terms.

We'll decide.

And what the Bible says

is that this human act

of saying to God,

we want the freedom

to choose the most

fundamental things

for ourselves,

that this is what's wrong

with the world.

It's tenants saying to God,

from now on,

we want to be owners.

We want to be co-owners

with you.

That was the promise

that the serpent gave.

You'll be like God.

God.

Simply put,

this creates an enormous

problem for us

because we're not

independent beings.

We're not autonomous beings.

We're fundamentally

dependent beings,

and we hate that.

But we're ultimately

powerless,

not over just the world,

but even our own lives.

You know,

there are so many people

who say,

well, you know,

look at my life,

and look at all the stuff

that's happened,

and all this hard stuff

that's happened,

and all the stuff

I've had to go through.

My life is nothing

like I thought it would be.

It's nothing like

I wanted it to be.

How could I believe in God?

I think it's actually

making an opposite point.

My life is nothing

like I want it to be,

ergo,

the only thing

that you can derive

from that is,

you're not God.

Because if you were,

your life would be

exactly like you want it to be.

But it's not,

which means you're not

in charge,

which means somebody

else must be.

So this is the first point.

Our life,

our life is God's vineyard.

That's what it's designed to be.

God's vineyard.

But we prefer the illusion,

and again,

through things like technology,

we have a very convincing illusion

that in fact,

we're the owners.

And we hate,

hate anyone or anything

that reminds us otherwise.

Right?

So the second question is this.

How does the owner

of the parable,

in the parable,

respond to the tenants,

and thus,

what do we learn about God's heart?

How God responds to this?

So second point,

God's heart.

What does the owner do?

He sends the first servant,

and the tenants

physically assault him

and send him back

to the master,

empty-handed.

Now,

when this happens,

first servant goes,

they beat the crap out of him,

they send him back.

What would happen,

in most cases,

then and now?

Not much difference.

Right?

Imagine you own a restaurant,

and the manager of the restaurant

does this,

or imagine you own a property,

and the property manager

embezzles all the profits,

right?

And you send somebody

to kind of,

you know,

have there be a reckoning

and send me some of the profits,

and that person comes back

in a wheelchair.

What do you do?

Well,

in the least,

you would fire that person

and probably press charges.

But what does this owner do?

He sends another servant.

They do worse things to him.

He sends another servant.

They do worse things to him.

And then he sends his son.

What does this tell us

about this owner

and his heart?

Look at this owner

and look at his heart.

Again,

on one level,

this is talking about Israel.

It's talking about

all of the profits

that God sent to his people

over the ages.

And if you want to look at

look at the prophets.

They were severely mistreated

and rejected

and hated.

You know?

God is straight up honest

with Jeremiah

at the beginning of his ministry.

You're going to have this message

and they're going to hate you for it

and they're not going to believe you

and they're going to beat you up

and treat you shamefully.

You know?

Bon voyage.

You know?

What we see here

is a God of unimaginable patience

and mercy.

Unimaginable patience and mercy.

He sends messenger

messenger after messenger

after messenger

after messenger

over and over and over.

Why?

Because he loves the tenants.

Because he loves us.

Because he loves us.

He gives them one chance

after another.

And he loves us that way.

Don't you understand?

He uses all of the circumstances

in our lives

in this very same way.

Not necessarily always

the good stuff.

Probably more often

the hard stuff,

the bad stuff,

the stuff we don't want.

all ways of trying

to shake us

and wake us up

and make us realize

we're not the owners,

we're not in charge.

To go on pretending

that we're in charge

is an exercise in futility.

They say to give somebody

responsibility

without authority

is a recipe for insanity, right?

That's bad management.

But that's exactly

what we're doing.

We're trying to have

responsibility

over everything

with absolutely no authority.

It will make us crazy

if we insist

on living that way.

But just like in the parable,

this is not something

that we can be talked out of.

I mean, at the deepest level,

we want to be the owners

and nothing anyone says

can convince us otherwise.

That's why Romans 8

says that our minds

on their own

are hostile toward God.

They are enmity toward God.

So far, this parable

has shown us

these two things, right?

First, our lives

are God's vineyard,

but we prefer

to ignore that fact

and live as though

we're the owners

instead of the tenants.

That's our motive.

The second thing

it shows us

is that God's heart

is incredibly patient,

incredibly merciful,

and he's the kind of God

who gives chance

after chance

after chance.

But the problem is

that nothing,

none of the prophets,

even the greatest prophet,

right?

John the Baptist,

what happened

to John the Baptist,

right?

He had the audacity

to call out

Herod Antipas

over issues

of sexual morality.

He confronted him

because he was

committing adultery.

He got his head chopped off.

That's what happens

to the prophets.

He was saying,

your sex life isn't,

you're not the owner

of that.

That's part of God's vineyard.

He got his head chopped off.

Nothing can convince us

of this

or overcome

this heart-level enmity

that we have

toward God.

Thus,

the final point,

Jesus' mission.

When you get to this part

of the parable,

you have to imagine

the kind of dramatic

irony and tension

in the room

as Jesus is telling

this parable.

I mean,

it's sort of layers

of irony and tension

because Jesus,

there Jesus is,

the Son of God

in the flesh

talking to the leaders

of Israel.

He's telling them

a story about

wicked tenants

who,

when the owner

sins the Son,

they kill him.

And as Jesus

is telling this parable,

what does verse 19 say?

Even as he's telling

the parable,

you have the scribes

and the Pharisees

saying,

we want to lay hands

on him and kill him

right now.

But they can't,

they won't,

because they're afraid

the people will riot.

So the parable

is actually,

the truth of the parable

is being demonstrated

even as Jesus tells it.

And what this really does

is it brings us

to the majesty

and the brilliance

of the gospel.

Because it presents

this question,

what do you do

if you're God

and you love the world

that you made

and you love the people

that you put in the world

to take care of it

in your name,

the tenants?

What do you do

if you're God

and you love those people

and yet you know

that those people

hate you so much

that no matter

what you do,

no matter what you do,

they won't come back

to you.

And they hate you

so much that the moment

you become vulnerable,

they will grab you

and kill you.

And that's exactly

what happens.

So what do you do

if you're God

and you're in that situation?

How do you save people

who want to kill you?

That's the brilliance

of the gospel.

You use your own death

as the means of salvation.

You use your own death.

Jesus' mission

is to take our place

by becoming our rebellion,

becoming enmity,

and then dying

on our behalf.

In other words,

what you see on the cross

is God subverting

the hatred

of the tenants,

using it,

repurposing it,

redefining it.

So he used our rebellion

as the means

of our salvation.

It's beautiful.

It's the only hope

we ever could have had.

And the only thing

that can convince us

to let go

of this illusion

of control,

the only thing

that will loosen

the white-knuckle death grip

that we have

on our lives

is when we look

at the love of God

on the cross.

And when that,

through the power

of the Holy Spirit,

begins to convince us

that a God

who would do that

for us

can better be trusted

with our lives

even than we can.

And it's that point

that we cross

where we're looking

at the cross

and through

the power

of the Spirit

we begin to realize

that our life

is in better hands

when God

is in control.

That we can trust

Him and His love

and His power

more than ourselves.

And that's when

that transition

begins to happen.

And Jesus leads us,

as we're kind of

bringing this to a close

in verses 17 and 18,

Jesus leads us

with this choice.

He says,

knowing these things

that I've laid out,

you can either

continue living

like an owner

and that will

eventually crush you.

You will eventually

be crushed

doing that.

Or,

or,

He becomes

the cornerstone

of your life.

It's either or.

Either you continue

pretending you're an owner

and ultimately

that's a dead end

and you will be

crushed by that

because you're never

meant to do that.

Or He becomes

the cornerstone.

No middle ground.

And when we talk

about cornerstone,

it's hard to get our minds

around what that's

talking about.

Do you remember

when we were kids

and we were going to school

and you first learned

about plate tectonics?

Remember how you learned

that this theory,

this kind of geological theory

that you have,

you know,

all the continents

and you have the land masses

and you have the mountains

and the valleys

and you have all the topography,

the contours of the world

that you can see,

but the thing that really

defines the shape

of the world

that we can see

is actually way down deep

where we can't see.

It's the kind of

these plates

that are floating

on the mantle

of the earth

and they move

and thus we have

continental drift.

Remember learning this?

Plate tectonics.

You're like,

yeah,

I was just thinking

about that.

If you don't remember

learning it,

you should have learned it.

That's what we learn.

That's how our world works.

On an ideological level,

on an ideological level,

just as the world

that we see,

the shape of that world

is largely determined

by the rock underneath,

the bedrock

that we can't see.

So our world views,

our assumptions,

the place from which

we reason,

not so much

the reasoning itself

but the place

from which we reason,

is almost entirely shaped

by bedrock assumptions.

These plates

that are the bedrock

at the very foundation

upon which we build

our world view.

And we all have

a world view.

And what Jesus

is saying is,

you'll either be crushed

because you're trying

to be an owner

in a world

where you're the tenant,

or I become that bedrock.

I become the plate

underneath your world view.

I become the foundation,

the cornerstone

upon which

you build everything else.

It's an entire

redefining

from the ground up

of the entire way

that you see yourself,

God,

meaning,

purpose,

existence,

identity,

flourishing,

freedom.

So for example,

for example,

I'll just give you

one example.

For Jesus to become

our cornerstone

means that he becomes

the bedrock upon which

our definition of

something like freedom

rests,

right?

Unlike Ockham

or Locke

or Justice Kennedy,

there is a parallel

understanding of freedom

that goes all the way

back through Aquinas,

Augustine,

all the way back

to Jesus.

It's parallel

and yet utterly distinct,

but it runs all

throughout history.

From Genesis 3,

you have this one

definition of freedom,

and then when Jesus

comes,

you have another

definition of freedom.

And what they would

say is this,

that freedom is not

just the ability

to choose,

but to choose well.

In other words,

it's the freedom

to choose

that for which

you were made.

That's freedom.

And you were made,

friends,

you were made

for the love of God.

Like a fish

was made for water

and can only flourish

when it is thoroughly

immersed in water,

you were made

for the love of God.

And you will not flourish,

you will not be free

unless you are immersed

in that love,

unless you are immersed

on the kind of love

that we see on display

on the cross of Christ.

You will not be free

unless you are able

to choose that love,

to plunge into it,

to be immersed in it.

But the promise is this,

the promise that Jesus

gives to us

in John chapter 15

John 15 · chapter mention

is this,

the more we are

immersed in that love,

the more we abide

in that love,

the more we will

bear fruit,

the more we will become

and our lives will become

God's vineyards

in this world.

Let's pray.

Our Father in heaven,

we have just said

that these are things

that we cannot be convinced

of intellectually,

Lord,

that this is not ultimately

an intellectual issue.

It's a profoundly

spiritual issue.

We need your Holy Spirit

to take these words

to illuminate

where this is true

in our hearts

and then to illuminate

for us

the compelling,

otherworldly love

of Jesus Christ

to melt our hearts

that we would see

the beauty

of the invitation

to walk in freedom

by plunging

into that love

just as you plunged

into the world

to show it to us.

And we pray this,

Lord,

in your Son's holy name.

Amen.

Amen.

Amen.

Amen.

Amen.

Amen.

Amen.

Amen.

Amen.

Amen.

Amen.

Amen.

Amen.

Amen.

Amen.

Amen.

Amen.

Amen.

Amen.

Amen.

Amen.

Amen.

Amen.

Amen.