Matthew 21:33-46 – The Parables

We're reading from Matthew twenty-one, thirty-three through forty-six.

The Parable of the Tenants.

Hear another parable.

There was a master of a house who planted a vineyard and put a fence around it, and dug a wine press in it, and built a tower, and leased it to tenants, and went into another country.

When the season for fruit drew near, he sent his servants to the tenants to get his fruit.

And the tenants took his servants and beat one, killed another, and stoned another one.

Again he sent other servants, more than the first, and they did the same to them.

Finally he sent his son to them, saying, They will respect my son.

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 drew him out of the vineyard and killed him.

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.

Jesus said to them, Have you never read in the scriptures, The stone that the builders rejected has become the cornerstone?

This was the Lord's doing, and it is marvelous in our eyes.

Therefore I tell you, the kingdom of God will be taken away from you and given to a people producing its fruits, and the one who falls on this stone will be broken to pieces, and when it falls on another anyone, it will crush him.

When the chief priests and the Pharisees heard this par his parables, they perceived that he was speaking about them, and although they were seeking to arrest him, they feared the crowds because they held him to be a prophet.

Yeah, thank you.

Um it is wonderful to be with you this morning in City Church.

I actually have um been privileged in many ways to sit front seats and see this transformation happening.

I work with Mark um together with a number of other uh pastors and church leaders.

And with you, um, Mark and I and uh other churches around the city are seeking simply to present Christ um to Dublin today, that others may find in him what you have already found.

So it's a it's a great joy to be involved in um trying to uh coordinate that.

Um it's uh it's an adventure in humility and dependence um as we see what the Lord is doing, um, but a real joy as well um to see how how God is at work, how he is being faithful to his promises, how he's gathering people from all uh cultures and nations to belong to his son.

So that's what I do, and my most recent uh attempt at doing that is a church plant as well on the north side of the city.

A little uh, well, we're on the north side of the city, aren't we?

Yeah, we are, sorry.

Northern, more northern than this side of the city, um, out near Hoth.

Many of you may be familiar with that.

Um, we're planting a little church uh in the Hoth Sutton Baldoyle Port Monarch area.

Uh well, let me speak to you this morning about uh something that nobody likes receiving.

Very few people like giving, and only on the rarest of occasions does it have a positive outcome.

I need to speak to you this morning about the activity of criticizing.

Of criticizing, criticizing others.

And the reason why I need to do that for you this morning is because I've tried every other way to avoid it in our passage, but actually it seems to be one of, if not the central theme that we find in Matthew chapter 21, verse 33 to 46.

Matthew 21:33–46

Go ahead and open your Bibles there again.

Please keep them open.

Either open your Bibles or if it's on an app, um, we'll be walking through that passage this morning.

This is actually the second parable in a trilogy that Jesus tells on the Tuesday before he is executed on Friday.

And as far as I can see, what Jesus seems to be doing here is rather than stepping back and trying to avoid confrontation, he's actually stepping into it.

And what we find him doing here this morning is almost like throwing petrol on the fire.

Because things in Jesus' day, as he looked around at the religious climate of his time, had gotten so bad.

Uh, so I suppose I really want to thank you, Mark, uh, for uh giving me a passage to come and speak to you like this this morning.

It's my first time meeting many of you.

Um, and um, all I can say is sometimes it's uh it's um part of being a team where you're set up for a fall.

But what we're looking at this morning is criticizing.

Nobody likes receiving it, very few people like giving it, and only in the rarest of occasions does it actually have a positive outcome.

And what I want to look at with you this morning are four things.

Four things from our passage that will hopefully open up to us what God was doing here and continues to do even still today.

Four things.

We'll look at what Jesus is criticizing, then secondly, why he's criticizing it.

Thirdly, how he responds to the problem that he's criticizing, and fourthly, what should we do about it?

Okay, four things that we'll walk through this morning from our passage.

What is it that Jesus is criticizing?

Why is he criticizing what he sees before him?

How does he respond to it in his day?

And then fourthly, how should we respond ourselves?

I think by the end we may be moved to say with the psalmist in verse 42, this is the Lord's doing, and it is marvelous in our eyes.

So, firstly, what is it?

What is it that Jesus is actually criticizing?

And for some of you who have grown up in church circles, um, you may think already that you know where I'm going to go with this, because you've grown up in certain church circles which um have a uh posture of criticism, and their criticism goes only in one direction.

You'll know where I where I'm heading if you've grown up in those church circles.

Um particularly growing up in in Northern Ireland, as I did.

This was often very much the position of churches in in that part of Ireland.

They were full of criticism, and it traveled only in one direction, and that direction was to criticize the world.

Right?

Here we are gathered together.

We're um we're the ones who have got it right.

We're in the the uh the position of moral superiority, and there's and then there's other people outside the church, those dirty, rotten sinners.

And for many people, that is their experience of the church.

But if that has been your experience of the church, I think you're in for something of a shock this morning because that is not, it is not what we find Jesus criticizing here.

Context is so important.

It is so important.

Look with me, chapter 21, and verse 23.

We find Jesus back in the temple.

Remember, it's Tuesday before the Friday when he's executed.

He's in Jerusalem and he's throwing petrol on the fire.

We find him in the temple, and he's cornered.

Who's he cornered by?

Have a look at verse 23.

We're told that it was the chief priests and elders of the people who zone in on him.

And they want to know where uh his authority um comes from and who gave him this authority to do the things that he's doing.

We find that they're still in the picture towards the end of our passage when we read in verse 45, when the chief priests and the Pharisees heard the parables, they perceive that, and here's the clue, that he was speaking about them.

So, when you open your Bibles, what do you find going on?

When you listen to the words of Jesus, particularly in the last week of his life, who is it that's in his sight?

Who is he criticizing?

Framing is so important here.

What we find in this part of the Bible is that Jesus isn't interested in criticizing the world.

Jesus is interested in criticizing religion.

I remember uh I used to live in London, and there was a pastor in London of a very big church amongst uh city workers.

Um it had grown over 30 odd years, um, and um he very often upended people's expectations of what they might find when they came to Christianity.

And he often taught on such passages as this because what we find here is not Christ against the world, what we find here is Christ against religion.

Framing's so important.

We we must we must understand this if we're going to get this correct.

And so I can't believe that I'm actually saying this in public this morning, but perhaps if you're here this morning and you consider yourself to be more a part of the world than actually the church, you can breathe a sigh of relief.

Because that is not who's primarily in Jesus' focus this morning.

What is Jesus criticizing?

Jesus isn't criticizing the world.

Jesus is actually on this occasion criticizing religion and the religious leaders of his day.

Now, secondly, why?

Why?

Why is he criticizing these people?

Well, this is where we turn to the parable itself.

It's steeped in Old Testament allusions and references, and it would have been suited particularly, therefore, to his audience, to the people he's speaking to, because they would have understood that uh he was making um throwbacks into some of the old stories that they were familiar with.

Particularly, for example, if you want to take this up later in Isaiah chapter 5, where there again we find that it's it's God's people who are in the sight of God's criticism.

Isaiah 5 · chapter mention

And so Jesus tells this story.

And in one way, he almost lulls those who are listening to him, the the chief priests and the elders.

He almost lulls them into a false sense of security.

It's very often how Jesus does it.

He draws people in to the story, and then they find themselves tripping over their own faults.

He says there was a vineyard owner, a farmer, someone who had some land, and he set up a vineyard.

Have a look, pick it up with me in verse 33.

There was a master of the house who planted a vineyard and put a fence round it, dug out a wine press, and built a tower and leased it to tenants.

It's well provided for, we'll come back to that later.

Um, everything is there that is needed to make it work functionally and healthily.

And he rents it out to some tenants.

But these tenants turn out to be far from ideal renters of this vineyard.

Because very, very quickly they begin to um grow in their own estimation.

And the time for harvest comes round, and it seems um that it's pretty obvious that the owner would like to receive some of the fruits to test, to see how healthy the vineyard actually is.

But these tenants are going to have none of it.

And so they treat the servants that the owner sends in a despicable way.

They um they abuse, they kill, they stone, and they don't just do it once on one occasion.

The the master, the owner, continues to send these servants.

Uh, we'll come back to that as well.

And yet they repeatedly treat them in the same way until their possessiveness bleeds into almost delusion, where they think, okay, here comes the sun.

And if we kill the sun, then ipso facto, then the vineyard will become ours.

And so that's exactly what they do.

Now it would it would be a very familiar story, as I said to the people who first heard it.

Um, they would have been used to the to the allegories and the analogies that Jesus was drawing here between, for example, the vineyard.

Go back to Isaiah chapter 5, and you'll find that the vineyard is Israel, God's people, his chosen special possession.

Isaiah 5 · chapter mention

And it was supposed to produce fruit as his kingdom, as his people.

It was to display its health by providing for others within its precincts and also perhaps even beyond.

So it would have been a familiar story.

The idea that the vineyard was Israel and that God was the owner who gave everything, who provided it all.

Who even went so far as to put protection in place to ensure that it's that it's health.

It would have been all familiar to them, but there were some things that would have been intriguing as Jesus told it, because he doesn't just tell it the way they normally would have expected it, he puts a few twists in it.

So, for example, the servants.

The servants are mistreated.

And perhaps as they were thinking about it, those who originally heard it, they would have thought, well, um, well, that doesn't sound terribly good.

But then the sun comes in.

Again, that would have been an extra dimension.

And uh and a huge surprise.

So that they themselves then, out of their own very mouths, are found to condemn the tenants.

Do you see that?

That's the way Jesus draws them in and helps them enter into the story.

But then he says in verse 40, what therefore, when the air, sorry, verse 40, when therefore the owner of the vineyard comes, what will he do to those tenants?

And they say, look at this in verse 41, out of their very own mouths.

They say, Well, 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 season.

Without actually realizing it, or perhaps realizing it only too late, that they themselves, remember the religious leaders, the chief priests and the elders, they are the tenants.

They are the tenants, and this is what you find happening.

Not simply on this occasion, but on any occasion when the true living kingdom of God actually enters in.

What's going on here?

Why is Jesus criticizing them?

Well, things have gotten so bad.

They were supposed to be the vineyard.

And they were supposed to be looking and cultivating the vineyard for the provision of everyone within and even without its precincts.

Things have gotten so bad.

This is what happens on every occasion when the true and living kingdom of God enters in, it exposes and confronts false dead religion.

That's what we see going on here, isn't it?

Jesus as the the representative now, Jesus as the true vine, the um perfect Israel has entered into their midst.

And as he stands in their presence, he doesn't back down.

He doesn't uh he doesn't grow weak or cowardly.

He stands in their presence and says, You've done it badly, you have got it so wrong.

Why?

Let's just run through the story one more time and look at the hallmarks of false religion.

Let's see what actually Jesus is, why he's so upset.

What have they got so badly wrong?

Have a look, for example, at verse um at verse 35 for me.

And the way that they begin to treat the servants, the servants here actually probably Jesus was referring to is are the prophets.

The prophets who God kept sending again and again and again.

And how did they pr how did they treat them?

Well they're cruel, abusive and destructive.

Right?

What is it they do?

Verse 35, have a look.

They beat one, killed another, and stoned yet another.

They're cruel, abusive, and destructive in the way that they treat people.

It's a classic hallmark of false religion.

But actually, as we go through this list, you'll find that it gets even worse.

Because that's just on the surface.

That's just what we see in how they treat others in a cruel, abusive, and in uh a uh a destructive way.

That's just on the surface because there's there's greater problems going on still.

What is it that we see going on next?

Have a look at another hallmark in verse 36.

Because what we see them doing there is that they didn't simply do this on one occasion, but they went on repeating it over and over again.

The master, the vineyard owner, he sends more servants, more servants, and yet more servants still.

And these tenants show themselves to be arrogant, self-assured, and completely unapologetic.

They're not worried.

They couldn't give a damn.

And so they treat others as though they were worthless.

This is supposed to be God's people.

These were supposed to be the ones who were leading and giving an example.

Yet they display their their falsehood, their deadness, their emptiness in ways like this.

Another hallmark is as we go on down, when they see the sun, well, they are so arrogant, they are so proud, they are so self-assured that they think if uh if we kill him, we'll get it for ourselves.

But perhaps the the biggest and most damning indictment against all of empty false dead religion is the fact that they themselves were completely blind to it.

Because Jesus had drawn them out, hadn't he?

He'd exposed and confronted them.

And only when he asks the question do they actually reveal their true hearts.

They're totally blind to it.

Now what's going on here?

This is why Jesus criticizes them.

Because this was not meant to be the case.

What do we see going on here?

Any time that the true living kingdom of God enters in, it always, always exposes false dead religion in an institution, in society, and even in our own hearts.

Look, two things I must say and then um move on, because move on we must.

Two things.

The first thing to say here is that as as the kingdom of God enters into our culture and society today, the same is still going on.

Right.

Where we see the false dead religion being exposed and confronted.

God's purposes still stand.

God is still determined to bless the world.

But in order to do that, in order to do that, he has to prune away the dead branches.

And so even within our own society, within Ireland, within the a Christian nation, we see things like Where the dead empty religion, which is abusive, arrogant, unapologetic, self-assured has been exposed.

It's devastating, isn't it?

Perhaps Jesus' criticisms still stand when he says in verse forty three, Therefore I tell you the kingdom of God will be taken away from you.

This is a hard sermon.

These are words of deep criticism.

But God's word still remains true.

So wherever God's kingdom enters in, it exposes, it confronts false dead religion, even when that is found in the church.

But perhaps even more, even more difficult is that what we see here is the incapability of the human heart to give back to God what he truly deserves.

Because even here in religion, right, where you would expect the best of people to live in the purest and wisest of ways, we find even here things falling apart.

And what does that speak to?

Well, it speaks to the incapability of all of our hearts to give back to God what he truly deserves.

And so Jesus knew that he had to expose and confront.

He knew he had to challenge that for us all.

We all need to see that today.

Because that false dead religion is always a danger for each and every one of us.

He knew he had to expose the hardness of their hearts.

And perhaps that's what he needs to do for some of us here this morning.

Perhaps I love the way it was about serving and building community here.

Do you know?

As God's kingdom.

Why are you here?

What are you doing here this morning?

Are you here to be served or to serve?

Are you here to use people?

Or to give yourself to help them?

Why is it that you're here?

What is it that you hope to get?

Perhaps you only want to get and not to receive.

When God's kingdom enters in, even when his word is opened, it cuts right to the heart.

So that is what Jesus is criticizing.

It's why he's criticizing it.

Thirdly, now, how does he respond to it?

And I know we've been on a trajectory that's basically been traveling down, but we need to hit rock bottom if we're ever going to be made new, because that is precisely what Jesus is intending to do.

Right?

This is the turning of the tide.

Three days before his own death, through his death, he was going to bring to an end the old way.

Even the old religion and how it related to God and others.

He was going to give a completely different way.

He was going to bring about a brand new start.

That's what's on offer.

That's what city church is about.

It's not about continuing on just the old traditional ways because that's what church has always been like.

This is about a revolution.

This is about a transformation in your life and in the lives of others in this church and through this church, in this city, and perhaps even further afield.

That's what God's interested in.

So what did Jesus do?

Well, notice with me, he didn't scrap it.

Right?

He didn't scrap um organized religion.

Some of you in here might be thinking, oh, good, this is going through right.

You know, it's all about spirituality and not being part of anything that's institutional or organized.

He doesn't, he doesn't do that.

He doesn't scrap it because he says, if you look in verse 43 with me, he says, Therefore I tell you, the kingdom of God will be taken away from you and given to a people.

In other words, others, a nation, actually, that word means.

Or nations who will produce its fruit.

This isn't an individual kind of a uh excuse.

This is not just about your personal relationship with Jesus.

He doesn't scrap the institutional church, he doesn't scrap organized religion.

That's not the intention.

Instead, he goes back, he fills out, and he secures the future of his kingdom by himself.

And so he goes back.

The parable presents to us the kingdom of God, which is plenteous and abundant and safe.

Right?

This is home.

This is where his people belong.

And that's why he begins, I think, by extoling the virtues of it.

In verse 33 again, the master of the house planted a vineyard, and what did he do?

He put a fence around it, he dug out a winepress, he built a tar.

He ensured that it had absolutely everything it needed to function properly.

Because it has a purpose.

Right?

The purpose, I'll not go over it again, but the purpose is to provide for others, both within and without its precincts.

And so he goes back and he says, look, the kingdom of God hasn't changed.

God's purpose hasn't changed.

He continues to provide and protect for his people.

But he doesn't stop there because he broadens it and enriches it because he not only goes back, but he also fills it out.

And he he shows us what the characteristics of the true living kingdom of God should be like.

What should they be like?

Well, look at look at the father, look at the vineyard owner, who we come to know as the father.

What is he like?

How would you describe such a person as this?

He lets it out to tenants and then he sends some servants to taste its fruits.

And they're mistreated, they're abused, they're stoned and killed.

What does the father do?

Rain down lightning and bring down brimstone?

No.

He's patient.

He is long suffering.

Almost to a fault.

Because he sends his first detail of servants, and they end up on the rubbish heap.

He sends yet another, and then another, and still more.

Until at last we see actually one of the most revolutionary characteristics of this new kingdom, and that is a willing self-sacrificial attitude.

Because I don't know what you think went on when the father sat down with the son, but I'm sure the son had heard what happened to the servants.

I'm sure the son had been told that the servants had been terribly mistreated by those tenants.

And yet, still, as they sat down together, they agree that this is the best way forward.

That the sun should go.

That the sun should willingly step in and try and bring a resolution.

It was in many ways a fool's errand.

Because these people's hearts hadn't changed.

But here we have the characteristics of the true living kingdom.

Patient, long-suffering, willingly self-sacrificing.

That's what we find.

That is what Tom Holland calls, and that is why Tom Colland Hall, Tom Holland, who's a historian and not necessarily, I don't think, a Christian, but as he studied the history of the church, he called this the most disruptive, the most alternative, enduring revolution the world has ever seen.

Jesus fills it out for us.

He fills out the nature of the true kingdom.

And then he secures it because he knew, as he was standing telling the parable, that this was no simple story.

He knew that this actually was about to happen to him.

Remember, he's not stepping back, he's not toning things down, he's pouring petrol on the fire and giving these criticisms.

Because he knows it's the only way to secure a new start.

And so we read, he picks up Psalm 118 in verse 42, and he says, The stone the builders rejected has become the cornerstone.

This is the Lord's doing, and it's marvelous in our eyes.

As those leaders looked at Jesus, he was nothing but an annoyance.

He appeared before them in weakness.

He didn't seem to have anything to offer.

And so they rejected him, they threw him aside.

And yet only in doing that, without realizing it, they were fulfilling all of God's plans.

Because this is the way of the kingdom.

That the stone the builders rejected has become the cornerstone.

And the Lord has done this.

He has laid a new stone, a new foundation in Zion, and his name is Jesus.

This is the alternative that Jesus is offering.

It is actually perhaps what many of us are involved with today.

Being part of this new kingdom, this new living kingdom that's growing to display all of these characteristics, all of these hallmarks.

So, lastly, we've seen what Jesus criticizes, we've seen why he criticizes it, we've seen the alternative that he offers.

Now, what should you do?

Well, that comes in this enigmatic little statement in verse 44, which actually some manuscripts leave out, interestingly, and perhaps you'll see why.

Because he says, And the one who falls on this stone will be broken to pieces.

And when it falls on anyone, it will crush him.

Now, what on earth does that mean?

Well, this is your response.

This is your response.

Jesus offers us something that is both solid and dangerous.

Solid.

It is a stone.

It is a stone that cannot be moved, cannot be dug up, cannot be broken.

It is solid.

And for all of us in here, the the invitation, the offer is well, well, to come to it.

But when you come to it, you must realize something.

It's a stone.

Right?

It's not one of these comfortable chairs that you're sitting in right now.

It's a stone.

And that means that it will break off pieces of your life that are not in keeping with the kingdom.

Right?

That's what it's going to do.

And so the best thing, therefore, for you to do is to humbly come and see that it is the only solid foundation that you have.

And to realize that as painful as it may be for it to break off pieces from you, well, God's working out a deeper wisdom in your life to make you more in keeping with the character of his kingdom.

So come to him.

Come to him realizing that he is a stone.

And as that foundation stone will begin to shape and fashion your life in such a way that will occasionally and very often be painful.

But in the end, work out to the glory and praise of God.

Because if you don't, here's the only old here's the only other option.

Do you see how he finishes?

The one upon upon whom it falls will be crushed completely.

You know, Jesus is gentle, meek and mild.

He is.

But he cannot be played with.

And if you try to build your own life on your own foundation, you're going to find when the the the ultimate stone comes, you will be crushed.

You will be crushed.

Jesus is saying this now because he doesn't want that to happen.

He doesn't want that to happen for any of us.

And so it is my prayer, as we continue to consider such things as these, that all of us will be able to say the words we find in verse 43, verse 42, sorry, where we're told that the people of God throughout the generations have been able to say this.

As they've seen what the Lord is doing.

This is what the Lord is doing, and it is indeed marvelous in our eyes.