April 6, 2025 Text: Luke 20:9-20
Dear Friends in Christ,
While you may not find this highlighted in their academic handbook, many colleges and universities have courses that students view as “weed-out” courses. They are named that way because they are intended to weed out the average student. The tests have to be curved just so some students will pass.
Students complain. Administrations warn departments against having them. Nonetheless, the courses are helpful. They produce humility in students who need to be humbled. Some students think more of their academic abilities than are there. These courses weed out the students who need to find a different path and direction in life.
In the Gospel today, we see the Son coming to crush misguided hopes and dreams. He destroys the goals of the wicked tenants – and even our own self-centered goals. But in so doing, he lays a cornerstone from which we are built up, together with all the Church, to a much better goal. We are built up to life with God, life that has God-centered and other centered, rather than self-centered, goals.
What happens when God’s authority is questioned, and tenants try to take over? They are on a collision course as we ask . . .
“WHO RUNS THE VINEYARD?”
With both the tenants in the parable and in our own lives, we perceive that God’s authority prevents us from getting what we want. This is the situation with the tenants. But it is nothing new. The authority of Jesus has been opposed throughout Luke’s Gospel.
Now the authority of the vineyard owner is not the only thing challenged. The tenants also challenge the delegates sent by the owner. These servants that are sent represent the many prophets God sent to his people – Elijah, Elisha, Jeremiah, Amos, John the Baptist are just a few that Israel rejected. All three servants are beaten and wounded. The Greek for these words gives us our English word “trauma.” These servants needed immediate help in the local ER.
What is the owner going to do now? Who is running this vineyard? I got it. I will send my son, “perhaps they will respect him.” This is either naïve or strategic. The owner is giving the tenants an opportunity to repent. Bad plan. With the son they don’t want to just wound him, they want to kill him. They believe that the inheritance is theirs. These tenants are like a rabid dog, they bite irrationally. Is there any reasonable planet where a man whose three servants have been mistreated and his son killed who would have his lawyer draw up a will giving the vineyard to those who did these terrible deeds? What are these tenants thinking? Well, they are not.
Do we ever get irrational? Do we ever think we own the vineyard or run a little part of it? Do we ever get in cahoots with the world? Are there things that we want to do but this whole Jesus thing is holding us back? Who runs the vineyard?
The owner makes it pretty clear. He is going to destroy the tenants and give the vineyard to others. The owner gives that direct look we have all faced either from a parent, a coach, or a teacher. It is an unpleasant experience, but it established who the authority is. The owner even warns future unbelievers, “Everyone who falls on that stone will be broken to pieces, and when it falls on anyone, it will crush him.” (v. 18).
God wants us to know He is in charge. He wanted Israel to know that He had been using and blessing them all along. No matter how bad the sin, like the upcoming crucifixion of Jesus, the Lord’s people can still repent. It is always God’s desire to give.
We have been given the vineyard. Congratulations. Christ Jesus died for all the times we have challenged God’s authority. Christ has risen to give us a new lease – a new lease on this vineyard and a new lease on life. So put down the pruning fork. Don’t mess with the plan. God is holding nothing back from us. He gives us everything truly good as a gift. God wants us to understand that He still runs things. This is how He exercises His authority. The Father and the Son desire us to see their authority not as withholding but as giving.
“Fear not little flock,” Jesus says, “For it is your Father’s good pleasure to give you” not just the vineyard but also “the kingdom” (Luke 12:32). Giving is His style in running the vineyard.
Amen.