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.

April 2, 2025 – Lent Texts: Job 7:1-4, Revelation 22:1-5, Matthew 26:30-35
Dear Friends in Christ,
Tonight’s soap opera is of the first two that moved from radio to television. The working tile was originally, “The Edge of Darkness.” Appropriate for tonight as you will see. This soap was conceived as a daytime Perry Mason with a crime and justice angle. We again have a Midwest setting, the town of Monticello. Because of the emphasis of the show being geared more toward crime and less about romance it had a 50% male viewership. The title of this daytime drama was “The Edge of Night.”
Tonight, we are going to be with the disciples. They have just celebrated Passover, what we commonly refer to as “The Last Supper” with Jesus. They are headed to the Mount of Olives, but they do not realize what monumental happenings are about to occur this evening. Step into the shadows as we are at . . . .
“THE EDGE OF NIGHT”
Before we get to our main text from Matthew, let’s take a quick look at our other texts. Job says in our Old Testament lesson, “The night is long, and I am full of tossing till the dawn.” Who hasn’t tossed and turned at least a few times in bed. Worry, lack of sleep, too much sleep, a meal that weighs on the belly, the upset of a baby. Job had his concerns, and he had his mind on his job and getting his wages. Men of Job’s times were paid every day. This would allow them to have food money for the next day. His depression is getting the best of him.
John in Revelation has some better news. “And night will be no more. They will need no lamp or sun, for the Lord God will be their light, and they will reign forever and ever.” Now, doesn’t that sound better? There is no night or darkness in God’s presence. To get there though there are going to be dark days. Have you had one recently? A gut punch in your daily life? Tossing and turning as you teeter on the edge of night?
Do we find the disciples in the same predicament? Actually, we don’t. If you read the verses just pass our text, you will find all the disciples in Gethsemane with Jesus. They all fall asleep. Jesus prays – they fall asleep again. Jesus prays a third time – they all fall asleep again. They have no idea what is about to happen as they awake a third time from this middle of night siesta. Worry, anxiety, concern; it is not in God’s Word.
Should they have had concern? Think they should have. Jesus says in our text, “You will all fall away because of me this night. For it is written, ‘I will strike the shepherd, and the sheep of the flock will be scattered.’” All the disciples will abandon Jesus, the shepherd. The sheep – the disciples – flee when the shepherd is killed. They stand or should we say sleep on the edge of night and their lives are about to get much darker.
We are gathered here in this sanctuary on the edge of night and what bothers us? What about swearing by the name of God, like Peter, and then failing the Savior? What about caving in to the fear of being too closely identified as a follower of Jesus? What about acting too confident in our response and promise to follow Jesus and then abandoning Him?
That last one happens far too often in the church. Confession made at the Lord’s altar and then walking into the darkness. No longer here tonight or Sunday morning. Faith imploding and dust covering God’s children in the dust of their choices.
“Even if I must die with you, I will not deny you.” Peter says what all the disciples were thinking. Eerie similar to our confirmation vows, “Do you intend to continue steadfast in this confession and Church, and to suffer all, even death, rather than fall away from it.” We answered, “I do, by the grace of God.”
There is the key this edge of night. The grace of God. It cannot be done on our own. This edge of night, Jesus is going to keep his cool. This edge of night, Jesus is going to be in total control of the situation even when it looks like things are out of control. This edge of night we are going to witness the wondrous love of Jesus.
Jesus’s love asks us to repent of our dark deeds. Jesus’ love asks us to turn our back on the deeds of darkness. Jesus’ love spurred the Apostle Paul to write, “God demonstrates his love for us in this: While we were still sinners, Christ died for us.” (Rom. 5:8)
Jesus holds out his arms to us every day and says: “I am loving you in my embrace. I am keeping you safe at my side. I have died and rose for you. I am waiting for you in heaven. Now go and love my other sheep because I have saved them from Satan and hell as well.”
Join us this Sunday, Palm Sunday, on this same station for . . . “Secret Storm.”
Amen.

March 26, 2025 – Lent Texts: Prov. 27:1, James 4:13-17, Matthew 6:34

Dear Friends in Christ,

“Search For Tomorrow” had a 35-year run on CBS and then NBC. Unlike other soaps it focused on one character – Joanne “Jo” Gardner. The show was performed live until 1967 when it started to be recorded. What is ironic about this soap opera is that it’s downfall is found in its title. After being on the air for 30 years, CBS moved it from its familiar time slot. This angered viewers – “don’t mess with my show!” What made the ratings plummet was the move to NBC in 1982. The show never recovered and was axed a few years later.
People like continuity. They did not want to go “searching” for “Search For Tomorrow” in a different time slot and God forbid, a different network. There would be no more “tomorrows” for loyal viewers of this soap opera.
What are you searching for? What do you want to do with your tomorrow? We too are a people who like continuity. When that gets upset . . . well that can lead to anxious moments. Scripture addresses this for us tonight. Jesus had a tomorrow in His future and that should take away our worry when we . . .
“SEARCH FOR TOMORROW”
We won’t take a lot of time with our Old Testament lesson because when you look it up in the Study Bible, the reference is to take a look at James 4, our Epistle lesson.
Proverbs says that we don’t know what the day will bring, that is true. James reminds us that the future is not in our hands. We do not control things. God controls time and history. Now planning is good stewardship, but not if our plans crowd out the things that God would have us do. James gives a great reminder that we seek what “the Lord wills.” By thinking this way, we make a confession of our faith that has confidence in the Lord’s care for us. He continues to show His fatherly, divine mercy toward us. He has given us life by His Son.
Now the Matthew passage is known not just by Christians who know their Bibles, it is known just as well by men and women outside the church. “Do not be anxious about tomorrow, for tomorrow will be anxious for itself. Sufficient for the day is its own trouble.” Instructions the world tries to follow and fails. Instructions we try to follow and fail. You’ve probably heard it your whole life – “take one day at a time.” Great sentiment, hard to get in line behind.
If you are like me, when it comes to things like this, we are a dichotomy. That is inconsistent in our behavior. I can relax in life with the best of them. On a massage table, I can not move for an hour. Late night, laid out on a bed, headphones on, a barely move a muscle. Worried about tomorrow, not a chance.
Take that same human being and put him down in Florida in February. Flight home at 9 a.m. Got to be up by 4:30 a.m. We have over an hour drive. Fog is predicted. What about the toll we have to pay? Rental car needs gas and then returned. Need to hop a train to main terminal. Then train to terminal flying out of. Security line. So many things have to go right. At gate, two hours before flight. Get home later that day.
Can you relate? I want to be that guy in my 20’s who didn’t get anxious about any of this. I wasn’t searching for tomorrow, I was just living. Lord, I need to let go of the reins, take them please.
He does. He laughs at our human foibles. He has secured for us an eternal future. We should have no “tomorrow” worries. Jesus came in contact with death firsthand. He died and was buried. When Christ touched death, He brought life. When He rose from the dead, the search for tomorrow was over. He defeated death once for all time. Jesus broke death’s grip on our lives. If we are thrown into the grave with Him in His death, it means only life because He lives today.
Even though we still suffer the effects of trying to control our own lives, we are forgiven and are now part of the living because we are united in Jesus. So, when Christ returns, that great tomorrow Day, even our bodies will also be raised on the Last Day. The search is over.
Join us next week on this same station for . . . “The Young and the Restless.”
Amen.