Our Lord has created a "kingdom on earth." He calls people to worship and serve him in this earthly life. And that kingdom, since it belongs to our Lord, is under his authority, his rules, and subject to his will in every way.
He has provided all we need. In this parable he plants the vineyard, he fences it, he digs a winepress, he provides for its safety, and he engages laborers.
The vineyard, to Jesus' hearers, was a perfectly normal place. They all knew what a vineyard was, what it needed, and more or less how to take care of it. In the same way, God has revealed his will to us quite clearly. In the Scripture we can read all about our Lord's character, his will, his good gifts, and what he requires of us. We have only to read and understand. The Scripture is not full of odd mumblings which are understandable only to specially trained prophetic people, mystical geniuses. God has spoken to us clearly in his written word, and he has revealed himself in these last days in the person of his Son, Jesus Christ.
As with the setting of this parable, where the landowner provides the equipment needed to take care of the vineyard, our Lord has given means of grace to be exercised within his Church. And in the exercise of those means of grace our Lord and Savior accomplishes something. Does he give the Scripture for nothing? No, he gives the proclamation of Scripture to create faith in our hearts. Does he bind people together in fellowship for nothing? Not at all, he binds people together in fellowship so they can work as divine instruments in each others' lives. Does he give baptism and communion for nothing? No, we confess that somehow our Lord uses those sacraments in our lives. God has given us means of grace, and they are real means of grace. God is indeed active in the very things we do as we assemble together in his name.
As our Lord has equipped his people with his means of grace, he has appointed his Church to serve him. We are to be good stewards of what he has given us. And what has he given us, above all? He has given us the Gospel of his Son, who died for our sin and was raised for our justification. He has given us faith in the effectiveness of the death, burial and resurrection of Jesus Christ on our behalf. He calls us to exercise that faith, casting down our human plans, leaving behind our schemes by which we can live an abundant life. He calls us to trust, merely to trust, which may be the hardest thing in the world for us to do, as we have to stop trying to do something. But this is the service our Lord has given us. Do we believe in God the Son? Do we believe he died for our sin? Do we believe that he is the sufficient atonemnt for all our sin, past, present, and future? Whether we believe or not, he has accomplished that atonement. We no longer have to carry our sin. We no longer have to strive with sin. We have only to believe our Lord. "It is finished," he cries, and it is indeed finished.
Yet as we look at this magnificent Gospel, we need to take a close look at our response to the Gospel. Our response, the response of the "tenants" our Lord has engaged, has been to reject God's will. We think what our Lord created and prepared for us actually belongs to us. We take it as our own. We try to operate it according to our designs. We manipulate the Lord's calling so it fits our desires. He sends us his messengers, in Moses and the prophets, in the form of the Church fathers, in the form of believing church leaders, and we reject their word. We consider that our Lord has been absent since the ascension and that he may as well be dead and gone. Like the Israelites waiting for Moses to return from Sinai we take matters into our own hands. We create habits of highly successful Christians, we follow the twelve steps to spiritual maturity, we try to come up with the right prayers, and we decide we have forty days in the absence of Jesus to accomplish in ourselves what the Holy Spirit did through day to day fellowship with Jesus over a three year period in the lives of Jesus' apostles. We decide the kingdom of God belongs to us and follows our new measures. We try to be relevant, modern, attractive. We do violence to our Lord. We deny the importance of Christ crucified, dead for our sins, and rising again on the third day. We flee from the thundering judgment of our Lord against sin and thus we have a feeble savior. He isn't able to save anything. The world didn't really need salvation anyway.
Our Lord will return in judgment against our sinful attitudes and actions. He will confront us with our sin. How have we beaten, shamed, and killed the servants he has sent us? Have we even denied his very Son and put him to death because of our sinful desire to seize God's kingdom for ourselves? Our Lord has judged the world, and his judgment is righteous. The whole world is condemned under sin. And our great sin, to kill God the Son, is the very instrument our Lord uses to atone for our sin.
Let us look to the Lord. Let us see the sinful rebellion which we have poured out on him, the pain we have inflicted on him, the death which he died at our hands. Look to the Lord and hear the words of mercy which he proclaims. "Father, forgive them. This is the new covenant in my blood. I will be with you. I will never leave you or forsake you. I am with you always."
In his death, our Lord has brought death to all who believe on him. He has taken our haughty attitudes, our desire to rule the kingdom in his stead, and has borne the penalty for all of the sin we hold dear. Our Lord has crushed the kingdom of the tenants. He has cast out the old man. He has brought the new man to life in his resurrection. Our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ is victorious over death, hell and the grave. He has given that victory to all who believe that he has borne their sin. And of those who believe he is building a new kingdom, replacing those crushed ruins that we have made through our selfish, sinful bungling. Indeed we are saved by Christ's righteousness, not by our attempts at righteousness. We are saved by Christ's righteousness alone.
Let us walk as partakers of Christ's righteousness. Let us believe in the true Gospel, that Jesus has condemned death, hell and the grave by his perfect life, death, and resurrection. Thanks be to God for his wonderful gift!
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