February 9, 2022
Matthew 21:28-45, CEB - “What do you think? A man had two
sons. Now he came to the first and said, ‘Son, go and work in the vineyard
today.’
“‘No, I don’t want to,’ he replied. But later he changed
his mind and went.
“The father said the same thing to the other son, who
replied, ‘Yes, sir.’ But he didn’t go.
“Which one of these two did his father’s will?”
They said, “The first one.”
Jesus said to them, “I assure you that tax collectors and
prostitutes are entering God’s kingdom ahead of you. For John came to you on the righteous road,
and you didn’t believe him. But tax collectors and prostitutes believed him.
Yet even after you saw this, you didn’t change your hearts and lives and you
didn’t believe him.
“Listen to another parable. There was a landowner who
planted a vineyard. He put a fence around it, dug a winepress in it, and built
a tower. Then he rented it to tenant farmers and took a trip. When it was time for harvest, he sent his
servants to the tenant farmers to collect his fruit. But the tenant farmers grabbed his servants.
They beat some of them, and some of them they killed. Some of them they stoned
to death.
“Again he sent other servants, more than the first group.
They treated them in the same way. Finally he sent his son to them. ‘They will
respect my son,’ he said.
“But when the tenant farmers saw the son, they said to
each other, ‘This is the heir. Come on, let’s kill him and we’ll have his
inheritance.’ They grabbed him, threw
him out of the vineyard, and killed him.
“When the owner of the vineyard comes, what will he do to
those tenant farmers?”
They said, “He will totally destroy those wicked farmers
and rent the vineyard to other tenant farmers who will give him the fruit when
it’s ready.”
Jesus said to them, “Haven’t you ever read in the
scriptures, The stone that the builders rejected has become the cornerstone.
The Lord has done this, and it’s amazing in our eyes? Therefore, I tell you that God’s kingdom will
be taken away from you and will be given to a people who produce its fruit. Whoever falls on this stone will be crushed.
And the stone will crush the person it falls on.”
Now when the chief priests and the Pharisees heard the
parable, they knew Jesus was talking about them. They were trying to arrest
him, but they feared the crowds, who thought he was a prophet.
This is a longer reading than usual,
but it’s important to see the bigger story Matthew is telling here rather than
focus on each smaller story. Jesus tells
two parables immediately after his discussion about authority with the Chief
Priest and Temple Elders that we discussed in our last devotional. As you recall, the Priests and Elders publicly question
Jesus’s authority in an attempt to discredit Him in front of those he was
teaching in the Temple. Jesus responds
to their question with a question of His own that puts the leaders on
defense. He asks them whether or not
John the Baptist’s baptism was from Heaven or not. They flake out and say that they don’t know
the answer because they fear the crowd and they don’t want to admit to they
have been wrong.
Jesus could have stopped there
because the leaders have been silenced.
Instead, He takes the opportunity to tell two stories that support an
incredible announcement about what is going to happen. A long essay could be written about all the idiosyncrasies
of each parable, but we will have to settle for the big picture here. The first story is fairly straightforward; two sons respond to the request of the father
in opposite ways. The first says that he
will not comply with the request, but later, does do what his father asks. The second son says he will do what his Dad
asked, but never actually does it. Jesus’s
point was that even though he refuses at first, the first son eventually is
obedient. The second says he will obey,
but actually rebels. Lest there be any ambiguity,
Jesus explains that those “sinners” (tax collectors and prostitutes) are like
the obedient son and the Temple Leaders are like the disobedient son.
Then comes the consequences. The second parable is about tenants who are
given charge of a vineyard. When the landowner
sends a servant to collect his share of the fruit, the tenants kill him. This happens repeatedly until the landowner
sends his son to collect. The result is
the same; they kill the son. It’s a
ridiculously outrageous story that would never happen in real life. Even the most foolish tenants would not think
that they could get away with such a flimsy scheme to keep the vineyard for
their own. Jesus even gets the Temple
leaders to say what would happen to such fools.
They said, “He will totally destroy those wicked farmers
and rent the vineyard to other tenant farmers who will give him the fruit when
it’s ready.”
Then Jesus brings the hammer down. “You are those fools” is the gist of his indictment
of them. The landowner is God. The
vineyard is the people of God. The
religious leaders are the tenants. The
servants that were repeatedly sent to them were the prophets throughout the Old
Testament. Now God has sent His Son to
the “vineyard” and they are about to kill even Him. So the responsibility for the vineyard will
be given to those who were obedient (recalling the obedient son from the first
story).
Now the
vineyard is in our hands.
Question: Will we be
faithful with all that God has entrusted?
Prayer: God, you are
the owner of all, even that which we claim or wish was ours. May we have fruit to offer when you come to
see what we have done with your vineyard.
Prayer Focus: Pray
for small business owners you know in your community.
Song: Find Us Faithful
– Steve Green
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