Luke 20:9-19

Transcript

00:00:01:10 – 00:00:22:46
Clint Loveall
Everybody. Welcome back. Thanks for joining us this Wednesday as we continue through the Gospel of Luke in the 20th chapter. A parable today, a tough parable, a very much connected to the overview of this week. We’re in the section of Luke called the Holy Week, or what we in the church call Holy Week, the last Earthly week of Jesus life.

00:00:22:51 – 00:00:53:24
Clint Loveall
And Jesus having yesterday been having been confronted by the religious authorities as to whether where he got his authority. He tells a story today that is going to implicate them. And really, Michael, in some ways it’s going to explicitly foreshadow the rest of the week. I mean, this is not a hard code to crack. This is pretty, I think, pretty obvious.

00:00:53:24 – 00:01:15:36
Clint Loveall
So let’s jump in then we’ll come back and we’ll try to spell it out. He began to tell the people the parable. A man planted a vineyard. He leased it to tenants, went to another country for a long time. When the season came, he sent a slave to the tenants in order that they might give him his share of the produce of the vineyard.

00:01:15:41 – 00:01:43:25
Clint Loveall
But the tenants beat him and sent him away empty handed. Next, he sent another slave and they also beat and insulted and sent away that one empty handed. And he sent still a third. This one they wounded and threw out. Then the owner of the vineyard said, What should I do? I will send my beloved son. Perhaps they will respect him.

00:01:43:30 – 00:02:04:21
Clint Loveall
But when the tenants saw, they discussed it among themselves and said, This is the heir, let us kill him, that the inheritance might be ours. So they threw him out of the vineyard and killed him. What then were the owner of the vineyard do to them? He will come and destroy those tenants and give the vineyard to others.

00:02:04:26 – 00:02:35:03
Clint Loveall
When they heard this, they said, heaven forbid. But he looked at them and said, What then does this text mean? The stone The builders reject it has become the cornerstone. Everyone who falls on that stone will be broken to pieces and it will crush anyone on whom it falls. When the scribes and chief priests realized that he had told this parable against them, they wanted to lay hands on him that very hour.

00:02:35:07 – 00:03:05:04
Clint Loveall
But they feared the people. So again, not Some parables are tricky. Most have a fairly plain sense. This one, I think, certainly fits in that category. Jesus tells a story about a landowner who turns over property to the tenants refuse to pay. They abuse those who come to demand payment and they refuse to honor their end of the bargain.

00:03:05:09 – 00:03:33:27
Clint Loveall
They are essentially unfaithful in the partnership. So he sends his son in the hope that his son could change things. But in their greed and in their sinfulness, they decide instead to kill the son. And then the question is, what do you think happens to them? And again, Michael. You need no particular depth of biblical understanding to see where this is headed.

00:03:33:37 – 00:03:58:12
Michael Gewecke
Yeah. And you have to recall for this to make sense. You have to recall that just yesterday we had here this idea of the Jesus asking the question about the John the Baptist right writing this question, Did he come from heaven or was he of human origin? And it’s in verse six that these religious leaders, they say the people are convinced that John was a prophet.

00:03:58:12 – 00:04:17:06
Michael Gewecke
So this parable that we now just turn our attention to today, it’s really critical that we see the connection between these stories there. We’ve broken them up because of how we’re studying, but they would have been read together and Luke intends us to see them together. And it’s very, very clear that these ones who are sent to the Vineyard are the prophets.

00:04:17:06 – 00:04:35:43
Michael Gewecke
They’re the ones who have come in the Old Testament, they’ve spoken of the coming Messiah. They’re the ones who have spoken of the Christ. If you read a gospel like Matthew Clint, you’re going to see how Matthew emphasizes the voice of those people who came before the things that that that those prophets said about who Jesus was going to be and then how that’s fulfilled in Jesus’s life.

00:04:35:44 – 00:05:02:51
Michael Gewecke
But here, as Luke gives us this teaching, it’s very clear that the very ones that the chief priests, the scribes, the the people that they turn to as authoritative sources are in this parable being cast as the very individuals who those chief priests and scribes have been sending out wounded. They’ve been doing violence against what they meant, what they intended.

00:05:02:56 – 00:05:38:35
Michael Gewecke
And ultimately the story comes to this turning point, the hinge in which the son is sent by the landowner. And you know, Clint, I find that to be both incredible in terms of its just its rhetorical force. I mean, Jesus has clearly a master teacher. He’s using this story to great effect. But on top of that, you have the the ramping up of the story, because these ones who are sent before are servants of the master they’re speaking to.

00:05:38:40 – 00:06:01:16
Michael Gewecke
But now when the story turns to the son, I think as readers, as those who are encountering this text, we wonder, well, now the master has gone all in. He sent his own flesh and blood. What’s going to happen? And so when the the story turns and here this son is not just killed in a fit of passion, but in a calculated way, killed.

00:06:01:21 – 00:06:23:54
Michael Gewecke
of course, we are completely angered by that. We are frustrated by that, that that is injust. It’s wrong. And at that point, Jesus has turned against these religious leaders. And of course, as the parable goes on, he leaves no doubt of that. But Jesus has done this in such a way too, that it will land with maximum effect.

00:06:23:54 – 00:06:26:31
Michael Gewecke
And I think we still find it today.

00:06:26:36 – 00:07:14:33
Clint Loveall
Yeah, I think, you know, obviously when we’ve said this before, you have to be a little careful with the parables, trying to read them specifically or verbatim, because here you would ask the question, why would this landowner keep sending people if they keep getting beaten? And you have to understand that that’s not the point of the story. The point of the story is those who have been entrusted with the vineyard have not only been unfaithful in their commitment and requirement to the land owner, but they have been violent toward those who tried to call them to account, including the son of the landowner who they plot violence against and kill.

00:07:14:38 – 00:07:38:25
Clint Loveall
And, you know, then Jesus says, you know, he will come and destroy the tenants. And when they heard this, they say, heaven forbid, it’s that this point in the story where you think they begin to realize that this is a God story, that this is a story about God, what God will do to the unfaithful, heaven forbid. And then Jesus does what is rarer in Luke than in some gospels.

00:07:38:25 – 00:08:01:50
Clint Loveall
He quotes the Old Testament, which is not unheard of, but Luke isn’t as interested in that as some of the other writers. But he gives them this the stone the builders rejected has become the cornerstone, and everyone who encounters that stone will be broken or crushed. Those who stand against it will not be able to stand up to it.

00:08:01:55 – 00:08:38:08
Clint Loveall
And it’s at this point that the religious leaders understand it, Luke tells us that explicitly when they realized that he had told the parable against them. Now they’re moved to lay hands and for Luke, this is the irony and the obviousness of the parable, right? They are literally hearing a story about a son who the unfaithful kill. They are literally ready to lay their hands on Jesus to do violence and bring about his death.

00:08:38:13 – 00:09:04:46
Clint Loveall
But they feared the people. And we had some of that conversation yesterday. And at this point it is fear of the crowds that are sort of keeping the religious leaders in check. But they literally play out the prediction of the parable as they hear it. And we spoke of this yesterday, and this is a common theme, so it’s not surprising that we would repeat it.

00:09:04:51 – 00:09:29:44
Clint Loveall
They’re never convicted by the weight of the story. They’re never convicted by Jesus preaching. They’re only angered by it. And the reason they’re angered by it is that they can’t imagine themselves to be in need of hearing it. They only can be offended because of their self-righteousness. And so rather than listening, they literally have the son of God in front of them.

00:09:29:49 – 00:09:45:00
Clint Loveall
But rather than listening, they’re wishing they could choke him. They’re wishing they could attack him and and that is the parable that’s the living example of this fictional story right there in front of Jesus.

00:09:45:05 – 00:10:13:46
Michael Gewecke
The the moment that they realize what Jesus is doing here must have been quite a moment, because what Jesus is accusing them of doing is not just an accidental misstep in history, and it’s a detail of a story that really grabbed me in our reading of it today. Actually, look here, verse 13, you know, the owner wonders, what am I going to do?

00:10:13:51 – 00:10:38:28
Michael Gewecke
Maybe they’ll respect my son. But when the tenants see the owner’s son, they disgusted among themselves. And this is the topic. This is the heir. Let’s kill him so that the inheritance would be ours. In other words, it’s not that they misidentified the son. It’s not when the person came he was in costume or he was camouflage. Then they missed it and then they made this horrible mistake.

00:10:38:33 – 00:11:06:41
Michael Gewecke
No. If you read these people in the Vineyard as being the the chief priests and the scribes, the people that Jesus is telling us against, then what Jesus is accusing them of is knowing that the owner son has arrived and then plotting to your own advantage, plotting to their own power and privilege to get rid of the son that’s both claiming that they see and know that he’s the son of God.

00:11:06:41 – 00:11:33:47
Michael Gewecke
I’m taking this very literally. I want we should take this to the furthest extent. But within the world of the parable, all this is my point being is rather simple. This isn’t just an accusation of you’re all making a emotional or crime of passion. It’s you are making a calculated decision that benefits no one but yourselves. And you’re the very ones who should know better.

00:11:33:52 – 00:12:00:18
Michael Gewecke
This is the argument landing home at the deepest place. And so I don’t think as reader, we should be surprised here at the end when the moment they realize this, they want to kill Jesus. I mean, at this point, Jesus had already pushed to the line. There’s no doubt that at this point, for the chief priest, for the leaders in the church in Jerusalem, that this was too much, this was one too far.

00:12:00:23 – 00:12:19:16
Michael Gewecke
And the fact that Luke tells the story in this way, I think it has a force of rising action. It explains why, as the story goes, we’re going to see more and more and more speed leading us to Jesus’s ultimate death, which of course enables the story beyond that, his resurrection.

00:12:19:21 – 00:12:49:37
Clint Loveall
Yeah, and we obviously have had centuries of opportunity to read scripture, and we stand in a long line of Christians who have thought seriously and wrestled with interpreting these texts, the religious leaders of Jesus Day, his adversaries, they certainly might not have understood all the ins and outs of this story, but they get enough to know what role Jesus has cast them in.

00:12:49:42 – 00:13:21:06
Clint Loveall
They get enough to know that Jesus has equated them with the with the tenants. They are the ones who he has accused of doing damage to those who come in God’s name to bring justice and to hold them accountable. And when they realize that that’s all they need to know about the story is that they’ve been cast in the role of a sort of bad guy, or at least of the fallen ones here, the violent ones.

00:13:21:10 – 00:13:47:31
Clint Loveall
And ironically, they react with violence, they react with scheming. They say, let’s find a way to kill the son. It it Luke just, you know, he just does this beautiful job here of telling a story and then giving the real life application where the story plays itself out right in front of the reader’s eyes. It’s really, really well done.

00:13:47:36 – 00:14:11:22
Michael Gewecke
And it also operates on multiple levels. So on one hand, this is telling us the story of how Jesus is getting crossways with the chief leaders in Jerusalem. But Clint is also part of this larger story in Luke that we’ve been seeing this entire time. I want to point our direction here specifically to Luke Chapter nine and in Luke, Chapter nine, Jesus tells the disciples.

00:14:11:22 – 00:14:34:48
Michael Gewecke
He literally says this The Simon must undergo great suffering, be rejected by the elders, chief priests and scribes, and be killed and then ultimately, on the third day be raised. He Luke, is showing us Jesus has already, chapters ago in this story, laid out what was going to happen. But this is the part of that story now unfolding.

00:14:34:48 – 00:15:03:46
Michael Gewecke
And so this is also on another level. It’s not just us sort of seeing Jesus’s story as something like an autobiography. This is also Luke wanting us to see theologically Jesus understood what was going to happen to him. And now as he’s talking to this, the Pharisees in the scribe or sorry, the scribes, the the elders, the chief priests, as he’s doing this work, we the reader, we’ve already read chapters ago what Jesus said was going to happen.

00:15:03:59 – 00:15:31:24
Michael Gewecke
And so what’s in the back of our mind is the awareness and Jesus also know what knows what’s happening, right? This isn’t Jesus going in as a bull in a china shop. And then he’s surprised at the end. No, no, this is Jesus having already said what he knew would happen, showing the truth of it, that when he would come encounter with the scribes, they would reject him, they would reject the one who was the foundation of the world.

00:15:31:24 – 00:15:44:49
Michael Gewecke
But they would the foundation would fall on them and not the other way around. And and that is what Luke is serving to teach us, both by the progression of the story, but also by Jesus’s teaching explicitly.

00:15:44:54 – 00:16:31:16
Clint Loveall
Yeah, certainly the truth is that they are going to try and silence the son. They’re going to try and take the inheritance. And we would be remiss not to mention probably verse 16 here, he will come and destroy those tenants and give the vineyard to others. There is an interesting picture here of the landowner, the God character in the parable who has been very patient, who has at the cost of his own servants, sent multiple messengers to the people who have been abused and mistreated, and then ultimately sending his son in hopes that the son would have an impact and change the behavior.

00:16:31:21 – 00:17:07:06
Clint Loveall
And while that landowner has long patience and has been gracious, there is a limit there. There is an end to that patient. There is an accountability that has to be had. And so in Luke we’ve talked about this before. Luke of often has these very blunt sayings or these very blunt presentations of what happens when God has had enough and the punishment that will ensue.

00:17:07:06 – 00:17:30:59
Clint Loveall
And so this is a parable and you don’t build theology on a parable, but it is in the story. The patience of God is not endless, that there is a moment when people will be called to account for their actions. And so Jesus says here, what would a vineyard owner do? Well, he he’ll come and make it right.

00:17:30:59 – 00:17:58:25
Clint Loveall
You don’t get to kill the son of the landowner without some repercussions and mystery. You don’t get to cheat the arrangement. You don’t get to this honor in disregard the one who is over you and not have something to be owed. And so we’ve seen this language before, but we don’t we don’t want to just pass over it.

00:17:58:30 – 00:18:37:09
Michael Gewecke
Devotional reading of this might lead us to remember that the people forgot that the vineyard wasn’t theirs, that ultimately they tried to reach and seize and own it for themselves. And at the end of the day, it it belongs to the owner of the vineyard. Owner is going to give it to others. Jesus says, you know that in our own life we too, today are tempted to try to take what surrounds us and to take it for our own and forget that everything we have, we’re stewards of it’s been given to us and we’re called to be good stewards of that which we’ve been given.

00:18:37:13 – 00:19:10:36
Michael Gewecke
But ultimately it all belongs to God. And if we can live lives that are punctuated by gratitude, we might be able to escape the sin here of the scribes who are reaching for more power to own for themselves. Instead of accepting the power of God literally standing in front of them for who He is. Luke makes that confrontation unavoidable, and he makes it clear for us to see when those who have privilege and power in the religious world of Jesus’s day encounter the source of all of that religious power.

00:19:10:40 – 00:19:13:55
Michael Gewecke
They don’t recognize it and it destroys them.

00:19:14:00 – 00:19:31:16
Clint Loveall
Yeah, it’s a sobering word to those of us that consider ourselves people of faith, because it is people of faith in the scriptures who most often missed Jesus, not get Jesus. And so there’s a humility that comes, I think, with that realization.

00:19:31:21 – 00:19:49:00
Michael Gewecke
Thank you for being with us here today. I hope there’s been something in this parable that has been maybe new and interesting for you, hopefully challenging as well. If there has been give it a light. And if you would like to stick with us as we make our way really into some of the climactic action of Luke, I hope that you’ll subscribe for more content just like this.

00:19:49:00 – 00:19:49:54
Michael Gewecke
And until then, you.

00:19:49:55 – 00:19:51:01
Clint Loveall
Must make sure everybody.