Matthew 21,33-46,2026
Send us your Spirit of wisdom, O God, so that we may hear your Word
speaking through the Scriptures with ears that understand and hearts that
respond in love. Amen.
In this week’s parable, Jesus, according to Matthew, is using the familiar
images of the vineyard and the unfaithful managers of the vineyard
You know the story.
A landowner plants a vineyard, digs the winepress, and does everything
else you’d need to gather in a decent harvest.
Then he leases it to tenants to run things while he goes away.
When the harvest comes in, he sends his servants to collect his due, that is
the share that is owed him because of legal possession and industry.
The tenants beat, stone, and even kill his servants.
And when he sends more servants and the same thing happens, he then
sends his son and the brutes kill the son as well,
The tenant’s hope is that if there’s no heir, and the landlord stays abroad
until he dies,
Then maybe they’ll inherit the vineyard and keep the extra produce not just
for one season but forever.
It seems like a kind of harebrained scheme
Makes you wonder how these misguided tenants ever think they’re going to
get away with it.
Don’t they realize that eventually it’s all going to unravel?
Jesus seems to think so.
Because after telling this parable, Jesus, at least according to Matthew,
asks the critical question:
“When the owner of the vineyard returns, what will he do to those tenants?”
2
The Pharisees and the chief priests, fall for the trap Jesus set hook, line,
and sinker
What do you think the landowner will do? Jesus asks
“He will put those wretches to a miserable death, and lease the vineyard to
other tenants who will give him the produce at the harvest time.”
And then the religious men realize they have passed sentence on
themselves
The landowner had given much
And he expected obedience
Part of what had been given away was to be given back to him
One lesson from this parable is that the promise of God, given to the
Israelites, was to be taken to those beyond that nation
Although we are not Israel, we are still God’s chosen
What does this parable mean for us?
The landlord expects the servants to do more than hoard the harvest
They are to do something with what they have been given
What have we been given?
1) Faith
2) Institutional church to support us
3) Inter-church Faith community that cares for and about one another
4) The freedom to openly be children of God
5) The freedom to choose how to serve God
We have a lot
In return we are expected to be obedient
To do justly
Love mercy
3
And walk humbly with our God
We are also expected to give back what we have been given
There may be times that we slip up
There may be times that we think we don’t deserve another chance
Or that other believers don’t deserve a second chance
Logic leads us to the same conclusion as we heard in the parable
What will the owner do? (we have the chief priests’ answer)
Kill them and let the vineyard out to others
The chief priests are pronouncing a sentence on themselves
In contrast to this, what did the landowner who is God, do?
God brings the son back to life
And God continues to be responsible for us
We are fed at the table he provides
When we forget that the gifts of God are not ours to hoard
God gives us another chance to practise giving
God brings the son back to life
In Jesus we see the man of God who changed the face of the world
He spoke of a great vision
Of the Kingdom of God
This kingdom is not merely the kingdom that will one day come
It is here and now
Jesus has come to be among us
He is the son who was sent
The son who was killed
But praise be to God he is the son who is risen again
In his kingdom we find freedom, love and peace
4
In Jesus we are able to rediscover humanity
So that we are filled with new riches
So that we can give one another new courage in our lives
We remember how he spoke to people about a lost coin
About a sheep that had strayed,
About a lost son
Of all those who are lost and no longer count,
Who are out of sight and out of mind,
The weak and the poor
All those who are captive, alone and unloved
We recall that he went to search for all who were lost
For those who were saddened and out in the cold
And how he always took their side
Without forgetting others
And that cost him his life,
Because the mighty of the earth
Would not tolerate it
And yet he knew that he was understood and accepted by God
He saw himself confirmed by God in love
All this we remember as we observe the Lord’s Supper today
We remember that we are called by Jesus
We are fed by Jesus
And that we are commissioned by Jesus
How does knowing Jesus, the landowner’s son, change us?
Knowing Jesus helps us to see that everything we do counts
Someone who lived her faith that way was Therese of Lisieux
5
She wrote of “the little way of childhood”
For Therese, God is Father
She referred to God as Papa, probably much like Abba
It is because of God’s great love that we have confidence
That we are like brothers and sisters together
And we follow this way of love, modeled on a child’s love
She said
“It is not my great desires that please God, but the way I love my littleness”
What is our littleness that we can love and offer to God?
Being faithful day by day
Taking part in the work of the volunteer organizations
Being the small church congregation where each one counts
Giving faithful offerings to causes beyond ourselves
It is simply living in the presence of God
And so we bring to God our daily prayers
Asking to be helped to see and appreciate the gifts given to us
We pray for the troubles we know of, big or small
We use the talents we have for God’s glory
We sing
We listen
We share
We give
Our little way of childhood is not an inferior way, or something that second
grade Christians practise
It is realizing that we live our life, all of our life, in God’s service
Our daily devotional practise is one way we observe the little way of
obedience
6
We Reformed Christinas are people of the book. Sola scriptura (scripture
alone) was the historic rallying cry
Our Reformed tribe cherishes scripture and so we read the Bible in
worship, have pastors learn Hebrew and Greek and carefully exegete it, we
gather in groups to study it, memorize it and analyze it in order to
understand it.
All this activity is good but has a shadow lurking behind it.
What if all our study and attention to the text never leads to listening, to
hearing the God who speaks?
For centuries, Christians have read scripture with awakened ears, listening
for the voice of the living God.
The practice the church used to listen to God’s voice, digest the word and
inhabit the story was called lectio divina (divine reading), and is making a
welcome comeback.
Lectio divina is a fancy Latin term for the age – old Christian practice of
reading God’s word meditatively for the purpose of attending to the living
voice of God in scripture.
It is process that involves slow reading of the passage out loud
Reflecting upon the images and questions that come to mind as you read
Meditating and waiting for God to speak to you
It is reading and savouring scripture, reading it a living document
Understanding it to be part of a conversation, not reading it as a static text
that is removed from you
7
The little way of Therese of Lisieux has us read scripture, and as we hear
God speak, we have this insight to bring to the reality of our lives
As we find ourselves struggling to relate fairly in this world that God has
given
We look to God for guidance
To enable us to be what we need to be, to be faithful consistently
We are given the spirit of God
We are given the gift of prayer and praise
We are given the body of Christ, the church
We are given the sacraments in which we come together as family, as
brothers and sisters at the table of our Lord
We break bread together
Ordinary food
A small meal for those following the little way
We share the wine, the fruit of the vine
And so
What we do in the memory of Jesus
Who was filled by the Spirit
A living and effective sign
Of salvation and wholeness
A sign of mutual and honest love
A sign of freedom, peace and righteousness for all
A sign of love for God our liberator
Prayers of the People
8
Glorious God, remind us of your glorious deeds when we feel we are lost
in the wilderness. When we and those we love experience times of
disappointment and sadness; times of broken expectations (name
particular situations)…
When we are doubtful and uncertain … When we are grief-stricken …
When we cry out, “are you among us or not?”… break into our lives like a
mighty stream, so that we can no longer deny or question your presence.
Rush into the hearts of those for whom we pray (insert names) with your
healing power and love.
And buoy-up your prophets (insert names) as they provide new hope, new
perspectives, and new understandings.
May they look past our complaints to receive our sincere love and
admiration for their ministry in your name. Amen.