Nineteenth Sunday after Pentecost
Matthew 21:33-46
October 4, 2026
In the King James, the “tenants” are called vinedressers; wicked vinedressers, and wicked they surely are. But not only wicked, for these vinedressers are the epitome of foolishness! How could they conclude that killing those sent to them by the owner of the vineyard would result in their becoming the owners of the vineyard, especially when they murdered his own son?
Now, the setting for this parable is in Jerusalem. Last week we learned that the religious leaders of the Jews, maybe the temple priests, heard Jesus preaching in the temple court and came to him to question His authority. They tried to lure Jesus into a rhetorical trap to which He ultimately trapped them in their own hypocrisy.
Today’s Gospel reading continues on with this interaction in the temple court.
(describe the parable)
Now, the religious leaders, after hearing the parable, they acknowledge that those wicked vinedressers, foolish and murderous as they are, should be thrown out and destroyed and the vineyard given to more trustworthy people. And then they realize that Jesus is actually talking about them and they want to do precisely what the parable reveals – arrest Jesus and ultimately have Him crucified.
But Jesus brings the reality of the parable into focus for them. “The stone the builders rejected has become the chief cornerstone”; Jesus quotes Psalm 118. And looking right at those religious leaders and priests, Jesus says, “The kingdom will be taken from you and given to a people who will bear its fruits.”
Israel had never fully embraced the mercy and rule of God. The Lord sent them many, many prophets, or if we go back to before the time of the kings, the Lord sent judges to defend the people of Israel and to call them back to repentance. But with the prophets, they killed them, beat them, mistreated them, threw them out – and they would not listen to them. Even after returning from the Babylonian exile, Israel went back to its captivity to sin and rebellion. The final prophet was John the baptizer, and he was rejected.
The Old Testament calls Israel a bunch of wild grapes and warns them, but they don’t listen.
And when the Lord sends His own Son, born of the Virgin Mary, He came to warn Israel, to call them to repent, to speak woes against them, but they dragged Him out of the city and crucified Him on a Roman cross. He didn’t come to punish them. I suppose He could have, but no, He came to save them, and once again, they refused; they were unwilling.
After Jesus rose from the dead and ascended, the Apostles continued to preach repentance and faith, and the religious leaders continued to persecute these new tenants. Finally, Rome got so fed up with the Jews that they leveled Jerusalem and left her desolate for generations. In fact, the Israel of today is nothing like the Israel of 2,000 years ago. The vineyard is gone.
But what you must understand is such is the power of sin. Sin destroys. Sin makes men foolish and rivalrous and disdainful of God’s commands. Sin is the fuel of unbelief and by it, the foolishness of unbelief is exposed.
And we look at those wicked vinedressers; we look at those priests and religious leaders to which Jesus spoke, and we marvel at their foolishness and their stubbornness and their blindness, we do. And the parable forces us to marvel.
But dear brothers and sisters in Christ, this parable was not merely given by our Lord for them; this parable was also given for you.
But before we delve into this parable as our Christian guide, let us first consider the relentless Gospel strung through this parable.
There is a love, a compassion exhibited by the master toward his vineyard. The parable reveals the depth of his care in planting the vineyard, in preparing the soil, in protecting its borders.
And he even exhibited a patience toward those wicked vinedressers, sending them servant after servant so that they might collect the fruits of the field. He even sent his own son with the hopes that those tenants would do what’s right; what’s expected. He didn’t threaten them or send the law after them, not right away, but he acted as no other master, no other employer would act toward his employees, or even toward his field.
This is how the Lord is toward you, his holy people. On account of Christ, He has brought you into His vineyard, the eternal kingdom, the Israel of faith. Here He has built an impenetrable wall, setting you apart from the world by your baptism. He has built a high tower and from it comes the cries of the dangers of sin and temptation, along with the enemies of the Gospel, the false prophets and their many false teachings. He has dug for you the great wine press, the very body and blood of Christ your Lord which enlivens and sustains faith and the resulting life of obedience to His Word and good works for your neighbor. In this vineyard, this kingdom, you are free, free from sin and death and free to live and rejoice in the salvation He gives. All this is the Lord’s doing and we can only see it as a marvelous thing, that He would be so loving and patient toward us in this way.
We gather here, in this place, in this church, before this Word and these Sacraments, because our Lord commands it, but also because it is His way of keeping us firmly established in His vineyard. We come to remember and give thanks to His only Son, Christ our Lord, who was rejected by the old and wicked vinedressers so that, by His death, we are now the vinedressers of faith, the vineyard of faith in God and fervent love toward one another.
But here is where trouble seeps in like poison and from which we must take heed and repent.
What were the two great sins of those wicked vinedressers? The first was a rejection of His rules, and the second was the rejection of His Son.
Today, perhaps more than ever before, many who claim to be Christian also find it advantageous to reject the rules.
First, individual Christians reject the rules by becoming involved in sinful living of which they refuse to repent. A refusal to forgive the sins of others, cohabitation outside of marriage, tax evasion and theft, a lazy attitude toward church attendance, a greedy attitude toward faithful stewardship of their time and treasures, the commandments, treated as, at best, good suggestions and at worst, inconvenient personal living restrictions.
They say to themselves, “I can be a true Christian, but I can still live my life as I please and not really be committed to any of the churchy stuff which is boring and takes time out of my busy schedule. I can be Christian and keep sinning as I please because God just forgives me anyway. I can be a good Christian without changing my life, my habits, my convictions, my priorities, my desires.” And they convince themselves of this because they do not want to follow the rules of the vineyard.
And entire congregations do the same. They say, “We can be a Christian church without the rules.” The Law of God is buried under cliches and niceties. Ministers of the church say that they cannot be effective ministers to people if the law is condemning sin or comes across as “judgmental” or “rude.” Right now, in the LCMS, there is a great battle brewing between “Missional” churches and “Confessional” churches where those so called “missional” churches say, “Anything goes for the sake of mission, the sake of the Gospel.” It’s the SAME EXACT LINGO the pastors of seminex used when those pastors and church leaders said, “For the sake of the Gospel, anything goes, including getting rid of the law.”
When a church says, “For the sake of growth, anything goes,” and they abandon sound teaching, faithful practice of the Sacraments, what they’re really abandoning is the rules of the vineyard, rules that the Lord Himself set.
And what are the rules of the vineyard? Repentance and Forgiveness. We are brought into this vineyard, into this kingdom, into this church by the forgiveness of sins. We are kept in this kingdom by the forgiveness of sins. Churches that turn a blind eye to sins, they are not churches that can offer forgiveness. Churches that embrace sinful living, such churches cannot proclaim forgiveness. Sin destroys. Sin corrupts. Sin leads only to death. And when people persist in sin, their hearts harden more and more and then they start to take offense at the Law of God, the rules of the vineyard, that they are sinners in need of God’s mercy. They deprive themselves of the Means of Grace, the Word and Sacraments, their church attendance flounders or altogether stops, and their faith has left.
They might convince themselves that they’re still a Christian, but when pressed, when push comes to shove, Jesus isn’t the reason. They may convince themselves that they’re good people, that they don’t swear, that they don’t do too much partying and that they pay their taxes and this makes them ‘good Christians’ but such is not what makes anyone Christian.
When the church stops condemning sin, then even forgiveness loses its force. And if you don’t need, really need forgiveness because you’ve stored up enough good works, then what good is the church at all. In fact, maybe it’s just an inconvenience to even go, OR maybe you’re looking for a church that doesn’t convict you of sin and call you to repentance.
This was the problem with the Jews. They wanted to be in the vineyard, but they didn’t want the rules of the vineyard.
And this ultimately leads to a rejection of the Son. Why did those religious leaders in Jerusalem reject Jesus? Because He spoke the truth and they didn’t want to hear it. Why do people today, Christians today reject Jesus, reject the Word of God, the Commandments? Because Jesus speaks the truth and far too many who claim to be Christian simply do not want to hear it. And so, they invent for themselves their own religions, their own churches, their own vineyards and Jesus’ who please them, who say what they want, but in so doing they lose Christ Jesus, the only true Son of God, the epitome of God’s patience and kindness toward sinners.
This is why we must be careful not to assume that every church is Christian just because it has a cross or says it is. A church is Christian that proclaims the full council of God, the Law and the Gospel, that calls sinners to repentance and faith, that does not offer excuses for sins but instead offers God’s grace and calls Christians to holy living. For the stone upon which people stumble into unbelief is also the crushing stone that, on the last day, will crush to eternal death anyone who refuses to repent and acknowledge the Son of God.
Therefore repent. Use this wonderful gift of repentance the Lord has provided. Run to the cornerstone, Christ Jesus and His holy Word that you might turn and live, and then embrace the forgiveness, life, and salvation He has won for you and that He freely gives. Live as people of the vineyard, free, full of the Spirit, and fully redeemed by the blood of Christ, and bearing the good fruits of faith. Amen.
