10.08.2023 - The Lord of the Harvest

Scripture: Matthew 21:33-46

Matthew 21:33–46 NIV

33 “Listen to another parable: There was a landowner who planted a vineyard. He put a wall around it, dug a winepress in it and built a watchtower. Then he rented the vineyard to some farmers and moved to another place. 34 When the harvest time approached, he sent his servants to the tenants to collect his fruit. 35 “The tenants seized his servants; they beat one, killed another, and stoned a third. 36 Then he sent other servants to them, more than the first time, and the tenants treated them the same way. 37 Last of all, he sent his son to them. ‘They will respect my son,’ he said. 38 “But when the tenants saw the son, they said to each other, ‘This is the heir. Come, let’s kill him and take his inheritance.’ 39 So they took him and threw him out of the vineyard and killed him. 40 “Therefore, when the owner of the vineyard comes, what will he do to those tenants?” 41 “He will bring those wretches to a wretched end,” they replied, “and he will rent the vineyard to other tenants, who will give him his share of the crop at harvest time.” 42 Jesus said to them, “Have you never read in the Scriptures: “ ‘The stone the builders rejected has become the cornerstone; the Lord has done this, and it is marvelous in our eyes’? 43 “Therefore I tell you that the kingdom of God will be taken away from you and given to a people who will produce its fruit. 44 Anyone who falls on this stone will be broken to pieces; anyone on whom it falls will be crushed.” 45 When the chief priests and the Pharisees heard Jesus’ parables, they knew he was talking about them. 46 They looked for a way to arrest him, but they were afraid of the crowd because the people held that he was a prophet.

Order of Service:

Announcements

Kid’s Time

Opening Worship

Prayer Requests

Prayer Song

Pastoral Prayer

Offering (Doxology and Offering Prayer)

Scripture Reading

Sermon

Closing Song

Benediction

The Lord of the Harvest

Degrees of separation

Social scientists believe that everyone is only six relationships away from anyone else in the world. It has been popularized by the actor Kevin Bacon, who has become a kind of mascot for the six degrees of separation theory.

How does this work? I have never met Kevin Bacon or any other Hollywood actor. But my mom has a cousin who worked at Disney World in Orlando, helping run the trains. He may not have met many of the actors, but chances are good that he met someone who did. Last year, Disney did a special Christmas movie involving some Marvel superheroes that kidnapped Kevin Bacon and took him into space. So that gives me 1) Mom, 2) Her cousin, 3) Another Disney worker, 4) one of the Marvel actors, 5) Kevin Bacon... I might only be 5 degrees of separation from him.

The theory claims that it can work with anyone. What about King Charles over in the UK? Bekah and I have never traveled outside the US, but about five years ago, I became friends with a retired physicist named John Low, who lives in Scotland. I doubt he has ever met King Charles, but he has a niece who works in the judicial system and was recently promoted to one of England's high court judges. If she has yet to meet King Charles, she probably works with someone who has. So that is 1) John, 2) his niece, 3) maybe a co-worker, and 4) King Charles. I might be relationally closer to royalty than I am to Kevin Bacon.

It can be fun to think about who we might be connected to worldwide and throughout history. We would be surprised to learn how few degrees of separation exist between people we admire and those we do not.

What about Jesus? How many degrees of separation do you have between you and Him? When Jesus speaks to you, how many people does He pass the message to before it gets to you?

Sometimes, we keep Jesus at a distance, developing those degrees of separation so that we don’t always feel so convicted. Like the Old Testament Temple and Tabernacle, we don’t think we can stand in the presence of His Holiness, so we put layers of people and things between us. It is what we think we want, but it is not what God wants. God wants to be in a direct relationship with us. Not our parents, not our pastors, or Bible study leaders. He wants to pour out His love and gifts upon us, and if we are to be good stewards of God's gifts, we must give God what we owe Him. That is what it means to be in a relationship with God.

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The Gift

A kind of economy, or give-and-take system, exists in every relationship. That economy grows and changes because we all grow and change over time. I’m not an expert at this, but I suspect that if we measured how complicated those systems were based on how close the relationship was, it would probably look like a bell curve.

For example, your relationship with your mail carrier is simpler than your relationship with your doctor. As friendships grow over time, they go through testing grounds when they get complicated enough that we have to decide whether to get closer and simplify the relationship by committing to share more or to back away to a give-and-take economy that is easier to manage. Every relationship has breaking points where decisions must be made to move forward.

Jesus taught this in the parable you have heard today. It is like a vineyard owner who created a prosperous vineyard and rented it to tenant workers. They work the land and enjoy the fruit of their labor, giving the landowner a portion of their harvest. Give and take. That was a standard relationship with plenty of room to grow.

Those who heard Jesus tell this parable in Jerusalem would probably have remembered the parable from Isaiah 5, where God claimed to be the vineyard owner, but His people, Israel, are the vineyard, not the tenant farmers. Those farmers may represent the leaders of the people. Another way to think of it was that God had a degree of separation between Him and His people, and the leaders stood between them, responsible for maintaining the overall relationship. So, the gift here is not merely a plot of land and farming equipment to work it. This gift represents a people, a family, and a chance to live and lead others in a plentiful life.

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The Giver

Sometimes, we misunderstand what the gift of life is. When things are easy, we might believe that the gift of life means 75 years of fun, family, and football games with some hard work to keep us grateful. But if we go back to the parable, it tells us that the owner did not give them the vineyard. He rented it to them. That means they received one harvest season instead of 75 harvests and were expected to pay the owner what he was due. Like the parable last week, for the workers, the gift is not the land. The gift is being chosen to serve and work that comes with rewards. But the most important gift is a relationship with the Giver.

I have often felt that cold, business-only relationships are easier to manage because the give-and-take rules are clear, and often, the relationships are short-term. When you buy a house from a real estate company, they hand you the keys, and it is yours to do as you please from that day forward. My parents bought a house from a couple that built a new house connected to our backyard. For the rest of their time there, they always felt like they were being judged on how they kept it up as the previous owners watched from the windows of their new house across the lawn. We had an ongoing relationship that caused some complications. It is not bad or wrong, but it creates some challenges in the relationship.

If the vineyard owner in the parable had been more businesslike, the tenant farmers would have been removed and replaced after the first harvest season. Because the owner showed patience and mercy, those farmers got bold and decided to change the relationship on their own. They would take, but they would not give.

Our relationships change us. These tenant farmers grew more selfish and distrustful. They took the vineyard given to them and made it into a fortress. They kept the harvest to themselves and kept out the owner and the many servants he sent to them—some they killed. When the owner finally sent his son, who would one day inherit it all, they plotted to kill him and take the vineyard for themselves, once and for all. Rather than return the love, grace, and mercy the vineyard owner extended them, these tenant farmers decided to cut off the relationship altogether. They became an extreme example of what happens when we love the gift more than the Giver.

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Give and Take → Sharing Everything

The parables Jesus taught at the end of His ministry when He was in the Temple in Jerusalem were much harsher and more pointed than those He taught on the shores and in the fields of Galilee. He did so because the Jewish leaders were there in His presence. It was the opportunity Jesus had to tell them they were running off the road, and a cliff was coming up quickly. Like the watchmen of Jerusalem in the book of Ezekiel, these leaders were tasked with leading and protecting the people of God. If they saw danger but did not warn the people, they would be guilty of any tragedy that followed.

We know that nearly everyone turned and betrayed Jesus by running away when the guards came to arrest Him or by standing in the crowd shouting, “Crucify Him!” There were no innocents left when this parable became a reality. And it was not a cautionary tale that was fated to come true whether people wanted it to or not. Jesus gave a purpose for this parable. It was so the new cornerstone of the relationship between God and His people would be accepted rather than rejected.

The relationship between God and His people had grown very complicated. They were trying to tithe or give 10 percent of everything they had to win God’s favor and hopefully be delivered from their Roman captors. Can you imagine living like that? One-tenth of the salt in their salt shakers went to God. One out of every ten socks belonged to Him. They measured and weighed everything and brought ten percent to the Temple. And they did their best to make sure their neighbors did the same.

But after hundreds of years without political or spiritual freedom, they began questioning whether God wanted them. They could no longer handle the separation between them and God because they knew they needed Him to come and rescue them. They were at the breaking point with God, and they needed the relationship to be simpler if they were going to move forward.

So God sent Jesus, the one the Jewish leaders rejected from birth. He laid his entire life down first as a cornerstone and invited everyone to lay their lives down with Him. Not ten percent of their lives, but all of it. He taught that saying no to complicated relationships with God does not mean God gives and we take. It means that we share. God gives everything, and we offer everything we have and are, and the real gift of life happens there between us. That seems like such a strange concept, yet that is so much of what the Garden of Eden was in the beginning. And that is how Jesus describes heaven in his parables.

Jesus is the Lord of the Harvest. We offer ourselves to Him not because we can earn anything that way but because we are His. He gave us life, and He keeps giving us more every day.

What gift are you holding too tightly that you need to return to God in thanks and praise?

What is standing between you and Jesus, and how is it influencing your relationship with Him?

Jesus came to earth to eliminate those degrees of separation between us and God. The way to break down those barriers is to offer yourself to Him and share your life with Him so He can share His eternal life with you.