Kingdom Expectations

Mark 12:1-12

And he began to speak to them in parables. “A man planted a vineyard and put a fence around it and dug a pit for the winepress and built a tower, and leased it to tenants and went into another country. 2 When the season came, he sent a servant to the tenants to get from them some of the fruit of the vineyard. 3 And they took him and beat him and sent him away empty-handed. 4 Again he sent to them another servant, and they struck him on the head and treated him shamefully. 5 And he sent another, and him they killed. And so with many others: some they beat, and some they killed. 6 He had still one other, a beloved son. Finally he sent him to them, saying, ‘They will respect my son.’ 7 But those tenants said to one another, ‘This is the heir. Come, let us kill him, and the inheritance will be ours.’ 8 And they took him and killed him and threw him out of the vineyard. 9 What will the owner of the vineyard do? He will come and destroy the tenants and give the vineyard to others. 10 Have you not read this Scripture:

“ ‘The stone that the builders rejected has become the cornerstone; 11 this was the Lord’s doing, and it is marvelous in our eyes’?”

12 And they were seeking to arrest him but feared the people, for they perceived that he had told the parable against them. So they left him and went away.

Pray

When I was a young boy about 11, I had my first job during the summer. I worked for a man named Curtis picking vegetables that he would sell at the end of the week at the farmer’s market. He would pick me up around 8am and would bring me home at around 4 or so and all day long I would pick vegetables for the princely sum of $10 a day. Curtis was a straightforward kind of guy, you work, you get paid. At the time, I was thankful for the job but I didn’t particularly like it, but as long as I showed up and helped him collect his produce he would give me a daily wage. As I reflect on that job and that time which was only a couple of months, I am thankful that this man allowed me to benefit from his hard work. I didn’t plant the garden, I didn’t know what it took him to grow these vegetables into something that someone wanted to eat. I wasn’t there during the tilling or fertilizing process, I was only there for the harvest. The satisfying part of pulling a ripe and ready vegetable off of its source of life so that others could take it home and eat. He had expectations for me as a field worker. Many of you worked for a “Curtis” or still do. Your job is much the same as mine when I was younger. Your company started without you, but you were given the opportunity to benefit from it. There are expectations attached to these opportunities. Some higher level companies expect you to act a certain way, dress a certain way and most importantly represent the company well even if you are not at work. These expectations come from the top down.

If we can remember back to last weeks text, Jesus is teaching in the temple and he is confronted by probably what would have been called the Sanhedrin, which was a group of priest and religious teachers. They asked Jesus who gave him the authority to disrupt the practices that were happening in the temple. Remember he turned over the tables and drove out the money changers and all those that were practicing things that were not glorifying to God. Jesus asked them about the baptism of John the Baptist, whether it was from heaven or from man. The religious group knew that either way they answered would not be good for their public look so they said, “We don’t know.” Jesus responds in kind and says, “Neither will I tell you where my authority comes from.”

The chapters and verses are helpful for the most part for our breaking down of the bible but here I think it can do a disservice to us as we study the scripture today because the very first word of the text for today is “and”. This is a continuation from last weeks text. Jesus says that he will not tell them where His authority comes from but if we read this as a continuous story we see that he indirectly answers their question by saying that He is the son of the vineyard owner, doing the will of the Father.

And he began to speak to them in parables. “A man planted a vineyard and put a fence around it and dug a pit for the winepress and built a tower, and leased it to tenants and went into another country.

Let’s really look at this. Who built the vineyard? A man, not the tenants in the story, built a vineyard. He gave it everything that it needed. He did the tilling, he found and planted the seeds, he put a fence up to protect it from robbers and stray animals that would come after the fruit. He took the time to dig a pit for the wine press. They would dig this in the ground to maintain a standard temperature for the wine. The fermentation process can vary if you have varying temperatures. Wine is a delicate process that requires you pay attention to every single step. He built a tower to watch out for the predators or vandals but to also look over the vineyard to make sure he could see all the plants in the vineyard.

This reference to a vineyard would have reminded these learned men of Isaiah 5. In that text it draws the parallel between God, the vineyard owner, and Israel, the tenant.

Let me sing for my beloved my love song concerning his vineyard: My beloved had a vineyard on a very fertile hill. He dug it and cleared it of stones, and planted it with choice vines; he built a watchtower in the midst of it, and hewed out a wine vat in it; and he looked for it to yield grapes

This vineyard owner thought of everything to make a quality product. He just needed workers. It was common practice at that time for foreigners to own land and then lease it out for a portion of the fruit. Vineyards take several years to produce grapes that are good for making wine or vinegar, so the owner of the vineyard gives time for the tenants to take care of the vineyard. Then...

2 When the season came, he sent a servant to the tenants to get from them some of the fruit of the vineyard.

This was the deal. The owner has built the vineyard, put all of the hard work and capital into it and leases it to the tenant to farm it and the owner then gets a percentage. The owner of the vineyard sends his servant to collect His portion. This is the expectation. With your job or when you worked, if you don’t show up and do what you are asked to do, there are consequences.

If we look at the parallel story being told, what did God do for the Israelites? He chose them, He protected them, He set up a system of worship that would glorify Him and would point to the one that would ultimately come and be the salvation of the world. Over time, God sent His messengers to His people in the form of prophets. What did God’s people do to His prophets? Going back to our text for today, the vineyard owner send his servant to collect his portion.

3 And they took him and beat him and sent him away empty-handed. 4 Again he sent to them another servant, and they struck him on the head and treated him shamefully. 5 And he sent another, and him they killed. And so with many others: some they beat, and some they killed.

If we take a look at the prophets that God sent to His people, we can see that this is the case. Their messages were either rejected or they were treated with physical violence. Elisha was mocked, Jeremiah was ridiculed daily. Moses was sent to free the Israelites. After they were free from the bondage of Egypt, the people grumbled about the Lord and about Moses for, what seems like, the entire time they were in the desert. Amos is falsely accused of conspiracy, Isaiah, Micah, Amos and Jeremiah were told to not prophecy any more. The physical violence was as little as a slap in the face, to prison, some were imprisoned with nothing but bread and water to sustain them for long periods of time, some were threatened with death while some like Zechariah were killed. There are many that may not have been recorded as Jesus mentions in Luke 11:49-51

Therefore also the Wisdom of God said, ‘I will send them prophets and apostles, some of whom they will kill and persecute,’ so that the blood of all the prophets, shed from the foundation of the world, may be charged against this generation, from the blood of Abel to the blood of Zechariah, who perished between the altar and the sanctuary. Yes, I tell you, it will be required of this generation.

One writer points out that, “In Jesus’ day, a period known as Second Temple Judaism, there was a boom in monument construction. These structures were intended to pay tribute to the prophets. They were also supposed to point out the piety of the builders, who in building meant to show that they would have obeyed the prophets their forefathers condemned.” If this is true, Jesus, knowing what is in store for him, continues with the parable to show them that they are just as wicked as their forefathers.

6 He had still one other, a beloved son. Finally he sent him to them, saying, ‘They will respect my son.’ 7 But those tenants said to one another, ‘This is the heir. Come, let us kill him, and the inheritance will be ours.’ 8 And they took him and killed him and threw him out of the vineyard.

If they had thought that they were the ones that would have seen the truth and repented of their actions when confronted with a true prophet then they would have been the most blind of all because they were standing in front of the promised Messiah, the one who has fulfilled all of the prophecies of their expected Savior. This is where we have to pause...

Do we see Christ this way? Matthew Henry, the bible commentator from the 17th to early 18th century said this,

“it is easy for us to assume that we would be unlike the scribes and Pharisees and follow Jesus willingly. Yet even centuries later, he writes, “Christ in his Spirit, in his word, in his ministers, is still no better treated.” Are we quick to follow the Lord as He presents Himself today through the preaching of the Word? We have no right to think ourselves better than Pharisees if we are not quick to obey His Word this day.

There is an expectation from God for the Jews then and for us today. Today we find ourselves here in this vineyard. He has built this place for us, not just this church but our lives, our surroundings, the people we come in contact with on a daily basis. The expectation of your work in this vineyard is to produce fruit. This is fruit in your own personal walk with the Lord in letting him change your heart and expel sin and trust Him more everyday as you put less faith in yourself and what YOU think is best and trust in His goodness and His work. That overflows to sharing fruit with your neighbor.

When I am taking a trip, flying any where, there is a safety demonstration where the flight attendant tells me to put my mask on before I help someone else with their mask. Sometimes putting your mask on may help your neighbor see how you are doing it to help them better understand how to put their mask on. There is a fundamental flaw in thinking that your faith is private. The sharing of the blessings of the riches of Christ only grows faith. Opening your arms to more people and sharing the freedom that you have found is a great joy in life. To be able to see the chains of sin fall off of a person, so that they can see a new life in Christ is priceless.

I don’t think that Jax will mind if I share this, but Jax Pratus who was baptized this morning wanted to do it yesterday morning in the river just with his family and me. I spoke to him and told him that I think it is best if he does it in front of the body, because you never know who might see it and how God could use this act and his testimony. After I spoke with him, Jax responded in a very mature way. He said he wanted to do it in front of the church so that, to paraphrase, he could share the gospel with his actions.

This is the work that God has us engaged in, but if you choose to have a hard heart and a rigid idea of who God is, you may miss the blessings that God is working around you.

This group of religious elites had their system and they were no better than their ancestors and since they had disgraced and killed some the servants and went so far as to kill the son of the owner of the vineyard, Jesus asks,

9 What will the owner of the vineyard do? He will come and destroy the tenants and give the vineyard to others.

This type of language would have not been foreign to these educated men. To continue on with Isaiah 5 from earlier. God went to look for fruit from the vineyard...

, but it yielded wild grapes. And now, O inhabitants of Jerusalem and men of Judah, judge between me and my vineyard. What more was there to do for my vineyard, that I have not done in it? When I looked for it to yield grapes, why did it yield wild grapes? And now I will tell you what I will do to my vineyard. I will remove its hedge, and it shall be devoured; I will break down its wall, and it shall be trampled down. I will make it a waste; it shall not be pruned or hoed, and briers and thorns shall grow up; I will also command the clouds that they rain no rain upon it. For the vineyard of the Lord of hosts is the house of Israel, and the men of Judah are his pleasant planting; and he looked for justice, but behold, bloodshed; for righteousness, but behold, an outcry!

This is judgment from the Lord. He is removing the tenants from the vineyard and giving it to others. As we continue on in our verse today, Jesus says,

10 Have you not read this Scripture:

“ ‘The stone that the builders rejected has become the cornerstone; 11 this was the Lord’s doing, and it is marvelous in our eyes’?”

Jesus is quoting from Psalm 118. There is something interesting to notice with this quotation. I looked at a lot of different translations of the bible and found them to mostly be the same. Notice that at the end of the quote there is a question mark. Jesus is showing the religious elites that He is there to do the will of God. He’s telling them that their rejection of Him is known by God and God will use it to build something else. God’s judgement on the Jewish people was coming in the destruction of the temple and their way of doing things that put walls between God’s people and God. He is asking them, do you not see that this thing that is happening is God’s will and it is supposed to be marvelous? We should be celebrating. The very next verse in Psalm 118:22-23 that Jesus quotes is Psalm 118:24 which says, “This is the day that the Lord has made; let us rejoice and be glad in it.” This closing of the old and in the with new should be celebrated because God is dwelling among men and is making a way for all to come. This should be exciting to us. God’s plan of redemption has allowed us access to the King of Kings. He does not rest in a geographic location that we have to travel to, the Holy Spirit will now dwell in all that call Jesus Lord. He has built the vineyard, he has spared no expense and he has placed us in the fertile fields to be a part of his harvest. These are the Kingdom expectations to be loved and to show the love to all around us through Christ. If you hear the call of the Lord today do not harden your heart. The religious elites saw, heard and touched the Lord and they hardened their hearts.

12 And they were seeking to arrest him but feared the people, for they perceived that he had told the parable against them. So they left him and went away.

God is so gracious and merciful to us that He gives us His word to warn us on how not to look at things. He says, in his expectations for us, this way not that way is how I expect you to live. He tells us what he expects of our hearts and of our minds. He doesn’t have a list of to-dos that we can check boxes to please him but what he really requires from us is surrender.