Matthew 26

Now at this point Jesus has already entered Jerusalem for the last time and we are approaching His arrest. While in the temple one day some priests and elders came to Him and asked Him a question, they asked Him by whose authority was He doing these things referring to His ministry in general. Jesus tells them that He will answer their question if they can first answer His and He asks them if the baptisms that John the Baptist performed were from God or from men. They thought about the question and decided that they could not admit it was from God and show fault but they could not say it was from man as the people around them all loved John and they feared what would happen to them so they answered by saying they did not know. So Jesus says then I will not answer your question either.

And He doesn’t answer their question directly, but in the next two parables He then tells them He actually does give them an answer. Lets look at the first one in verse 28.

Matthew 21:28–29 ““But what do you think? A man had two sons, and he came to the first and said, ‘Son, go, work today in my vineyard.’ He answered and said, ‘I will not,’ but afterward he regretted it and went.”

Matthew 21:30–31 “Then he came to the second and said likewise. And he answered and said, ‘I go, sir,’ but he did not go. Which of the two did the will of his father?” They said to Him, “The first.” Jesus said to them, “Assuredly, I say to you that tax collectors and harlots enter the kingdom of God before you.”

Matthew 21:32 “For John came to you in the way of righteousness, and you did not believe him; but tax collectors and harlots believed him; and when you saw it, you did not afterward relent and believe him.”

So, Jesus says I won’t tell you, but what do you think about this. What Jesus is trying to do in the this parable and the next is to get the men to admit their own fault and essentially answer their own question without even knowing it. This was a common use of parables even before Jesus as we can see many people in the Old Testament use this same strategy. Often times we as humans cannot see our own fault but if we were on the outside looking in then we would be able to clearly see what we have gotten wrong and that is exactly what Jesus is doing here, giving them an outside perspective on their question and situation.

So then, what does this parable teach us? Let’s break it down slowly and understand the parts. Of course in this situation the man who has the two sons is representative of the Father. What this tells us is that all of mankind in underneath the Father. We all belong to Him and in some sense can be considered His children though not in the fullest sense.

Then we have the call. The Father extends a call to both of His sons. What is this a call to? In the parable it is a call to work in His vineyard. What that translates to for us is a call to serve Him. To no longer labor and toil for merely our own human efforts but to instead work in service to the Father in His mission of reclaiming the world. To accept this call to work is to first be made new by Him then to begin working for Him. Both steps are important but we must make sure that they are of course in the right order. You cannot truly work for Him in changing the world and sharing His name unless you have first been made into a new creation like we talked about last week. He extends the same call to both of them as well. Notice like we said last week that God extends this calling to everyone though we see two different responses here to look at.

The first response is an initial rejection followed by delayed obedience and the second response is initial acceptance followed by disobedience. Then Jesus poses the question who did the will of his father? The men rightly answer that the first did the will of his father because the first may have started out bad but he corrected it and actually did what his father wanted while the second honored his father in person but never truly obeyed him. Jesus relates this to the tax collectors and harlots people who were considered the worst of the worst yet upon hearing the preaching of John and of Christ they repented and began doing the will of the Father yet these men Christ was talking to now had been living outwardly good lives but refused the true will of the Father which was to honor Christ.

How does this relate to us then? Of course this passage is primarily about salvation and how some reject Christ and some come to Christ, but their is still a lesson for us to learn as believers as well. We have been chosen to work in the vineyard, to serve the Father in this world and share Christ and live righteously and impact the world around us for His glory. However, we often look at our own past mistakes and feel like we are disqualified to serve Him. That because of our past failures and rejections of Him that we cannot possibly glorify Him. God is not concerned with what happened in the past, He is not concerned with what happened last week or yesterday or an hour ago or with a minute ago, He is concerned with what you do next. That is how we are to live as Christians, not allowing our past mistakes to weigh us down but everyday starting fresh and trying again. Standing up and brushing the dirt off and serving God to the best of our abilities today. There will always be times when we reject like the first son and refuse to do the Fathers will whether it be by willful sin or refusal to obey, but God gives us the opportunity to repent of what we have done and try again.

Now let’s look at the second parable Jesus uses here.

Matthew 21:33 ““Hear another parable: There was a certain landowner who planted a vineyard and set a hedge around it, dug a winepress in it and built a tower. And he leased it to vinedressers and went into a far country.”

Matthew 21:34–35 “Now when vintage-time drew near, he sent his servants to the vinedressers, that they might receive its fruit. And the vinedressers took his servants, beat one, killed one, and stoned another.”

Matthew 21:36–37 “Again he sent other servants, more than the first, and they did likewise to them. Then last of all he sent his son to them, saying, ‘They will respect my son.’”

Matthew 21:38–39 “But when the vinedressers saw the son, they said among themselves, ‘This is the heir. Come, let us kill him and seize his inheritance.’ So they took him and cast him out of the vineyard and killed him.”

Again we can start by breaking down the parable and discerning what represents what in this scenario. First is an easy one and that is the landowner. Like in all of the other parables the one with the most authority and power is always representative of God the Father as He is the ultimate authority of the universe. Then we get the vineyard that the landowner creates, this is obviously representative of the world as a whole. His leasing it to vinedressers can be considered is initial choosing of the Israelite people to represent His kingdom on Earth. Now a really neat thing here is the servants. Jesus is specific with the first three servants saying that one was beaten, one was killed and one was stoned. These specifications were not merely for dramatic effect, but tell us the identities of the servants as a whole and probably the exact identities of these three servants. The servants at large in this parable represent the prophets of the Old Testament that God sent to instruct and correct the people of Israel. These prophets were often treated poorly as people do not like to be corrected and we know that Jeremiah was beaten, Isaiah was killed, and Zechariah son of Jehoiada was stoned.

Jesus got specific in this instance likely to make it more clear to these men who were priests and elders just exactly what He was talking about once He explains the parable so they would understand their role in this. Next there are more servants sent that are persecuted one of these we could likely assume to be John the Baptist based on the previous conversation. Finally the landowner sends his own son. Who do we think that might could be in the parable? Obviously again the son represents Christ Himself and here He predicts His own persecution and death.

Jesus then ends by asking them what the landowner will do whenever he comes to the vineyard then. Let’s see what the men answer.

Matthew 21:41 “They said to Him, “He will destroy those wicked men miserably, and lease his vineyard to other vinedressers who will render to him the fruits in their seasons.””

Here is where we start to see the meaning of this parable. By even our own accounts this is what all of mankind deserves. Whenever we take a step back and judge our own actions as if we were on the outside looking in then if we were honest with ourselves all of us deserve nothing but God’s wrath. We are wicked and evil at heart and that is simply the natural state of man.

There is good news for us though. Even though we are born into this world as a wicked sinner, we do not have to stay that way. Just like in the first parable the Father extends a call to work in the vineyard. To repent of your former rejection and former sin, strive to eliminate sin from your life and trust in Him through the power of the Holy Spirit.

If you are a believer already, I by no means intend to sow any seeds of doubt into your mind. I hope that you can be assured in your salvation while at the same time have a fire lit under you to grow in your walk with Christ. To do His will more often and glorify His name in what we do. Seek righteousness and shun wickedness. That is how we as believers become good workers in the vineyard. We try to do what is right every day meaning we look for people who need us and who need Christ and we help. It means that when everyone else around us is taking the easy road and going along with the sin we go against the grain and strike a new path towards Christ. To be a good worker in the Fathers vineyard is difficult work, but it is rewarding work. It brings joy and fulfillment like no other work can in this life and it is the assurance of a better life to come.