Sermon Tone Analysis
Overall tone of the sermon
This automated analysis scores the text on the likely presence of emotional, language, and social tones. There are no right or wrong scores; this is just an indication of tones readers or listeners may pick up from the text.
A score of 0.5 or higher indicates the tone is likely present.
Emotion Tone
Anger
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Disgust
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Fear
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Joy
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Sadness
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Language Tone
Analytical
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Social Tone
Openness
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Conscientiousness
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Extraversion
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Agreeableness
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Tone of specific sentences
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Anger
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I don’t keep up with country music much anymore.
It seems to be a bit too complicated for a simple guy like me.
I preferred the days when all country western songs were pretty much all about the same thing.
One song after the next was about something like losing my girlfriend, and my truck broke down, and my dog left me, and on and on.
It used to seem like country western ballads were all a sort of woe-is-me picture of some guy who presumed himself to have everything in the world turn against him.
Everything and everyone who ever meant so much has somehow all turned their backs and walked away.
A country singer would tell the tale of I done tried the best I could to give her all my best.
And now my lover done me wrong and just up and walked away after I done so much for her.
That’s today’s parable.
Jesus is singing a country western ballad about how his lover done him wrong.
He tells it through the story of a vineyard.
Let’s pick apart this story a little bit today and see what’s going on here.
At first glance there is nothing particularly striking about what Jesus is saying.
It was very common in those days for people to own land that could be farmed, but they would not work it themselves.
Instead they would let others come in and tend the agriculture.
Those tenants who worked the land would produce the crop and pay back the landowner, so he could get a profit on his investment.
In this case we see the picture of a landowner who goes the extra mile to set up his tenants with what they need for producing a successful and bountiful harvest.
He sets up and plants the vineyard himself.
The owner makes all of the initial investments himself.
It doesn’t seem as though the tenants have to do any of the work of clearing the field of trees or rocks.
They do not have to plow and prepare the soil.
They do not have to acquire the grape vines or put them in.
The landowner has already done all that work.
In other words, the owner has set up everything so that he has every right and expectation to return and see a harvest.
Audience
This parable is for religious insiders
I think those people who listened to Jesus tell this parable heard this story before.
In Luke 20 there is a tense conversation that takes place right before this story.
Jesus is approached by the teachers of the law and the chief priests and the elders who all question him about his authority.
These teachers of the law and chief priests and elders were the religious elite.
These were the insiders who had been a part of the Jewish religious tradition all their lives.
They had all the Sunday school classes.
They were graduates of the local private school and had all their Bible classes.
They knew all the right answers and they knew all the expectations.
This is the audience.
Jesus knew he was telling this story to people who knew their Old Testament scripture well.
This is a story that is pointed at people who saw themselves as religious people.
This is a story for people who would already identify themselves as followers of God.
This is not a story for the outsider, or the seeker, or the marginalized person who is left on the fringes.
Nope.
The parable of the tenants is meant as a story for anyone who walks into church on a Sunday morning with a complete comfort and ease of being in a room of exact familiarity.
I have been in this place for so long that I know exactly what I expect to take place here and how it will go.
I know the religious formula.
And then someone comes along who upsets that formula by doing some things in a way that challenges this set of religious values and priorities that I have held on to so tightly for all my life.
What gives him the right?
The chief priests ask Jesus, by what authority do you think you can come along and tell us that the way we’ve always done things our whole lives is somehow wrong?
Who do you think you are?
That’s the setup for this parable.
This is a story that Jesus aims squarely at anyone who has ever caught themselves thinking this must be the right way because we’ve always done it this way.
And anyone else who wants to follow God better get in step and do things the same way as I do.
Jesus takes this parable from their religious tradition
Isaiah 5:1-7 (Song of the Vineyard)
So, when the authority of Jesus is questioned by those who think they have all the inside knowledge, and the weight of history and tradition is all stacked on their side, Jesus responds with a story.
In particular, this is a story that actually is not a new one.
In fact, this is a story that comes right out of their tradition.
A few of the details are different, but those religious leaders would have understood the reference immediately.
The story of the vineyard comes right out of Isaiah 5.
This one comes back from the day when country western songs were real ballads.
They just don’t write lover-done-me-wrong ditties like this anymore.
With this parable, Jesus revives a retro classic.
Point of Reference
Twist - from the vineyard to the tenants
Jesus is playing with a familiar story here.
But, he is taking this parable from the prophet Isaiah and turning it with a new twist to once again draw out the message in a fresh way.
Last week we introduced this series on parables with a few features which we will always be looking for in any parable.
One of those features is the point of reference.
We will always be looking for the place in the parable in which we—the audience—is supposed to relate and find ourselves in the story.
This one has a twist.
In Isaiah’s version of the parable back in the Old Testament the point of reference was the vineyard itself.
Isaiah even says so in stating that the vineyard of the LORD Almighty is the nation of Israel.
In that version of the story, it is the vineyard itself that is taken and destroyed.
Old Testament biblical history made the meaning of this story clear for the Israelites of Jesus’ day.
Isaiah was foretelling the Babylonian exile.
Now here is the twist.
The Jewish people of Jesus’ day would have said that this story is over and done.
The Babylonian exile accomplished God’s judgement for the sins of those people in that day.
And now Jesus puts a fresh coat of paint on this old parable and says, Not so fast.
The lesson and the affects of this parable are not necessarily over and done.
Now the point of reference has shifted with the introduction of some new characters into the story.
The vineyard is no longer the point of reference.
Now there are tenants called in to tend and take care of the vineyard.
The tenants are the point of reference in which all who here this story should place themselves.
Here is where the point of reference shows how the story evolves to a new time and a new audience.
In Isaiah’s version, God gives everything that was needed for his people to flourish and produce a bountiful blessing upon the earth as his chosen people.
But instead they produce only bad fruit.
Jesus takes this one step further.
Now the people turn and full-on reject the owner of the vineyard himself.
And they go even one step further, the tenants think to themselves that this is now their vineyard.
They steal for themselves all the blessings and benefits of the vineyard by throwing out and killing the beloved so of the landowner.
Twist - from a history lesson to a present day application
Alright.
There is a face-value immediate application to what Jesus is saying.
Of course, there is a reference here to Jesus predicting his own death as the Son of God at the hands of the Jewish religious leaders.
There is a reference here to the spreading of the New Testament church in which the landowner calls for new tenants after killing the original tenants.
Here is where the point of reference drives home for us.
The religious people in Jesus looked back at the Song of the Vineyard from Isaiah 5 and thought that it was over and done—that it now just stands as a history lesson.
And Jesus says, Not so fast, there is still a lesson here you need to learn.
Could it be that for us now—the religious people of our own day—that we look at the parable of the tenant and think the same thing.
That’s over and done.
Jesus has already sacrificed himself on the cross.
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