Feast from the Fruit of the Vine

Introduction

As we have mentioned earlier, Covid has changed my plans. I will be putting on hold the continuation of the Series of What we hold to be true. A key component of this series was to get together and to study the Main idea.

As this is difficult to do, I will be putting that on hold, but hopefully in the near future, maybe the spring, we will finish the series.

When we were first married, Heather and I were living on campus at Winnipeg Bible College and the house we rented has a huge garden.

For some of you this would be a delight but for me it was a challenge.

I love to see things grow so I began the challenge of a garden.

Not knowing much, I thought it was as simple as following the depth and spacing of seeds described in the package, plant and watch them grow.

Weeding, what’s that,

watering, well that’s God’s job.

Protecting the crop from rabbits, What!

What I did learn it was a lot of work.

I learned a lot from the first time we planted. Then there was the the harvest. bumper crop, no, but satisfying.

Next I began to learn about fruit

More specifically, raspberries. We were introduced to the plant when we moved into our home in Olds, AB. The previous home owner loved to garden. Majority of the land was filled with flower or garden beds with a small garden at the back.

It’s amazing what Sod will cover up.

By the time we left, we had successfully changed the landscape of the place only leaving the raspberry patch.

Through those years at the house and help from a neighbour, I learned that in order to have a feast on raspberries, measures need to take place in the fall, spring and during harvest. It was an ongoing process in order to reap the benefit from the fruit on the vine.

I learned much, and soon found myself teaching my neigbour in Calgary about his raspberry patch.

This morning’s sermon I have entitled “Feast from the fruit of the Vine”. We are going to look at a passage in Luke and discover what we need to do as Christians in order to Feast from the fruit on the vine.

Let’s Read Luke 20 9-19

Luke 20:9–19 ESV

9 And he began to tell the people this parable: “A man planted a vineyard and let it out to tenants and went into another country for a long while. 10 When the time came, he sent a servant to the tenants, so that they would give him some of the fruit of the vineyard. But the tenants beat him and sent him away empty-handed. 11 And he sent another servant. But they also beat and treated him shamefully, and sent him away empty-handed. 12 And he sent yet a third. This one also they wounded and cast out. 13 Then the owner of the vineyard said, ‘What shall I do? I will send my beloved son; perhaps they will respect him.’ 14 But when the tenants saw him, they said to themselves, ‘This is the heir. Let us kill him, so that the inheritance may be ours.’ 15 And they threw him out of the vineyard and killed him. What then will the owner of the vineyard do to them? 16 He will come and destroy those tenants and give the vineyard to others.” When they heard this, they said, “Surely not!” 17 But he looked directly at them and said, “What then is this that is written: “ ‘The stone that the builders rejected has become the cornerstone’? 18 Everyone who falls on that stone will be broken to pieces, and when it falls on anyone, it will crush him.” 19 The scribes and the chief priests sought to lay hands on him at that very hour, for they perceived that he had told this parable against them, but they feared the people.

Parable’s Outline

As we go through this passage you will notice three parts: The Parable’s Outline, it’s meaning, and finally it’s application for us today.

Jesus used many parables to describe lessons for the people of his day. It is my hope that as we look into this passage we too will discover a new way to Feast from the fruit of the Vine.

Let’s first look at the outline of the parable, the breakdown of the story that Jesus used to tell his lesson. This is one of the parables recorded in Matthew and Mark as well as Luke. I will be jumping to each of these recordings in order to get a fuller picture of the parable.

Vineyard’s Purpose

The parable begins with stating the purpose of the vineyard.

“A man planted a vineyard.”

Simple, right? Luke in describing this parable chose to leave out to the readers of this story what it all took to plant the vineyard. He assumes that the readers would understand what was all have to happen in order to successfully plant a vineyard. It would take more than planting.

I grew up and live in places that growing a vineyard was the wrong climate.

Our oldest son was born in Wpg on a warm day of -24 as the week before was -40. Vineyards don’t like that type of weather.

Many of you may have grown up with vineyards, but from what I learned in my short years in working with gardening, it is much more than planting.

Books need to be read. Soil needs to be prepared. The initial new plants must be chosen to carry on the garden.

You see Luke assumes we know all this… He assumes when he says, He planted a vineyard that we would understand the process.

Matthew and Mark added more to the story.

Matthew 21:33 ESV

33 “Hear another parable. There was a master of a house who planted a vineyard and put a fence around it and dug a winepress in it and built a tower and leased it to tenants, and went into another country.

· Protection for potential thieves who would come in to destroy or take the crop.

· Protection from animals that would make their way into the vineyard for their substance.

Did you notice what else he built?

He built a winepress.

· He expected fruit.

· It wasn’t to make the land look good, he expected fruit in order to make wine.

· There was a purpose in this vineyard. There was the expectation that something would come out of it.

· Something, mainly fruit would be an end result of all the work put into the preparation.

He build a watch tower.

· Here is a picture of a watchtower used in the middle east

· watch-tower is built in the vineyards, generally of large stones without mortar, and on the top of it is a little hut roofed with branches. From this coign of vantage the vineyard can be overlooked and watched; near it there is often an arbour formed of rough tree stems, and covered with vines. (Source: Klein 1883: 46.)

· The vineyards are always surrounded by a dry stone wall and a kasr built in it. On the top of this loose-stone building they put a hut, which in summer only is covered by branches. Here the family lives, and from this elevated place the guardian can survey the vineyard, which, though fenced all round with thorn-bushes laid on the wall, is often visited by foxes, badgers, jackals, and sometimes thieves.

So as you can see there was a purpose in building the vineyard. In the parable the landowner had a purpose in all that he done.

Vineyard’s Production

The second part of this vineyard building story was that of the production of the vineyard. As we discussed earlier, there was a purpose to end up with a product. In order to do this, the land owner rented out the land and gave a job for the person in charge of the land.

In the time of this story most people didn’t own their own land, rather they worked another person’s land and a part of the crop was given back to the landowner. This was the case in this parable.

This was not a gift to the renters; rather it was a responsibility for the renters. It was their job to take care of the land, the vineyard and to produce fruit.

The landowner was very comfortable in his choice of renters that he was able to slip away for a mini vacation.

Wait, Luke points out in this story that the landowner was gone a long time. Matthew describes it as a journey. No matter the time, he was gone. It was up to the renters to fulfill their part of the bargain, and so they did.

Vineyard’s Produces

The last part of the parable I describe as what the vineyard produced. The vineyard produced two things.

First it produced fruit, or at least we assume it produced fruit. Maybe it didn’t because of the actions of the renters, but it is safe to assume it produced fruit because of the landowner’s reaction during harvest.

He sent a servant to collect some of the harvest.

The second outcome of the vineyard was that of the attitude of the renters. They became entitled. They were working this land that they soon forgot who owned the land. We can tell that they became entitled because of what they did to the servants of the landowner. One by one the escalation of the deeds against the servants increased until the son came. They plotted and killed the land owner’s son.

In today’s world this behaviour would not be tolerated. There would be swift action taken against the renters. This behaviour would not be tolerated. I think it would be nice to believe that the renters would take care of the land and its property as it was their own, however, this was not the case.

Parable’s Meaning

So what is the meaning behind the parable? We know it’s purpose, production and what it produced, but what was Jesus telling the people. In order to understand the parable, we must associate the various people in the story with the real people he is talking about.

“The story tends more toward allegory than Jesus’ parables usually do. The vineyard may be compared to Israel on the basis of Isaiah 5”[1]

Isaiah 5:1–2 ESV

1 Let me sing for my beloved my love song concerning his vineyard: My beloved had a vineyard on a very fertile hill. 2 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, but it yielded wild grapes.

Vineyards meant a lot to the audience of this parable.

He was teaching in the temple courts at the time and in the audience was the Chief priests, teachers of the law, and the Elders of the Jewish people. They knew exactly the allegory because they were very familiar with the writings of Isaiah. They knew the point of Isaiah, its direction and outcome. In fact, as we will discuss later, the theme of vine and branches is an all too often theme used to depict God and his followers.

The landowner

With this in mind, it is no surprise that the land owner is God. He is God almighty, the creator and sustainer of life. It shows us that He had a plan, a plan from the beginning of time. He knew what he wanted and what it should look like. It is also interesting to note that he chose the tenants.

The Tenants

So who are the tenants. Most people would surmise that it was speaking about the Jewish nation, but that is partially true. You see the tenants were the religious leaders left to care for the spirituality of the people. These were the teachers and elders in the people. They were responsible to do as the master asked. They were responsible to follow God’s commands and obey, but obviously they were not successful.

They began to take over ownership and leadership, rather than tenants and servants. They began to take their eyes off the mark and focus on the wrong things. It is this that we can easily identify with. So often we become so busy in what we are doing, that we forget to stop and look at what we are doing. It is a word of caution that we too can find ourselves in the same scenario of that of the tenant.

The servants and or messenger

The last piece of the puzzle is the servants or messenger. Most commentators believe that the servant represent the various prophets that have come to the people of Israel. Some commentators specifically which ones, while others give a general overview of the prophets.

For the Jewish people, the prophet was coming not only for the leaders but also the people themselves.

It was the prophet’s message coming from God that was ignored. When you read through the Old Testament in chronological order you see the interaction with God went from a personal conversation with His creation, to a conversation through the leaders (Patriarchs, Judges, Kings), to a spokesperson, (Major & Minor Prophet)

God’s ideal is to have a personal relationship with His creation. His ideal is to walk and talk with his creation. The reality is that the people and the leaders were the ones that moved away from that ideal.

In the parable it was the land owner that went away, but in reality, it is the people, you and I that move away from God.

Sometimes the moving away is sudden. You can’t see God’s plan in the way things are working out. You feel God has abandoned you so you stop coming to him. Other people move away from God slowly over time. It starts small like missing fellowship with other believers, then moves on to days without reading God’s word. Then you wake up one morning and find yourself farther from God than you every have been. In both cases you wonder if God will ever be near again, the reality is that He never left. He is waiting right there for you to come back to him.

The outcome

What is the outcome of this parable. Well, the leaders heard the parable and quickly yelled, “May it never be!”

This reminds me of a famous cartoon.

They couldn’t image that they would ever be in a position like the tenants in the parable. How could they, they were studied men who knew God’s expectation of faith and practice. How could they ever think about “killing”

It is at this point that Jesus was the clearest in his statement to the religious leaders.

“But he looked directly at them and said, “What then is this that is written:

“ ‘The stone that the builders rejected

has become the cornerstone’?”

How appropriate is the application of these verses to the suffering and glory of our Lord (cf. Matt 21:42; Mark 12:10; Luke 20:17; Acts 4:11; Eph 2:20; 1 Peter 2:7)! He suffered in his rejection by man, but the Father demonstrated his acceptance of the Son by making him the “chief cornerstone” (Eph 2:20). Yet all who suffer in this life may draw comfort from this communal testimony.[2][3]

Parable’s Application for Today

God’s purpose for us

What does this parable mean to me today? What can I take away today and apply God’s truth to my life. These next few months we will be discovering God’s truth under the series, “Feasting at the Table of the Lord”.

As some of you know, I have collected wooden pallets in the past.

Most of us have seen these. They are assembled to hold boxes, products, and stuff. They have a purpose, when people load various products on these, a machine, small or large can pick up the entire load and transport it to another location.

There are various types of pallets. Some a weak some are strong. They all have this in common, they have a purpose.

You see, God has a purpose for each one of you. He has a desire for us to be more like him. He gives each one of us gifts and talents to use for His purpose. He is the landowner in our lives giving us talents and gifts for a purpose to build up one another, strength one another, and come together for a common purpose.

God expects outcomes

The second application is that God expects outcomes of our lives. Whether we are basic like this pallet or more specialized he expects us to use what he has given us. He expects and desires that as we worship him we would use what we have been given to produce outcomes.

Those outcomes come in many forms. Maybe it’s serving God in this church, outside of this church, witnessing to the neighbor down the road from us. Giving to missions. Whatever it is God is asking, nor I SAY expecting us to use those gifts. They are not for us, yes, we use them and benefit from them, but we do it to produce a harvest for our Lord. We are the tenants in God’s kingdom working out God’s plan.

If you drive around town, and go down back alleys of business, you will find many stacks of these pallets. Some companies continue to use them, some throw them out so that I can pick them up. These pallets like the gifts and talents we have been given are made or given for a purpose. It is up to us to find our gifts and talents and use them, work them, so that we will produce the fruit that God is looking for in our lives.

God will come to collect

God has a purpose, he expects outcomes, and finally he will come to collect. This is not to motivate us out of fear of the master, rather it is an encouragement that one Day Christ will return to take us home to be with him in Glory. We look forward to the day when God says, well done they good and faithful servant.

Conclusion

What type of tenant are you going to be described as today? Have you become like the entitled Jewish leaders in this parable that refuse to listen to Christ’s calling, refusing to acknowledge that Christ is the capstone that holds all things together.

Or will you be the tenant of God’s kingdom that uses the gifts and talents God has so graciously given us to further his kingdom. The choice is yours. The image is there in this parable. The next step is yours.