The Parable of the Husbandmen

The Parable of the Husbandmen

Matthew 21:33-46

I. Jesus introduces a Parable to His Hearers.

A. This is one in a series of three parables.

1. The parables are directed toward the religious leaders. Look back at verse 23 and you see that. Jesus was teaching in the Temple when He was approached by the men. The questioned His authority. Jesus refused to answer their question concerning where His authority came from. They knew He claimed His authority was from the Father, Jesus wouldn’t play their games.

2. Jesus speaks to them in three parables. We see the first one in verses 28-32. The religious leaders were like the son that said “Sure, I’ll do my father’s will” but then they didn’t do it. He was telling them they were liars and hypocrites. In verse 33 He begins “another” parable. We will look at it this morning. In Chapter 22:1-14 gives a final parable telling them they will be shut out of the kingdom because they have refused the invitation to enter it.

3. These are serious indictments against the religious leaders. He told them in 21:31 that prostitutes would enter the kingdom before they did. Both the parable of the husbandmen and the wedding banquet serve as sermons that would so enrage the religious leaders that they would not rest until Jesus was dead. And all of these sermons come on the heels of Jesus cleansing the Temple, which also enraged the religious establishment.

B. Jesus shares a rather disturbing story.

1. It involves a man that owned a vineyard. That was common for Palestine. Vineyards covered the hillsides there. They were a way for a man to make a living. This one seems pretty nice. It had a wall surrounding it. Protection from thieves and animals. It had a winepress. Sometimes they were cut out of bedrock. Grapes were squeezed in an upper basin and the juice flowed down a trough to a lower basin where it was poured into wineskins or other canisters. The owner even had a tower in his vineyard. It would have been used as a look out post, shelter for laborers and as a place to store supplies and the fruit of the vine. So this is a man that is serious about his business. He has a nice outfit here.

2. He decides to rent it out. The deal is that he will allow a group of men to use the vineyard to grow grapes and make money and they will pay him a portion of what they make. He has to travel far away so this helps him. He is not going to be at the vineyard anyway so this seems like a prudent decision. Of course there is a degree of trust the vineyard owner has but he trusts these men and departs.

3. The man attempts to collect his profit. He knew when harvest time was so he sends one of his servants to get his money. Mark shares the whole story with us, Matthew kind of condenses it as he did with the cursing of the fig tree. But when you put Matthew and Mark together this is what we get. The man sends a servant to collect money and instead of paying the servant these husbandmen beat him and send him away without anything. The owner of the vineyard then sends another servant and they do the same thing to him. He sends a third and the husbandmen stone this man. The owner then sends a group of servant and the husbandmen attack and even kill some of them. So now the owner finally sends his son. He reasons that they will listen to his son. Mark tells us that it was his only son and that he loved him greatly. When the son arrived the wicked husbandmen that since this was the owners only son they would kill him and take the inheritance from him. They wouldn’t just keep the profits; they would get the land too. So they caught the son, killed him and then carried his body outside of the vineyard and disposed of it.

C. Jesus poses a question to the religious leaders.

1. What do you think the owner of that vineyard is going to do? The owner obviously was a man of power. He was rich, owned this vineyard, and had servants that obeyed him, traveled abroad. The context implies that this guy had some power. What will he do when he gets his hands on these men that have stolen from him, dishonored him and killed his only son?

2. This is a horrific crime. It’s like something you see on Dateline. I mean these guys are seriously wicked. I think this story would have made anyone angry that heard it. The crime these men committed was senseless, unnecessary and especially brutal. These men showed no regard for human life at all. I think Jesus point was to stir the emotions of His hearers. This is a shocking story for a reason.

3. The men answer. We see that in verse 41. They say two things: the owner will kill those men and rent out his vineyard to someone else, someone that will respect him. That’s a good answer. The religious leaders are right. I think they were caught up in this story. Probably more so than other parables Jesus had shared with them.

II. Jesus Explains the Parable to the Religious Leaders.

A. He uses Old Testament Scripture to explain the parable.

1. He rebukes them for their ignorance in the Scripture. Don’t miss that. He asks the leaders “Haven’t you ever read the Scriptures”. That is a serious rebuke to those that claim to be the authority of the Scripture. He asked them the same thing in verse 16. One of the reasons the religious leaders missed Christ was because they did not know what the Bible said about him. They claimed the Word was their guide but they had obviously had no idea what it said.

2. He quotes Psalm 118:22. “The stone which the builders rejected is become the head of the corner; this is the Lord’s doing and it is marvelous in our eyes”. Interestingly, Psalm 118 is the same Psalm that the multitude sang as Jesus entered Jerusalem in 21:9 (Psalm 118:25-26). So if the religious leaders hadn’t read that Scripture it would have been odd since clearly the common people knew the Psalm and considered it a Messianic proclamation.

3. The ignorance of the religious leaders was a willful ignorance. They did not want to believe that Christ was the Messiah because He was not the type of Messiah they desired. If they had measure Christ by Scripture they would have known He was the Savior. He was born of a virgin as the Scripture said He was born in Bethlehem as the Scripture said, He had to flee to Egypt for protection as the Scripture said, He healed the sick as the Scripture said. He taught with great wisdom as the Scripture said. We could go on. Their ignorance was not based on reason or logic. It was based on emotion and personal preference. They didn’t like Christ and they didn’t like Him because He was so unlike them.

B. Christ identifies Himself as the Cornerstone.

1. The Old Testament spoke of a Cornerstone. We’ve already mentioned Psalm 118:22. Isaiah spoke of a Cornerstone in Isa. 2816 “Behold I lay in Zion for a foundation a stone, a tried stone, a precious corner stone, a sure foundation; he that believeth shall not make haste.” Zecharaiah 10:4 says “Out of him came forth the corner…” The New Testament preachers grabbed onto this truth. In Acts 4: 11 Peter said in a sermon “This is the Stone which was set at naught of you builders which is become the head of the corner.” Paul said in Eph. 2:20 “Jesus Christ Himself being the Chief Cornerstone”. 1 Peter 2:7 says “Unto you therefore which believe He is precious but unto them which be disobedient the stone which the builders disallowed the same is become the head of the corner.” In 1 Peter 2:6 Peter said “Behold I lay in Zion a chief Cornerstone elect, precious…” This isn’t an isolated theme. The idea of the Messiah being the Cornerstone is throughout the Old and New Testaments.

2. The analogy of the cornerstone was known to the people. It was a stone on which two walls sat. It was important because if that stone was a removed then the building could collapse. But it was also important because the setting of that stone was a reference for ever other stone that was laid. So in that regard it determined the position of the entire structure. If the cornerstone was off the whole building was off.

3. A cornerstone was considered a very important part of a building. Stones would be inspected and usually many rejected before a cornerstone was chosen to use for a building. The religious leaders inspected Jesus and threw Him away. They rejected Him. In doing so they rejected the perfect Cornerstone. They just cast Him away into a heap of rubble as if He were useless.

C. The religious leaders were the builders of the nation.

1. They revealed that they were not very good builders. They rejected the only stone that could be the proper foundation for the people. In doing this they showed they were not capable of being the builders of God’s kingdom.

2. Christ announces that their building license has been revoked. Look at verse 43. The kingdom would be taken from the religious leaders: The High priest, chief priests, Sadducees, Pharisees, scribes. They would become obsolete. They would become no longer necessary. Their job was considered the most noble of any in Judaism and now it was an unnecessary one.

3. Their job would be given to someone else. Look at verse 43. It would be given to a nation that would bring forth fruit. Israel, as the fig tree had just been cursed for her lack of fruit (21:19). God would give the task of building the kingdom to a new nation. He had promised “I will build my church…” (16:18). Now He tells us He would not do it through Israel. 1 Peter 2:9 speaks of the church as a “royal priesthood and a holy nation”. God would build His kingdom through the church. The common man would become a priest. Gentiles and Jews would be lumped together in one nation not defined by geography but defined by faith in the Cornerstone.

III. The Religious Leaders realize What Jesus is saying.

A. He says something verse harsh in verse 44.

1. The Messiah is pictured as a great stone there. Daniel did the same thing in Daniel 2. Daniel describes an image that is big and scary. It represents the world governments set in opposition to God. A head of gold, breast and arms of silver, belly and thighs of brass, legs of iron and feet of iron and clay. Then he saw a stone cut out without hands and that stone crushed the image and smashed it into pieces and it became “like the chaff of the summer threshing floors; and the wind carried them away, that no place found them and the stone that smote the image became a great mountain and filled the whole earth.”

2. Jesus says “I am going to crush you.” In fact He says that He is going to break or crush everyone that rejects Him. If you fall on the stone you will be broken, if the stone falls on you, you will be crushed. I think they both imageries speak of a judgment. If you drop a glass on a stone, the glass breaks, if you drop a stone on a glass the glass breaks.

3. Jesus has said some harsh things to these men. Your thieves(21:13), don’t know the Bible (21:16, 42), the harlots and publicans will go to heaven before you do (21:31), and now He tells them that he is going to grind them to powder.

B. They began to see the meaning of the parable.

1. In fact they understood that both parables were talking about them. Look at verse 45. They were the son that said “yes”’ to the father with their lips but no with their hearts. They were the wicked husbandmen. Now they had a choice. What would they do? Would they be like David when Nathan gave him the parable of the one and only sheep a man had stolen and killed? Remember that? The sheep represented Bathsheba, David had stolen from Uriah. Nathan said “You are the man!” David realized the parable was about him and he repented sincerely of his sin. They could have been like David. But they wouldn’t be.

2. With their own lips they admitted that the wicked husbandmen should be destroyed and the vineyard given to someone else. Look at verse 41. They pronounced their own judgment. They didn’t realize it at the time but they were saying, “We should be judged and the task of building the kingdom should be given to the Gentiles.” I mean they even called themselves “wicked men!”

3. The parable is full of symbolism. The owner was the Father, the husbandmen the religious leaders, the servants were the prophets, the son was Jesus, killing Him and casting Him out of the vineyard was Jesus crucifixion outside the city of Jerusalem.

C. This angered the religious leaders.

1. Jesus is charging them with killing the prophets. Now they personally didn’t persecute the OT prophets but they represented the religious leaders that did. They were cut from the same mold. He is saying “what did you do to Jeremiah? You put him in jail, in stocks, you tried to kill him. What did you do to Isaiah, you sawed him in half. What did you do to Zechariah? You killed him between the temple and the altar! You are glad John the Baptist is dead as well! Look at 23:33-35 and you will get a gist of what Jesus is saying. Wow!

2. Jesus is exposing their plan to kill Him. He is telling them and everyone else that the religious leaders are going to kill the Son of God. He is exposing their private plan in public. I think it was an “Uh-Oh” moment. They probably just looked at each other and thought “He knows.” They were not ashamed however.

3. This event mad the religious leaders hate Jesus even more. Look at verse 46. They hated Him so much they wanted to put their own hands on Him. And they would have, right there in the Temple. But they were afraid of the people. They would eventually succeed. Fulfilling the exact prophecy the Lord had just given them.

4. Don’t miss the love of God in this. Remember that patient father in the parable. Sending servant after servant giving chance after chance, even after being treated so despicably. That is the patience of our God.