Trinity 20

 

In the Name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit +

    Well, it's that time of the Church Year where we start shifting our focus towards the end of this world, to Christ's Second Coming, to the resurrection of the Body and the Life of the World to come. And our lessons start to prepare us for the harder parts of the Christian life, the things that are perhaps darker or dangerous – putting up with hardship and trial and tribulation yet remaining faithful to Christ amidst these things. And at the base, today, all of our lessons revolve one idea, one theme. In this life, you will be confronted by temptations and schemes that seem to be wise but are in fact deadly. So the instruction for today is this: Dear Christian, don't be stupid.

    Don't be stupid, Pastor? Really? Well, yes. Don't be stupid. Until Christ returns you are going to be tempted in this world to jump into all sorts of harebrained idiocy, so don't be stupid and dive on in. Okay, if you want it to sound more formal, consider the Epistle Lesson. Paul says, “Look carefully then how you walk, not as unwise but as wise, making the best use of the time, because the days are evil. Therefore do not be foolish.” Don't be unwise, lacking wisdom. Don't be foolish, literally without a mind. Don't wander off into all sorts of nonsensical schemes and plots and fights, because swirling all around you in this world full of evil will be the worst ideas imaginable, things that will do you harm, harm to your body and harm to your soul. So use your head, use your God given wisdom, and don't blunder on into them.

    Our Old Testament even gets on this theme, although it comes at it with some lovely poetic rhetoric. Isaiah writes, “Why do you spend your money for that which is not bread, and your labor for that which does not satisfy? Listen diligently to me, and eat what is good, and delight yourself in rich food.” It's a poetic image lamenting folly and stupidity. You waste your money, your hard work – you get so busy and caught up in all this drama and for what – for “not-bread” - for non-fulfillment. Why do you strive and strive after these silly games in the world? You're never filled up by them, you're never satisified by them, and yet you keep slaving away and breaking your back, and it's all for nothing. Okay, Isaiah's not saying, “Don't be stupid” - he's flat out saying, “Stop being stupid.” There's a chance, there's a way out of this stupidity – Seek the Lord while He may be found; call upon Him while He is near; let the wicked forsake his way, and the unrighteous man his thoughts; let him return to the Lord that He may have compassion upon him, and to our God, for He will abundantly pardon.

    Seek the Lord while He may be found. This is one of the harder phrases of the Old Testament for us to understand in modern English, because it uses a Hebrew verbal trick we don't have. Hebrew has what is called a causitive mood – where the verb isn't just what you do, but what you make happen, what you cause to happen. When we hear “seek the Lord while He may be found” - this isn't saying that Jesus is playing Hide and Seek with us we've counted to 20 and now we have to go find Him. No, seek the Lord while He makes Himself present for you so that you can find Him – while He may, while He is able to be found. Seek the Lord while He's jumping up and down saying, “I'm over here. See, I'm here, I want to forgive.” When Jesus is calling, when Jesus is present for you, for your good – don't be stupid and run off after other things and miss out on Jesus and His forgiveness.

    This idea, the utter stupidity of rejecting and ignoring Jesus and instead chosing and serving folly is the background theme of our Gospel lesson, of the story Jesus tells in Holy Week to all the people in Jerusalem who were grousing about Him. Jesus says, “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.” So let's ponder the set up here – here we have a vineyard, and the vineyard needs to be tended to – but note, the hard work has already been done. The infrastructure is all set up – the vines are set up to go, it's protected, the wine press is there – it's all ready to go, all that's left is to gather the grapes, make wine, make money, and enjoy. And tenants are brought in – given grand opportunity – this is set up on a tee, this is a great gig, now knock it out of the park.

    Alas, they decide to be stupid. When the season for fruit drew near, [the master] sent his servants to the tenants to get his fruit. And the tenants took his servants and beat one, killed another, and stoned another. Now, we live in an agricultural area – some of you work leased land, some of you lease land – the Church itself leases out land to be worked. What's to be gained here by these wicked tenants? Not much – you want to keep the rent price, and so you engage in murder. You don't really gain anything, why? Well, they keep at it. Again, he sent other servants, more than the first. And they did the same to them. Maybe it was a mistake, maybe they thought they were defending the vineyard from bandits, it was dark... no, no, this is just foolish wickedness. But the master is patient. Finally, he sent his son to them, saying, “They will respect my son.” But when the tenants saw the son, they said to themselves, “This is the heir. Come, let us kill him and have his inheritance.” And they took him and threw him out of the vineyard and killed him. Oh, and the plot is revealed. We will kill the heir, and then instead of just being tenants, we'll get to be the owners, we'll get to inherit the land. Instead of simply being tenants and enjoying the sweet job we have and all the benefits there of, we will plot and murder... to inherit the vineyard. That's not how anything works. What, is the master going to say, “Well, they killed my son – better scratch his name out of my will and write theirs in.”

    No – Jesus asks the very people who reject and complain about Jesus to finish the story. “When therefore the owner of the vineyard comes, what will he do to those tenants?” They said to Him, “He will put those wretches to a miserable death and let out the vineyard to other tenants who will give him the fruits in their seasons.” Everyone knows that this story will end badly for those wicked tenants. You're done, you're out, you're dead – and someone else can enjoy that lovely vineyard and that nice set up instead.

    Of course, Jesus isn't telling a story about how to run a vineyard – Jesus is addressing the very people who are plotting to kill Him and will have Him killed by the end of the week. Have you never read in the Scriptures: “The Stone the builders rejected has become the cornerstone; this was the Lord's doing, and it is marvelous in our eyes?” Therefore I tell you, the kingdom of God will be taken away from you and given to a people producing its fruits. Y'all are being stupid, and the consequences are come. You fight against Me and my preaching, and for what? Power in the temple – in God's house, that place given to you to be a blessing to you, and you turn it into a den of robbers, a petty political prize – all the while ignoring God's Word, ignoring forgiveness, ignoring love? Because that's the fruit of God's Word – forgiveness and love – and you don't care about that – so you won't get it. You won't get the temple, you won't get God's House anymore – other people will be there, and they'll have forgiveness and love to the full, and you, in your folly, in your stupidity, you'll get nothing but death and destruction.

    Whew. Ouch. Tell us what you really think, Jesus. This is the last call that Jesus gives to these Scribes and Pharisees and Chief Priests to abandon their silly plans, to not partake in this planned assassination of Jesus. Some hear Jesus; most don't. And Jesus knows He's speaking rough words, words that are hard to hear. And the one who falls on this Stone will be broken to pieces; and when it falls on anyone, it will crush him. Jesus is here – and He calls the shots. Jesus is in control of reality – and the reality is this. You are caught up in sin and temptation, and while the big wigs and the movers and shakers and the smarty-pants reject Christ, He is the Cornerstone. You are trapped in sin and death, and the only way out of sin and death is this. Jesus dies, and Jesus rises. Jesus takes up sin, Jesus takes up the penalty for sin, and Jesus gives life. That's the way it goes. It has to go through Jesus. And whenever one believes this, whenever one falls upon Jesus – well, it will be painful sometimes. The Word of God will call you to the carpet for your sin. It will call you to repent, it will pull you away from the stupid things that are bad for you, the things that your sinful flesh calls out to you to get trapped in. God's Word will often break you, it will break you of your stupidity – because we're all sinners, and all sin is stupid, and we're all called away from the stupid, dumb, idiotic things that don't do us or anyone any good that we keep stumbling into. You know, all those “sins and iniquities with which I have ever offended God, and justly deserved God's temporal and eternal punishment” that we confess. We confess, we fall upon Christ – because Christ Jesus makes Himself to be found, to be found here in His Word of forgiveness, His Font, His Supper – found to forgive us, to renew us, to give us blessings now – real blessings, not the sham ones our temptations dangle in front of us – and to give us eternal life. The other option is to ignore Christ, to run after folly, and in the end to be crushed.

    And Jesus here is admitting something that is hard for us in the Church to hear. We here will need to confess real sins. There will be things in God's Word, in His Law, that hit really close to home, that aren't comfortable, that call us and our sin and our temptations out. The ones we like, the ones we hide. The light of God's Word will be shined upon them. There will be sermons here that make you a bit squeemish – and you think it's no fun sitting in a pew when the preacher does that, you try preaching a sermon when you yourself are squirming. But that's the way it has to be – sin has to be confessed with, sin has to be confessed – that's how forgiveness happens, that's how our rescue from sin happens. The chains that bind us must be broken, even when we find those claims appealing. Because Jesus doesn't want you crushed. Jesus doesn't want you terrified when He returns – He wants you forgiven and ready to be restored.

    So, don't be stupid. Don't wantonly wander into wickedness; instead be in Church, be in the Word. And when the Word of God calls out your sin, don't plug your ears, don't take your ball and go home, don't huff and puff and say, “Why I'd never.” Let the Holy Spirit do His job of conviciting with the Law, and confess your sins... and then there's the fruit. Then there's the fruit of forgiveness. There's the fruit of love – love and joy and peace and all those good things, truly good things that Jesus gives to you and works in you and through you to your neighbor. Jesus' plans for you are better than the pipe dreams that Satan and the world pedal to you. Live in Christ – He is here for you to find Him, to receive Him, to delight in Him, here in His church and in His Word of life. Amen. In the Name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit +