Sunday, April 6, 2025, Fifth Sunday in Lent

“Paying the Rent”

Psalm 80:1-19; Isaiah 43:16-21; Philippians 3:7-14; Luke 20:9-20

Divine Service III with Holy Communion

Hymns: #753 “All for Christ I Have Forsaken”; #430 “My Song Is Love Unknown”; #561 “The Tree of Life”

Dear Friends in Christ,

     Grace, mercy, and peace to you, from God our Father and from our Lord and Savior Jesus. Amen.

     If you’ve ever rented a house or a piece of property, you know how the system works. As long as you pay the rent when it’s due, you get to stay. If you’ve ever been the landlord, you appreciate a tenant who pays on time and takes good care of the place. And if you’re the tenant, what a blessing it is to have a decent landlord. A good landlord will respect your privacy, and fix things when they break, and have a little care for their tenants. They might even have a little mercy and give you a little grace if you should fall behind on the rent. Follow the rules, pay your rent on time, and we’ll all get along just fine.

     In the parable Jesus tells in today’s Gospel, the tenant farmers forgot that they were only renters. They didn’t own a thing; not the fields they worked, or the ground they walked on, or the house they lived in. You and I don’t own anything in this world, either. We’re tenant farmers ourselves – sharecroppers! - dependent on the good graces of God, the owner of the vineyard. So how do we pay our rent, and return to God what we owe Him?

     In our Gospel in Luke 20, Jesus tells the people another one of His parables. The parable is about the scribes and Pharisees, the leaders of the Jews, who were, as always, standing on the sidelines watching and listening for something to accuse Him of. They weren’t going to be happy with this particular story. They’d gotten the idea that they were the owners of the vineyard, that the place belonged to them. The idea that Jesus would call them “tenants” and “farmers” was something their pride found hard to accept. I guess we don’t like to hear that we’re only renters either; but it’s true. None of us really owns a thing.

     Jesus says in His parable: “A man (that’s God, the landlord, the owner of the land and property) planted a vineyard.” A vineyard is a biblical metaphor for God’s Church in the world, whether it’s a temple or synagogue like the Jews had, or a Church like ours; it’s anywhere God has called His people to gather.

     And He “rented it to some farmers.” He rented out the property, leased it out, handed it over, to farmers, or caretakers, with all the rules, agreements, and expectations that go along with such a thing. Take care of the place, pay the rent, and we’ll get along just fine.

     And he “went away for a long time.” Don’t take this to mean that God isn’t here; He’s with us and watching over us always. It only means He’s given us free will, and the space to make our own choices about some things; what to plant, where to plant, when the time is right for harvest. We’re free to make our choices to a point, so long as we produce the fruit the Master is looking for when the rent comes due.

     Then “at harvest time,” says Jesus. Harvest time is the season for fruit, the due season, what every farmer and landowner works for and waits for. For a farmer, it’s “when we get paid.” Biblically speaking, the harvest is a harvest of souls. From every Church He plants, our Lord expects that at some point there will be fruit. For the Jews, scribes, and Pharisees, God expected that their kindness and love and faithfulness would draw the world to want to know Him. For us, it’s pretty much the same. The measure of us, in the end, will be how many souls our faithful witness has brought to Christ; the harvest will finally tell the tale.

     So at harvest time, the owner of the vineyard “sent a servant to the tenants,” so they would give him his agreed-upon share of the fruit of the vineyard. That’s how share-cropping works, you know; the owner gets his share of the harvest, the tenants get their share as their pay.

     But these tenants “beat the master’s servant and sent him away empty handed.” The master’s servants are God’s prophets, His messengers, the prophets He sent to Israel for all those years, looking for the fruits of grace and goodness and mercy. And these days, the servants are the pastors and preachers He sends to us, looking for the fruit that ought to come from His Word. Israel had a sad history of abusing God’s messengers and refusing to listen to them, and anyone who’d ever made a life out of preaching God’s Word can relate. It hurts to come back to God with empty hands.

     There were other messengers in Jesus’ parable, other servants God sent. God is merciful and patient, He never quits trying, He never gives up. One by one God’s prophets were dishonored and beaten and wounded. The last prophet God sent them was John the Baptist, and they rejected him, too. You young men, if you’re thinking about being a pastor, pray long and hard about it; it’s not an easy gig, and you’ll need a thick skin; it’s not for the faint of heart.

     Now, here’s the part of the parable where we get to see the wonderful love and grace of God, and how much He really loves and cares for us. The owner of the vineyard says, “What shall I do?” What shall I do about my stubborn, insolent tenants who refuse to pay the rent? What shall I do about my selfish, self-centered, disobedient children? To be sure, God owes us no patience. He owes us no forbearance, no grace period, no extra time to pay what we owe. He could foreclose on the deal today and we’d have no basis for complaint.

     Instead, grace of all graces, He says, “I will send My Son, whom I love; perhaps they will respect Him.” Perhaps, perhaps… So God so loved the world, He so loved His precious vineyard, that He sent His only Son, to walk in the world, and preach the good news about God’s grace and mercy, and to do mighty miracles that showed the world – including those scribes and Pharisees – who He was. And He called and begged and pleaded with them to repent of their sin and turn back to God, and to give God the love for Him and the love for people that God has always looked for. And for that they hung Him on a cross.

     Jesus says in His parable, “When the tenants saw him – when they saw the Master’s Son -  they talked the matter over. 'This is the heir,' they said. 'Let's kill him, and the inheritance will be ours.' Really? They must have been out of their minds! Why would they think the landlord would give them the land after they’d murdered His Son? At some point, the landlord, the master of the land, was going to come back to confront them with what they’d done. How could they not know that? Their greed must have twisted their common sense.

     “So they threw Him out of the vineyard and killed Him.” Jesus know all along what they were going to do. He knew what was coming. He knew what the Jewish leaders were plotting among themselves, as they stood there fuming as they listened to His story. Yet He told them anyway what they didn’t want to hear, knowing how they’d react and what they’d do. Jesus knew they’d reject Him, and the lengths to which they would go to shut Him up and see Him gone. But He also knew that God His Father had a plan, a plan greater than anything they or the devil could plot or scheme or do. He did what He did out of love for us, and for your sake and mine.

     “What then will the owner of the vineyard do to them?” Jesus says at the end of His parable. “He will come and kill those tenants and give the vineyard to others." The vineyard God gave to the Hebrews would become the seed of the Christian Church; our “Judeo-Christian heritage,” we call that. Moses and the Law and the Prophets, all those wonderful Sunday school stories in the Old Testament - all point to Jesus hanging on the cross, and three days later rising again from the dead. And those Hebrew fishermen that Jesus called to be His first disciples became the first Christian apostles and martyrs

and made the beginning of the Christian Church on earth - the same blessed and holy vineyard that you and I are blessed to be a part of today.

     Then Jesus, in our Gospel, looked those scribes and Pharisees directly in the eye and asked, "Then what is the meaning of that which is written: 'The stone the builders rejected has become the capstone'? Everyone who falls on that stone will be broken to pieces, but he on whom it falls will be crushed." Jesus is the capstone, the head of the corner, the crown of the arch that holds all creation together. He’s truly God in every way. You can love Him, and obey Him, and He’ll be the Rock for your life to stand on. Or you have the free will to reject Him, as foolish as that would be.

     The teachers of the law and the chief priests went the way their wicked hearts led them. They sent their spies to watch Him, and spread their lies about Him, and built their case against Him, until they finally convinced Governor Pontius Pilate to have Him nailed to a cross. They couldn’t keep Him from being raised again, though - which is why this Church today is full of His praise!

     Folks, renters though we are, we get to live in this yineyard, and enjoy all the fruits and benefits thereof. We get to hear the Good News about the love of God. We get to take part in the Sacrament, the blessed “fruits of His cross.” We get forgiveness and grace and mercy, and no end to forbearance for our sin. We get joy and hope and fellowship, and good friends to share our blessings with. As good St. Paul put it, “we have nothing, and yet we possess everything.”

     So how do we “render to the Lord for all His benefits to us?” How do we pay the rent? St. Paul has the answer for us in Philippians 3, and it’s clear enough. To pay the rent we God-blessed tenants owe Him, we put Him first in our lives above all other things, just like the First Commandment says. “Whatever was to my profit I now consider loss for the sake of Christ,” says Paul. “What is more, I consider everything a loss compared to the surpassing greatness of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord, for whose sake I have lost all things. I consider them rubbish, that I may gain Christ and be found in Him.”

     We have no natural righteousness of our own. Remember, we’re only renters; nothing in this place is ours. But what we do have is the blessing of being right before God because of what Jesus has done for us. Even our faith is a precious gift of God’s grace. Our righteousness “comes from God and is by faith.” And the fruit God is looking for from us is the fruit of that faith - the things that faith, if it’s real, should naturally result in.

     Once we’ve come to know Christ, and the power of the hope of a resurrection to come is at work in our lives, then should come also the willingness to suffer and sacrifice for the sake of our faith, like Jesus did; and even to die for Him, if it should ever come down to that. Whatever it takes to get to heaven, and to take as many dear souls with us as we possibly can.

     The God who made us and owns us doesn’t expect perfection from us, thanks be to Him forever for that. Instead, He forbears and forgives and is patient with us, as we “press on to take hold of that for which Christ Jesus has taken hold of us.” We press on, knowing God loves us, and we do our best with the time we’re given to love one another, and to love whoever we can into His Kingdom. That’s how we pay the rent. In Jesus’ name; Amen.