I.
I think this is a notoriously difficult parable to preach on. And given the events in present-day Israel the past 20-48 hours, it’s even more so.
A top-level reading of this parable goes like this: Israel is no longer worthy to be called the children of God, they have squandered their inheritance, they have defrauded their master, and they have borne false witness against God.
Their punishment is that their kingdom will be taken away from them and given to a people who bear the fruit of righteousness.
This reading is valid, but it’s been used to justify antisemitism, and that needs to be condemned at the beginning of the sermon and for any reading of the parable.
That having been said, let’s try to walk through it and see what is going on.
II.
Jesus is telling a story to the chief priests and the Pharisees, the representatives of Judea, which is a vassal state of the Roman Empire.
Judea is a politically and religiously degraded form of the old kingdoms of Israel and Judah, centuries after their prime.
What Jesus is doing is describing the three kinds of evil and malice that Israel holds in its heart, in its collective heart.
First, Jesus is talking about the historic malice between the priests and the prophets of Israel.
You had two sorts of religious expression in ancient Israel. You had the priestly system, which was focused on the temple with its rituals and sacrifices.
Then you had the prophets who were sent by God to call the people back, not so much always to the letter of the law, but to the spirit of the law.
You also had examples of people who are both, like Moses, who was a prophet and a law giver.
But throughout the Old Testament, you see this fight going on between the prophets and the priests.
The priests, unfortunately, are the ones who tended to corrupt the religion of Israel, and they’re often in league with the throne of Israel.
They often are responsible for bringing in foreign or pagan acts of worship, worshiping false gods, worshiping the gods of Israel’s neighbors.
Very often this involved sexual indulgence and other kinds of depravity.
We see them fight it out throughout the Old Testament. The priests would often hunt down and kill the prophets.
Second, Jesus is talking about the contemporary malice in the hearts of some towards the Messiah.
Matthew 21:37-38 are clearly messianic verses. Jesus is speaking of Himself when He says:
“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.’”
A verse later, Jesus prophesies His own death. He says:
“And they took him and threw him out of the vineyard and killed him.”
So, we see that there’s this refusal in the heart of Israel, in the collective heart of Israel, to accept Jesus as the Messiah.
Third, Jesus describes the personal malice towards Him as the Messiah, as the Christ.
Throughout the Gospels, there’s this running question: Who do men say that Jesus is?
There’s a personal hostility towards Jesus on display. Matthew 21:46 tells us that the chief priests and Pharisees sought to arrest Jesus and their anger is directed towards Him, and doubly so, because the people hold Jesus to be a prophet.
A couple of chapters later, in Matthew 23:37, Jesus will exclaim:
“O Jerusalem, Jerusalem, the city that kills the prophets and stones those who are sent to it!”
If Jesus’ meaning was not clear before, it certainly should be now.
This parable is one of those parables that’s right on the nose. It’s not one of those parables where you see the disciples pulling Jesus aside and saying, “Okay, tell us what that really meant.”
The chief priests and the Pharisees get it.
Matthew 21:45 tells us:
“When the chief priests and the Pharisees heard his parables, they perceived that he was speaking about them.”
Even the priests and the Pharisees know that it would be wrong to deny the Messiah when the Messiah comes.
But they do it anyway. They act like gatekeepers.
They’re the ones who are going to vet anyone who puts himself forward as the Messiah, as the Christ, and they’re going to vet him and declare to the people whether or not this person is the Messiah.
They’re holding on to that power, the power that this vetting process gives them. In their hearts, they know that Jesus is the Messiah, but they don’t like what He’s saying because He’s a threat to their power.
They’re going to do everything they can to suppress the knowledge of the fact that He is the Messiah, including hatching a plot to kill Him.
That’s the point of this question-and-answer we see in the middle of the parable.
Jesus asks:
“When therefore the owner of the vineyard comes, what will he do to those tenants?”
The Pharisees and the chief priests reply:
“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.”
Jesus gets the chief priests and Pharisees to pronounce the sentence on themselves, to pronounce their own punishment, which Jesus then turns back on them, convicting them with the very words of Scripture.
Jesus says:
“Have you never read in the Scriptures:
‘The stone that the builders rejected
has become the cornerstone….’”
In other words:
“You builders, you chief priests, you Pharisees, you builders of Israel: you’ve rejected the cornerstone. I am the cornerstone. I am the Messiah. I am the Christ. You know what? It’s not for you to decide when and if the Messiah has come or even who the Messiah is.”
Jesus is taking the religious leaders, who are also the political leaders, and He’s pulling them back down to their place.
The chief priests and Pharisees know full well who Jesus is, and yet they still bear false witness against Him and plot to arrest Him.
That’s what this parable hangs on, the idea of false witness.
They’re not telling the truth about who Jesus is. They’re bearing false witness. In this parable, we see the chief priests and Pharisees convicted.
They know the parable is about them. They’re convicted. Jesus is challenging them, convicting them, but their conviction does not result in repentance.
III.
Now, we’ll look at another person in today’s readings. That person is Paul.
Paul was once a Pharisee. He was once one of these people, these chiefs of Israel, who opposed the Messiah, even to the point of killing early Christians.
Paul eventually understood who Jesus was. He was convicted. But unlike the chief priests and Pharisees in today’s parable, that conviction led to repentance.
Paul describes what his repentance was like when he speaks of the confidence that he used to have before he repented. He calls it “confidence in the flesh.”
Paul writes:
“If anyone else thinks he has reason for confidence in the flesh, I have more: circumcised on the eighth day, of the people of Israel, of the tribe of Benjamin, a Hebrew of Hebrews; as to the law, a Pharisee; as to zeal, a persecutor of the church; as to righteousness under the law, blameless.”
If it’s not clear to you what Paul is doing here, he’s reciting his pedigree and listing his resume.
This is a moment for all of us to pause and think, “How are we confident in the flesh? What have we done? What can we boast of?”
And more importantly, “Who’s behind that? Who gives us reason to boast? Who are our patrons? How are we involved in a system that props us up and gives us confidence to be and live in the flesh?”
I think that more often than not, our reasons for having confidence in the flesh and bearing false witness are closely linked.
That’s because if we’re dependent on the powerful, if we’re dependent on a corrupt system, like the one the chief priests and Pharisees controlled, who themselves are bearing false witness, then we’re not only tempted, but we’re also incentivized to bear false witness as well.
People sometimes ask me, “Why are things going so crazy today in the world? Why are things the way they are? Can’t people see?”
One of the responses I’ve learned to give is: “You will seldom see what’s wrong when you’re paid not to see it.”
That is what is going on here.
Later, this temptation, this incentivization to go along with the bearing of false witness, will play out in the arrest and trial of Jesus, when the crowds themselves are manipulated to shout, “Crucify him!”
What looks like an act of democracy here is really a subtle form of sophisticated manipulation.
There’s always a system of spoils at work that rewards those who think and speak in the right way.
IV.
But Jesus comes to spoil that system of spoils.
Christ comes to dispossess the present leaders of the world and give His kingdom back to His people.
Matthew 21:38 foreshadows Christ’s crucifixion on the cross. It reads:
“This is the heir. Come, let us kill him and have his inheritance.”
The chief priests and Pharisees are busy accusing Jesus of bearing false witness about Himself by saying (or letting people believe) that He is the Messiah and they have secretly decided amongst themselves to put an end to that.
Israel, as represented by her leaders, her chief priests, and her Pharisees, means to kill Jesus for bearing false witness.
Now Jesus must turn around and “kill” Israel in recompense. That’s what the meaning of Matthew 21:44 is. Jesus says:
“And the one who falls on this stone will be broken to pieces. And when it falls on anyone, it will crush him.”
So, there is a recompense and a judgment that Jesus is speaking of here.
Now, to understand this verse, we actually have to go back into the law of Moses to some verses in Deuteronomy that deal with trying cases of false witness.
Moses says in Deuteronomy:
“If a malicious witness arises to accuse a person of wrongdoing, then both parties to the dispute shall appear before the Lord, before the priests and the judges who are in office in those days. The judges shall inquire diligently, and if the witness is a false witness and has accused his brother falsely, then you shall do to him as he had meant to do to his brother. So you shall purge the evil from your midst.”
Witness has been born against Jesus, but it proves to be a lie, a false witness. Thus, those who meant to kill Jesus now must be killed.
If you’ve ever wondered why the titles for Jesus of Prophet, Priest, Judge, and King matter, these verses from Deuteronomy and this parable will explain why.
As prophet, Jesus bears witness against Israel for lying about who the Messiah is.
As priest and judge, Jesus makes inquiry as per the law of Moses into that lie. Why is a false witness being made? Because of sin, because of malice and the hardness of man’s heart. Because of that Jesus pronounces judgment on Israel’s false witness. That is His role as priest and judge.
Finally, as king, Jesus executes that judgment upon Israel. The kingdom is taken from them, and He becomes the stone upon which they will dash their feet and be crushed.
But here’s the thing (this is the good news of the gospel): Jesus works out all of this on Himself in the place of Israel and ultimately in the place of us.
He takes the place of the one who needs to be punished. He bears the death penalty for the one who needs to die according to the law.
In Isaiah 5:1, we read:
“Let me sing for my beloved, my love song concerning his vineyard. My beloved had a vineyard on a very fertile hill.”
You may need help connecting the dots here, so let me do that for you.
Jesus is the beloved of Isaiah 5:1, but so is Israel. Israel is also the beloved of Isaiah 5:1. In Isaiah 5:7 we read:
“For the Vineyard of the Lord of Hosts is the House of Israel.”
That Jesus the man is identified with Israel the people (as a whole) is clear from the Prophet Hosea.
In Hosea 11:1 we read:
“When Israel was a child, I loved him, and out of Egypt I called my son.”
That’s a reference to the exodus of the people of Israel being taken out of Egypt. But it’s also a reference to Jesus Christ Himself.
That reference is confirmed in the birth narrative in Matthew 2:14-15. We read this at Christmas time. Matthew writes:
“And [Joseph] rose and took the child and his mother by night and departed to Egypt and remained there until the death of Herod. This was to fulfill what the Lord had spoken by the prophet, ‘Out of Egypt I called my son.’”
Now you see how Scripture identifies Israel the people with Jesus the man.
That is why He can be the substitute for Israel. That is why He can take Israel’s place. That is why He can take our place.
I’m making these painstaking connections because you need to understand them in order to understand the meaning of the parable, in order to understand how Jesus can purge the evil from Israel.
Jesus Himself must become Israel and accept Israel’s punishment on behalf of Israel.
The law says:
“If the witness is a false witness and has accused his brother falsely, then you shall do to him as he had meant to do to his brother.”
Israel meant to kill Jesus — and did. So now Jesus, the Messiah, priest, and judge must execute that just sentence on Israel.
The nation must die for its false witness.
But here’s the thing: Israel cannot die, because, as Paul tells us in Galatians 6:16, Israel is of God, and what is of God cannot die.
That is what we mean when we say that Jesus fulfilled the law, by taking Israel’s place (and taking our place) and bearing the punishment.
But it also has implications for understanding the resurrection, because if God cannot die and Israel cannot die, then the Son of God who takes our place and dies in our place cannot die an eternal death.
He must be resurrected.
V.
This is the good news of the Gospel: that Jesus Christ purged the evil from us by taking our place and taking our punishment.
Jesus is our substitute by taking our place.
Jesus atones for our sins by taking our punishment.
What we need to do is we need to forget the excuses we’ve made in the past.
We need to nail our sins to the cross, leave our old lives behind, and strain forward to what lies ahead, which is the promise of glory in a resurrected body, to a life on a new earth, and under a new heaven, with Christ our King. Amen.
Preached on October 8, 2023 at St. Peter’s Lithgow, Millbrook, New York.
Proper 22
Isaiah 5:1-7; Philippians 3:4b-14; Matthew 21:33-46
Questions for reflection and discussion:
1. Throughout the ____________ it was the priests who corrupted the faith.
2. The ____________ were hunted and killed by the priests, who were often in league with the throne.
3. The people hold Jesus to be a ____________.
4. The chief priests and Pharisees know Jesus is the Messiah and they still bear ____________ against Him.
5. The Pharisees are convicted by Jesus’ parable, but their conviction does not result in ____________.
6. How does Paul demonstrate “confidence in the flesh”?
7. Explain how confidence in the flesh and false witness can be linked.
8. “This is the heir. Come, let us kill him and have his inheritance,” foreshadows what event?
9. How does Deuteronomy 19 help to explain this parable?
10. As ____________, Jesus bears witness against Israel for lying about who the Messiah is.
11. As ____________ and ____________, Jesus makes an inquiry and pronounces a judgment on Israel’s false witness.
12. As ____________, Jesus executes that judgment upon Israel.
Parents and Grandparents, you are responsible to apply God’s Word to your children’s lives. Here is some help. Young Children – draw a picture about something you hear during the sermon. Explain your picture(s) to your parents or the minister after church. Older Children – Do one or more of the following: 1) Count how many times “false witness” is mentioned. 2) Discuss with your parents the consequences of lying about something your friend said or did.
(1) Old Testament; (2) prophets; (3) prophet; (4) false witness; (5) repentance; (6) by reciting his Jewish pedigree and resume; (7) the weak are tempted to follow the confident and powerful in not telling the truth; (8) Christ’s crucifixion; (9) when punishing a false witness, whatever the perpetrator meant to do to his victim must be done to him instead; (10) prophet; (11) priest, judge; (12) king
“To Purge the Evil”