Stewards of the Kingdom
a sermon based on Matthew 21:33-46
by Rev. Randy Quinn


You may already know it, but in the New Testament the most quoted book of the Old Testament is the book of Psalms. I knew that, but I hadn't registered what that really meant until several years ago when I was reading through the Psalms. I kept running into familiar phrases. Things that Jesus had said, things that Paul had said, things that Peter and James and John had said.

I suddenly realized what was really going on.

Ever since Johann Gutenburg invented the printing press in 1450, we've been spoiled. We've been spoiled by the ready availability of the scriptures.

Prior to the printing press, the Bible was too big for one person to hold and too expensive for most people to own. Most individuals who owned books of the Bible literally owned a book or two. And most Bibles were held in libraries, almost always in a church library.

But we are also spoiled by another important addition that was made to the scriptures in the 12th and 13th centuries. Prior to that, there were no chapter and verse notations. If you wanted to refer to a section of the Bible, you referred to it by the first sentence of the paragraph.

I knew all that when I was reading the Psalms, but I suddenly put it together in a way that opened my eyes.

If I were to say, "Jesus loves me, this I know," you'd know the rest of the line, wouldn't you? If I said, "Holy, holy, holy," you'd think "Lord God Almighty." If I said, "Amazing grace, how sweet the sound," you'd have a melody playing in your mind – and in fact, some of you now have three melodies going on at once!

The Psalms were the hymnbook and prayer book of the Israelites. Jesus grew up singing and praying the Psalms. So did those around him. His audience was so familiar with them that all he had to do was begin one and they'd know the ending.

But it isn't just the Psalms where that happens.

The second most quoted book in the New Testament is Isaiah. And I'm just as convinced that without a Bible to own and read at our leisure, we'd do what most of the people in Jesus' day did: we'd memorize it.

All that preachers had to do in that era was to start a passage and we'd know the ending. Or we'd hear preachers who take what we know and reframe it or restate it with new words so that it offers fresh insights.

But how many of you recognize the passages from Isaiah and the Psalms that Jesus refers to in the text for today? How many of you heard first the parable of Isaiah that Jesus recasts and then his reference to Psalm 118 in a way that radically changes the parable? (I suspect a few people will, but not many.)

You see I'm convinced that our lack of intimacy with the Old Testament significantly reduces our understanding of the New Testament. (That's part of why I so enjoy the work involved in the Disciple Bible Study. We're becoming more familiar with that portion of God's scriptures.)

Since we aren't as familiar with the Old Testament, however, let me give you a little background on Jesus' parable of the vineyard. I'll tell you about two vineyard stories that I think Jesus alludes to; one more directly than the other.

Let me first read Isaiah's parable of the vineyard (Isaiah 5:1b-8):

My loved one had a vineyard on a fertile hillside.
He dug it up and cleared it of stones and planted it with the choicest vines.
He built a watchtower in it and cut out a winepress as well.

[Sound familiar? This is clearly the same vineyard Jesus has described, isn't it?]

Then he looked for a crop of good grapes, but it yielded only bad fruit.
"Now you dwellers in Jerusalem and men of Judah,
judge between me and my vineyard.
What more could have been done for my vineyard than I have done for it?
When I looked for good grapes, why did it yield only bad?
Now I will tell you what I am going to do to my vineyard:
I will take away its hedge, and it will be destroyed;
I will break down its wall, and it will be trampled.
I will make it a wasteland,
neither pruned nor cultivated, and briers and thorns will grow there.
I will command the clouds not to rain on it."
The vineyard of the LORD Almighty is the house of Israel,
and the men of Judah are the garden of his delight.
And he looked for justice, but saw bloodshed;
for righteousness, but heard cries of distress.
Woe to you who add house to house and join field to field
till no space is left and you live alone in the land.

Isaiah's vineyard story is an indictment on the people of Israel; and it would have been hard for the audience of Jesus not to recognize the same vineyard with the same sense of judgment. Except Jesus turns God's judgment from the people of Israel – the vines – to the tenants, the vine-dressers – to the religious leaders!

But there is another Old Testament story that I think is in the background as well. It may even have been in Isaiah's mind as he wrote. It's a little too long to read, so let me remind you of the story rather than reading it.

The story can be found in 1 Kings 21. It's the story of Naboth's vineyard; or more correctly, it's the story of King Ahab's greed.

King Ahab had seen a vineyard that captured his fancy. When he asked about it, he learned that it belonged to a man named Naboth. But much to his dismay, Naboth was unwilling to sell it. Naboth understood that the vineyard had been a gift from God to be given to his own descendents. To Naboth it wasn't a matter of selling to a new owner; it was a matter of honoring the real owner (God).

So King Ahab had Naboth murdered. And then he purchased the land .

Do you see how that vineyard may have been in the mind of Jesus as well? Here greed has taken over and the rightful owner is disposed of in order for someone else to benefit.

Jesus has taken these familiar stories and added a new layer of understanding to them. The vineyard no longer represents the people as it did in Isaiah; it's the Kingdom of God. But clearly greed is the primary enemy of that Kingdom.

Now, it's easy to point our fingers at Ahab.
And we can easily see the flaws of the chief priests and Pharisees.

But we need to remember that whenever we point our fingers at someone, there are three other fingers pointing back at us!

We're guilty too.

I don't know how it happens, but it does.
We slowly change our perspective from God's to ours to mine.

I remember my first car. I bought it when I started college. Friends and family members had given me gifts of cash when I graduated from High School, a total of $300. And I used it to buy a 1956 Chrysler.

It had dents in all four doors and the paint was more than a little faded. But mechanically it was in good shape and had been well cared for.

The day I bought it, I dedicated it to God. I knew it wasn't my car, it was God's car. I was simply the temporary steward of it. So I willingly used it to take people places. I understood that this was a gift from God and I tried to find ways to share that gift.

But somewhere between then and now, the cars we own have become our personal possessions rather than cherished gifts from God. I no longer get it serviced so it can continue being put into God's service – as a good steward of the gift. I now take care of my car so it will serve me and my family longer.

It happened slowly, but there is no doubt that it happened. Not as dramatically as it did for the tenants in the vineyard, perhaps, but clearly the same thing has happened in my life.

On occasion, I remember. But for the most part, it's my car, my possession, not God's. I have changed my frame of reference from God's to mine, from being a good steward to being a proud owner.

I suspect I'm not alone.

God has given each of us a vineyard, and sometimes more than one vineyard. For some of us, that vineyard is our family. For others, it's our work. For still others it's our home or our car. There is also a sense in which our church is a shared vineyard that has been given to all of us.

I could go on, but I think you can name what your own ‘vineyard' is.

And I'm convinced that if we look carefully, we'll see that we're no different than the tenants in the parable Jesus tells. We don't want to give back what belongs to God either. We begin to think "I've done all the work; I should decide how the fruits are distributed and who should benefit from my labors."

No one likes an absentee landlord and we all want to be self-employed. It's the American way. What the tenants did was no different than what we would have done – although we might use a little less violence and a little more legal maneuvering. We'd try to capitalize on the circumstances and enlarge our share of the pie.

Whether you believe the vineyard of your life belongs to yourself or to God is the fundamental question Jesus asks with this parable.

More than one time I've heard people preach a sermon in which they tell me that God has enough resources to meet the needs of every church and every person in every country. God has enough wealth to feed the starving people in all corners of the world.

God has enough. We're just not willing to share. It's not a supply problem; it's a distribution problem. It's a problem that would be solved if we saw our possessions as God's vineyard over which we have been made stewards.

This parable is not just an indictment on the leaders of the temple in Jesus' day. It's a warning to us, too. Fortunately for us, Jesus doesn't end the parable in judgement. God is willing to find new tenants for the vineyard.

We can begin today with a clean slate. What kind of a steward do you intend to be – a greedy stingy one who seeks your own satisfaction or a joyous one who returns what belongs to the owner in order that others may share in the joy?

I can only answer for the vineyard God has given to me. You'll have to answer for your own vineyard. I intend to start again to honor God, to return to God what has been entrusted to me, so that God may receive the glory.

Amen.