Matthew 21:33-46
October 2, 2011
Sermon preached by Rev. Donald Ng at the First Chinese Baptist Church in San Francisco.
One of the bad habits that Joy and I have is to have the TV on when we are having dinner. A show that Joy likes that I pretty much dislike is Judge Judy that comes on at 7:30. Over rather small and trivial matters, Judge Judy scolds, cajoles, embarrasses, and yells at the plaintiff and defendant not only in front of her courtroom audience but at the kitchen counter of millions of viewers like Joy and me for a half an hour. Instead of settling these arcane disagreements themselves, they rather hang their dirty laundry for everyone to see and suffer the rants of Judge Judy’s decisions.
We seem to have an incapability of making decisions by ourselves and would rather let a TV celebrity like Judge Judy Sheindin make them for us. A recent research by the Barna Group reveals that the main reason that non-Christian young adults give for their negative assessment of the Christian faith—87% –is that “present-day Christianity is judgmental.” We don’t like the feeling that someone is making a judgment of us.
After the Enlightenment, we have created a world in which we feel immune from any external judgment other than that “which seems personally right to me.” Immanuel Kant, the intellectual father of the “modern world,” sought a humanity in which individuals freely applied judgments to themselves that were based upon reasonable criteria derived exclusively from themselves.
So we go around telling others including our spouses, don’t be so judgmental leading to completely silencing each other from saying anything that has any trace of criticism. We are quite ready and free to judge others for their faults and mistakes but when it comes to ourselves, we don’t want anyone to judge us.
Despite our judgmental willingness, even eagerness to have two million Americans incarcerated, we are squeamish about God’s judgment on us. We don’t like the idea of God being our Judge.
Wicked Tenants
In the parable for today, Jesus is in Jerusalem. He has already offended the Pharisees and the good church people by comparing them to the second son who disobeyed his father’s directions to work in the vineyard. He has offended them by suggesting that they are like the unproductive fig tree and that they have made the temple, God’s house into a marketplace. The religious officials, perceiving that Jesus’ words and deeds are an attack upon them, are greatly angered. Jesus was like Judge Judy and the religious officials were the defendants.
The parable is about a landowner who hired renters to watch over his vineyard and to produce good fruit while he was away. But when it was harvest time, the owner repeatedly sent his agents to collect his produce but the renters who were entrusted to work for the landowner by now felt that they deserved to own the land for themselves. The renters killed the agents. Out of desperation, the owner sent his son thinking that the renters would respect him and receive what was his due. But the renters seized and killed the son as well. Jesus asked the religious officials, “What should the landowner do?” They told Jesus that the landowner should punish his disloyal renters and take the land away from them and give the land to others who would give him the produce at the harvest time.
The point of this parable is that at the harvest time, there is a time of reckoning, accounting for your investment—what have you done with what you have been given?
If you are in my station of life when I have invested in my retirement account for over 35 years and seeing how my account has tanked in today’s recession, no wonder the executive director of the retirement plan is regularly sending letters to us who are members to stay the course and to not panic! I ask Sumner Grant, “What have you been doing with what I have contributed to my retirement account?”
This parable in Matthew is one about judgment. To us who has received the treasure of the good news of Jesus Christ, what have we done with this treasure for over 2000 years?
Jesus is on his way to work out our salvation. But before he gets there, to his cross, he renders judgment. Now comes the judgment, now comes the reckoning; what have you done with that which has been entrusted to you?
Judge Jesus
We are reminded that while Jesus is the Judge, he is also our Advocate. In 1 John 2:1-2, we read, “My little children, I am writing these things to you so that you may not sin. But if any one does sin, we have an advocate with the Father, Jesus Christ the righteous; and he is the atoning sacrifice for our sins, and not for ours only but also for the sins of the whole world.”
While Jesus is our Judge, he is also the all-affirming sacrifice who hated our sins enough to take its full force upon himself and save us through suffering for us and because of us. Jesus was crucified for telling judgmental stories like the one about the wicked tenants of the vineyard.
In the end, as at the beginning, we do not come to Jesus; he comes to us. God is the one who seeks after us and this time is the judge who comes to set things right before us and God; loving us enough to judge us. In a way, Jesus is a much better judge than Judge Judy because he takes on the problems of both the defendant and the plaintiff and sends them both away winning their cases. If there were any fines, Judge Jesus paid them off himself.
We may not like the thought of being judgmental or being judged but in all of scripture, God’s anticipated judgment is always presented as a joyful event, a time when God at last overcomes the injustice and inequity of the world and give evil what it deserves.
In fact, God’s love for us in Jesus Christ is not the removal of the threat of judgment but the fulfillment of divine judgment. Jesus comes to judge both the living and the dead.
Even though we know we shall be judged and even though we do not know with certainty the outcome of that judgment, we can have confidence and hope, because we know the Judge. It’s not like when someone is coming up for trial and his lawyers are trying to have his case heard by a “good or sympathetic” judge. If Jesus Christ is our Judge, we know him. He told us, “If we abide in him, we will have confidence at the day of his coming (1 John 2:28). In him, “we have boldness before God” (1 John 3:21). Judge Jesus is the Judge who has gone to such extraordinary lengths to seek us and to bear all of our sins on himself.
In John 12:47-48, Jesus said, “I came not to judge the world, but to save the world. The one who rejects me and does not receive my word has a judge; on the last day the word that I have spoken will serve as judge.” Judgment occurs whenever Christ clashes with our world, be that collision provoked by the cross or his resurrection. Judgment is when we can no longer avoid the realization that in Christ, God’s ways are not our ways, when we know that the God whom we refused to love has refused not to be loved by us.
Judge Jesus is the one who was in the world and the world came into being through him; yet the world did not know him (John 1:10) but is the one who declares to the rejecting world, “Because I live, you also will live” (John 14:19). While the day of judgment will come upon all of us sooner or later, Judge Jesus knows us and will advocate for us when we abide with him.
Today’s Renters
When we apply this parable to ourselves today, God’s expectations are for those who’ve been given the task of living in his kingdom that we produce fruit and send wine into the world. How are we managing God’s stuff on God’s behalf?
As renters, we’ve been entrusted with two things: the gospel of Jesus Christ and our personal, worldly goods. Both come from God. Both are to be used in service to God. The gospel is the message that despite humankind’s universal rebellion against God’s authority, God desires a reconciled relationship with us. God has pursued us through the sending of his Son and made reconciliation possible through that same Son’s sacrificial death on the cross. Because of the cross, the entire world is now welcome to enter the vineyard and labor under God’s love.
We must recognize that all things—the clothes on our backs, the dollars in our wallets and even the ceilings above our heads belong to God and are on loan to us from God. God owns everything. It’s simply been leased to us. “We bought nothing into the world, and we cannot take anything out of the world” (1 Tim. 6:7).
But we see in this parable too that a good renter or steward does something with the gospel and his goods. He produces a crop. He makes sure that both the vineyard and the fruit bring blessings to the world. What can you say are the fruits of your labor, you being a renter, you being a tenant, you being a good steward?
When was the last time you invited someone to church with you? How long has it been since you last read the Bible with your children? When was the last time you prayed for a coworker? Can you still remember the last position you held at the church? Is there growth in knowledge of your faith? If called upon, could you even begin to defend your faith? What kind of crop are you producing with the gospel? How are you doing in managing your goods? Whether it is much or little, are you seeking to grow what God has given you?
Be honest. When was the last time some of your stuff—correction, God’s stuff—blessed anyone other than you and yours? What do we have to show for the vineyard we’re in? Sure sounds like Judge Jesus is cross-examining all of us today!
Judging Love
The parable of the wicked tenants—in which the landowner is determined to get a just response from the renters—is not only a story of God’s judgment but also of God’s incredibly patient, love-suffering love. The one who judges Israel is first the one who has elected Israel. From this perspective, God’s judgment on us is not so much a work of the wrath of God but also a sign of God’s steadfast determination to save us.
If we were to stand in front of Judge Jesus, we most likely won’t be able to live and testify truthfully, but God believe in us more than we believe in ourselves.
Love is not love that is irresponsive. Unresponsiveness is the death of a relationship. A lover who expects nothing of the beloved, who does not want the best for the beloved is not really in love. When a couple doesn’t honestly offer and receive criticism and judging points of view, there’s no true love.
We watch Judge Judy because it may be entertaining. But we need Judge Jesus. Ultimately, it is out of God’s sacrificial love for the world that he judges us. Judge Jesus judges us when we are not fulfilling his expectations for us to produce good fruit and to serve wine to the world.
Let us pray.
Almighty God, we give thanks that you loved us enough to come to us, to send your Son, our Savior, Jesus, to speak the truth to us, to show us the way of life, to call disciples, and to seek and save us. And we are bold this day even to give thanks for your loving us enough to hold us accountable, to judge us, to show us the error of our ways. Judge us, good Lord; love us enough not to leave us to our own standards of judgment. In the name of Judge Jesus, we pray and thank you for your mercy. Amen.