Matthew 21:33-46 October 4, 2026
Wicked Tenants
James Jangknect
This is the point in Matthew where
Jesus starts getting a little
dark.
His stories are kind of threatening.
Not much good news here.
We have to
remember, Jesus has entered into Jerusalem at this point
and he’s
confronting all the religious leaders there
And he’s
obviously not happy with what they’re doing.
He wants to
stress this to them. And so we get this kind of reading.
The “Dark
Jesus” parables.
Martin Luther once said that sometimes you have to
squeeze
a
biblical passage until it leaks the gospel.
This is one of those weeks.
There’s
the landowner, there’s the tenants, there’s lots of killing.
This parable
ends, basically with Jesus saying that the kingdom
of God is
going to be taken away from those who don’t bear fruit
and given to
someone who does. And they would be really sorry.
Not too much
grace going on here.
So, even though this particular parable might
not be easy
to take in, we still shouldn’t avoid
the point
that Jesus is making here.
When
Matthew gives us “Dark Jesus”
we don’t have
to avoid it or ignore it,
OR trade in
our Lutheran understanding
of God’s
grace when we hear it.
We
just need to remember that at these times,
Jesus is
being very serious.
These things
are important to Jesus.
And when
Jesus gets really dark and forceful,
he’s always
talking to people of higher status,
people in
control, people with power.
Not the sick,
not the poor, not the outcast.
Jesus was talking to the
Chief Priests
and the Pharisees, The ones who questioned his authority.
He’s
questioning the leadership of the church, not the poor widow.
And
now when we read it, we need to look at ourselves.
We are the
tenants in the vineyard.
We are the
keepers of the church now.
It applies,
bishops, pastors, church leaders
and even members
of the Christian Church.
The
question that it asks all of us: How are
we doing?
What are we doing to bear fruit for the kingdom?
What are we
giving back to God?
Are we doing
what we’re supposed to be doing?
Are
we giving the landowner what he wants?
or are we
turning God away empty-handed.
It’s a
legitimate question to ask.
If we’re here
as a church for a purpose
are we doing
that purpose?
The way the church has often evaluated how well it’s
doing its job is by looking how much we have.
Do we have a lot of people? and do we have a lot of money?
If so, then we’re automatically doing good.
If not, then we’re falling short and we’re the bad tenants.
Kelly Fryer, a Lutheran Church developer said it best:
She says
that, even if we don’t say it out loud,
churches
evaluate themselves in terms of “butts and bucks”
The
first church I served had 300 people on a Sunday
which was
quite a lot in my estimation.
30 young
people in confirmation. Over 50 in Sunday School.
But they were
always down on themselves because
they USED to
have 700 on a Sunday and 100 in confirmation.
“Why can’t it
be like it used to be in the good old days?”
Now, they
look at the 20 years ago as the good old days.
Butts and
bucks.
But
is that what God wants?
Is that what Jesus thinks is so important?
When
we evaluate ourselves this way,
we end up
comparing ourselves to other churches
Those
churches over there who have a giant building
Or need
security to direct traffic in the morning.
They’ve got a
lot of people, they must be doing something right.
And
then, of course we compare ourselves,
to the “glory
days” of the church,
Whether it
was the 1800’s or the 1950’s or the 1980’s or the 2010’s
Those good
old days. And then we try to recreate the “old days”.
Which is
never genuine to the context a church is currently living in now.
Or,
we end up comparing ourselves to other churches
Those
churches over there who have a giant building
Or need
security to direct traffic in the morning.
They’ve got a
lot of people, they must be doing something right.
They must be
doing what God wants.
But
a bigger, wealthier church is not necessarily a church that
Is doing
God’s will and following God’s mission.
In the time
of Jesus, the temple was very wealthy.
They had a
lot of people who attended and gave.
But Jesus was
still very clear that they were not pleasing God.
But
still the myth of butts and bucks continues.
But some
churches have traded in God’s plans
in order to appeal
to the most people.
Some
Christian pastors have given up on Jesus message
and made
themselves into self-help gurus in order to appeal to
the most
people and have made heaps of money for themselves.
Some churches have turned faith into a mandate instead of an invitation.
Threatening people that they’re going to hell if they
don’t show up
and give enough money to the church.
Converting
people with fear and threats.
Which has gotten them good attendance.
Some
churches preach hate every Sunday morning:
hate of
people of other races, Religions, LBTQ people,
which seems
to appeal to a certain segment of our population
right now, and
some of them are very crowded
and have lots
of money coming in.
Butts and
bucks don’t necessarily add up to fulfilling God’s will.
Now,
there are plenty of churches that do have a lot of people
that do
follow God’s call and many people have joined
to live that
out that plan with them with them.
It’s not that
large churches are bad.
But it’s not
necessarily true that churches that are
large in
number and in their budgets are always doing God’s will.
But we still
often see it that way.
Krister Stendahl, was a professor at Harvard Divinity
and then he
went on to be the bishop of Sweden,
he wrote
extensively about Christianity in the world.
He spoke at
the seminary when I was there, and I still remember
this little
story from his lecture. He said:
“When God comes into the office in the morning, he doesn’t ask for
Christian
growth statistics, he doesn’t ask
how many
people have we added to the ledger
God asks
‘What have my Christians done for the Kingdom?’”
God isn’t interested in the raw numbers of
Christians in the world or members in our churches
God’s interested is in the mending of the whole of creation.
God doesn’t care about numbers.
God needs to
get things done.
And maybe God
can do that better with fewer people.
He added, “Jesus said to us,
“you are the
salt of the earth”
But no one
wants the whole world to be a salt mine.”
So
as tenants in God’s vineyard, we are not judged by
how many
people we have or how big our bank account is.
That is very
fortunate for us at Christ Lutheran, isn’t it?
But
at the same time, our small size or bank
account
is not proof that
we’re doing anything right either.
Size does not
matter to God. But what does?
Isaiah,
in our reading today says that
God expects justice and
righteousness.
Micah 6 says: what does the Lord
require of you
but to do justice and to love kindness
and to walk humbly with your God?
In Galatians,
Paul says that the fruits of the Spirit are:
Love,
joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness,
gentleness,
self-control.
Later on in Matthew, Jesus tells one of the Pharisees that the
greatest commandment was "You shall love the Lord your God with all
your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind.' 'You shall love your
neighbor as yourself.'
Nothing about butts and bucks in there.
But a lot about service. A lot about orienting our focus
on the good of others and not ourselves.
A lot about sacrificing our wants for the good of others
and the good of our community and the world.
Now at some points in history,
the Christian church has been huge and dominant in the world.
There were times when you had to be Christian.
We can remember a time when most of the people in the US
attended some sort of church on a Sunday. That’s not true any
more.
Now there is a report that just came out that estimated
that 15,000 churches might close in 2026
and 100,000 could close in the next decade.
And over the course of this congregation has had
300 people on a Sunday and at another time,
it’s had 20 people on a Sunday.
Size doesn’t matter to God.
But
whatever the size, the church – global and national-
has been at it’s best when its leaders and
people can put aside
their own egos
and look outside the doors and say –
regardless of
what’s going on in here –
we’re going
to serve our community.
We’re going
to love God and love our neighbor as best we can.
That is the
rent we pay as tenants
We
don’t need to be like that church down the street.
We don’t need
to imitate another church in order
We don’t need
to trade in the mission that we’re called
To in order
to get more people and get more money.
We need to do
what God needs us to do here
We may not always have the courage or energy or strategy
to do what we’re called to. We might fail.
We might even be too lazy, or jaded, or cynical to do it.
But as tenants, we always need to keep asking the question,
what does God
want us to do now?
Where is the
Spirit leading us now?
Who is in
need? Who can we serve right now?
Not
what’s going to get us the most people,
not what’s
going to curb my anxiety about paying the bills,
but what is
God calling us to do in this community.
What we do and
how we do it, matters to God.
Now, we still have this story and this vineyard,
those tenants and that land-owner.
I still feel need to squeeze out some sort of Gospel
of God’s grace at some point.
And if there
is a way to squeeze any more gospel out of it,
it might be
this:
Every
time those tenants broke their lease
and abused
the servants that the landowner sends –
the landowner
sends more, and more,
and then he even
sends them his son.
Obviously, that landowner is desperate
to be in
relationship with those tenants.
Obviously
that landowner keeps hoping
that the
tenants will turn things around.
And so it is with God and us.
We might not
always live up to our
end of the
bargain as tenants and care-takers.
But God loves us, and God loves the churches
that God has created,
and God has not lost hope in us.
and God will not lose hope in us.
Seventy
times seven - over and over again -
God forgives
and God reaches out.
God comes
back to us.
