Receiving the Son
Original sermon given on the Nineteenth Sunday after Pentecost, October 4, 2026 written and delivered by Pastor Jeff Leininger at First Saint Paul’s Lutheran Church.
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“Receiving the Son”
Matthew 21.33-45
Receiving the Son
In the name of the Living God and the risen Christ. Amen.
Our Lord is in Jerusalem, and the mechanisms for his murder have already been engaged. The political and religious leaders of his Jewish people question his origins, his motives, his mission, his miracles, and his authority. They’ve labeled the “son of God” the “Son of Satan” and are especially offended at his words that “tax collectors and sinners are entering the kingdom of God ahead of you” (Matt. 21.31). Jesus tells three stories. All three illustrate a central theme: those who are supposed get it, don’t; those who aren’t supposed to get it, get it, because they get Jesus. And if you don’t get it, by not getting Jesus, you’re going to really get it, in the end. Got it?
The first story he tells, earlier in chapter 21, is about two sons. One is all talk, but no go; the other, though sluggish and reluctant at first, gets there in the end. The third story, which we’ll get to next week, is about a wedding banquet for a king’s son. (Ah, wedding banquets. What could possibly go wrong?) All the town “worthies” — the brightest and the best — rudely reject the king’s gracious invitation. Being quite displeased, he gathers all the people who he finds off the streets to share in the celebration.
This morning’s parable of the tenants in the vineyard is the middle story. (If you’re a middle child, you know how this is going to go, don’t you? Repress and bury all the conflict deep inside.) Like the other two stories Jesus tells, this one also features a strange, and even tragic reversal. But, as we’ll see, it also opens up into the greatest implications for the greatest number of people with the greatest message of all time.
The story starts straightforwardly enough. It’s even quite pleasant. A landowner/ business owner makes a considerable investment into a community. A vineyard — bountiful, beautiful, flourishing, cared for, watched over — arises like streams in the desert, or wine out of the wilderness. Tenants (or workers) are contracted to tend to and harvest its fruit. The story hinges on the understanding that the landowner is fair, the tenants/workers are getting a good deal, and while enjoying the vineyard, will receive just compensation for their labor. Again, what could possibly go wrong?
This story goes “way wrong.” The employees not only start acting like they own the place — that it’s their vineyard — but they stage a revolt, rejecting the landowner’s ministers by “beating one, killing another, stoning yet another” (Matt 21.35). Just when you think it can’t get any worse, there’s yet another twist. The Lord sends his own son. Surely, surely they’ll respect and receive him. And in prophecy of Jesus’ own death, they cast the son outside the walls and kill him, claiming the vineyard for their own. The story ends in judgement upon the rebellious workers, and the vineyard given to others.
It’s a story to make a point, and the point couldn’t be any clearer for the original hearers. It’s not an economics lesson or a lesson on labor or contract law (let’s just say there’s been some wild interpretations over the centuries), but rather it’s a parable that conveys something about God’s vineyard, God’s kingdom, God’s nation, God’s family, God’s workplace. Those who you wouldn’t expect to “get it,” get it because they “get” the son. That’s the surprise in the parable. Who gets to be part of the wonderful work, bountiful harvest, joyful partaking of the fruits? Not those who think they’ve got an owner’s right to it, but only those who recognize, receive, and rejoice in the son.
It’s not, then, because you’re rich enough, ethnically pure enough, socially connected enough, super pious and a great Christian enough, successful enough, “done the best you could” enough, but only because of Jesus. It’s surprising because nothing else in our world really works like this. Everything else ends up, somehow, being about you: how beautiful you are or aren’t; how talented or connected; how educated or wealthy or healthy you are. But not in this new vineyard, this new workplace, this rebuilt building. Here it’s only, can only be about him — the son. “Whoever has the son, has life. And whoever does not have the son, does not have life.” (1 John 5.12)
That’s the surprise of the parable. But the surprise also comes with a warning, as you can guess. Don’t miss the son. Don’t be caught in rejection or rebellion against him. Don’t fool yourself into thinking the vineyard, the world, the work, is for you, about you, that it all belongs to you, that you have a right to do whatever you want with what we see around us and have at our disposal. No. We’re just tenants, stewards, workers called to use wisely that which is entrusted to us before he returns.
This is so different than our world’s perspective, which can be summarized in three words, which happen to rhyme: “Mine! Mine! Mine!” It all becomes almost as ridiculous as the rebellious workers in the vineyard, who refuse to realize that none of it really belongs to them, but rather they’re privileged to care for it and tend to it and participate in it.
The parable has a surprise — those who “get it” are those who “get” the son; and a warning, don’t live like it all belongs to you. But the parable also comes with a call. A gospel call. A “gospel imperative” as the theologians call it: be broken by Jesus. The close of the parable says, “The one who falls upon this stone will be broken; but the one upon whom it falls will be crushed.” (Matt 21.44)
“Be broken by Jesus,” the end of the reading calls out to us, which seems like the craziest, most counterintuitive call ever. Be broken? I thought I’m supposed to be building myself up? Getting stronger, healthier, wealthier, wiser, bettering myself. And of course, there’s lots of good in these things. But what I mean is that it’s only when you know you’ve got nothing before God — no pious pretense, no ownership rights to the vineyard, no genetically determined, theologically mandated rights to an inheritance — it’s only then, in this brokenness before him, when we can only truly begin to be rebuilt by him. To be broken by Jesus is a good thing because it means we can be rebuilt by him.
King David knew this. When at his worst moment — lust, lying, manipulation, and murder—at his worst moment, he wrote his best line: “The sacrifices of God are a broken spirit; a broken and contrite heart, O God, you will not despise” (Psalm 51.17). To repent, to say no to self, to recognize your rights only in the son is to be emptied only to be filled, broken only to be rebuilt.
This call to “be broken by Jesus” is illustrated in the book we’re reading for our Thursday night, book club. C.S. Lewis’s The Great Divorce is also a parable — a story about a group of people who leave the “shadowlands” for an opportunity to go to heaven. (They take a bus on their journey to heaven. These days, they’d probably share an Uber.) The central character of the story discusses heaven and hell and the final judgement with a friend and mentor who’s made it to heaven. The wise mentor says, “For all that can be shaken will be shaken and only the unshakeable remains."[1]
To be broken by Jesus, means to have everything else shaken away, but to be rebuilt solely upon him — his work, his truth, his unfailing love, which can never be shaken.
His story, Christ’s story, also had a surprising, tragic turn. He was cast out of the city and killed. He was cast aside by those who were supposed to “get it”. He was rejected, crucified, buried in a borrowed tomb, and left dead. But at his resurrection, which we celebrate today and on every Sunday, something new, lasting, and powerful was built. A vineyard now open to all; a building beautiful in his sight; and a feast of victory which will never end.
God’s vineyard was always meant for more than could have been imagined. The parable of the tenants in the vineyard is an obvious prophecy of Christ’s own work — he who was sent from the father to harvest the fruits of the faithful. But it’s only because it’s about Jesus — his work, his cross, his love, stretching forth to all the world — it’s only because it’s about Jesus that it can be for all.
Fall on him. Be broken by him. Be engrafted into him. Receive, recognize, and rejoice in him.
Come soon Lord Jesus. Amen.
[1] C. S. Lewis, The Great Divorce, 71 (ed. Harper Collins, 2001)
Image Source: Cranach, Lucas, 1472-1553. Lutheran reformers in the Vineyard of the Lord, from Art in the Christian Tradition, a project of the Vanderbilt University Divinity Library, Nashville, TN. https://act.library.vanderbilt.edu/artworks/55022 [retrieved October 6, 2026]. Original source: http://www.flickr.com/photos/pelegrino/4268689312/.
