5th
Sunday in Lent March
17, 2013
Luke
20:9-20 Laying
Claim of our Inheritance
Dear
fellow redeemed,
Have
you visited the web site: MissingMoney.com?
*
They promise they can help you
retrieve any personal assets which have gone missing.
If,
for whatever reason, you, as of this date have some unclaimed money, they’ll
assist
you in securing it. And their searches
and claiming are free.
*
Many are surprised by how much
money goes unclaimed.
It
includes bank accounts and the contents of safe deposit boxes. People lose
sight of personal stocks, mutual
funds, bonds and dividends, un-cashed checks.
*
Also gone missing are insurance
policies, CD’s, trust funds and escrow accounts.
*
Maybe you should check out
MissingMoney.com. You never know!
You too might find something of some value. It’s yours!
You just have to claim it!
You
know, God essentially is telling us the same thing in today’s Gospel.
*
“You have something missing in
your life. You have no future.
But
if you listen to me, your situation is sure to change.
I wish to give you a share of my inheritance in the
Kingdom. It’s yours to claim!”
*
Or does laying claim of such an
inheritance sound a wee bit presumptuous?
Shall
we simply claim a place in heaven because we have it coming, and no one better
get
in our way!
*
You’re right. That would be presumptuous; spoken as one
who’s already rejected Christ.
*
Having said that, however, there
is a right view regarding how we lay claim of our
inheritance. The
wrong view is to acknowledge our own authority.
But the right view is to acknowledge God’s
authority.
That’s
why today’s parable has been recorded.
*
Christ first told it to a
gathering of Jews which consisted partly of the religious leaders of
the day.
*
The meaning is simple to
interpret. God is the man who planted a
vineyard and let it out
to tenants. And the
tenants are the Jewish nation.
*
God had entrusted Israel with his
covenant of grace from the time of their deliverance to
Christ’s
time. The Israelites were given ample time to bear fruits of repentance and
holy
lives.
*
The servants sent to the tenants
are the prophets from the time of Moses to John the
Baptist. They were sent to gather from God’s people – fruits
which indicated they were
repentant.
Unfortunately,
the prophets were mistreated in each case and sent away empty-handed.
The people preferred trusting not in God’s authority
but a human authority.
* So what
would happen next? Well, the rest of the
parable concerned both the present and
what was about to happen. The son of the man owning the vineyard is
Christ.
Would he be accepted?
Would the people perhaps now bear fruits of repentance?
*
Of course, we know it
unfolds. The problem the scribes and the
chief priests had is they
didn’t want to give up their authority.
The people respected them, looking to them for spiritual
direction in their lives.
*
And the people didn’t want to
give up their works-righteous religion.
They were quite
comfortable accepting the notion that they had rights to
God’s inheritance.
It all came down to their pretty deeds and their superior
lives.
* It’s very
interesting. Jesus relates what the
tenants finally said when the owner of the
vineyard sent his son. “This is the heir. Let us kill
him, so that the inheritance may be ours.”
*
Was this a story? Listen again to the last part of our reading.
“The scribes and the chief priests
sought to lay hands on him that very hour, for they
perceived that he had told this parable against them.” They wanted to kill him!
The
scribes and chief priests fancied themselves as men of God.
In
truth, they wanted to kill the heir, God’s Son, believing they had “these
rights”.
*
And nothing could prove more
tragic. These religious leaders and a
large majority of
Jews
in Jesus’ day never benefited from God’s covenant of grace.
*
They refused to see that there
are no rights, no life, apart from the rights and life the Lord
gives us by his redeeming blood. There is no claim to God’s inheritance apart
from faith
in Christ, the cornerstone, the foundation of the one saving
faith.
In
America today we obviously don’t have scribes or Chief priests or Pharisees.
*
But we do have many in our
secular society with the same mind set.
“Keep your Jesus to yourself!
I have authority as a human being to determine what is
morally correct.”
*
Let me tell you what today’s
entitlement mentality consists of from a religious standpoint.
“I do not require God’s approval when determining what my
rights are!”
“God
has no authority over me. I have the
authority to decide what rights are valid and
what rights are not!”
* You’ve probably heard this past
Tuesday that within Minnesota’s House and Senate a
couple committees passed a gay “marriage” bill. This was despite strong testimony from
legal scholars, medical professionals, and concerned
citizens.
*
The gay activists say that
redefining marriage will impact 515 rights and benefits.
The
bill’s next stop will be a vote in the House and Senate where legislators could
pass it into law without regard to
every major poll which has shown that most Minnesotans
do not want marriage redefined.
*
The same thing is happening as in
Jesus’ day. Learning what the Lord has
to say on a
matter, people scheme. “This is the heir. Let us kill him, so that the inheritance may
be
ours!”
“Let’s determine how to shut him up, so that we may have our rights!”
Surely,
you and I don’t want to vote God out of our marriages and out of our lives.
But
there are plenty of times we adopt the same mind set.
*
“I don’t need you to tell me I
when I’m being inconsiderate or disrespectful . . .
You
don’t need to help me define ‘a sexually pure and decent life’ . . .
Enough with getting my neighbor’s possessions ‘in a
dishonest way’! Who asked you? . . .
*
“Keep it to yourself how my words
might hurt my neighbor’s reputation! . . .
Stop telling me I need to be in church more regularly!
I don’t need your help to know when I cross the line!”
* It’s
interesting! We pride ourselves as being
Lutheran. We believe that we “cannot
by (our)
own reason or
strength believe in Jesus Christ, (our) Lord or come to him.”
We need the Holy Spirit.
* Really? You know, sometimes our pride can make us a
bit two-faced.
We
forget what else is involved in being a Lutheran. Just as we need help from the
outside coming to know our Savior, so
do we need help from the outside coming to know
our sin.
*
Be careful you don’t shut out
God’s voice for too long.
Once we harden our heart, it won’t matter who comes to us
with the message to repent.
*
We’re going to believe, “I don’t
need outside help. I can repent all by
myself!”
*
Are you sure? Christ has this to
say. “Abide in me . . . As the branch
cannot bear fruit by
itself, unless it abides in the vine, neither can you,
unless you abide in me” (John 15:4).
It’s
a simple question. Does God have authority
in your life or not?
*
If so, how does he bring about
fruit in your life? Does he sprinkle
some magical dust
down from heaven?
Does he zap you with a sense of love and good will?
*
Or does he use fellow human
beings; those who will confront you with your past, but will
also assure you, when you repent, that you’re forgiven
through Christ?
*
Think about it. God’s not going to suddenly appear before us
in visible form and demand
from us the fruits which belong to him. That’s not his style.
*
He sends someone like ourselves. He sends
us our parent, our pastor, that certain friend,
our fellow worker, our teacher, that relation of ours who
can often be an irritation.
*
Fruits of repentance, you see,
consist of acknowledging two things.
First, I acknowledge
that there’s an authority over me, someone standing in for
God, to whom I must answer.
*
Secondly, I acknowledge that I’ve
messed up royally. I’m deficient as a
human being, for
I’m
a sinner. And therefore I deserve God’s
judgment.
Granted,
it’s not an admission that comes naturally.
*
God alone has the authority to
set life’s standards. And when people
fall away, it is God
who has the authority to rescue our lives and determine how
he will do so.
*
Anyone who desires to lay claim
to God’s inheritance but rejects his Son will be
condemned. “Everyone
who falls on that stone will be broken to pieces, and when it falls
on anyone, it will crush him.”
*
Apparently Jesus is changing the
focus here from the cornerstone to the two stones used
in threshing or grinding wheat.
** One stone served as a flat surface on
which the harvested stalks of grain were placed.
These stalks were hit against the rock to break the chaff
from the wheat.
*
Then the other stone, a grinding
stone, was dragged over the stalks to further separate the
grain from the chaff.
The chaff, reduced to fine particles or powder, would fly away like
dust in the wind.
*
We’re left with a picture of the
Father’s judgment.
As the chaff was separated from the
grain, so are the unfruitful separated from the
repentant; those who truly offer God what is his.
Thank
the Lord our future life does not depend on any personal authority we muster
up.
As
repentant sinners, we may lay claim of our inheritance by acknowledging God’s
authority.
* That’s
right. Not only does our Lord have the
authority to condemn the unrepentant;
he has the authority to forgive. And he does it by shedding his own blood for
sinners.
*
Parables, as I mentioned last
week, are stories that have something to teach everyone.
We don’t get to decide whether or not this one has
something to say to me.
*
In some cases that may be a bit
disarming. Other times it’s extremely
comforting.
It’s
curious when today’s parable speaks of the owner of the vineyard who sent his
son
whom he loved. God,
of course, did the same thing.
*
But there’s a notable difference
here.
In our parable, the father thinks to himself, “perhaps they will respect (my son).”
Maybe he’d be treated differently than the messengers sent
before him.
*
In real life, however, God knew
very well that Jesus would be rejected like the rest of the
prophets, and in the end that he’d even be crucified.
* But
that didn’t stop God. He sent his only begotten Son, anyway.
It’s
because God sent his Son, not for his own sake.
He sent Jesus for us.
* He sent him so that he might suffer in
our place the punishment he had reserved for
sinners. He sent him
so that we might have forgiveness in his Kingdom, and that we
might lay claim of our inheritance.
But
maybe you’re still uncomfortable with the word “claim.”
* As far as you’re concerned, it smacks
of Protestant theology.
We certainly don’t stand before God saying, “Okay, Lord,
see my commitment to you?
See my undivided trust?
You may now welcome me into your grace!”
*
You’re right! We don’t claim our
inheritance as though it’s something our faith entitles us
to. Faith isn’t some
gift to God by which we prove to him our loyalty and sincere trust.
* Faith is God’s gift to us, by which he
permits us, even in our sinful condition, to gain
Christ;
to gain his forgiveness and salvation.
However,
as Christians we do claim our inheritance, making an appeal to the
Father.
* We appeal
not to our performance as a Christian but to Christ’s performance
as our Savior.
Listen
to the words of St. Paul from today’s epistle.
*
He speaks of the surpassing worth
of knowing Christ; “being found in him not having a
righteousness of my own that comes from the law, but that
which comes through faith in
Christ.” And then he speaks laying claim of his
inheritance, saying “I press on to make
it my own, because Christ Jesus has made me his own.”
*
It’s true that we have no
assertion to make before God; assuring him we’re the real thing.
But we do make an assertion to our self and to the world.
* “I’m not
entitled to God’s inheritance, for I’m a sinner, unequivocally, from the day of
my
conception to the day of my death. I have no authority of my own, no rights that
I might
flash before God as I remind him of
my moral and upright life.
*
“But I may lay claim of my Lord’s
inheritance all the same.
For Jesus had the
authority to save me from me sin.
And that’s just what he did when he
suffered and died for me that I might be his own and live
under him in his kingdom.
You
know, sometimes it may be difficult to claim that money that’s gone missing.
*
Let’s say you drop a twenty
dollar bill on your way into the super market.
Thirty
seconds later you return to the same spot, only to witness someone walking by
picking
up the same bill.
*
Is he going to believe you when
you inform him, “Oh, that’s my twenty dollars.
I
dropped it just a moment ago”? He just
might consider you a bit presumptuous and ask
you to recite to him the serial number.
*
There is nothing presumptuous,
dear friends, about laying claim of our inheritance in
God’s Kingdom. We do
it every Sunday when we position ourselves before God to hear
his Gospel, or when we kneel at his altar to receive our
Lord’s body and blood.
*
We do it every day when we
remember our Baptism, when, having shared with our Lord
the fruits of repentance, we trust in our Savior for his
grace and his forgiveness.
Amen.
May
the peace of God which passes all understanding keep your hearts in and minds
in Christ Jesus.
Amen.
