Matthew 21: 33-46
Offered to the First Presbyterian Church of East Amwell NJ, October 4, 2026
Mel Prestamo, Ruling Elder, PCUSA
Today we are celebrating World Communion Sunday. This is a great day of inclusiveness joining Christians from all over the world to share in this meal that the Lord has prepared for us. The inclusiveness of Christians in every time and space coming together to share this meal is the centerpiece of this day.
In contrast, in today’s lectionary we have Jesus, flat out telling the religious leaders of Israel that the Kingdom of God will be taken away from them. Because of their wickedness they will be excluded from it. We have (I think) a purposeful juxtaposition of the themes of Exclusion and Inclusion. In our lectionary, we have Jesus telling the religious leaders that they will be excluded from and that God’s Kingdom will be taken away from them. Then on our church calendar, we have this special celebration of inclusiveness.
At the same time as we are coming to celebrate the inclusiveness of the Lord’s Supper, we are challenged to confront the parable of the wicked tenants. The wicked tenants who in the very words of the religious leaders Jesus was confronting should be put “to a miserable death.” A death that I suspect they would have exacted were those wicked tenants brought before them for justice.
Ultimately, Jesus takes the religious leaders that he is debating with to the conclusion that they will lose their ability to enter God’s Kingdom. The parable’s theme is centered on the notion of the exclusion of the wicked – those who have abused their rights to be tenants of the God’s vineyard or from entering the Kingdom of God at all.
These two themes are stark in how they stand in opposition from each other. And we Christians have to deal with them both. That’s the challenge.
In his parable, Jesus is clearly painting a picture of how He and God view the mismanagement of God’s vineyard by the chosen people that God has entrusted it to.
But before we get into today’s parable, let’s look at some of the background to what is happening in Matthew’s story line. This is the week leading up to Passover. Jesus has just entered Jerusalem on what we call Palm Sunday. Huge crowds have greeted him shouting, “Hosanna to the Son of David.” Calling Jesus, the Son of David is assigning to him a Messianic title of a King. Calling out “Hosanna,” which means “Save us!” this was tantamount to raising the flag of rebellion.
These are two very dangerous things that will catch the eyes of the Roman authorities. The Chief Priests and Pharisees are rightly concerned that they will lose control of the people and the city. They have to be careful that nothing happens that would make the Romans think that a possible uprising was about to occur. Because that would threaten their authority over the Temple and the city. They need to keep a lid on what’s happening.
What happened next? Jesus enters the Temple and causes a riot whipping the vendors and overturning the money changing tables and then ultimately driving them out of the Temple.
This is not the quiet religious festival that the religious authorities planned on or that the Romans expected. No. Jesus has entered the city in a grand procession. The people are calling him their King and shouting that he should save them from their oppressors.
So, the chief priests and Pharisees go to him and demand to know by what authority he has done these things. Jesus refuses to debate with them and instead asks them to answer his question concerning John’s baptism—where did it come from? Was it from heaven, or of human origin?” They answer by saying, “We don’t know.” Then Jesus refuses to answer their question. From there we proceed to today’s lectionary.
Jesus has obviously had enough of these religious authorities and is going to confront them directly by challenging their hypocrites.
So, Jesus begins, “Listen to another parable.” “There was a landowner who planted a vineyard. He put a wall around it. He put a winepress in it and he built a watchtower. Then he rented the vineyard to some farmers and moved to another place. When the harvest time approached, he sent his servants to the tenants to collect the rents due to him. The tenants seized his servants; they beat one, killed another, and stoned a third. When the vineyard owner heard of this, he sent other servants to them, more than the first time, and the tenants treated them the same way – beating, killing and stoning them. Ultimately, he sent his son to them thinking, ‘They will respect my son.’ But when the tenants saw the son, they said to each other, ‘This is the heir. Come, let’s kill him and take his inheritance.’ So, they took him and threw him out of the vineyard and killed him.
Jesus then presents them with this question, “Therefore, when the owner of the vineyard comes, what will he do to those tenants?” “He will bring those wretches to a miserable death,” they replied, “and he will rent the vineyard to other tenants, who will give him his share of the crop at harvest time.” Jesus allows their own words to condemn them.
Then Jesus brings it all to a conclusion, “Therefore, I tell you that the kingdom of God will be taken away from you and given to a people who will produce good fruits of the Kingdom.
Now make no mistake, the religious leaders listening to Jesus understood every word and symbolisms in this Parable. The representation of the vineyard to be the nation of Israel. Yeah, they got that. In Isaiah 5:7, the prophet clearly states, “The vineyard of the Lord of Hosts is the house of Israel.” They knew their sacred scripture, and they knew Israel was meant to be the Lord’s vineyard. They understood the meaning of the hedge line and the protection it provided. They understood the purpose of the winepress and the benefits of the watchtower. They got all that. What they hadn’t yet seen was that they were the wicked tenants that they had just condemned to death.
And the Lord of Hosts that Isaiah was speaking of had given Israel everything it could need to bear good fruit and to make the Lord’s vineyard grow. In the parable, the vineyard owner sets up the vineyard with a hedge and a watchtower to protect it from wild animals and thieves. Throughout Israel’s history we know the stories of how the Lord had protected Israel from its enemies acting as its hedge line and its watchtower. The vineyard owner provides a winepress to make wine from the harvest the vineyard produced. Though it never understood its role, Israel was expected to go into the nations to till and cultivate God’s good soil and bring in a good harvest.
Israel was given the promised land of milk and honey. It was made strong by good kings who feared the Lord and kept the Lord’s precepts. Israel had been given every opportunity to grow and prosper and to make the vineyard of the Lord of Hosts spread throughout creation sharing the good fruits of the harvest.
But Israel did not. Instead, Israel turned away from the pathway that God had laid out for them. They made alliances with foreign kings and brought their foreign gods into God’s Temple and worshipped them there. They no longer feared the Lord. They no longer followed the precepts of the Lord or kept God’s Commandments. In fact, Israel’s religious leaders had constructed their own laws so that they could circumvent many of the God’s Ten commandments.
How did God respond to their infidelity? God sent prophets as messengers to speak to the people and remind them of their covenant relationship with the Lord.
But how did Israel respond to God’s messengers? Legend has it that Jeremiah and Habakkuk were stoned to death. God’s messenger Zechariah was murdered in the Temple. Then too, God’s prophet, Micah was killed by King Joram.
In the parable, the vineyard owner’s messengers were beaten and stoned. They were killed. And ultimately the vineyard owner’s Son was murdered.
Now Jesus asks the religious leaders this question, “What is the vineyard owner to do?” Jesus lets them use their own words to hang themselves. “He will bring those wretches to a miserable death, and he will rent the vineyard to other tenants, who will give him his share of the crop at harvest time.”
Now the hammer falls on them, Jesus looks them square in the eye and tells them, “Therefore, I tell you that the kingdom of God will be taken away from you and given to a people who will produce its fruit.”
Jesus was casting judgment over the mismanagement of the Lord of Hosts vineyard by the religious leaders.
He builds it all to a crescendo telling them the kingdom of God will be taken away from them and given to those who will produce the fruits of the kingdom. This is a demonstrative act of exclusion. Jesus is making a judgment that the kingdom of God will be taken away from Israel and from the religious leaders to whom it was entrusted, and it will be passed on to those who will make it bear good fruit.
That is where our lectionary reading for today takes us. It is harsh. It casts judgment. It is a terrible and demonstrative act of exclusion that takes away the Kingdom from those religious leaders.
What Jesus does later in the week (on the day we now call Maundy Thursday) was to create something for his disciples that would be a forever remembrance of him. Later at the close of his Gospel, Matthew records the charge Jesus gave the made his disciples the new tenants of the Lord’s vineyard. You know it.
“All authority in heaven and on the earth has been given to me. Go therefore and make disciples of all the nations…” You know the rest.
This was the same charge that God had given Israel – to share God’s Shalom with all creation. But it did not. So now, Jesus passes that charge onto the new tenants of the vineyard. Go out into the world and share the good news story of God’s reconciliation and salvation with all of creation. That is the task passed onto us.
So, standing in juxtaposition to this act of exclusion where Jesus took away the vineyard from those wicked tenants, we have World Communion Sunday. Today we have the celebration of the meal that Jesus had prepared for his disciples and because of the authority given to him that he passed on to those disciples. It is the same meal that he has prepared for us. Today we have the meal – through which Jesus had created for the world – a new covenant. One in which he gave up his body for our sins and then sealed that Covenant with his blood.
In this Communion meal, Jesus is calling us to gather together as all the faithful in every time and place. On World Communion Sunday he opens his arms to gather in ALL the faithful from around the world, joining us together in one inclusive celebration of the Lord’s Supper. We do it in remembrance of him and we do it in remembrance of all that he has taught us. Now go out into the world and make it so.
