Rejecting Those God Sends: Luke 20:1-19

As we continue our journey through Luke’s gospel, we come to Jesus’ final week leading up to the cross. For our time together, we will fast-forward past Jesus’ triumphal entry and jump into an event Luke tells us happened during this week, probably early on in this week. While Luke doesn’t give us any hint regarding what day this happened, I suspect it may have been the Monday or Tuesday of that week.

Also worth mentioning before reading the passage we will focus in on is that earlier, most likely the day before, Jesus had thrown out the money changers and upset the commerce that was happening in the temple courtyard.

While it is not any stretch to imagine the first part of our passage to be a direct response to Jesus throwing the money changers out of the temple, when we read what happened together, let’s look past what might have happened earlier and focus on what we can discover from the passage itself.

Our passage is found in Luke’s gospel, chapter 20, and we will read from the Good News Translation. Starting in verse 1, Luke tells us:

¹ One day when Jesus was in the Temple teaching the people and preaching the Good News, the chief priests and the teachers of the Law, together with the elders, came ² and said to him, “Tell us, what right do you have to do these things? Who gave you such right?”

³ Jesus answered them, “Now let me ask you a question. Tell me, ⁴ did John’s right to baptize come from God or from human beings?”

⁵ They started to argue among themselves, “What shall we say? If we say, ‘From God,’ he will say, ‘Why, then, did you not believe John?’ ⁶ But if we say, ‘From human beings,’ this whole crowd here will stone us, because they are convinced that John was a prophet.” ⁷ So they answered, “We don’t know where it came from.”

⁸ And Jesus said to them, “Neither will I tell you, then, by what right I do these things.”

Let’s pause reading for a moment, because I want to draw our attention onto a powerful idea present in this brief exchange. When the religious leaders ask Jesus what right He has to do what He is doing, while it is tempting to think they are referencing what Jesus had done in the temple when He kicked out the money changers a day earlier, part of me wonders if they are challenging Him on what He was doing at that present moment.

At that moment, Luke has set the stage by telling us Jesus was teaching and preaching the crowds and sharing the good news with them. With this context, I can see the challenge directed at Jesus as who gave Him the right or authority to preach God’s Word or to share God’s message with the world.

I suspect they were fishing for a way to discredit Jesus’ ministry. If Jesus said a specific human, or a specific Rabbi, they could discredit Him because of something in that rabbi or teacher’s life. If Jesus told them that God had given Him the authority, then they could accuse Him of presuming too much, and Jesus would have subtly directed focus onto Himself. Jesus wanted to keep the focus on God the Father and Jesus wanted to direct all the glory to Him.

In Jesus’ simple counter question, we discover that Jesus preferred this question remaining unanswered.

Answering this question would not help Jesus’ mission and ministry in any way, and it wouldn’t have brought God glory, so Jesus counters it with a question that the religious leaders were unwilling to conclusively decide.

However, Jesus isn’t finished pushing these religious leaders. Continuing in verse 9, Luke tells us:

⁹ Then Jesus told the people this parable: “There was once a man who planted a vineyard, rented it out to tenants, and then left home for a long time. ¹⁰ When the time came to gather the grapes, he sent a slave to the tenants to receive from them his share of the harvest. But the tenants beat the slave and sent him back without a thing. ¹¹ So he sent another slave; but the tenants beat him also, treated him shamefully, and sent him back without a thing. ¹² Then he sent a third slave; the tenants wounded him, too, and threw him out. ¹³ Then the owner of the vineyard said, ‘What shall I do? I will send my own dear son; surely they will respect him!’ ¹⁴ But when the tenants saw him, they said to one another, ‘This is the owner’s son. Let’s kill him, and his property will be ours!’ ¹⁵ So they threw him out of the vineyard and killed him.

“What, then, will the owner of the vineyard do to the tenants?” Jesus asked. ¹⁶ “He will come and kill those men, and turn the vineyard over to other tenants.”

When the people heard this, they said, “Surely not!”

¹⁷ Jesus looked at them and asked, “What, then, does this scripture mean?

‘The stone which the builders rejected as worthless
    turned out to be the most important of all.’

¹⁸ Everyone who falls on that stone will be cut to pieces; and if that stone falls on someone, that person will be crushed to dust.”

¹⁹ The teachers of the Law and the chief priests tried to arrest Jesus on the spot, because they knew that he had told this parable against them; but they were afraid of the people.

In this parable, I find it fascinating that everyone present understood what this parable meant. Luke tells us that the religious leaders knew who they represented, and they even understood Jesus to be subtly placing Himself in this parable as well.

However, because Jesus used a third-person parable, they could not directly challenge Him on the claim of blasphemy, because Jesus never directly says that He is represented by the vineyard owner’s son. Jesus subtly and strongly challenges these leaders while avoiding directly saying something that would incriminate Himself.

Also, I find it fascinating that Jesus’ parable’s conclusion is met with shock from the people present. When Jesus asks the people the rhetorical question about what the vineyard owner will do to the rebellious, evil tenants, He tells them that the owner will throw them out, kill them, and find other tenants who will hopefully be better.

While everyone knows Jesus was speaking against the religious leaders who had mistreated and abused the prophets God sent Israel and Judah in the many centuries of the nation’s history, Jesus again subtly predicts His death. If the religious leaders wanted to avoid playing into prophecy’s hand, they could have simply ignored Jesus. Jesus tells these leaders that they would ultimately kill the vineyard owner’s son, and by pressing for Jesus’ death, these leaders push Jesus into a role they likely never wanted Him to be in.

By pressing for Jesus’ death, these leaders incriminate themselves because they understand themselves to be the tenants, and they reject Jesus and kill Him. In the parable, the last messenger they receive is the vineyard owner’s son, and because the vineyard owner represents God, by pressing for Jesus’ death, without realizing what it fully means, these leaders acknowledge that Jesus is God’s Son!

The people are shocked not that the vineyard owner would reject these evil tenants, but that their rejection of God’s messengers would ultimately lead to their destruction. While it isn’t a popular message, there will be a point when God stops sending warnings and messengers to the world. There will be a point when the door to salvation closes.

I wholeheartedly believe that this point in time has not come yet, and that we all still have a choice to believe in Jesus. Because of this, let’s choose today to repent and turn away from our past sins, and to intentionally invite Jesus into our lives to change our hearts and minds. With Jesus in our hearts, we will succeed where the evil tenants failed, and we will accept those God sends into our lives with His truth!

As we come to the end of another podcast episode, here are the challenges I will leave you with:

As always, intentionally seek God first in your life and chose to accept Jesus into your heart, life, and mind. Choose to live your life in a way that gives God the glory and in a way that doesn’t take any glory for ourselves.

Also, as I always challenge you to do, continue praying and studying the Bible for yourself to learn and grow closer to God each and every day. Open your heart and mind in prayer and study to discover a God willing to give anything and everything to redeem the people He loves, and what God ultimately chooses to do when He is continually rejected.

And as I end every set of challenges by saying in one way or another, never stop short of, back away from, chicken out of, or abandon where God wants to lead you to in your life with Him!