What Kind of Tenant are You?
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Good morning! We’re here at the last Sunday of Lent. Palm Sunday is next week and we’re going to start shifting into Holy Week very soon. I’m really glad that Jesus’ parable of the wicked tenants comes to us here toward the end of our Lenten observance. It’s addressed to the religious leaders of Jesus’ time and so it speaks particularly to religious leaders. But it has some insights for all of us. And that’s because it shares something in common with perhaps the most archetypal story in human history. The fall of man in Genesis 3. There we see humanity’s first parents take something for themselves that doesn’t belong to them. They grasp the fruit of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, the one thing they couldn’t have, and they set humanity on a course of wickedness, violence, sin, and death. And as the trajectory of that moment expands out we see another picture, taking place in a setting like a garden, in a vineyard. And we see that human tendency to grasp what doesn’t belong to them. To hold on to what belongs to God and treat it like their own property.
And this is part of why I think it’s helpful for this passage to be a part of our Lenten observance. In Lent we look under the floorboards for things we’ve hidden from God and even ourselves. The act of building into our spiritual life with God by removing unneccessary things or by taking on a different spiritual discipline will give us eyes to see and ears to hear the things that we’ve hidden from God and ourselves. And this makes it so that when we look under the floorboards, we are actually able to see what’s there. That ability to see is a gift from God. The inability to see our spiritual reality for what it is is something God gives out as a consequence for sin. When we begin to sin, we begin to lose our spiritual sight. We stop seeing sin for what it is. And lacking the vision to orient ourselves, we start to become at risk of getting lost and entangled in our sin. And people who should act with God’s purposes in mind, wouldn’t recognize God’s purposes if they hit them in the face. And all acts intended for good become corrupted and end up amounting to nothing and the desire to do good melts away. This makes tenants who should be honoring their agreement with the land owner to stop honoring not only the land owner, but the agreement. To dishonor God’s covenant is to dishonor God as God. The tenants grasp and grasp at what isn’t theirs and hold it tighter and tighter. And whether they believe it’s become theirs or not, it stops mattering. And at some point the land owner sends someone to collect the rent that’s owed him. The wicked tenants just beat them up. The sin of omission is clearly now a sin of comission. Adam and Eve’s sin turns violent when it manifests in the religious leaders of Israel’s history. And other messengers arrive from the land owner and they get treated shamefully as well. And finally the son of the land owner arrives. And they are confronted with living proof that the thing they’ve been grasping is something that doesn’t belong to them. At this point their desire to defend the lie they’ve told themselves is so great that when they see the proof of their sin, they treat that proof like mere evidence. And the land owner’s son is not only evidence, but the rightful owner of the thing they grasp. And seeing the opportunity to get rid of the evidence and to leave their stolen property ownerless, they kill him. The trajectory from deception to self-deception to stealing to killing has reached its destination. And that’s where the religious leaders of Jesus’ time are about to find themselves. And that’s where the hearts of religious leaders of today are in danger of finding themselves. Indeed, after the great first sin of Adam and Eve, it’s a place that all humans have a penchant for reaching.
And so, to the religious leaders and to all people, a question is posed by the parable of the wicked tenants, especially in Lent. And that quesion is: what kind of tenant are you? God has placed all kinds of things that belong to him in your care. Good things. If you’re a parent, he’s given you children. If you have a home, he’s given it to you. Do you have a voice? What do you sing? Do you have a mind? What do you think about? Do you have a heart? What do you love? Do you have a position of authority? How do you lead? Have you experienced forgiveness? Do you grasp it only for your benefit or do you extend it to those in need? How are you treating the things God has put under your care? Do you remember that they are his? Are you withholding them from him? Are you grasping what doesn’t belong to you? Are you deliberately standing between that thing and the one it belongs to? Are you blind to this? Do these questions make you want to commit violence? They were the questions the prophets raised against the faithless religious leaders throughout the history of Israel and Jesus posed them to the religious leaders of his time who were grasping on to their own authority, treating the people of Israel harshly, placing burdens on them and doing nothing to lift them. They were wicked tenants. And now, in this season of self-reflection, of spiritual insight, as we prepare to walk with Jesus in his death and hope for a miracle that will let our hearts say Alleluia again, these questions are brought to our attention. What kind of tenant are you? If you don’t know, it’s worth finding out. It’s worth asking the Holy Spirit to reveal that to you. It’s worth having your spiritual eyes opened because if you don’t you’re in danger of stumbling, of forgetting what’s real, of thinking the gift has no Giver. That the land has no owner. And like the religious leaders, you will begin to think that you are perfectly fine in the sight of God. You tithe the spices in your life, you give money, you say the liturgy, and you begin to think that’s enough obedience. Obedience is accomplished. But if that’s where you are and you can’t find a moment to care for another human being in need or you politicize all acts of kindness to justify not doing them, you are a wicked tenant. If you constantly yell at your kids and fill your heart and mind with evil, you’re a wicked tenant. If you drive drunk and mistreat those under your authority, you’re a wicked tenant. The parable of the wicked tenants and it’s origin story, the fall of humanity show us that we all like sheep have gone astray. If we let the default situation play out we will all be wicked tenants.
But in this situation, we have something the religious leaders didn’t have, because we live on the other side of the moment of the salvation of the whole world at the cross. In the spiritual danger of being a wicked tenant, we find hope. We look to the cross and we thank God for Jesus Christ who died to remove our wickedness from us. We thank God for the Holy Spirit who restores sight to the blind so they can see their sin for what it is and to see the gifts as belonging to the Lord, their Giver. The Spirit then gives us the strength to give unto God what is God’s, as the liturgy says, ourselves, our souls and bodies, the things we should have been giving when while we had walked in darkness.
If we read a bit further in Luke’s account of this parable, we find that the parable of the wicked tenants leads right into the trap that the religious leaders laid for Jesus, maybe even in response to this parable. They ask him if it’s right to pay tribute to Caesar. He said show me a denarius. Whose likeness is on it? The answer is Caesar’s. So he says “Render to Caesar what is Caesar’s and render to God what is God’s.” Where the wicked tenants held back what is God’s Jesus tells us to render to God what is God’s. And what belongs to God, but everything. So don’t hold back. Don’t separate the gift from the Giver as if it appeared automatically or by your own strength. But render the fruit of the vineyard you find yourself living in to God.
So here in this season of spiritual reflection, let us draw strength from the work of Christ, let us receive the spiritual sight given by the Holy Spirit and begin to look for things we’re holding back from God and by his grace, we will rise again to the new life he has prepared for us, restored and forever changed.