Sermon for the Twentieth Sunday after Pentecost

LISTEN

Jesu Juva

“Clothed with Christ, You have a Seat”

Text: Matthew 22:1-14; Philippians 4:4-13; Isaiah 25:6-9

 

Grace, mercy, and peace to you from God our Father, and from our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ. Amen.

So the past four weeks we’ve been hearing about and considering what the kingdom of heaven is like, primarily through the parables of Jesus. That it is a kingdom of lavish forgiveness, of unbounded generosity, of relentless love, and of a new way of living and thinking. It’s not about rules, as so many think of Christianity these days, but of grace. Of gifts. Of God doing everything He can for us, and then some. For it is a kingdom first and foremost not of what we do for God, but of what He does for us. And that what He does for us changes us. His forgiveness making us forgiving. His love making us loving. His generosity making us generous. His mercy making us merciful. A kingdom we live in not only in the future, but already here and now. Now, though not yet in its fullness. Truly a kingdom unlike any other.

And today we finish up our consideration of all this with the final parable in this series, the Parable of the Wedding Feast. After this, after Jesus finishes up all this teaching, the Jewish leaders are going to step up their challenges of Him. They are going to probe and confront and ask Him questions and what they think are unanswerable riddles to discredit Him and mock Him and bring both Him and whatever He thinks His kingdom is, down. But they will fail. He will answer them all. Until finally, in their desperation, they get rid of Him not with their words but with the wood and nails of a Roman crucifixion.

Which is where our final parable for today begins. For I don’t know if you noticed this or remembered from last week . . . but last week’s parable, the Parable of the Tenants in the Vineyard, ended with the son dead. Those who wanted the vineyard for themselves killed him. But this week’s parable begins with the son alive and well. And not only alive and well, but ready for his wedding feast!

Hmmm. Do you see? Dead, now alive. Rejected, now honored. Sorrow, now rejoicing. Think those two parables in a row are a coincidence? Probably not, right? For this is what the kingdom of heaven is like. The death of the son that leads to the joy of the feast.

And once again, things are not as we expect. Those who are invited don’t show up. Some have better things to do. Some are too busy. Some don’t like the king. But still the king wants them there! So just like last week, he doesn’t give up. He sends more servants to tell them to come! And just like last week they not only refuse, they turn hostile, seizing, mistreating, and killing the servants. And the king deals with them.

But as we’ve seen these past few weeks, that’s not what he wants to do! The judgment, the condemnation, this is what he is compelled to do, but not what he wants to do. What he wants to do is rejoice in his son. So he sends out more servants to fill the wedding hall with guests. It doesn’t matter who they are. It doesn’t matter where they find them. Anybody can come! If you were walking and breathing, you had a seat. Whether you were bad or good, you had a seat. No matter which side of the tracks you lived on, you had a seat. 

And in the end, it is as the king wants: the wedding hall is filled with guests. And all those people, there for the feast, have only one thing in common. One thing: that the king wanted them there. The king who wanted only to share his joy with them and have them feast with him. And if you looked around that room that day, you would see what you see as you look around this room today . . . all kinds of people. Folks from both sides of the tracks, so to speak. PhDs and GEDs. Shameful sinners and “respectable” sinners. Old timers and youngsters. Those raised in the church and those new to it. People with nothing in common, nothing really, but this: the king. The king who wants to share his joy with you and have you feast with him.

For that’s what the kingdom of heaven is like. 

And nothing was going to stop this feast! Not those who tore up their invitations. Not those who hated and killed. Not the king having to deal with his rebellious people. The feast would go on. The king’s joy was too great. 

For this is the feast the prophet Isaiah talked about, prophesied. The feast so long in coming. The feast that is prepared when death is swallowed up forever and the Lord wipes away tears from all faces and there is only joy. The feast for the king’s son named Jesus, who was dead is alive again. Who swallowed death that we might feast on life. Who died on the cross for us that we might rise from the dead with Him. That we who mourn - mourn death, mourn our sin, mourn the disfunction of the world and the bad decisions we’ve made, mourn the strife that surrounds us and that we live in - that we who mourn all these things and more might rejoice in the forgiveness and new life of Jesus. These gifts of the son whose wedding feast of joy is not just waiting for us in heaven, but is here for us now. 

Which is why you’re here. Not to do something for God, but because He has a feast for you here. A feast of forgiveness, life, and salvation. A feast of Word and Sacrament. A feast in the midst of a world of famine. A world where some people think they have better things to do than come here. Where some people are too busy to bother. Where some just don’t like the king. God will have to deal with them in the end, but that’s not what He wants to do. He wants them here at His feast, to rejoice in His Son with Him, and receive His gifts. With us. With us here and now, and forever.

But Jesus’ parable didn’t end there. There’s one more bit . . . this matter of the guest who got in without a wedding garment. It’s a strange ending to the parable, don’t you think? For how did he get in? Why didn’t anyone stop him? Why didn’t the servants notice and do something about it? Why did no one else say anything to him? It’s like the king was the only one who could see the wedding garments and that this guest didn’t have one. Everyone else seemed surprised, even the one without the wedding garment, who was speechless. Who thought he was okay . . .

Maybe this ending scares you . . . like, that might be you! But I don’t think this ending was put here to scare us, but to comfort us. To assure us that whether you are among the bad guests or the good guests that have been brought into the wedding hall, you have a place here. Because bad or good is not what the king sees or points out or seems to care about! What mattered was the wedding garment. Are you clothed properly? And if you are, you are welcome. There is seat for you. 

So what is it? What is it that clothes us, that covers us, so that what we have done, bad or good, is not what God sees? That what we have done or not done is not the reason we are welcome or not? Because if it was, then there wouldn’t be both bad and good there - only good, right? (And then not us!) So what is it that has covered us all and given us a place in the king’s feast? The Scriptures are clear. There’s only one thing: when we are clothed with Christ by grace through faith.

Whenever we try to clothe ourselves, it never works out well for us. Remember Adam and Eve? They tried to clothe themselves with fig leaves, but by even trying to clothe themselves they just shone a magnifying glass on their sin! And if we try to clothe ourselves in our good works, you know, make ourselves look good . . . well, two things to say about that. First, I’ll use a modern day saying: that’s like putting lipstick on a pig! It just doesn’t work. But even better is what the same prophet Isaiah we heard from earlier also said, that all the things we do that we think are so good? They’re still stained with sin. They’re like filthy rags compared to Christ’s righteousness (Isaiah 64:6). 

So if you look at yourself, at what you have done, if you’ve been bad or good, and measure yourself that way, you’ll either think you don’t belong here, that you’re wedding garment isn’t good enough; or have a false confidence that you do - like the guest in the parable.

So don’t do that! And that’s not you. Because you, you have been clothed with Christ. Who you are, what you have done, has been covered by Christ and His forgiveness. Your good works didn’t get you in here, and your sins don’t get you tossed out. What matters is that by grace through faith, you have been clothed with Christ. You have a robe of righteousness that is not your own, but has been given to you in Baptism. You confessed all the sinful thoughts, words, deeds, and desires that welled up in you and from you this week, and were washed clean in the blood of the Lamb in the Absolution. And Christ will again feed you with His Body and Blood that in and with and under and on you, be Christ and His life. 

And so we’re not speechless here, like that guest in the parable. We speak. But what we speak is important! We confess our sins, we confess the Creed, and we confess the gifts that are here for us and given to us. That is to say, we rejoice in the Lord and receive what He gives. For that is what the kingdom of heaven is: a wedding feast of joy from the king for you. 

And as we’ve been considering, that changes you. Receiving the Lord’s joy and gifts here, you take that joy and those gifts with you, back to school, back to work, back to your homes . . . Which is what Paul was talking about in the reading from Philippians. Rejoice in the Lord! Receive His gifts! And then live in those gifts. Lives of peace and joy, thanksgiving and prayer, generosity and contentment. The life of Christ. 

For the life of Christ, from the beginning of time to the end of time, from the Shattered Bliss of Eden (LSB #572) to the perfect bliss of heaven . . .  the life of Christ - for you, in you, and through you . . . that’s what the kingdom of heaven is all about.

In the Name of the Father, and of the (+) Son, and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.

The Congregation at Prayer

For the Week of Pentecost 20 (October 12-17, 2026)

Invocation: In the Name of the Father and of the (+) Son and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.

Speak the Apostles’ Creed. 

Verse: Psalm 92:1 – “It is good to give thanks to the Lord, to sing praises to your name, O Most High.”

Hymn of the Week:  Lutheran Service Book #810 “O God of God, O Light of Light”

Hymns for Sunday: 667, 810, 620, 518 (v. 26), 849, 836, 525

Readings for the Week: [The readings for Thursday-Saturday are the Scriptures for this coming Sunday.]

Monday: Isaiah 45:1-7

God is going to reveal Himself to and use the foreign and pagan king, Cyrus, for His own purposes. What does this teach us about God? How might God be doing the same today?

Tuesday: 1 Thessalonians 1:1–10

Why does Paul praise the Thessalonians? What happened when they received the Word of God? What good came from that?

Wednesday: Matthew 22:15-22

What two kingdoms do Christians live in? How did the Pharisees confuse the two? How did Jesus keep them straight?

Thursday: Isaiah 35:5-8

How did Jesus fulfill all these words of Isaiah?

Friday: 2 Timothy 4:5–18

What does it mean to be “sober-minded?” What is the opposite? What sometimes goes to our heads? How can we prevent that?

Saturday: Luke 10:1-9

Did Jesus send His disciples out with nothing? What did they go with? Why? Why would this be enough?

The Catechism - Baptism: What benefits does Baptism give? It works forgiveness of sins, rescues from death and the devil, and gives eternal salvation to all who believe this, as the words and promises of God declare. Which are these words and promises of God? Christ our Lord says in the last chapter of Mark: “Whoever believes and is baptized will be saved, but whoever does not believe will be condemned. (Mark 16:16)

Collect for the Week: Almighty God, our Father, Your blessed Son called Luke the physician to be an evangelist and physician of the soul. Grant that the healing medicine of the Gospel and the Sacraments may put to flight the diseases of our souls that with willing hearts we may ever love and serve You; through Jesus Christ, Your Son, our Lord. Amen.

The Prayers:  Please pray for . . .

+ yourself and for all in need (remembering especially those on our prayer list).

+ God’s blessing, wisdom, and guidance for our congregation financial secretary, Dave Fields.

+ Evangelical Lutheran Church of Burkina Faso, for God’s wisdom, blessing, guidance, and provision.

+ God’s blessing, guidance, and provision for the Luther Academy.

Conclude with the Lord’s Prayer and Luther’s Morning or Evening Prayer from the Catechism.

Now joyfully go about your day (or to bed) in good cheer, child of God!

Collect for the Week © 2018 Concordia Publishing House.

Lutheran Service Book Hymn License: 110019268

Sermon for the Nineteenth Sunday after Pentecost

LISTEN

Jesu Juva

“He Wants to Forgive!”

Text: Matthew 21:33-46; Isaiah 5:1-7; Philippians 3:4b-14

 

Grace, mercy, and peace to you from God our Father, and from our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ. Amen.

You may remember a few weeks ago, we heard Peter ask Jesus, Lord, how often will my brother sin against me, and I forgive him? As many as seven times? (Matthew 18:21) And Jesus’ answer was basically this: You forgive as often as he needs forgiveness. You forgive, and then you forgive some more. For that is what life in the kingdom of heaven is like. Forgiveness. Lavish, abundant, forgiveness and love that is far greater than you can imagine. Love and forgiveness given to you that changes you; that gives you a new and better life.

Well that’s what we hear a little more about today in the next parable of Jesus: the Parable of the Wicked Tenants. Don’t jump to the ending too quickly. I think we tend to do that. Jump right to the master throwing out those wicked tenants and putting those wretches to a miserable death! That’s true and what will happen at the end. But if we jump right to that, we miss something . . . Namely this: that is not what the master wants to do. And he does everything in his power not to. He gives the tenants chance after chance after chance. Or another way to say that is that he does what Jesus told Peter to do: he forgives, forgives, and then forgives some more. They beat his servants, they stone his servants, they kill his servants, and what does he do? He doesn’t just go in and wipe them out. He doesn’t punish them. He sends more. 

Absurd! Crazy, right? Psycho. 

Why would you do such a thing? Well, if forgiveness is just something you have to do, you wouldn’t do this! Your forgiveness would run out. But if forgiveness is something you want to do, something you really want for the other person . . . if forgiveness is not just something you do, but who you are, then this is what you do.

And then you do even more. You send your own son.

That’s what Jesus is presenting to us today, teaching us. It’s another parable answering Peter’s question about forgiveness, but going a little farther than He did before. Jesus is actually reusing an old parable, first told by Isaiah, as we heard in the Old Testament reading. It’s really His parable, for the Old Testament are the words of Jesus also, words spoken by the prophets as they were inspired by the Holy Spirit. But Jesus is refreshing it here; contextualizing it - that’s a good modern way of putting it! Because there’s a new context that wasn’t there in Isaiah’s day. This: the final part of the story had come. The Son had come.

And so we are being taught today that forgiveness isn’t just what God does, it’s who He is. And in Him, it is who we are as well.

Last week, we focused on the fact that life in the kingdom of heaven is life in a kingdom at war. War against the devil, the world, and our own sinful nature. And the weapons in this war are not earthly weapons, but heavenly ones: the Word and Sacraments. And they are our weapons because of what they do: because they give the forgiveness of sins. Which, admittedly, doesn’t seem like much of a weapon. Forgiveness actually seems like the very opposite! It is not using the weapon of punishment and revenge! But that is the world’s way of thinking and looking at things. From God’s perspective, with God’s eyes, forgiveness is the most powerful weapon we have. And the only one - the only one - that works against the powerful spiritual enemies we have.

The tenants in the vineyard are thinking with the world’s thinking. They want to take the vineyard and make it their own. They’ve earned it! They’ve deserve it. So they devise a plan. A plan to steal it, really, from the owner. They will not only beat, stone, and kill the servants, but finally, get rid of the heir, the son, so that when the master dies, the vineyard will be given to the squatters. They want their own vineyard, their own kingdom, with their own king, with them in charge. 

And you can do that. Build your own kingdom. Be your own king. Do whatever you want, whatever your sinful nature tells you to do. Don’t forgive. Cut that person loose. Take for yourself. You can do that. Many do. And maybe you’ll get away with it for a while. Think you’ve won. Gotten what you wanted. But the end of the story is coming. The day of reckoning. 

But then comes the curveball in the parable . . . (And always look for the curveball to get to the parable’s meaning!) instead of instilling fear and exacting retribution - which is what the master could have done! (And, maybe you would argue, what he should have done!) Instead, what did the master do? He sent his son. For he didn’t want punishment and death for the wicked tenants. (Which is what they deserved, right?) He wanted something better for them. Even after all they did! He wanted a new life for them. A better life than the one they were living and going after.

And that’s been our theme these past few weeks, and what you’ve heard me saying over and over, as we’ve been considering the kingdom of heaven and life in it: there’s a better way. The way not of taking but of receiving. The way not of death but of life. Not the old way of a sinful world, but the new life of love and forgiveness. The way of the master, that couldn’t be more different than the way of the tenants. The master who sent his son.

Now, don’t you think that after beating and stoning and killing all the servants he had already sent, that the master knew what was going to happen to his son? From an earthly, worldly perspective, maybe the master of the vineyard hoped for a different outcome; that things would be different with his son, crazily thinking that they will respect my son. But God, our heavenly Father, who of course this parable is really about, isn’t naive. He knew. And that’s exactly why He sent His Son. To die. To die for wicked tenants. To die for you, so you wouldn’t have to take and build your own little kingdom, but be gifted His. And live not only in a new and better kingdom, but live as new and better tenants in a new and better kingdom. 

For even at our worst, God wants the best for us. When we are most sinful, God wants to be most forgiving. This is the love we just sang about. O Love, how deep, how broad, how high, beyond all thought and fantasy (LSB #544). That God would do this, BE this, for the likes of us. It’s absurd! But it’s true. And all this He did, as we sang thirteen times in that hymn, for us. For us the cross. For us the resurrection. For us a new life of forgiveness and love. 

The new life given to the apostle Paul. If there was ever a wicked tenant in the vineyard, it was him! Oh, he thought he was doing the right thing, and doing it better and more zealously than anyone else, as we heard in the Epistle today. Arresting and killing Christian after Christian after Christian. Until Jesus knocked him off his high horse and showed him something completely different! For Jesus didn’t just reveal himself to Paul, but revealed to him who He is - His unlimited, absurd, abundant, and lavish forgiveness. Jesus showed Paul a new and better way, what the kingdom of heaven is really like. And then, forgiving him, forgiving such a wicked tenant, gave him a new life to live in this kingdom. A kingdom far better than the one Paul was building for himself. And with that Paul turned from being a wicked tenant to one sent to wicked tenants to show them this new and better life. A life he was now living.

And maybe that’s what you need, too, frankly. To be knocked off your high horse to stop living your old life. Maybe you’re afraid not to. The world’s not going to understand. The world’s not going to have mercy. The world’s going to take advantage of you! Maybe you don’t know any other way. This is just the way life is! Life in this world. And maybe you get mad at God for knocking you down, for making you fall and breaking you, for ruining your carefully laid plans. Why God? Why did you do that? What this trouble or that?

Because He wants to forgive you. Always because He wants to forgive you and give you a new life. For where there is forgiveness of sins, there is also life and salvation. A new and better life in a new and better kingdom. The life of Christ in His kingdom. Eternal life and dwelling in His presence forever. 

So as Jesus went on to explain the parable, you can fall down now, fall down in repentance, broken to pieces, and receive the healing and restoring forgiveness of Jesus that He wants to give you, that He died to give you! Or, on the last day, be crushed under Him and His justice. Be thrown out with the wicked tenants. Jesus doesn’t want that. He wants you. He wants you with Him forever. Whoever you are, whatever you have done. He wants to wash you clean in Baptism, to continue to wash you in the absolution, feed you with His Body and Blood, and teach you about life in His kingdom through His Word. That’s what He wants! So He put it here for you, to come and receive it. To come and receive His forgiveness, His life, His Son. Because the stone that the builders rejected has become the cornerstone; this was the Lord’s doing, - His plan all along! - and it is marvelous in our eyes.

A marvelous absurdity! Not the way the world works. And thank God for that! That He is different. Better. Merciful. Forgiving. 

And note the change in the apostle Paul that this forgiveness wrought! Before he boasted in all he was and all he did. But now he now says (as we heard in the Epistle), Not that I have already obtained this or am already perfect, but I press on to make it my own, (why?) because Christ Jesus has made me his own. Because of the work of Jesus. And what is the work of Jesus? Forgiveness. The forgiveness of your sins. And with forgiveness, a new life. A life to live forever. 

And so, Paul says, I press on to make it my own. How? Not with our own strength. Not with our own determination. Remember the weapons of the kingdom of heaven! We press on as we live in the Word, in our Baptism, in the Absolution, in the Body and Blood of Jesus. Because here is Jesus for you. Here are His gifts for you. Here is His life for you. A new and better life in a new and better kingdom. Which, admittedly, is a life that will look pretty foolish and absurd for a while, while we live in this world which is exactly the opposite, and thinks the opposite, and thinks you a rube for living the way you do as a Christian! But only for a while . . . Until all is revealed. Until Jesus comes again in glory, and takes you to glory. His glory, given to you. In His kingdom, given to you. With His life, given to you. Because that’s who Jesus is and what He does. It’s all for you. He is the Son who came and died for you, that you may live. That you live with Him, in Him, and like Him, a new life, in a new kingdom, starting now, and lasting forever.

In the Name of the Father, and of the (+) Son, and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.