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Sermons from Commons Church. Intellectually honest. Spiritually passionate. Jesus at the centre. Since 2014.
Chasing greed and being driven by jealousy and competition, all of that is toxic. But there is an alternative. Make no mistake. That is a judgment call. The judgment is actually God's loving attempt to help you discover the path that will lead you to where you actually want to go.
Jeremy Duncan:Thanks for being here as we start a new series. Maybe an intimidating sounding series, but one I think will hopefully pull us even closer to the heart of Jesus. And we're going to talk about the parables of judgment in this series, and we're going to do some work reframing some of these stories that we have perhaps heard and maybe even avoided in the past. 1st though, I do want to look back at the last series, which we called how it on the faith. Before even that though, I just want to acknowledge this.
Jeremy Duncan:Yeah. I did get a haircut and a trim. The barber asked what I wanted. I said, roll it back a few months, and he said, Bet, we're going back a couple decades to your twenties here. So on the bright side, I'm good for at least a year.
Jeremy Duncan:No more haircuts for me. Actually, I came home, and my son was like, Dad, I don't mean to be rude, but I'm not a fan. And I was like, it's alright. I get it. Anyway, we just finished a series called How I Hold Onto Faith, and we really felt like we wanted to begin the new season with that series of conversations that had come out of a lot of the conversations we were having as a pastoral staff over coffees, and across pews, and in between Sundays with all of you.
Jeremy Duncan:Because the truth is, even for those of us who are fully invested in the story of Jesus, even I might add those of us who are professionally invested in the story of Jesus, faith is a journey that finds itself consistently inconsistent. And what I mean by that is not that faith can't be durable. In fact, that's what our entire series was about, the conversations that need to be had in order to help to ensure that faith can endure for the long haul. Note what I mean by the phrase, consistently inconsistent, is that faith is a journey that is always evolving, always changing, often flowing, and yet also sometimes, let's be honest, ebbing. And that's not necessarily a bad thing.
Jeremy Duncan:On the contrary, personally, I would argue, it's something we need to learn to embrace. Because in order to hold on to faith for the long haul, over decades, across a lifetime, I think it demands that we learn how to, in some of the language we used in that series, look forward with hope and back with compassion. That means looking back at our lives, all the change that has happened in us, the ways that we think differently than we used to, seasons of celebration, and even sometimes those long stretches where faith felt like a lot of work. And we look back with as much grace as we can muster for ourselves, but we also learn to look forward with profound hope for tomorrow, for all of the continued change that will continue to unfold as we walk our way back toward God. In fact, I think that sometimes the more grace we can learn for ourselves and who we were, that actually can become the fuel to continue to hope for who we might become in the future.
Jeremy Duncan:And so our goal in that series was not to dismiss or brush through any of the questions you have in your faith journey. It was maybe just simply to acknowledge that we are all still working at faith together. And that's good. So that series is available in our archives. It's on our podcast and YouTube.
Jeremy Duncan:And you can always head to commons.church/sundays if you missed anything. There you'll find all our sermons. But also, by the way, you'll also find summaries and discussion questions and even all the liturgy and the prayers that we write, for community here. All of that is available on our website every week. Today, though, we start a new series.
Jeremy Duncan:And we are tackling the hardest stories of Jesus, the parables of judgment. But first, let's pray. Almighty God, to whom all hearts are open, all desires known, and from whom no secret remains hidden. Thank you for all the ways that you speak and guide and invite us towards you, even today, as you speak grace and kingdom imagination into our lives. Would we also be open in our hearts to hear what you would have to say about judgment and correction and ultimately your love transforming us?
Jeremy Duncan:We want to want to be like you. And so where we need to be reshaped or redirected, or even called to repentance, would you soften our postures by your Spirit and speak your love to our hearts? Might we never presume to judge each other and yet always be open to the reflection that comes from waiting in your presence. And so with all the Church, in Heaven, on Earth, all the prophets, apostles and martyrs before us, all those saints that gather around us even now, we welcome your sustaining spirit that fills us with breath for today and hope for tomorrow. In the strong name of the risen Christ, we pray.
Jeremy Duncan:Amen. Today, we tackle the parables of judgment. And it is finally my chance to hit that fire and brimstone sermon I've been waiting more than 10 years to unleash. Guys, I got some stuff to say. Some of you are chuckling right now because you have some sense of who I am and who we are as community.
Jeremy Duncan:And you know that approach does not align with the character that we believe Jesus is shaping within us. And you are, of course, absolutely right to laugh. There will be neither fire nor brimstone nor sulfur nor torture today. It's just not really my jam. And yet, I do think conversations about judgment are a vital part of getting Jesus right.
Jeremy Duncan:Jesus is not for a second interested in simply endorsing our agendas or leaving us the way He found us, rubber stamping our desires and calling them holy. No. I think Jesus is very much about calling us toward a new path through the world. The question is, how do we imagine that invitation? And so today we want to cover unboxing and narrow paths, wicked tenants, and ultimately God's vineyard.
Jeremy Duncan:1st, though, I have a son who is getting older every year. You may know this about your kids. It just doesn't stop, apparently. But recently, we had a big step, because my son took the babysitting course. And at this point, look, this is an internal family investment.
Jeremy Duncan:Mom and I are looking for some low cost in house childcare. Maybe we'll go to dinner once in a while. Just some fast food. Nothing to fetch here. We'll take what we can get.
Jeremy Duncan:But this past week, we had our first initial trial run, and my son stayed at home babysitting his sister. Well, I was at, ironically enough, a board meeting here at the church. And so I told him, look, I will keep my phone on in the meeting. Call me if there's an emergency. But in the back of my head, I was like, Buddy, don't embarrass me in front of my bosses here.
Jeremy Duncan:Anyway, it all went fine. I got home. I paid him our pre negotiated fee, and I asked him, what are you going to do with all this money? And he said, well, dad, I was thinking about buying some stuff so I can make an unboxing video for YouTube. And in my head, I'm like, this is not a great start to our relationship with finances here.
Jeremy Duncan:I'm sure he's convinced is a good investment in his future as a YouTuber. I remain unconvinced about the ROI, but in my barely contained judgment for that intention, and the subsequent conversation we had about what he instead might want to save for over time, something he actually wants, that was not predicated on the idea that this was a bad kid that makes bad decisions and needs to be punished for it. It came instead from this conviction that this is my son, whom I love, whom I want to invest in. And my guess is that conversation makes a lot of sense to most of us here in this room. We all need a little healthy skepticism, some judgment about our decisions from time to time.
Jeremy Duncan:And yet, for some reason, when it comes to judgment in scripture, perhaps because of the somewhat loaded language that's used at times, or even the cultural frameworks that we're not particularly familiar with, I think we tend to think of divine judgment as something that is aimed at us rather than for us. At commons, we often talk about a Jesus centered theology. Now, by the way, that course, Jesus centered theology, is starting up next month. Head to commons.church. Look under next steps and events to register.
Jeremy Duncan:That was about as smooth as a product placement as you're going to get. Son, if you're watching, take notes for your YouTube channel. Dad's a pro here. But because of that Jesus centered theology, we say things like this. The scriptures lead us to the realization that Jesus is the only exact representation of the divine and that God has always looked like Jesus, even when we didn't see that clearly.
Jeremy Duncan:We've abandoned the idea of an angry, violent God, trusting that Jesus came not to change God's mind about us, but to repair our imagination of God. And if that is what grounds our conviction about God, I think we have to find ways to bring that conviction into our imagination of judgement as well. God is not out to get us. God is on a mission to save us, to heal us. And so even before we get to our first parable today, I want to give you something to hold in the back of your mind throughout this whole series over the next 6 weeks.
Jeremy Duncan:And it's actually a pretty famous line from Jesus. It comes in the Sermon on the Mount in Matthew. And the particular line comes at the end of chapter 7 verses 13 and 14. Jesus says, you may have heard this 1, wide is the gate and broad the road that leads to destruction, and many enter through it. But small is the gate and narrow the road that leads to life, and only a few of us find it.
Jeremy Duncan:Often, I think what happens here is we have been conditioned, probably overly conditioned, to look for heaven and hell in the Bible. And so when Jesus talks of destruction and life, that's immediately where our imagination goes. There's 2 options in judgment. Either God punishes or God blesses. So you better choose wisely.
Jeremy Duncan:The thing is, this particular word destruction or apoleia in Greek is an interesting one. Because destruction is a fine translation. It works. The problem is, in English, when we hear that word we tend to imagine a someone doing the destroying, almost as if it's a verb. It's not.
Jeremy Duncan:It's a noun. In the accusative case here, which just means it's the direct object in the sentence. And that means apolea is simply where the road goes to ruin or waste or destruction. In other words, there's no external actor doing the destroying here in Jesus' words. This is just what sits at the end of that path.
Jeremy Duncan:That's why I think ruin would actually be a better translation here. Wide is the road that leads to ruin. It's not necessarily a big scary fire and brimstone saying. God is not standing at the end of that road, smoting people left and right. Jesus is saying, Look.
Jeremy Duncan:The road you're on is going to ruin you. Chasing greed and being driven by jealousy and competition, pursuing measurement and status as a way of life, all of that is toxic, but there is an alternative. Make no mistake. That is a judgment call. The same way I want to tell my son to slow down.
Jeremy Duncan:Hey. Is this really the best way we want to think about our resources in our lives? But the judgment is not God wielding damically's sword above your head. The judgment is actually God's loving attempt to help you discover the path that will lead you to where you actually want to go. And if we can just hold that in the back of our minds throughout this entire series of conversations, judgment is not judgmental.
Jeremy Duncan:It is the grace of God put into action for our good. Then I think we might actually find ourselves able to properly engage the wisdom that Jesus offers for us in these stories. And in this series, there are 6 of these very wise stories that we want to engage this fall. And the first comes in Luke 20. So let's read it.
Jeremy Duncan:We're in Luke 20 today, starting at verse 9. He went on to tell them this parable. Now note here, we're going to need to come back and talk about why he's telling this parable to these people. But for now, let's read the story. A man planted a vineyard, rented it to some farmers and went away for a long time.
Jeremy Duncan:At harvest time, he sent a servant to the tenants so they would give him some of the fruit of the vineyard. But the tenants beat him up and sent him away empty handed. He sent another servant, but that one also, they beat and treated shamefully, sent him away empty handed. Undaunted, he sent still a third, and they wounded him and threw him out. So the owner of the vineyard said to himself, what shall I do?
Jeremy Duncan:I know. I'll send my son whom I love. Perhaps they will respect him. But when the tenants saw him, they talked the matter over. This is the heir, they said.
Jeremy Duncan:Let's kill him, and the inheritance will be ours. So they threw him out of the vineyard and killed him. What then will the owner of this vineyard do? He will come and kill those tenants and give the vineyard to others. When the people heard this, they said, God forbid.
Jeremy Duncan:Now, let's talk about a couple of things here, because within this story there are a few points that we need to understand. First of all, this story is hyperbolic. It's full of all kinds of exaggeration for effect. Right? We have the owner of the vineyard sending 3 servants to collect some fruit.
Jeremy Duncan:All of them get beaten up and tossed out, and then at that point he decides, hey, why don't I send my beloved son and see what happens? That ought to turn out well for me. It does not. This is meant to show the owner, I think, as exceedingly, almost embarrassingly trusting. And that's the counterpoint to the tenants.
Jeremy Duncan:Right? Who not only beat up 3 innocent men, they decide to kill the owner's son when he shows up at the end of the story. Not only that, they somehow think that 1, they're going to get away with murder and 2, somehow end up in legal possession of their victim's inheritance. This is meant to show those men as exceedingly evil, calculating. Like, these are cartoon villains in a sense.
Jeremy Duncan:Right? You might as well picture them twirling their mustaches and laughing maniacally as they plot here. What this means is that all of these caricatures are caricatures. It's not a story about real people making real decisions in the real world. This is a story that is trying to make a point about the world by pulling us up out of it.
Jeremy Duncan:And that absolutely needs to be understood when we get to the end of the story and we find out, look, the owner is coming to kill all the bad guys. Stories that name the violence of our world are not necessarily violent tales. That is, they're not necessarily endorsing the violence in the story or suggesting that violence is somehow virtuous. For example, Apocalypse Now is not a movie that's trying to convince you how great war is. And it would be wrong for us to simply assume, look, the owner in this story must be God.
Jeremy Duncan:Therefore, God is going to kill anyone who gets on God's wrong side. That's not how parables work. And that means that we have a bit more work to do to understand what is happening here. Now, in terms of some of the details, we're told the vineyard is rented to the farmers. These are not hired workers.
Jeremy Duncan:This is a more complex arrangement that was likely built on a crop share agreement. So the context is not rich owner, poor farmers. This is more like a contract between 2 business people. And that contract is possibly constrained by a rule from Leviticus 19 that says when a new vineyard is first planted it is not to be harvested for 3 years. In the 4th year, the harvest is dedicated to God.
Jeremy Duncan:And in the 5th year and subsequent years, all the produce can be collected and eaten or sold. It's possibly why we get the owner renting the vineyard and then going away for quote, a long time. He's waiting until it can be harvested. Now alongside that is a rule in the Talmud that said, if you have a legal rental agreement, you can lay claim to a plot of land if the owner dies or, importantly here, if the owner has lost interest in the land. And specifically, that rule said that if the owner has not expressed interest in the land for more than 3 years, the tenants can lay claim to it.
Jeremy Duncan:Now, in Jesus' story, the end game here could be the tenants are thinking, look, if we beat up His servants, if we murder His son, we can scare Him away. He'll never come back. After 3 years the vineyard will be ours. Could also be that they are thinking, look, during this 3 year prohibition on harvesting the produce, you haven't been around all this time, and now you come back wanting your share? Sorry, bud.
Jeremy Duncan:It's been a long time. The land is ours now. Either way, the story is clearly not presenting the actions of these tenants as valid or justifiable, but there is a framework here that makes the story at least somewhat plausible for the audience. Still, it's pretty clear they're the bad guys. And you actually see that in the parallel in Matthew.
Jeremy Duncan:In that version of the story, in chapter 21, Jesus actually ends with wretched end. So everyone knows who the bad guys are. Even the crowd is lusting for a little righteous vengeance here. But that brings us to our last question, because at the end of this story in Luke, Jesus says, the owner will come and kill those evil tenants, and the crowd says, God forbid. No.
Jeremy Duncan:God forbid. There's a fun nice little translation. It's the standard one that the NIV uses for the phrase, Meganoito. The NRSV goes with heaven forbid. The ESV renders it, surely not.
Jeremy Duncan:The message says, he would never. None of those really get at it in my estimation. Meganoito was a pretty common Greek expression that described, I'm going to quote here, strong disapproval. In fact, the scholar Howard Marshall describes this as expressing horror at what has happened. So if I was going to take a stab at translating this into English, I would probably say something like, oh, hell no.
Jeremy Duncan:Actually, I've seen that written in scholarly articles about a good suggestion of how to translate this. The question though is, what exactly is that horror directed at here? Because we know from Matthew that the crowd agrees with Jesus' conclusion. That's not what they're disapproving of. What they're upset about is the parable itself.
Jeremy Duncan:And to understand that, we have to back up to the start of the chapter. This is verse 1. One day, as Jesus was teaching in the temple courts and proclaiming good news, the chief priests and the teachers of the law together with the elders came up to Him. Tell us, by what authority are you doing these things? They said.
Jeremy Duncan:Who gave you this authority? Now question. What authority are they talking about? What authority to do what exactly? Well, we know the answer from verse 1.
Jeremy Duncan:They are asking by what authority Jesus is proclaiming good news. And good news kind of already sounds religious to us. Right? Like, you may know that gospel literally means good news. So maybe we jump to that conclusion.
Jeremy Duncan:But at a very basic level here, good news, and by extension gospel, actually literally just means good news. So what these people are upset about is that Jesus is interpreting scripture in public in a way that makes it seem, for lack of a better term here, too good to be true. That's the complaint. That's what sets in motion the chain of events that leads to our parable. And so Jesus says, Okay.
Jeremy Duncan:Good question. Let me ask you one in return. Tell me, John's baptism, was it from heaven or of human origin? And they discussed this among themselves and said, well, if we say from heaven, he's going to ask, why didn't you believe him? And if we say human origin, the people are going to stone us, because they loved John and thought he was a prophet So instead they just shrugged and said your guess is as good as ours And Jesus said well then neither will I tell you by what authority I'm saying these things Instead he went on to tell them a story.
Jeremy Duncan:That's really important, because now we know what the parable is about. It's an answer to their question. It's not about land rights or vicious farm workers. It's not even about revenge fantasies played out at a divine scale. This story is about who thinks they get to control God's territory and who sets the boundaries on God's vineyard.
Jeremy Duncan:That's why we get the reference to the son whom I love in Jesus' story. Remember it was John the Baptist who just came up here who baptized Jesus. And in that moment the crowd hears a voice from heaven saying, this is my son whom I love, in whom I am well pleased. That little bit, that that's a callback. See, the parable is full of caricatures, but make no mistake here.
Jeremy Duncan:Jesus has embedded himself, put himself in the middle of the story as the son who comes to the vineyard. That is why we get the oh hell no at the end. They're not upset about the outcome of the story. That makes sense to them. They're upset that Jesus is saying He has the authority to come and harvest whenever He wants whatever is good from His Father's vineyard.
Jeremy Duncan:That's what the parable is about. All those moments where we begin to think that the boundaries belong to anything less than God's grace. And that, by extension, we get to patrol them. And that makes sense to me. Right?
Jeremy Duncan:Jesus is proclaiming news that seems too good to be true. The authorities get upset that the boundaries aren't being kept where they imagined them to be. And Jesus says, Look. The rules aren't yours. You're not in charge of the vineyard anyway.
Jeremy Duncan:You never were. But still, if that's the intent, and if this is a story about grace, then what do we do with this violent ending? When the owner comes and kills them back. Well, I would argue the key question we have to ask here is, what is God fighting for in this story? I think it's really easy for us to place those religious leaders opposing Jesus in the place of the wicked tenants.
Jeremy Duncan:After all, we're kind of annoyed with them too. We'd like to see them get their just desserts. But does that really make sense of this vineyard image in the story? In fact, the image of a vineyard used all across scriptures. See, Israel is depicted as a vineyard.
Jeremy Duncan:Lots of places in the Hebrew scriptures. Example, in a beautiful poem in Isaiah 5. Jesus claims in John 15 that He's the vine and we are the branches, that God is the gardener that tends to the vineyard that is us. Matthew 9, Jesus says, the harvest is plentiful. He's talking about people there.
Jeremy Duncan:And in Hosea 10, the prophet tells us that we are God's vine, and from which God brings forth fruit for God's self. Each time, the image of a vineyard is used to remind us that God is intent on cultivating us, God's people, God's beloved children. And I think it might be easy to cast those opposed Jesus as the villains of the story, those that God will destroy. But I don't think that's how Jesus sees the people He's talking to. I think Jesus sees them, including His enemies, as part of the beloved harvest He's desperate to bring home to His dad.
Jeremy Duncan:And that means that with standing in his way are not people that Jesus sees as disposable, but instead, all the restrictions and the impositions of the structures and interpretations that have slowly crowded out the space for good news to come and find us. We are the vineyard. The people of God are the harvest. The wicked tenants are whatever religious systems think they get to control God's access to God's children. That's what needs to be destroyed, apileia.
Jeremy Duncan:Remember that word? It's important here, Because it's actually the word that's used to describe what happens to those forces that have attempted to shut down God's grace in our lives. And look, this is not just my hippie dippy wanting Jesus to sound like a nice guy interpretation. This is what Saint Ambrose said about this passage some 1700 years ago. He wrote, the people of God are correctly named as the vineyard.
Jeremy Duncan:For as the vine clings to trees, it is raised up. When it's pruned, it's not diminished. It increases. The people of God are stripped when they are bound, uplifted when they are humbled, crowned when they are cut back. And when the scars of the old shoot are eventually cut away, the people of God likewise will grow into the wood of the cross.
Jeremy Duncan:It is as if they, as if we are cherished in the arms of a pious parent. We are the vineyard that God intends to prune, to judge, to shape, to grow. But notably, that includes those of us who've avoided religion for far too long, and those of us who have become a little too religious for our own good. It includes those hearing news too good to be true and those saying, oh, hell no. The line has to stop here.
Jeremy Duncan:Jesus' intent on bringing home everything that can be harvested to God, even if that means He is to suffer to show us that the rules that seem to cut off our access to the divine or stop God from coming to find us, those are interlopers on God's land. In the end, the gospel is too good to be true. That's the whole point of good news And God's judgment will bring an end to any imagination that seeks to patrol the borders of God's grace. You and the person beside you, the person who opposes you and the person who pushes back against God, all of us are the vineyard that God is cultivating. And any imagination that stands in God's way ultimately needs to let go.
Jeremy Duncan:Let's pray. God, we recognize that we need your love and also your judgment in our lives. The ways that you shape and you prune and you help us to see you, your imagination, your purposes in this world more clearly. For all the times that we have attempted to have you endorse our agendas, The things we wanted to pursue or the people that we wanted to push away. We repent.
Jeremy Duncan:And we ask that by your Spirit, you would come and cultivate, shape and move us in better directions. More reflective of your grace and peace, your welcome extended to us and hopefully one day through us to another. May all of that shaping allow our hearts to become conformed to Yours. And in that, might we begin to see more of Your grace and peace in our lives, more of Your grace and peace shaping our imagination for what could be tomorrow. In the strong name of the risen Christ we pray.
Jeremy Duncan:Amen. Hey. Jeremy here. And thanks for listening to our podcast. If you're intrigued by the work that we're doing here at commons, you can head to our website commons.church for more information.
Jeremy Duncan:You can find us on all of the socials at commonschurch. You can subscribe to our YouTube channel where we are posting content regularly for the community. You can also join our discord server. Head to commons.church/discord for the invite and there you will find the community having all kinds of conversations about how we can encourage each other to follow the way of Jesus. We would love to hear from you.
Jeremy Duncan:Anyway, thanks for tuning in. Have a great week. We'll talk to you soon.