Sermon for October 4, 2026, Nineteenth Sunday after Pentecost

Matthew 21:33-46 (Nineteenth Sunday after Pentecost/Proper 22—Series A)

“We are Not Rejected”

Lutheran Church of Our Redeemer, Enfield, CT

October 4, 2026

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

Our text is the Gospel Reading recorded in Matthew 22:

[Jesus said,] ³³ “Hear another parable. There was a householder who planted a vineyard and put a fence around it and dug a winepress in it and built a tower and leased it out to tenant farmers and went on a journey. ³⁴Now when the time of fruits drew near, he sent his slaves to the tenant farmers to receive his fruits. ³⁵And the tenant farmers took his slaves and beat one, killed one, and stoned one. ³⁶Again he sent other slaves, more than the first, and they did to them likewise. ³⁷And finally he sent to them his son, saying, ‘They will respect my son.’ ³⁸But when the tenant farmers saw the son, they said among themselves, ‘This is the heir. Come, let us him and let us have his inheritance.’ ³⁹And they took him and threw him out of the vineyard, and they killed him. ⁴⁰Therefore, when the lord of the vineyard comes, what will he do to those tenant farmers?” ⁴¹They said to Him, “He will dreadfully destroy those dreadful people and he will lease the vineyard to other tenant farmers who will give him the fruits in their seasons.” ⁴²Jesus said to them, “Have you never read in the Scriptures, ‘The stone which the builders rejected—this one has become the head of the corner; this happened from the Lord and it is marvelous in our eyes’? ⁴³On account of this I say to you that the reign of God will be taken from you and will be given to nation which produces its fruits. ⁴⁴And the one who falls on this stone will be crushed, and it will scatter him upon who it falls.” ⁴⁵And when they had heard His parables, the chief priests and the Pharisees knew that He was speaking about them, ⁴⁶and although they were seeking to arrest Him, they feared the crowds, since they regarded Him as a prophet.

Again today, our Gospel text takes place on Tuesday in Holy Week. Jesus had told the parable of the two sons who were asked to work in the vineyard. One said no and then changed his mind and went. The other said yes but then refused to go. Jesus concluded by saying the to the chief priests and elders, “Truly I say to you that the tax collectors and the prostitutes are going before you into the reign of God. For John came to you in the way of righteousness, but you did not believe him. But the tax collectors and the prostitutes believed him. But you, even though you saw this, you did not repent later and believe him.”

  In Jesus’ second parable spoken to the religious leaders, God the Father is like a householder who planted a vineyard. This vineyard was state-of-the-art: it had everything—a hedge for a fence, a wine press on site, and a watchtower. The vineyard stands in for God’s people of Israel. Jesus is using with the chief priests and elders the same illustration He used with the people of Isaiah’s day when He said, “Let me sing for my beloved my love song concerning his vineyard: My beloved had a vineyard on a very fertile hill. He dug it and cleared it of stones, and planted it with choice vines; he built a watchtower in the midst of it, and hewed out a wine vat in it; and he looked for it to yield grapes, but it yielded wild grapes. . . . For the vineyard of the LORD of hosts is the house of Israel, and the men of Judah are his pleasant planting; and he looked for justice, but behold, bloodshed; for righteousness, but behold, an outcry!” (Isa. 5:1-7 ESV).

God’s covenant people had rejected Him and His Word. They had rejected His commandments. They rejected His unfailing love! The vineyard owner, God Himself, sent His prophets to call His people to repentance and faith. But they would not repent. They would not produce fruits in keeping with repentance. They refused to live as God’s covenant agreement demanded that they live, following His Torah—His instruction, statutes, and commands. For example, the prophet Amos spoke to Israel, “Thus says Yahweh: For three transgressions of Judah, and for four, I will not revoke the punishment, because they have rejected the Torah of Yahweh, and have not kept his statutes, but their lies have led them astray, those after which their fathers walked” (Amos 2:4). Jeremiah announced, “O Yahweh, do not your eyes look for truth? You have struck them down, but they felt no anguish; you have consumed them, but they refused to take correction. They have made their faces harder than rock; they have refused to repent” (Jer. 5:3). And through Ezekiel God says, “Therefore I will judge you, O house of Israel, every one according to his ways, declares the Lord Yahweh. Repent and turn from all your transgressions, lest iniquity be your ruin” (Ezek. 18:30).

Israel not only rejected His Word, His covenant promises, and His commandments, but they also rejected those called to speak God’s Word. They rejected the prophets. They beat and killed the prophets of the Lord. For example, tradition holds that the prophet Isaiah was martyred during the reign of King Manasseh. Although the Bible does not explicitly detail his death, Hebrews 11:37 alludes to prophets who were “sawn in two,” a fate believed to have befallen Isaiah. Jeremiah faced intense persecution for his prophecies against Judah. He was beaten, imprisoned, and thrown into a cistern (Jeremiah 38:6). While the Bible does not record his death, tradition suggests he was stoned to death by his own people in Egypt.

God kept sending His prophets to Israel because He wanted to show them mercy. “As I live, declares the Lord Yahweh, I have no pleasure in the death of the wicked, but that the wicked turn from his way and live; turn back, turn back from your evil ways, for why will you die, O house of Israel?” (Ezek. 33:11). As Jesus Himself lamented, “O Jerusalem, Jerusalem, the city that kills the prophets and stones those who are sent to it! How often would I have gathered your children together as a hen gathers her brood under her wings, and you were not willing!” (Matt. 23:37 ESV).

You and I are not always willing to be gathered to the Lord either. Each time we do not do the good things God has commanded and every time we do what the Lord forbids, we are rejecting Him and His Word. Sin is rebellion against God, rejecting what He has given us in His Word that is for our good and for our benefit. When you and I reject God’s Word, we are placing our fear, love, and trust in ourselves or in something else that God has created. We decide to do things “my” way and not according to His Word. We get comfortable in our sins or the sins of others. We begin to see what is contrary to God’s Word as “not so bad” or maybe not really sinful at all. Then, we might fail to confess them as sin and fall into unrepentance, not seeking the Lord’s precious Word of Absolution. That is how we can reject God’s unfailing love for us, by not making use of the Means of receiving that love and mercy and grace.

Although God has a love and a patience beyond the farthest reaches of our imagination, the Bible does confront us with the possibility that someone can spurn God once too often. “Our God is a consuming fire” (Heb. 12:29). “It is a fearful thing to fall into the hands of the living God” (Heb. 10:31). Jesus said in our text, “And the one who falls on this stone will be crushed, and it will scatter him upon who it falls” (Matt. 21:44). We do not want to fall into unrepentance as God’s covenant people of old did nor do we want to continue in our rejection of Him and His Word of Law and Gospel. Why? Because we do not wish to face God’s wrath and anger against our sins and our sinful selves. And because of another rejection, we do not have to.

We read in John 1, “The true light, which gives light to everyone, was coming into the world. He was in the world, and the world was made through him, yet the world did not know him. He came to his own, and his own people did not receive him. But to all who did receive him, who believed in his name, he gave the right to become children of God, who were born, not of blood nor of the will of the flesh nor of the will of man, but of God. And the Word became flesh and dwelt among us” (Jn. 1:9-14 ESV). God sent and sent and sent again His Word to Israel through His prophets. Finally, the Word of God Himself became incarnate. The Son of God took on human flesh in order that He, the God-Man Jesus, might be rejected by sinners so that sinners would not be rejected by God. As God through Isaiah promised, “He was despised and rejected by men, a man of sorrows and acquainted with grief” (Isa. 53:3 ESV).

Jesus bore the sorrows and condemnation of all people. He bore our sins in His body on the tree (1 Peter 2:24). Rejected by His own people, Jesus was taken outside the vineyard, outside the city of Jerusalem. There He was killed by being nailed to a cross. As He suffered and bled bearing our sins, Jesus was then rejected by God the Father. Jesus was forsaken by Him, allowed to endure hell itself as He died in our place. And because Jesus faced this rejection by the heavenly Father, God does not reject you.

The death of Jesus Christ on the cross purchased the complete forgiveness of all your sins. He shed His holy, precious blood to cleanse you from your sins of rejecting His Word, His Commandments, and His Promises. You are forgiven for the sins of placing your fear, love, and trust in someone or something else in this world. God the Son was given up into death and raised again from the dead so that you yourself might die to sin and be raised up again to live a new life of repentance and faith. Through the death and resurrection of the Son of God, Jesus Christ, you are made heirs of eternal life and salvation. So we read in Titus, “But when the goodness and loving kindness of God our Savior appeared, he saved us, not because of works done by us in righteousness, but according to his own mercy, by the washing of regeneration and renewal of the Holy Spirit, whom he poured out on us richly through Jesus Christ our Savior, so that being justified by his grace we might become heirs according to the hope of eternal life” (Tit. 3:4-7 ESV).

Through His Gospel Word of Promise, God gives us the free gift of saving faith in Jesus Christ as our Lord and Savior. This faith receives God’s unfailing love and grace. This faith apprehends the forgiveness of our sins. By His grace through faith, the Lord recreates us to be new people in Christ. Jesus said to the chief priests and Pharisees, “the reign of God will be taken from you and will be given to nation which produces its fruits.” In Christ, you are that “nation,” that people. Through Holy Baptism, Christ drowns the old sinful nature in us, the Old Adam, by daily sorrow over sins and repentance. Christ then raises up a new person within us who now, by the power of the Spirit, lives before God in righteousness and purity forever.

You and I now bear fruit in keeping with repentance! We are enabled and empowered by the Gospel through the Spirit’s work to give to God the fruits of our faith that He produces in us. You, as God’s new people in Christ, are able to fear, love, and trust in God above all things. You are able to show love and mercy to your neighbor with concrete words and actions. You and I share and do not cheat others out of what is theirs. We do not extort money or things from people by threats. We don’t falsely accuse or lie. We are content with what God has given us (Mark 3). You and I now love with the reckless love of God. We show patient endurance to others. We help and support our neighbor in every physical need.

Jesus, true God and true Man, was rejected in our place so that, through His death and resurrection, we would have forgiveness for the times we reject God and His Word. Because of Jesus’ rejection on the cross and His resurrection, God gives us forgiveness and new life without any merit or worthiness in us. He bestows upon us His Spirit through Word and Baptism to make us holy so that we actually are and can truly live as new people in Christ who love God and our neighbor. We bear the fruits of faith in keeping with repentance because that is what God in Christ through the Spirit produces in us by means of the Word, Baptism, and Lord’s Supper. You and I are His people whom the Lord does not reject because of the saving work of Jesus. Amen.