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Rev. Richard Kolaskey

October 4, 2026

Sermon - Pentecost 19 (Proper 22A)

The parallels between today's Old Testament and Gospel are no mistake. The fact that these texts were appointed to be read on the same day is no accident. Jesus is drawing his parable from a love song that the Lord God sang to his people through his prophet Isaiah some seven hundred years earlier, and he is doing this for a reason.

In the Old Testament reading, the vineyard Isaiah was singing about was Israel and Judah, God's chosen people.

God loved them. He blessed them with a rich land. He gave them protection from their enemies. He was with them in his continuous presence in the temple. And best of all, he had given them the promise of the coming Messiah.

But sadly, this love song turns horribly tragic. The Lord's vineyard, which he planted and nurtured and brought forth, well, it produced wild grapes. And this despite God showing his people his tender mercies, despite his carefully tending his vineyard and protecting it and cultivating it, his vineyard brought forth the wild grapes of idolatry, injustice, and bloodshed. Indeed, it bore anything but the good fruit of hope in the promised coming Savior to the nations of the earth.

Even when God time after time sent his prophets to warn them to cultivate the soil of their hearts, to repent, they continued to bear only wild grapes of the hardheartedness of their sin.

So what was left for the Lord to do but to tear the whole thing down, to remove the hedge, to allow his vineyard to be devoured and trampled upon, to turn it over to itself and let it go in all the wild directions it wanted to grow, so that eventually, because of the weeds of sin, it began to self-destruct and choke itself out?

In today's Gospel, Jesus uses Isaiah's imagery as he speaks this parable in the hearing of the chief priests and Pharisees. His audience would be well acquainted with Isaiah's words. They were, after all, heirs according to the flesh of the promise, still the nation through which the promised Messiah would come.

They were still blessed by God with his presence, even for now, in his steadfast love and mercy. Now, through his Son, Jesus, God was still trying to cultivate their hearts with his call to repentance, still calling them to repent from the unruliness of their sin and to return to him.

For God still expected his vineyard, his people, to bear fruit. And not just any old fruit, but, to use John the Baptizer's words, "The fruit in keeping with repentance."

Certainly not the wild fruits of idolatries, injustices, and bloodshed, but the good fruit of welcoming the promised Messiah, and also that they would reveal Him to the nations, to the Gentiles, calling them also to repentance and welcoming them to be numbered among God's people as well.

Now the final messenger of the master of the house is here. He is indeed the master's son, and he is standing right in front of the chief priests and Pharisees, speaking with his father's authority. He is calling upon them to repent, to offer up the good fruit for which they were planted, to trust in the Messiah, the one whom God has sent.

And at the same time, the Jewish leadership is in the midst of plotting how to arrest and even kill Jesus, the Father's Son. In hardness of heart, they would not repent. The stone would fall upon them and they would be broken to pieces. Keep in mind, today's Gospel text comes toward the end of Matthew's Gospel.

It would appear this story, once told in a love song by God, is about to have another tragic ending. But does it? For Christ is risen from the dead. Let us not lose sight of that.

Now, today, now in our hearing, we hear again God's love song ringing in our ears, echoing throughout time. Like God's ancient people, we have been placed in the vineyard of God's kingdom, His church. According to His grace, we have been brought in and numbered among God's people today. We are numbered among God's Israel of the 21st century.

For according to the rebirth from above, according to our baptism, we were made His people when we were washed in God's name and brought into His holy family of faith. That, beloved, is when we were grafted onto this vine and planted firmly in the safety of this vineyard, Christ's Church. In God's kingdom, in His vineyard today, He has built a hedge around each of you to protect and to save you from the devil, the world, and even your own sinful flesh.

He lavishly supplies you with His Word and sacraments, so that by the Holy Spirit, He perpetually cultivates faith in you, to nurture you towards repentance and faith, so that you can bring forth not the wild grapes of your lusts and your passions, but the good fruits of His labors accomplished through you. By God's Word and Spirit, He has worked repentance and faith in you.

He has led you to confess your sins so that you may receive His word of holy absolution, and He has called you to confess your faith before others, that they too might join you in the joy of your salvation and theirs. By the Lord's grace and mercy, He has provided you with the word of His promise fulfilled in His Son, Jesus.

His word reveals to you that His only begotten Son came and died for your sins. And His Son, Jesus, also rose for you so that you also will one day rise from the dead. And God has attached His word of promise to His holy sacraments, that you might be renewed, that you might be strengthened in the true faith that holds fast to all His promises. He has sent you his servant, your pastor, Pastor Judd, and also a vicar, a pastor in training, just as he sent his servants of old.

Also, you can hear his word of forgiveness of sins and know that when you repent of your sins, his forgiveness is here for you. So you can steadily be reminded of your holy baptism, the means through which you were brought into God's family, and also so you can be fed and nurtured in true faith, building up your faith in God and your love for one another in the Lord's body and blood.

Brothers and sisters, all of this, all of this is done for you by God so you might not remain in your sins and bring forth the old wild fruits of your old nature, but that living in the newness of life in Christ, who now lives in you, you might bring forth the good fruits of the new man in you, the one born of Christ according to your holy baptism.

But make no mistake. This is not your doing. It is the Lord's marvelous doing, accomplished for you, accomplished in you, not according to the will and reason of men, but carried out according to the wonderful promises of God the Father that were fulfilled in our Lord Jesus Christ and delivered to you through the Word of God and His sacraments by the Holy Spirit.

Therefore, today, among us, we tell again Christ's retelling of God's love song once delivered to His people of old through the prophet Isaiah. In today's Gospel, it is spoken to the Jewish leadership who are preparing to put the Son of God to death. But it is also being spoken in your hearing, that you might not have Christ crucified for us in vain, but that you, too, might be called to repentance in faith and love toward God, and thereby show forth the good fruits of faith that flow from God through you toward your neighbor.

Serving God through serving and loving our neighbor, that is the fulfillment of the rule of faith, and it is the mission of Christ's church.

Loving the Lord your God with all your heart, all your soul, all your mind, and loving your neighbor as yourself. And this you are to do in your daily vocations, through your various callings, by being a husband or wife, a father or mother, a son or a daughter, or a brother or sister, or even a grandparent.

Whether you are an employer or employee or a retiree, whether or not you are a member of this or that organization or serve on one committee or another, it matters not who you are. We are each called to serve our God by serving our neighbor all the days of our life. Serving him in his need, yes, certainly, but also serving him by inviting him, inviting him to join us in the joys of our labors in God in his hedged-in vineyard.

But do we? Do we faithfully serve God through the needs of our neighbor? Do we invite others to join us as we labor in joy in his vineyard? Oh, we of little faith. For often because of our sin, and also because of our fears, we fail to bear God's good fruit in a world that so desperately needs to receive it. Though we have been richly blessed and cultivated by God that we might bear his good fruit, though we have been freely shown his love so that we might freely give his love and compassion to others, we hold back.

Such sins and mistrust in the Word of God renders us also undeserving of God's protection and careful tending in his vineyard. If judged according to our thoughts, words, and deeds, we deserve to have the Lord's protective hedge around us pulled down and for us to be left on our own to be devoured and trampled upon and overcome by our own sins.

But instead, what has God done?

He is gracious and merciful. He is slow to anger and abounding in steadfast love. He has sent his Son into our flesh. In Jesus, he has fulfilled all the demands he requires and all the promises that he made, and he fulfilled them each and all for us and for our salvation. Jesus came not only to call sinners like us to repentance and faith, but to fulfill all righteousness on our behalf. Even though we cannot, Jesus faithfully fulfilled his vocation and mission to seek and to save the lost.

Though he was rejected by men and killed on our behalf, God raised him from the dead, and he has now placed him as the chief cornerstone upon which all truth and life rests. And once again, beloved, none of this, none of this is your doing or mine. It is all the Lord's marvelous doing, that he takes broken down, thorn-infested sinners like you and me, and according to his word, he restores us in repentance and faith.

By his word, he cultivates us and prunes us to grow in ways of his righteousness, and then he uses us to call others into the marvelous light of his kingdom and vineyard.

Therefore, may we, like St. Paul in today's epistle, count whatever gain we have as loss for the sake of Christ, that when compared to knowing Christ by faith, we may count all other things in our lives as rubbish, that we may joyfully share in his sufferings, becoming like him in his death, that we may attain the resurrection from the dead. And may we also be emboldened, emboldened to joyfully share this marvelous good news with others around us, that they too may join us as we delight in the Lord's grace and mercy.

And so we pray, God enable us to will and to do this faithful and loving work, and with his grace fulfill what we are unable to do. Amen.

And the peace of God that surpasses all understanding, keep your hearts and minds in Christ Jesus. Amen.