This sermon was preached on Sunday 4th October 2026.

Bible Reading: Matthew 21.33-end

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Never had it so good. Prime Minister Harold MacMillan used the phrase in a speech he gave in July 1957 to describe the UK’s economic conditions. This phrase embedded itself in British culture and vernacular and has remained in use ever since. However, I get the impression that not many people would use this phrase to describe their circumstances today. But that always seems to be the way. The grass is always greener on the other side. However, only when we get to the other side do we realise we already had everything. It’s like when George Bailey discovered that he really had a wonderful life. 

Unlike Clarence the angel, Jesus uses a sombre parable to get across a challenging truth that is actually quite sad. The Jews were these people who never had it so good, but they couldn’t see what they had. They may have had a hard time under the Romans, and their history in the preceding centuries included exile and the destruction of the temple, but in reality, the Jews were in the wonderful and privileged position of being God’s people. God had led them out of slavery to be a free people. They were free to worship the God who dwelt among them. They were his people, and he was their God. What could be better than God dwelling with you? 

Surely, nothing could be better than living life with God. Yet somehow the Jews would forget this good news again and again. Quite the opposite: the Jews would turn against the God who blessed them and dwelt with them. God wants his people to turn back to him, but they wouldn’t listen. God sent kings and prophets to bring his people back to him, but again and again the Jews would ultimately end up distant from God. So when nothing else had worked, God decided to send his Son, Jesus, into the world to live as a physical, incarnate human among the Jews, so that they could be with God on earth. But as we know, when Jesus came, many of the Jews turned against him. In fact, it was the Jewish officials and religious leaders, the ones who knew the most about God’s law and prophets, who had Jesus brought before Pilate to be sentenced to crucifixion. 

This is what Jesus explained in his parable. A landowner once planted a vineyard. He then rented the vineyard to tenants, and he left on a trip. When it was time for the harvest, he sent his servant to the tenants to collect his share of the harvest. But the tenants beat and killed the servant. The landowner sent another servant, and another, and another. Again and again, the tenants would beat and kill the servant, refusing to give the share of the harvest. Then the landowner sent his closest representative, the person most like him. He sent his son. Surely, they will respect the landowner’s son. Alas, their logic was that if we kill the son, we will get his property. So, when the landowner’s son came, they threw him out of his own family vineyard and killed him. 

What a horrible thing to happen. Why treat their landlord so cruelly? What do you think should happen to these tenants? What do you think the landowner will do when he comes to the vineyard and finds out what the tenants did to his son? Jesus asks the same question of the Jewish crowd listening. For context, Jesus is teaching in the temple after his triumphant entry into Jerusalem on Palm Sunday, and his audience consists of Jewish elders, religious leaders, and the high priest. What do you think they would say? They said that the landowner would come and kill the evil tenants and rent the vineyard out to new tenants ‘who will give him his share of the harvest at the right time.’ 

This seems like a good answer, but then Jesus turns round and tells the Jewish elders that he was talking about them. He goes further and says, ‘The Kingdom of God will be taken away from you and given to a people who will produce the proper fruits.’ Jesus calls out the Jewish leaders.

He says, ‘You were placed in God’s vineyard. You dwelled in his land and belonged to God, the landowner. But when God came to share life with you, to share the fruits of life together, from the land which is already his, you turned him away. You pushed him out, along with all who came on his behalf. Then, when God sent his own Son to you, instead of receiving the Son of God into your presence, you cast him out of his vineyard (that was equally his, and it was his Father’s) and killed him.’ Here Jesus predicts his death that the Jewish leaders would ultimately bring about in a few days’ time. 

So what should God, the landowner, do now? The Jewish leaders knew exactly what God should and would do. He invites new tenants to the vineyard. So, now God invites not only the Jews to come to the vineyard to be with him, but now Gentiles, AKA non-Jewish people. 

As Jesus draws near to Good Friday, he is telling Jewish people that his death will bring about the welcome and invitation of the whole world to become God’s people, to be Christians who know and dwell with God, the landowner, in his beautiful vineyard. It’s by this invitation that we Gentiles are brought into God’s presence to dwell in his vineyard. 

A vineyard is, in many ways, a form of garden. It is a place where trees are planted and grow to bear fruit. At the beginning of the Bible, in Genesis 1, God created Adam and Eve to dwell in a garden with him, a place of paradise where God and his people walked in the garden together. In this invitation to the vineyard, God invites us to rediscover the intimacy of the Garden of Eden, to come to a place where we can walk alongside God in each other’s presence. 

This is the good news of this parable for us. God seeks to bring all of us into his vineyard, into his garden, to be with him. How are we going to respond to his invitation? Will you accept it? Will you go and be with him, do life with God and be in his presence, walking alongside him forever? This is God’s invitation for you, and every single person. Come to dwell with God in the garden, just as he created us to do in the very beginning. 

As a final word of warning, even if we are not Jewish, we must be wary that we do not become like the evil tenants. Many of us have grown up in church, as Christians, following God. But if we are not careful, we can find ourselves turning away from God when he tries to come to us. When we are distant from God, he sends people into our lives to bring us back to him. Sometimes it’s your local vicar, but more often it is family and friends who share Jesus with you through their words and actions. Yet we brush them off, push them away, and even if we don’t try to kill them, we will try to get them cancelled, which could be understood as a form of social execution. 

God is reaching out to you, inviting you into his garden. Don’t turn him away. As God reaches out to you and invites you into his garden, say ‘Yes.’ Say, ‘Yes, God, I accept your invitation to come with you. I want to walk alongside you.’ It’s a simple prayer, but it’s the most powerful prayer we can say, the one that changes everything for us. Just a simple ‘Yes, God’ is all we need to come into his presence and follow him. 

God is inviting you to join him in his vineyard. Will you say ‘Yes’? 

Amen.