Grace Notes in a Passion Prelude

In Nomine Iesu
St. Luke 20:9-19
April 7, 2019
Lent 5C

Dear Saints of Our Savior~

Nearly every service at Our Savior begins with a prelude. A prelude is music with a sacred purpose. It’s not mood music. Nor is it just background noise—something to fill up a few minutes so that our late arrivals can be seated. Nor is the prelude’s purpose merely to showcase the pipe organ or the skills of the organist. No, a prelude is music with a sacred purpose.

The purpose of the prelude is to engage the hearts and minds of the baptized, leading them to ponder and reflect and perhaps even pray—based upon the Biblical theme of any given Sunday. It is music based on words—on texts—from the hymnal and the Bible. The practice of “preluding” goes back centuries. It even precedes the musical ministry of Johann Sebastian Bach—who set new standards of excellence with his preludes.

The prelude points ahead, sets the table, announces the presence of the Risen Lord among His people. This is why, when the prelude begins, our visiting and conversations conclude. The prelude is your invitation to set aside the routine cares and concerns of life, and instead, “lift up your hearts” and consider the Christ. Ponder the Passion. Reflect on your redemption from sin and death.

I’d like to suggest that the parable we heard from Jesus this morning—the parable of the wicked tenants in the vineyard—that this parable functions as a kind of prelude. That is to say, this parable points ahead and sets the table—causes the hearers to ponder what is about to happen—especially when you consider that Jesus spoke these words only a few days before the day of His death. Jesus was in

Jerusalem. Crowds of people followed Him everywhere, while the teachers of the law watched from a distance, looking for an opportunity to arrest Jesus and kill Him.

Now, I would also suggest that this Passion-prelude isn’t a very complex composition. The main themes are relatively easy to pick out and understand. It begins with the simple statement that a man planted a vineyard, rented the vineyard to some tenants, and then went away for a long time. Planting a vineyard is hard work and a big investment; but the end result—namely a well-stocked wine cellar—makes planting a vineyard the perfect plan.

But the owner of this vineyard seems to make some rather unwise business decisions. First of all, he rents the vineyard out to tenants; and tenants can be trouble. Renters can be rascals. You never know what you’re in for when you delegate the delicate task of grape-growing. But then the owner ups the ante when he decides to go off traveling to another country for a long time. Those of you in business know that if you want things done right, then you need to check in once in a while, keeping a close eye on the operation. This landlord seems just a bit too trusting and confident.

Well, not surprisingly these tenants turn into big-time trouble at the harvest. It’s a full-fledged mutiny in the vineyard. No absentee landlord is going to collect anything from these rascals. When the owner sends a succession of servants to collect the fruit of the vineyard, the servants are beaten, wounded, and thrown out of the vineyard empty-handed. Now, this is the point where the owner of the vineyard should have lawyered-up. But he makes a fateful decision instead: What shall I do? I will send my son, whom I love; perhaps they will respect him. Anyone can see that this isn’t going to turn out well. They threw [the Son] out of the vineyard and killed him.

Now if this parable were set to music as a prelude, imagine what it might sound like. The main theme is certainly one of judgment. There is a slow but steady beat as the parable progresses, and as the catastrophic conclusion becomes clear. In minor tones with increasing dissonance this music would reflect murder—the murder of the owner’s beloved son. But, of course, this isn’t just any owner and any beloved Son. The owner of this vineyard is God Himself. The servants He sends are the Old Testament prophets. The terrible tenants are the chief priests and teachers of the law. And the Owner’s beloved Son is the One who tells this parable: Jesus, the Christ.

The overarching theme of this Passion-prelude is judgment—judgment on Old Testament Israel. You can’t reject the owner of the vineyard and kill His beloved Son and not get yourself evicted or worse. This parable also speaks of the judgment that would befall Jesus. It’s a bald-faced prediction of His Passion—of how He would be killed by ruthless tenants. St. Luke writes that the teachers of the law knew that Jesus had spoken this parable against them; but I perceive that He spoke it against us too.

We too can be terrible tenants. We too have been placed in the midst of a beautiful vineyard that we did not plant. That is to say, we are members of the holy Christian church—not by our own choosing, but by grace, through faith, for the sake of Jesus. We are but tenants here. Everything we have is a gift from our gracious LandLord—spiritual blessings like the forgiveness of sins and the promise of life everlasting—as well as physical, tangible blessings like house and home, family and food, money and property.

We each live in a veritable vineyard of blessings. It’s a vineyard that we didn’t plant, full of blessings that we don’t deserve. And we’ve been all too happy to ignore the Owner—to live life on our terms, counting our grapes and hoarding our wine. At harvest time, when the paycheck comes in, we’ve been reluctant to give our gracious God His fair share. Oh, we know it’s all His. But we’re fearful—scared that if we give too much back to the Owner, well then there might not be enough left for us. On our best days we are stingy stewards. And on our worst days we are faithless rebels who openly defy the will of our Lord.

As tenants, we are always tempted to ignore the Landlord—or worse. There will always be reasons to hold on to more of the harvest and keep it for ourselves—including the high cost of retirement, healthcare, and college tuition. But do we fear a downturn in the economy more than we fear, love and trust in a gracious God who gives us all things and who withholds nothing from us, including His own beloved Son? “He who did not spare His own Son, but gave Him up for us all—how will He not also graciously give us all things?”

This gracious God of ours spared not the life of His beloved Son to redeem us. And that brings me to one final aspect of this Passion-prelude. In music there is also a sound called a “grace note.” A grace note is a short little skip of a note, attached to a note of the main melody. It’s really not much more than a little embellishment to the main musical theme. But in this parable, it’s the little grace notes that mean the most to you and me. Let me mention just a few of these grace notes.

The actions of the owner comprise a beautiful grace note in this Passion-prelude. This owner—this Landlord—is gracious and forgiving—slow to anger and abounding in steadfast love. By human standards it’s almost pathetic the way He bears with us terrible tenants. His faithfulness is greater than our faithlessness. He is not an evictor of sinners, but a Savior of sinners.

And that saving work was accomplished through the cross of His beloved Son. This is the ultimate incredibility of God’s love for you. What you had coming to you for your sins—Jesus accepted as your substitute. Jesus got clobbered for you. And now, because your sins are answered for, they can condemn you no more. Everything that would destroy you, convict you and evict you—Jesus has faced it all. And none of it, not even death, destroyed Him. And none of it, not even death, will destroy those who belong to Jesus.

This prelude parable contains another little grace note. You might have missed it. I hear it in the crazy plan of the wicked tenants when they say, “Let’s kill the Son, and the inheritance will be ours!” Now, everybody knows, that’s not the way it works. Murderers don’t inherit what their victims had coming to them. But in a plot-twist no one saw coming, this is exactly the way it worked with Jesus. In the murder of God’s beloved Son we terrible tenants—we poor sinners—we stand to inherit everything. The Son’s rejection is our acceptance by the Father. Jesus’ death is the trump card that makes every hand a winner, no matter how big a loser it might have been.

This is grace—a “grace note” in prelude to judgment. But unlike the musical grace notes, the grace notes of our God mean everything for you and me. In this case, the grace notes form the only theme that matters—a song of salvation that will ring on until that day when we’re all gathered around the throne of the Lamb, singing a symphony of love and praise that will have no end.

Until then, these grace notes mean that you are already living the good life—forgiven and free. You have a place at the Owner’s table. And at the Owner’s table only the best is served—the wine that is Jesus’ blood and the bread that is His body. Your gracious God is so generous with you; you don’t have to ruin it with your grasping, greedy ways. The inheritance—all of it—is yours. For Jesus’ sake.

In the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.