Tenants, a sermon based on Exodus 20: 1-17 and Matthew 21: 33-43 preached on October 4, 2026

What a parable we have to read on a day like today. Today, on a day when we’ve just watched a video celebrating the impact that The Pantry on Church makes every Tuesday. Every Tuesday, food is distributed from our parking lot and we say that the difference made is worth celebrating because the fruit of the vineyard is not meant to be kept by the tenants. In our Gospel lesson for today, Jesus tells another parable about a vineyard. He tells the parable sitting in the Temple, having just rode into town on the back of a donkey. He tells this parable to the chief priests and Pharisees, who forgot that they were tenants and started acting like the vineyard was theirs. You see, there was a landowner who planted a vineyard, put a fence around it, dug a wine press in it, and built a watchtower. Then, he leased it to tenants and went to another country, but while he was gone, the tenants took over. They grew the grapes and produced the wine and liked the taste of it, so rather than give the harvest to the owner of the vineyard, they kept everything inside of the fence. They drank the wine. They consumed the profits. They treated the vineyard as though it belonged to them and existed for their benefit, so the landowner sent his own son to put things right, but the tenants seized him, threw him out of the vineyard, and killed him. Jesus asked, “Now when the owner of the vineyard comes, what will he do to those tenants?” The priests and the Pharisees answered, “He will put those wretches to a miserable death and lease the vineyard to other tenants who will give him the produce at the harvest time.” Of course that’s right, but then Jesus said, “You are the miserable wretches.” You use the Temple for your own benefit. You take and take when you were put here to glorify God, to share the gifts of the Kingdom. What will God do to tenants who forget that they don’t own the church, and that the gifts of God are meant, not to be kept in here to benefit us, but to be shared with the world beyond these walls? This stewardship season, we celebrate all the ways that this church pays attention to the world out there, for while we are the tenants in this vineyard, it is imperative that we continue listening to the call of Christ, to give God the produce at harvest time and not to keep it for ourselves, for the county we are living in now has 800,000 people. Half of them have no place of worship. 25% of them are so isolated that they report eating every meal alone. We cannot sit in these pews within these walls without responding to the need out there, and so we listen and respond to the cries of the afflicted. We volunteer and we serve. As the current tenants of this historic church that stands on the corner of hunger and isolation, of hopelessness and despair, we share the harvest, for a church that exists for the sake of her own survival is not a church. Church members who are concerned only with their own well-being cannot be called disciples of Jesus Christ. When the Owner of the vineyard comes, I hope He comes on a Tuesday so that He can see us serve the Lord and care for all God’s people, but the calling is not just to serve on a Tuesday, but to glorify God with every breath and to keep the needs of your neighbor in mind each and every day. I’ve recently been encouraged to read a column in the Marietta Daily Journal written by Lynn Gendusa. Around September 11th, she was writing about how a fast-food hamburger has always been a guilty pleasure for her: cheap, convenient, and satisfying. To pull up to the drive-through window has been a year’s-long habit, but because she pulls up to the drive-through less than regularly, the cost increase is always surprising. When she first started buying herself an occasional fast-food burger, it cost her a quarter, then 50 cents. These days, she has to pull out a credit card to satisfy her craving, but what struck her last September 11th, on the day when every citizen of our nation remembered the same terror, the same pain, unified by the same tragic event that took place 25 years ago, was that the price of the burger keeps rising but what about the paycheck of the young woman who served it to her? “Are we not all Americans?” she asked. Are we not all citizens of the same country, shouldering the same burdens, pledging allegiance to the same flag? And yet it is too easy for our concern to drift to ourselves, to complain about the cost of the burger without thought for the one who flips the burgers and serves the fries. We are prone to self-centeredness and wired for self-preservation; however, the parable reminds us that as tenants of the vineyard, we live by God’s rules. Our first Scripture lesson reminded us of the Ten Commandments, and let me remind you that Jesus said, those laws and all the others are summed up in: “Love the Lord your God with all your heart, soul, and mind, and love your neighbor as yourself.” My friends, it matters how we use the vineyard. It matters that we use it, not only for ourselves, but for the glory of God and for the benefit of all His people, and so we reach beyond these walls. Providing food for hungry people. Mindful of the needs of others. Welcoming the stranger. Compassionate towards the foreigner living in our midst. Last week, we were proud to receive an email from a new visitor to our church named Matthew. Matthew attended worship several times, and since he’s been out of work, he was thankful to receive a food box from our pantry, but upon receiving the food, he stuck around to volunteer in the line, lifting boxes of food and putting them in the car trunks of other hungry people. The next Tuesday, he did the same thing. Now that he has a job working in the Marietta Market, he wrote us to thank us, not only for helping him, but for providing him the opportunity to serve, saying, from you I received “a kindness and respect that I have not received in other places. Thank you so much for letting the Lord use you in helping me.” My friends, on this World Communion Sunday, I remind you and celebrate the truth that we are here to serve beyond these walls. Our ministry is not for ourselves only, but to the glory of God, to the well-being of all His people. We are disciples of Jesus Christ, enlisted, empowered, and charged to live the Gospel, to celebrate the Good news, to put faith into action that all God’s people might know that they are loved. Join those who are already taking part in the effort. Today is the first Sunday of what we call the stewardship season. Each Sunday in the month of October, you’ll see a video, as you did today, celebrating ways that the ministries you support here with your time, talent, and treasure goes beyond these walls and into the community. Each Sunday in the month of October, I’ll be asking you to take seriously the opportunity to fill out a pledge card, committing a percentage of what God has given you to strengthen the ministry of this church. This church is not ours. We are but tenants. What will we do with the gift of this place while we are here? May it not be for our benefit alone, but to the glory of God and the well-being of all His people. Amen.