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you

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you

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may the words of my mouth and the meditation of our hearts be acceptable in

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your sight the Lord our strength and our Redeemer amen in parable 101 class

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they teach you to look for the absurd in the parable in order to discern the

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truth that Jesus is trying to convey well and to in today's terrible we get

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two for one there are two equally absurd statements that are that are happening

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here the first absurdity tells us a little bit about the landowner who we

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might presume is God the second absurdity tells us something about these

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tenants or these wicked tenants as some say who we might presume to be the

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religious leaders of the time now before I move on I want to add a few words of

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warning as it relates to understanding parables first of all a strict

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allegorical reading a one-to-one reading will get us in trouble while allegory

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can help us begin to understand what's going on it can't take us to the finish

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line for example a lot of people have used this lesson to strictly say that

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these that the vineyard was initially given to the Jews and then it was given

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to the Gentiles therefore the Jews therefore it sort of created an anti

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Jewish sentiment that has been carried down from generation to generation so

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this passage is less about the Jews versus the Gentiles and more about the

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faithful versus the unfaithful okay back to the absurdities in today's lesson the

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landowner since slave after slave after slave to cadet collect the produce only

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to see the wicked tenants kill them again and again and again we might

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presume the slaves are prophets after seeing slave after slave get cut down

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the landowner gets what he think is a great idea he will send his son the

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eventual heir to the vineyard to collect the produce the landowner foolishly says

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they will respect my son what kind of glasses is he wearing is he really that

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naive is he going to send his son to these wicked tenants no one except the

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landowner is surprised when the tenants kill the son who we might presume to be

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Jesus not only is the land logic of the landowner flawed but so is the logic of

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these tenants when they see the sound son coming they also get a bright idea

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they will kill the Sun so that they can get the inheritance themselves what do

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they think they're doing when what world can they commit murder and get the

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inheritance right there are a number of threads that we can start to draw from

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here but I want to pull the threads that tell us something about the nature of

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God and in the nature of humanity that the actions of the landowner tell us

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something about the nature of God whereas the actions of these tenants

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tell us something about the nature of humanity as a whole based on the actions

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of the landowner we might presume that God is foolish God is naive we might

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presume that God puts too much faith in a people who prove themselves to be

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wrong again and again does God not see this as a fool's errand to save a people

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who keep on turning against him then again what other choice does God have we

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might also presume that ours is a God whose love for us extends beyond all

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logic and all understanding you might even say that God's lust lust for us is

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desperate this past week my son John six years old learned at his Bible study

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that God's love is incomprehensible and when I asked John what that word meant

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he said I don't know to try and understand God in God's ways in and of

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itself is a foolish endeavor but that doesn't mean we shouldn't try God isn't

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the only one who gets to be foolish now based on the actions of the tenants we

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might conclude that humanity is self-centered and blind to their own

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sin why do we think we can get away with murder and get rewarded for it too why

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do we think we can eat our cake and have it too do we think that we are so

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special that the rules don't apply to us do we not fear the consequences of our

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actions or do we think we are somehow immune to the judgment everyone else is

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subject to as we unpack these implications I want to take us to

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Romans 2 Paul writes do you imagine whoever you are that when you judge

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those who do such things and yet do them yourself you will escape the judgment of

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God or do you despise the riches of his kindness and forbearance and patience do

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you not realize that God's kindness do you not realize that God's kindness is

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meant to lead you to repentance to a change of heart so much of God's

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salvation project hinges on our ability to recognize the our blindness to our

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own sin our own separation God salvation project depends heavily on our ability

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to recognize the distance between our ways and God way God's ways and how

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that's corrupting not only our lives but the world around us contrary to popular

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belief God helps us see this gap not through his wrath and anger but through

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his kindness through his goodness through his mercy God shows us the gap

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not to shame us into doing right but move us to return to him where our

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hearts are made right with his incomprehensible love as I mentioned

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last week one of the reasons that we have a hard time recognizing the

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distance between us and God is because we tend to think that we have laid the

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palm line in other words we believe the world revolves around me myself and I are

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we believe our worldview the way we look at the world is normative and we judge

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others and even ourselves based on our warped worldview Jesus and his kingdom

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however reveal that our worldview is woefully off-center when we read the

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Sermon on the Mount when we see the miracles that he's performing when we

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hear his his parables how can we not see that our world is woefully off-center

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to the kingdom of God which is the true plumb line he is the chief cornerstone

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we humans however have little respect for boundaries the Ten Commandments is

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exhibited and we like to think that the boundaries were drawn for somebody else

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after years of sending messengers to call us back to God only to see us

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backslide God goes all-in God saves the best for last he gives up his only son

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God is laid utterly bare before a people who don't know when to stop asking for

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more now this image that I'm trying to convey might be captured in a popular

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children's book the giving tree by Shel Silverstein who always read it all right

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it's a great book as you probably remember it's about a boy a relationship

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between a boy and a tree over the years in the beginning the relationship is

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good and mutual the boy swings from her branches and sits in her shade they

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enjoy each other's company but after the boy meets a girl everything begins to

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change he takes the trees apples to the city so he can make money sell them and

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make money he cuts off the trees branches so he can build a house he cuts

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down the tree so he can make a boat and the tree is happy but not really finally

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the boy comes back to the tree and now the trees only a stump and the boy is an

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old man the tree wants to offer the man shade and food and branches to swing

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from but the tree can't do any of those things anymore they've all been taken

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away but the old man is too old for that stuff anyway the old man says he just

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wants to sit down and rest so the tree straightening herself up as much as she

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can tells the old man that he can sit on her stump so the old man sits down and

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the tree is happy God isn't as foolish as we think God is God knows that sending

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his son into the vineyard isn't going to end well God knows that we will take and

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take and take until we can take nothing else and God will give and give and give

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until he has given all that he has but this is where our eyes are opened at

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the intersection of God's infinite desire to give and our insatiable appetite

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to get nothing less than the crucifixion of his son will open our eyes to a world

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that has gone blind at the foot of the cross our desire for more for more power

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for more money for more recognition has revealed as weak pedantic at the foot of

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the cross we also see a God whose love for us is incomprehensible is more than

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we can possibly desire or imagine on the cross God is essentially saying is this

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enough what more do you need from me I have given you all that I am and all

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that I have what else is there and from the foot of the cross how can we not be

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moved to say I don't need anything else I've taken more than I deserve and then

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some I am tired and bloated this is enough you are enough can I just rest

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with you the gap or the chasm between God's ways and human ways is revealed as

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immense the gap is so wide in fact how can we how can we miss it how can we

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not be moved to a change of heart to turn around to return to a God whose

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goodness whose goodness and mercy whose foolishness and desperation can make

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our hearts right and set us straight in our little minds it's absurd for another

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to go to such lengths to save someone who proves themselves to be untrustworthy

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again and again and again but for God it would be absurd not to go to such links

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God desires nothing more than a relationship with his children that they

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might return to him and find rest for their wearied souls God is willing to

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give all that he has and all that he is that that he all that he has and all

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that he is to draw us back to himself and that's the good news we don't have

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to commit murder to receive God's inheritance it is given in his son Jesus

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Christ the one who makes a relationship with God possible now how absurd are

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you willing to get so that the world may know a God who is more ready to give

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than we are to receive and now we proclaim the faith of the church the

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Nicene Creed