The Crazy Old Fool

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First Lesson: Exodus 20: 1-4, 7-9, 12-20
Responsive Reading: Psalm 19
Second Lesson: Philippians 3: 4-14
Gospel Lesson: Matthew 21: 33-46

Grace and Peace from Our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ,

Pastor Steve Molin tells the tale of a Crazy Old Fool[1].  This man was not crazy for the reasons we often think of people being crazy.  The Crazy Old Fool was a very successful businessman.  He specialized in building fine homes in an upscale suburb.  People would praise his work as a craftsman and businessman far and wide.  The reason people thought of this man of as crazy was because of how he treated others.

He had a reputation for paying the most generous wages to his workers of any building employer in the area.  The Crazy Old Fool was also charitable to nearly everyone he encountered.  He would constantly give his wealth to others who had done nothing to deserve it.  He gave away tens and hundreds of thousands of dollars to people even those who seemed out to scheme and con him, yet the Crazy Old Fool just didn’t care.  People would snicker behind the Crazy Old Fool’s back but give him the respect he was due when they met him face to face.  The Crazy Old Fool had become an old man; he desired to spend his winters down in Florida, so he approached his top building superintendent and told him he was retiring[2].

Before the Crazy Old Fool retired, he had one more request for his Superintendent.  The Crazy Old Fool said “I want you to build me a home, let it be the finest home this company has ever built.  Do not even think of sparing any expense, any dollars you need are yours, use the finest materials, employ the most gifted tradesmen, and build me a masterpiece before I come in the spring[3]”

The next day, the Superintendent set out to build this home, but not exactly to orders.  If the Crazy Old Fool was retiring, this meant that the Superintendent was going to lose his job.  The Superintendent knew that he was never going to find another job as good as the one he was about to lose.  The Superintendent like many people when faced with an uncertain future had developed a nasty cynicism about it.  So in spite of the Crazy Old Fool having been the best boss this Superintendent could ever dream to have, this Superintendent was going to use this home project to pad his savings account.  The Superintendent vowed this would be his last opportunity to avoid the poor house[4]. 

Inferior concrete blocks would set the foundation of the home, but the Superintendent would charge the Crazy Old Fool for premium blocks, and the Superintendent pocketed the difference.  When it came to hiring workers, the Superintendent hired the cheapest carpenters, plumbers, landscapers, roofers, and electricians he could find.  The Superintendent then charged the Crazy Old Fool wages that would be paid to master craftsman, so he could keep further padding his bank account[5].

The Superintendent then outfitted the house with cheap appliances, and lighting, insufficient isolation, inferior carpet, and drafty windows.  When spring came, the home was finally finished.  The house looked spectacular; it was the best looking home in the neighborhood.  The Superintendent’s scam had worked to perfection; he was now hundreds of thousands of dollars richer.  When the Crazy Old Fool returned home, he was thrilled as he saw the house.  At this time, the Superintendent handed the Crazy Old Fool the keys to the house that he had built[6].

But what the Crazy Old Fool did next was unthinkable.  It was the kind of stunt that you would expect a Crazy Old Fool to do.  As soon as the Crazy Old Fool receives the keys, he turns to the Superintendent, the one who had scammed him out of hundreds of thousands of dollars, the one who had blatantly disobeyed him[7].

The Crazy Old Fool proceeds to shock the building superintendent as he says “I want to give you a gift for all that you have done over the years.”  It was at this moment that the Superintendent was handed the keys to a brand new home[8].

Today’s Gospel comes to us from the 21st Chapter of Matthew[9].  It’s a Gospel Lesson that picks up right where up last week’s Gospel in the Parable of the Two Sons left off[10].  Our lesson further highlights the conflict between Jesus and the Pharisees that was raging during the last week of Jesus’ life.

This conflict was nothing new; in fact, four whole chapters of the Gospel of Matthew (21-24) contain thirteen straight parables or incidents that deal with conflict between Jesus and the religious Pharisees.  These incidents include Jesus flipping tables and money-changers out of the temple as Jesus denounces the religious leaders by declaring “You have made my house a den of robbers[11].”  Jesus offends the Pharisees in last week’s Gospel when he proclaims “Tax Collectors and Prostitutes would enter the Kingdom of Heaven before you (the Pharisees)[12]”.  Later Jesus denounces the Pharisees as a brood of vipers and hypocrites who would never escape God’s judgment[13]. 

At the center of all these arguments between Jesus and the Pharisees was the question of “What do you consider the point of the scriptures to be?”  The Pharisees thought like plenty of people who sit in American churches Sunday after Sunday.  The Pharisees looked at the Old Testament Scriptures where they see “law after law” “rule after rule”, so the Pharisees thought this was the means by which God interacts with his people.  So the Pharisees did their best to follow, and they were inevitability disappointed and disassociated with those who failed to do the same.

In Today’s parable, Jesus is seeking to point how the Pharisees need to understand the scriptures in a new way.  To do this Jesus tells the story of the Owner of a vineyard.  The Owner had outfitted the vineyard with everything it could need a winepress, a fence, and a watchtower[14].  This Vineyard Owner was like the Crazy Old Fool that I was talking about earlier as he was the epitome of generous.

The crazy Vineyard Owner had rented out some land to his tenants.  A tale such as this would have made sense to the Pharisees since Palestine was under Roman control in these days, so most landowners lived thousands of miles away.  Vineyard owners would only occasionally visit their land because of this.

Here’s where this story gets all crazy, the Vineyard Owner sends a representative to collect the rent[15].  The Renters were annoyed by this request as they figured they were the ones doing all the work, so they deserved to keep money and the land as their own.  So as the Owner’s Representatives come to collect the rent, the Tenants beat him up and throw him off the land. 

How does the Land Owner respond to such unruly tenants?  He does something crazy.  He doesn’t do what most normal Land Owners would do in hiring mercenaries or calling upon the Roman Army to drive these hooligans from the land.  The Land Owner instead chooses to send another one of his servants to collect the rent[16], only for this servant to be stoned and thrown off the land.

Surely at this point, the Land Owner will lose hope that his tenants will change their ways.  The Owner’s patience has to be no more.  Nope, he sends a third representative to collect the rent.  Only to see his tenants kill this representative.  So at this point these tenants had beaten, robbed, and killed every messenger the Land Owner had sent their way.  The Land Owner’s patience surely had run out by this point.

But no, the Land Owner attempts his craziest stunt yet as a way of collecting the rent.  He sends his own son to do it, yet as the Owner’s Son came to the land to collect the rent[17].  The Tenants could still only think of themselves, so they kill the Owner’s Son[18].

To understand this parable remember that it serves as an allegory.  The Land Owner is God; The Vineyard is the people of Israel, the Tenants are the Pharisees and the Jewish Religious Leadership, the Landowner’s Servants are the Prophets of Israel, and the Son is Jesus.

For what the aim of the parable is how the Pharisees missed the point of God’s interaction with his people throughout the Old Testament.

Let me cite a few prominent examples: Noah drank too much[19], yet God saw to it that Noah built an Ark to rescue humanity from death and destruction.  Jacob lied and tricked his elderly Father into receiving an inheritance[20] yet God saw to it that Jacob was one of the fathers of his chosen people.  Joseph was an annoying little brat with such a big mouth his brothers wished never to see him again[21], yet he saved the people of Israel and Egypt from a great famine.  Moses was a murderer[22], yet God saw to it that he set the nation of Israel free from the bondage of Egyptian slavery.  Gideon was afraid[23] and doubted God’s promises; God saw to it that he was able to bring down an army of 30,000 men just by blowing a trumpet.  Rahab was a prostitute[24]; Samson was a womanizer[25], King David an adulterer[26], Jonah ran from God at every opportunity[27], yet God saw to it that he would not abandon them from his plan of salvation.

Throughout the Old Testament, it is not just great prophets like Elijah who speak to God’s grace, how God’s grace is instead is made known through the lives of normal, flawed people.  The point of the Old Testament wasn’t just rules and regulations that people inevitability fail to keep like the Pharisees thought it to be.  Instead, the point of the Old Testament was rather how God keeps pursuing the people of Israel in spite of their sin, idol worship, and unbelief.  How no one (and I mean no one) is outside the possibility of God’s grace and to prove this God sent his own son.

The parable for today is meant to drive home the point of how necessary God’s Grace is in even the lives of the self-proclaimed pious and good.

My former Preaching Professor David Lose describes this parable best when he says:

“So where does the bright idea come from to send his son, his heir, alone, to treat with these bloodthirsty hooligans?  It's absolutely crazy.  Who would do such a thing?  No one...except maybe a crazy landlord so desperate to be in relationship with these tenants that he will do anything, risk anything, to reach out of them.  This landowner acts more like a desperate parent, willing to do or say or try anything to reach out to a beloved and wayward child than he does a businessman.  It's crazy, the kind of crazy that comes from being in love.[28]”

What this parable does is showcase to us the desperate, crazy love of God.  God does not offer this love merely once, or twice, but God gives his love a million times or more to all who receive it.  For like the tale of the Crazy Old Fool there are no limits to God’s generosity even as much as we try to take advantage of it.

We can leave today with a simplistic understanding of this parable that Jesus thought the Pharisees were bad and judgmental; this is a partial point but misses the bigger point.  The thing about every other person in the Tenant's situation is they would do what they did.  They would blame the messenger as a way to avoid the truth about ourselves.

German theologian Helmut Thicke describes the parables of Jesus best when he said we will never understand the parables until we see ourselves staring in them[29]. 

We are the Wicked Tenants, We are the failed disciples, we will never pray like we should, we will never study the scriptures like we should; we will never be generous towards the world around us like we should.  We give every good reason for the Land Owner to give up on us, yet He doesn’t.  He gives us chance after chance.  The Land Owner even gave his son’s life to save ours.  The reality of Christian living is we will never pay the rent.  We will never show the gratitude towards God we should; we fail to embrace the blessings that he gives. Yet our Crazy Old Fool of a God keeps giving us the keys to his kingdom through his own Son.




[1] Molin, Pastor Steven. “Speaking of Us: A Sermon on Matthew 21:33-46”. Lectionary.org. 2008. Web. Oct.3.2014

[2] Molin, Pastor Steven. “Speaking of Us: A Sermon on Matthew 21:33-46”

[3] Molin, Pastor Steven. “Speaking of Us: A Sermon on Matthew 21:33-46”

[4] Molin, Pastor Steven. “Speaking of Us: A Sermon on Matthew 21:33-46”

[5] Molin, Pastor Steven. “Speaking of Us: A Sermon on Matthew 21:33-46”

[6] Molin, Pastor Steven. “Speaking of Us: A Sermon on Matthew 21:33-46”

[7] Molin, Pastor Steven. “Speaking of Us: A Sermon on Matthew 21:33-46”

[8] Molin, Pastor Steven. “Speaking of Us: A Sermon on Matthew 21:33-46”

[9] Matthew 21:33-46

[10] Matthew 21:23-32

[11] Matthew 21:13

[12] Matthew 21:31

[13] Matthew 23:33

[14] Matthew 21:33

[15] Matthew 21:34

[16] Matthew 21:36

[17] Matthew 21:37

[18] Matthew 21:38

[19] Genesis 9

[20] Genesis 27

[21] Genesis 37

[22] Exodus 2:11-15

[23] Judges 6

[24] Joshua 2

[25] Judges 16

[26] 2 Samuel 11

[27] The Book of Jonah

[28] Lose, David. “Crazy Love (a.k.a Preaching Matthew Against Matthew).  Working Preacher. Luther Seminary. Saint Paul, MN. 25.Sept.2011. Web. Oct.3.2014

[29] Taken from Molin, Pastor Steven. “Speaking of Us: A Sermon on Matthew 21:33-46”.