The Parable of the Vineyard Owner and the Wicked Husbandmen is in Matthew 21: 33-46, Mark 12:1-12, and Luke 20:9-18. As the owner continued to send servant after servant after servant (the way God sent prophet after prophet after prophet), it says much about the tenants and how stiff-necked and rebellious they were. But it says even more about the vineyard owner (God) who kept sending them because of how longsuffering he is.

Table of contentsGod Pursues PeopleGod's Pursuit in the Parable of the Vineyard Owner and the Wicked HusbandmenThe Wicked Husbandmen Represent the Religious LeadersThe Servants Represent Old Testament ProphetsGod's Longsuffering in the Parable of the Vineyard Owner and the Wicked HusbandmenWhy Did Jesus Preach Something So Absurd?Two Shocking Points About the Owner's ResponseThe Vineyard Owner's Son Represents JesusWhat Could the Wicked Husbandmen Have Been Thinking?God’s Longsuffering Comes to an End

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The parable of the vineyard owner and the wicked husbandmen is in Matthew 21:33-46, Mark 12:1-12, and 20:9-18.

Jim Elliot, Ed McCully, Roger Youderian, Nate Saint, and Pete Fleming were the missionaries who tried to preach the gospel to the incredibly violent Auca Indians in Ecuador. It was well-known that the Aucas had killed many people around them, including the workers at a nearby oil company drilling site. The oil company closed their site because people were afraid to work there.

Jim Elliot and the other missionaries wanted to show the Aucas they were friendly. Nate Saint, their pilot, devised a way to lower a bucket filled with supplies to the Indians on the ground while they flew overhead. They thought this would win the Aucas’ trust while keeping the missionaries safe. They began dropping gifts to the Aucas while using an amplifier to speak friendly Auca phrases. After months, the Aucas put a gift in the bucket that the missionaries could bring to their plane. Jim and the other missionaries felt the time had come to meet the Aucas face-to-face.

The five missionaries built a base a short distance from the village. After four days, an Auca man and two women appeared. The missionaries shared a meal with them, and Nate took the man up for a flight in the plane. Later, two Auca women walked out of the jungle. Tragically, as the missionaries approached these women, a group of Auca warriors killed all five heroic men on January 8th, 1956.

Although, this wasn’t the end of the story. In less than two years, Jim Elliot’s wife, Elisabeth Elliot, their daughter, Valerie, and Nate Saint’s sister, Rachel, moved to the Auca village and continued trying to reach the Aucas. Many of them became Christians. They are now a friendly tribe with some missionaries, including Nate Saint's son and his family, continuing to live among them.

God pursued the Aucas using Jim Elliot, the four missionaries with him, and some of their family members.

God Pursues People

While God might not pursue everyone as dramatically as he did the Aucas, he has pursued man since the fall.

Isaiah 59:2 Your iniquities have made a separation between you and your God.

Because we are the ones who sinned and separated ourselves from God, I would think we would then have to be the ones to pursue God. But instead, God pursues us. We see this beginning at the fall, right after Adam and Eve ate from the tree:

Genesis 3:8 They heard the sound of the Lord God [and] hid themselves from the presence of the Lord God among the trees of the garden. 9 The Lord God called to the man and said to him, “Where are you?”

God has continued pursuing man with the gospel throughout all human history. Think of some of the common metaphors we use for the gospel to communicate God’s pursuit. We say the gospel is a call to salvation:

2 Thessalonians 2:14 HE CALLED YOU THROUGH OUR GOSPEL, so that you may obtain the glory of our Lord Jesus Christ.

He calls us to be part of his kingdom:

1 Thessalonians 2:12 Walk in a manner worthy of God, who CALLS YOU INTO HIS OWN KINGDOM AND GLORY.

A common illustration of God pursuing us is an invitation to a wedding. Think of the Parable of the Wedding Feast:

Matthew 22:1 Jesus [said] 2 “The kingdom of heaven may be compared to a king who gave a wedding feast for his son, 3 and sent…servants to CALL THOSE WHO WERE INVITED TO THE WEDDING FEAST, but they would not come. 4 Again he sent…servants, saying, ‘TELL THOSE WHO ARE INVITED…9 Go…to the main roads and INVITE TO THE WEDDING FEAST AS MANY AS YOU FIND.’

In Luke 15, in the parables of the lost sheep and the lost coin, the shepherd who pursues the lost sheep and the woman who pursues the lost coin represent God pursuing lost sinners.

Think of the way, or ways, God pursued you:

Maybe it was through a friendly neighbor.

Maybe it was through a gospel tract.

Maybe it was through a coworker. In my case, it was fellow teachers.

Maybe it was through the Christian family God graciously placed you in, and as a result, you’ve heard the gospel as long as you can remember.

Whatever the case, these are all ways God pursues us, calling us through the gospel and inviting us to be part of his kingdom.

God's Pursuit in the Parable of the Vineyard Owner and the Wicked Husbandmen

The Parable of the Vineyard Owner and the Wicked Husbandmen might be the most dramatic illustration of God pursuing people in all Scripture. God sends servant after servant after servant until he finally decides to send his Son.

Let me remind you of the context for this parable. The religious leaders just finished questioning Jesus’ authority. Jesus responded by preaching this parable, not to the religious leaders, but to the people to warn them about the religious leaders:

Luke 20:9 And he began to tell the people this parable: “A man planted a vineyard and let it out to wicked husbandmen and went into another country for a long while.

This farming arrangement was common in Jesus’ day, especially around Galilee, because there were vast estates owned by foreigners who lived far away. They would give out the care of their land to local people or wicked husbandmen. From our sermon last Sunday in Isaiah 5, which Jesus’ listeners would also have known, we know that the owner is God the Father, and the vineyard is Israel.

The Wicked Husbandmen Represent the Religious Leaders

Think of it like this: the wicked husbandmen were supposed to physically care for the vineyard like the religious leaders were supposed to care for Israel spiritually. The owner returned to his home, but there was an understanding that in the future, he would receive fruit from the vineyard, which is what happened in the next verse:

Luke 20:10 When the time came, he sent a servant to the wicked husbandmen, so that they would give him some of the fruit of the vineyard. But the wicked husbandmen beat him and sent him away empty-handed.

The Servants Represent Old Testament Prophets

Now, we meet another character: the servants. They represent Old Testament prophets. The wicked husbandmen or religious leaders didn’t plant or buy the vineyard. They were allowed to work it because of the generous owner, but they wickedly turned against him.

It would be hard for Jesus’ listeners to believe that wicked husbandmen would respond this way. The worst that wicked husbandmen would do is refuse to provide the expected fruit. But these wicked husbandmen beat the owner’s servant and sent him back empty-handed. The parable gets even harder to believe when we see how the owner responds:

Luke 20:11 And he sent another servant. But they also beat and treated him shamefully, and sent him away empty-handed.

We read this and think, “Okay, the owner sent one servant, the wicked husbandmen beat him and sent him back empty-handed, so then the owner sent a second servant.” But this doesn’t make sense. Let’s briefly think about what we would expect the owner to do and not do.

Assuming he’s a wealthy landowner, he probably has servants that live with him. If he was as wealthy as Abraham, perhaps he even had a standing army, like Abraham had. He takes some of his servants or his standing army, and he goes to the vineyard and teaches the wicked husbandmen a lesson. A more reasonable or expected response would be to go to the authorities:

Luke 12:13 Someone in the crowd said to [Jesus], “Teacher, tell my brother to divide the inheritance with me.” 14 But he said to him, “Man, who made me a judge or arbitrator over you?”

The man addressing Jesus took his issue to the wrong person. Jesus goes on to say this wasn’t why he came. But we can see that it was common to take injustices – in this case, a man who claimed to be ripped off by his brother – to the authorities for help. Think about the parable of the persistent widow:

Luke 18:3 There was a widow in that city who kept coming to [the judge] saying, ‘Give me justice against my adversary.’

In this parable, a woman experiencing an injustice takes it to the local judge.

The point is that the vineyard owner could have done the same, and that’s what we would expect him to do. But here’s what we would NOT expect him to do: send another servant. But that’s what the owner did, and unsurprisingly, they mistreated the second servant even worse than the first. The first servant was beaten, but the second servant was beaten and treated shamefully. I take that to mean he was mocked and ridiculed. So, NOW the owner will go to the authorities or take his servants or his standing army and teach the wicked husbandmen a lesson. Right? Nope!

Luke 20:12 And he sent yet a third. This one also they wounded and cast out.

Do you see how these verses show the owner, or God, dramatically pursuing people? The Greek word for wounded means "grievously wounded." He was beaten even worse than the previous two servants. And it says, "They cast him out." Some Bibles,