Lessons for October 2, 2005 – Twentieth Sunday after Pentecost

The first lesson

Isaiah 5:1-7
 
Now I will sing a song for the one I love about his vineyard:

My beloved has a vineyard on a rich and fertile hill. 2 He plowed the land, cleared its stones,
and planted it with choice vines. In the middle he built a watchtower and carved a winepress in the nearby rocks. Then he waited for a harvest of sweet grapes, but the grapes that grew were wild and sour.  3"Now, you people of Jerusalem and Judah, you have heard the case; you be the judges.  4What more could I have done to cultivate a rich harvest? Why did my vineyard give me wild grapes when I expected sweet ones? 
5Now this is what I am going to do to my vineyard: I will tear down its fences and let it be destroyed.
I will break down its walls and let the animals trample it.  6I will make it a wild place. I will not prune the vines or hoe the ground. I will let it be overgrown with briers and thorns. I will command the clouds
to drop no more rain on it."
7This is the story of the Lord's people. They are the vineyard of the Lord Almighty. Israel and Judah are his pleasant garden. He expected them to yield a crop of justice, but instead he found bloodshed. He expected to find righteousness, but instead he heard cries of oppression.  (NLT)
 
Psalm 80:7-14
 
L.  Turn us again to yourself, O God Almighty. 
C.  Make your face shine down upon us. Only then will we saved. 
L.  You brought us from Egypt as though we were a tender vine;
C.  you drove away the pagan nations and transplanted us into your land. 
L.  You cleared the ground for us, and we took root and filled the land. 
C.  The mountains were covered with our shade; the mighty cedars were covered with our branches. 
L.  We spread our branches west to the Mediterranean Sea, our limbs east to the Euphrates River. 
C.  But now, why have you broken down our walls so that all who pass may steal our fruit? 
L.  The boar from the forest devours us, and the wild animals feed on us.
C.  Come back, we beg you, O God Almighty.
L.  Look down from heaven and see our plight.
C.  Watch over and care for this vine.   (NLT) 

The second lesson

Philippians. 3:4b-14
 
If others have reason for confidence in their own efforts, I have even more! 5For I was circumcised when I was eight days old, having been born into a pure-blooded Jewish family that is a branch of the tribe of Benjamin. So I am a real Jew if there ever was one! What's more, I was a member of the Pharisees, who demand the strictest obedience to the Jewish law. 6And zealous? Yes, in fact, I harshly persecuted the church. And I obeyed the Jewish law so carefully that I was never accused of any fault.  7I once thought all these things were so very important, but now I consider them worthless because of what Christ has done. 8Yes, everything else is worthless when compared with the priceless gain of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord. I have discarded everything else, counting it all as garbage, so that I may have Christ 9and become one with him. I no longer count on my own goodness or my ability to obey God's law, but I trust Christ to save me. For God's way of making us right with himself depends on faith. 10As a result, I can really know Christ and experience the mighty power that raised him from the dead. I can learn what it means to suffer with him, sharing in his death, 11so that, somehow, I can experience the resurrection from the dead! 12I don't mean to say that I have already achieved these things or that I have already reached perfection! But I keep working toward that day when I will finally be all that Christ Jesus saved me for and wants me to be. 13No, dear brothers and sisters, I am still not all I should be, but I am focusing all my energies on this one thing: Forgetting the past and looking forward to what lies ahead, 14I strain to reach the end of the race and receive the prize for which God, through Christ Jesus, is calling us up to heaven.  (NLT)

The Gospel Lesson

Matt 21:33-46

33 "Listen to another parable: There was a landowner who planted a vineyard. He put a wall around it, dug a winepress in it and built a watchtower. Then he rented the vineyard to some farmers and went away on a journey. 34 When the harvest time approached, he sent his servants to the tenants to collect his fruit. 35 "The tenants seized his servants; they beat one, killed another, and stoned a third. 36 Then he sent other servants to them, more than the first time, and the tenants treated them the same way. 37 Last of all, he sent his son to them. 'They will respect my son,' he said. 38 "But when the tenants saw the son, they said to each other, 'This is the heir. Come, let's kill him and take his inheritance.' 39 So they took him and threw him out of the vineyard and killed him. 40 "Therefore, when the owner of the vineyard comes, what will he do to those tenants?" 41 "He will bring those wretches to a wretched end," they replied, "and he will rent the vineyard to other tenants, who will give him his share of the crop at harvest time." 42 Jesus said to them, "Have you never read in the Scriptures: "'The stone the builders rejected has become the capstone; the Lord has done this, and it is marvelous in our eyes'? 43 "Therefore I tell you that the kingdom of God will be taken away from you and given to a people who will produce its fruit. 44 He who falls on this stone will be broken to pieces, but he on whom it falls will be crushed." 45 When the chief priests and the Pharisees heard Jesus' parables, they knew he was talking about them. 46 They looked for a way to arrest him, but they were afraid of the crowd because the people held that he was a prophet.  (NIV)