Dear Friends,
Today we read Matthew’s account of Jesus’s Parable of the Wicked Tenants. This is the second of three parables that Jesus used in his encounter with the chief priests and elders in the Temple after his triumphant entry into Jerusalem on what we know as Palm Sunday. Last Sunday, we read the first parable, called the Parable of the Two Sons; next Sunday, we’ll read the third parable, known as the Parable of the King’s Wedding Feast.
As you may recall, on arriving in Jerusalem, Jesus went directly to the Temple. There, he found money changers and sellers of sacrificial doves loudly plying their trades. Infuriated by how that sacred place had been defiled, he angrily drove everyone out, overturned their tables, and began performing healing miracles. Astonished by his interference and fearing for their own authority, the chief priests and elders tried to neutralize him the next morning by questioning his authority and his right to wreak such havoc and perform such miracles. Jesus responded with classic rabbinical questioning, turning the tables on them by sharing these three parables in rapid succession.
Though the Parable of the Wicked Tenants is complicated and difficult, it’s important for us to untangle it because it’s the centerpiece of Jesus’s response to the religious leaders who questioned his authority. And so, before we read this passage in Matthew 21:33-46, which begins with this parable, let us join in this prayer for illumination:
Sing into our ears, O Spirit, the holy word of life. Tell us who we are and to whom we belong so that we may live and act with gratitude for all that you have done and given us. Amen.
All three of these parables, as well as a few others in the latter portion of Matthew’s gospel, are allegorical. An allegory is not an analogy; it is the totality of the story that makes an allegory, while it is the relationship of details that produces a good analogy. To understand and appreciate these parables, we must keep this in mind and also remember that we’re reading them two thousand years after Jesus spoke them. It’s thus important to have a basic understanding of both the parable and the real-life, contemporaneous situation that the parable reflected. If we try to impose our twenty-first century perspectives on the parable, we will lose sight of the original intent of Jesus’s story.
Good storytellers like Jesus knew what understandings, experience, and knowledge were shared by everyone listening to the story. Read verse 33 of today’s parable carefully. Read it a few times. Now go to Isaiah 5:1-7 and read those verses carefully as well. You should be able to hear how Jesus is paraphrasing Isaiah’s song, which everyone in the Temple that morning would have immediately recognized.
Isaiah’s song begins as a love song. It’s about hope and trust, and then bitter disappointment, followed by judgment. The vineyard in Isaiah is a metaphor for the people of Israel, who have failed to keep their covenant with God, allowing wild grapes – immorality and failure to follow God’s law – to contaminate their faith.
Jesus’s parable is the same, but far more intense. It begins with the landowner’s trust and generosity regarding the care of his vineyard, which are betrayed not once, but many times, including the bitterest of betrayals, when his tenants murder his son.
Remember the context here. In overturning the tables the day before, Jesus had been attempting to save the Temple from betrayal and contamination, from the corruption that had grown around it. He was trying to reinstate the covenant between God and the people, the covenant meant to guide and direct the people and preserve their faith and relationship to God. He was trying to restore the integrity of the vineyard. Even on the road to crucifixion, Jesus was offering them one last chance to save themselves and acknowledge his authority.
The crowd that listened intently knew the passage in Isaiah 5 that Jesus was paraphrasing, and they knew exactly where Jesus was going with the story; he was going to God’s judgment. Jesus ended the parable in verse 40 when he asked, “Now when the owner of the vineyard comes, what will he do to those tenants?” (21:40) While the chief priests and elders may have thought that it was they who owned the vineyard, the crowd knew better: they knew the landowner was God, and it was they, the crowd, who voiced the concept of God’s judgment. “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.” (21:41) That divine judgment may seem harsh, but as Frederick Buechner writes in his Wishful Thinking, “The one who judges us most finally will be the one who loves us most fully.”
Jesus may have been hoping to elicit a response from the Temple leadership, but they seemed very passive and quiet, realizing far too late “that he was speaking about them.” (21:45) It was the Temple crowd who replied to his direct question; they were with Jesus every step of the way; they understood. But for the chief priests and elders, the proverbial penny hadn’t dropped. Perhaps it was impossible for it to do so; to acknowledge the place of God and Jesus in the parable would be to acknowledge Jesus’s authority, thereby diminishing their own.
Jesus used a technique in this parable that was often used by the teachers and preachers of his time. They would bracket their story with scriptural allusions at the beginning and the end of the tale, almost as a signal of where the story began and ended, and where any commentary might begin.
Thus, as we saw, Jesus began his parable with an allusion to the prophet Isaiah, and he’s now concluding it with a reference to the psalms: “The stone that the builders rejected has become the chief cornerstone. This was the Lord’s doing; it is marvelous in our eyes.” (Psalm 118:22-23) As you re-read verse 42 in the parable, you cannot help but hear the echo of that psalm, just as those listening would have. The builder is understood here to be the chief priests and elders; Jesus is the rejected stone that God has chosen as the cornerstone.
And then, the parable finished, Jesus began his commentary by saying, “The one who falls on this stone will be broken to pieces; and it will crush anyone on whom it falls.” (21:44) In this brief commentary, he alluded to yet another passage in Isaiah, one the priests and crowds would also have known well. I can imagine them whispering the words of Isaiah under their breath as they listened to Jesus speaking: “He will become a sanctuary, a stone one strikes against; for both houses of Israel [the two kingdoms of Judah and Israel at the time of Isaiah] he will become a rock one stumbles over – a trap and a snare for the inhabitants of Jerusalem. And many among them shall stumble; they shall fall and be broken; they shall be snared and taken.” (Isaiah 8:14-15)
Though the crowd was very much with him, they’ve merely been eavesdroppers. He’s clearly been speaking directly to the chief priests, and once he’s finished the parable, he made that abundantly clear with his words in verse 44. And it’s then that the cumulative lessons of this parable became obvious to the leaders. Realizing that Jesus was referring to them, “they wanted to arrest him, but they feared the crowds, because they regarded him as a prophet.” (21:46) The penny has finally dropped, and the events of Holy Week have become inevitable.
We must not lose sight of who these “crowds” were. These were not rabble rousers in the streets; they were not uncontrollable mobs. Some have followed Jesus and listened intently to his words. Some have sought his miracles. Some sought salvation and deliverance. Some hoped to understand the word of God. Some may not have known all the rules of the covenant of their ancient faith, but they sought to honor it. All were in Jerusalem to celebrate the Passover, and they were worshiping in the Temple.
And it was here, in the Temple, where the chief priests and elders labored (as if it were a vineyard) that Jesus was telling them all – crowds, chief priests, disciples, and new followers – that the Temple which the priests and elders had come to think of as their vineyard was not theirs, but God’s.
This part of the reading reminds me of a story from Stacy Swain, a minister in Massachusetts, about her student days in seminary. “A professor interrupted me mid-sentence one day in class. . .I believe we were discussing how we each understood our calls to ministry. It was my turn to speak, and I started out saying ‘I understand that my ministry is to be. . .’ when my professor suddenly jumped in. “Remember,” he said to me and to the rest of the class, “it is not your ministry. It will never be your ministry. The point that it becomes your ministry is the point when it is ministry no longer. It is the ministry that God is doing in and through you.”
These are words that should have been heard by the chief priests and elders, if only they’d had the ears to do so, and should be heard today by pastors in local churches, lay leadership working in the various ministries of a congregation, denominational leaders and teachers, and anyone who seeks to be involved in God’s vineyard here and now. We must acknowledge whose vineyard it is, and for and through whom we work. “The kingdom of God will be…given to a people that produces the fruits of the kingdom.” (21:43)
Our labor is in God’s vineyard, and it must grow from trust in God’s abiding love, even in times like these, when dark clouds gather over us. That trust is our “love-song concerning his vineyard,” as Isaiah tells us in chapter 5, and as Jesus reminds us in this parable. God plants his vineyard and leaves it to us, his tenants, to tend the vines so that we may enjoy the fruit of our labor and his love. Knowing that we work in God’s vineyard can ultimately reassure and comfort us in even the worst of times.
Joys and Concerns:
Today is World-Wide Communion Sunday. We pray for congregations of Christians around the world, throughout our nation, and here in Scottsville. Even though we do not break the bread of life together today, nor drink together from the cup of salvation, we still – and always – share a profound ministry with and witness to Jesus Christ. We are in communion with our brothers and sisters in faith, and we share in the sacrament of communion with them in our hearts and homes.
We pray for all who are struggling with Covid-19, including the President and the First Lady. May they find healing and strength, and may our medical and scientific leaders conquer this terrible virus safely.
We lift prayers of thanksgiving for all who care for the sick.
Let us pray together:
You call us, O God, to a place of plenty. You fill our hands with well-wrought tools. Before us you spread rich resources. You offer us the privilege of meaningful work in your name in your vineyard, and you invite us to dedicate the fruits of our labor to the goal of establishing a commonwealth of justice for all people.
You give ultimate purpose to our lives.
Surrounded by your abundance and generosity, we ask for one thing more in order to do the work you call us to. Grant us courage: the courage to turn from our greed, which whispers that the fruit is ours alone; the courage to turn from our self-centeredness, which tempts us to feel unfairly obligated when you remind us of our covenant; the courage to turn away from our pride, which lures us into setting ourselves in your place and thinking we can create a commonwealth of justice for ourselves alone; the courage to be faithful, trusting that you will fulfill your promise to feed both body and spirit.
We live in gratitude for the trust you place in us and the courage you bless us with.
In your name and that of your Son and the Holy Spirit, Amen.