Today again we have a “vineyard parable”, the third “vineyard parable” in a row in Matthew 20 – 21. Two weeks ago, we heard the parable of the “Workers in the vineyard”, last week “The parable of the two sons” (whose Father sends to work in the vineyard), and today we have just heard the parable known as the “Wicked Tenants”. I think it is worth noticing that the vineyard is not just random imagery, although its pastoral setting and Master/Servant dynamic would have made a lot of sense to Jesus’s audience. It was probably easier for them to relate to this context than it is for us today. That’s not the point though. When Jesus speaks about vineyards, he is also, and mainly, using an image that first century Jews would understand to point towards Israel. There are indeed many, many passages in the Hebrew Bible where God talks about his people as his “vineyard”, whether in the psalms, in Jeremiah and the prophets, and especially in Isaiah (5: 1-7) there is this poem known as “The Song of the vineyard” – We will come back to it later.
What we need to pay attention to for now is that, because of the vineyard images, this set of parables have been understood to refer directly and only to Israel – After all, when Jesus tells them, he is in Jerusalem, talking to the religious leaders after he has burst into the Temple and overthrown the tables of the money changers. For this reason, these stories have been understood to be about the judgment of Israel, and if I told you last week that “The parable of the two sons” has been said to be Jesus’ easiest parable (although we noticed “maybe not”), the one we have today, “The wicked Tenants”, has been said to be Jesus’ “most difficult parable”. Now it isn’t difficult in the sense that it is hard to understand, it is in fact all too easy to understand. What is difficult about it is that it’s very violent and it seems to condemn Israel. In fact, this parable has been used throughout History to justify Christians’ antisemitism. So I guess it’s worth taking a look at it and try to dig a bit deeper.
First of all, we need to address the problem of the condemnation of Israel. This parable is, indeed, part of Matthew’s “Parables of Judgment” and most of them occurs at the very end of Jesus’ ministry, in fact Jesus told most of them during his last week on earth, when, as I have just mentioned, he came to Jerusalem and was rejected and condemned by the religious authorities. So we already see that Jesus does not condemn anyone before they have condemned him first. Actually, Jesus has been preaching return to God, repentance and forgiveness, throughout all his ministry, but now the time is short and it is the last opportunity for the people to make a decision about him before it’s too late. This parable is a warning about the things that are to come if the religious leaders keep on refusing to listen to Jesus. Indeed they were to put to death the Master’s son in an attempt to steal the inheritance. And this is where it becomes interesting. If you notice, it is certainly not the vineyard that is condemned, it is those who haven’t taken good care of it, it is about those who have used the vineyard for their own benefit. So it really change the perspective on what it means for Israel, doesn’t it? The people as a whole are not condemned, they actually will be saved from the abusive leaders.
Another thing that is interesting to notice is that before Jesus concludes the parable, he asks his hearers what they think about the story and how it should end and it is themselves who pronounce their own condemnation! The line about the Master who “will put those wretches to a miserable death” comes from the religious leaders themselves, not from Jesus.
All this makes it clear that, first, the parable cannot be a condemnation over Israel as a whole, rather it is about its salvation, and then it also extends the parable to the Christian era and it has a lot to say about how we deal with spiritual authority. You know, when we read God’s commandments, as we have read this morning, there is one of them that is almost systematically misunderstood. It is the one about the name of God: “You shall not make wrongful use of the name of the Lord”. You know how we quote that when people swear or use God’s or Jesus’s name to curse. Well, it is certainly not an elegant thing to do. When we respect someone, we don’t use their name to say bad things. But it’s not the problem. The problem is people who uses God’s name to justify all kind of wrongs, to do evil and to call it God’s will: Fundamentalists, Nationalists, Terrorists and, yes, clergy or other church leaders, anyone who use their spiritual authority for their personal benefits. This is really a terrible sin, and the Bible tells us that it won’t go unpunished: “The Lord will not acquit anyone who misuses His name”. So if anything, this parable is a stern warning, and Jesus is offering a last chance for these people to repent before they will have to faced with the ultimate sin, in handing Jesus over in the name of God.
Now secondly about violence, the parable is indeed violent, but we may soon realize that it is all about the violence of the “Wicked Tenants”, rather than about the violence of the Master. The parable isn’t about God’s violence. Again, it is Jesus’ hearers who pronounce their own condemnation, indeed, if they kill the Son of the Master, they would also deserve “a miserable death” and indeed the vineyard, the people of God, should be given to better people who produce “the fruits of the kingdom”. It is said that some of Jesus’ parables are meant to act like “’mirror”, and this one is certainly one of them. Matthew says: “When the chief priests and the Pharisees heard [Jesus’] parables, they realized he was speaking about them”. Jesus shows them their own wickedness: As the Tenants have killed the Master’s messengers, they have condemned the prophets, and they will condemn God’s Son in the same way the Tenants have seize the Master’s son. It is true that Jesus compares himself to the “cornerstone”, a stone that will “crush anyone on whom it falls” but it is only the consequence of their own actions. It’s very hard to understand what we call God’s “judgment” or “punishment” if we don’t understand that, that it is mainly our own sin, wickedness or violence that just turn back it head on us to destroy us. The Ten commandments we have heard in our first reading are all about that, they are God’s laws, the Laws of life if you will, that we cannot break without consequences. Not because God will be unhappy that we don’t obey, but because it bears in itself its own punishment. It’s a “Don’t play with fire” kind of warning if you will. In fact, I love it that Moses say to the people: “God has come only to test you and put the fear of him upon you so that you do not sin” and he also says “Do not be afraid”. I believe this is also what Jesus does in his stories: He tells scary stories so people will wake up and realize that by their sins they only hurt themselves. It is meant to scare people for their own sake.
And so instead of showing us an angry God, the parable shows us instead a God who cares, and focusing our attention on the Master’s behavior could actually turn the whole story upside down, because it shows us the kind and forgiving nature of the Master, to the point that his actions seem almost insane. If you think about that, shouldn’t the Master have fired the Tenants right away, after the first time they haven’t paid their due? Even today, it is still considered the norm. Rather this Master endures their misbehavior, and he keeps sending new people so they would act as they should, sending even his beloved son in spite of the danger. I mentioned before that this story refers to the Book of Isaiah (Ch 5), and it is a poem that talks about the joy and care with which God planted his vineyard. It goes like this:
Let me sing now for my beloved
A song of my beloved about His vineyard.
My beloved had a vineyard on a fertile hill.
He dug it all around, cleared it of stones,
And planted it with the choicest vine.
And He built a tower in the middle of it.
The parable is not first about people who misbehave to the point of becoming criminals, it is a story about God’s relentless love, even for those who keep ignoring God or rejecting God’s commandments.
So what does it mean more specifically for us today? As I say, I think that more than anything this parable functions as a stern warning, a “spiritual caution” story if you will. What is it that we need to be cautious about?
– First of all, I think it shows us how we are caught in a circle of violence. Now let me remind you of the definition of violence: Intentional use of physical force or power to cause injury, death, damage, or destruction. Sometimes we need to use physical force, or power to protect and to defend, but it has to be justified when there is imminent danger. This is why the “Do not kill” commandment has been translated “Do not murder”, meaning that sometimes killing can be justified. Yet killing is always a very serious matter, even when justified, and we know how traumatic it can be to those who have been involved in war. This past week, we also have heard much debate and outrage about the benefit of putting people to death when they cannot hurt anyone anymore. Violence is not a response to violence, it is both destructive and self destructive. Jesus does not return violence. Of course, I can only imagine that not many among us are physically violent, but we may want to re-think our participation in this culture of violence: What about the movies what we watch? The books we read? The angry on line comments? The politics we support?
– This passage also show us how hard it is for us to be told the truth about ourselves. The tenants do not kill the other slaves because they hate them personally but because they don’t want to hear the truth. This is such a good description of human nature. We try to discredit people who warn us about problems we want to ignore, we cut off friends who are being too honest with us – and yet these people could also be sent by God to tell us important things,
I was stunned one day when I heard a priest say: “We always say we see Jesus in the people who love us and take care of us, but how about seeing Jesus in the people who tell us what we don’t want to hear? What about seeing Jesus in the people we violently reject and in the people we condemn? ”
– Lastly the story shows us how dangerous it can be when we start using what God has given us to our own advantage, to our own indulgence. This story is sometimes seen as a “Stewardship parable” ahead of Stewardship season. It acknowledges our own desire to keep for ourselves what God has given us or what we have worked for. Now again, I don’t think God is “mad” because God wants what belongs to God, rather it shows that for our own peace and contentment, gratefulness is the only response to God’s generosity. Each time we try to grasp and capture what God has given us, we destroy it instead of making it fruitful. And this fruitfulness is indeed what the parable is all about, but we’re going to have a whole month to talk about it…