Matthew 21:33-46
We could say many of the gospel readings are fascinating and even uplifting, but to be honest, today's gospel does not provoke many good feelings. Today's parable I believe, puts us in the awkward state of being; are we or are we not new tenants in the vineyard of the Lord? For example, Suzanne Somers, the actress was once quoted as saying: "Fame is an uncomfortable state of being, but if I can use it and put out messages that are important, then I embrace fame." Can we embrace being new tenants?
It is not an easy state to be in. We just don't like not knowing for sure. For example consider this passage's history. This has been a passage that has been used throughout the ages --- unfortunately and sadly --- to justify anti-Semitism, --- anti-Jewish pogroms and other violent behavior over centuries. On the surface we can see how easy it would be to reach those conclusions.
Jesus tells a story about a landowner whose tenants keep beating up the slaves he sends to collect the grapes that will be made into wine. Finally, he decides to send his son, thinking "surely they'll leave my son alone." But the tenants kill the son, hoping somehow to get the son's inheritance. In the context of when Jesus tells the story, and that it follows shortly after with the death of Jesus on the cross, it would seem obvious that the Pharisees and other Jewish religious leadership to whom Jesus is telling the story to are supposed to be the old tenants, and Jesus himself is the son of the landowner --- God.
Thankfully many Christians no longer see the text with that narrow and crude view; nevertheless what perhaps are some other more thoughtful ways that Jesus could be opening our minds and hearts with the parable. If it is not just replacing old with new … what does it mean? Are we or are we not the new tenants?
Let's look at this story through a different set of lenses for a moment, because in doing so, we may deepen our own faith life as Jesus pulls us forward. Another way to look at today's gospel is ask again the questions that have troubled not only Christians but others who believe in one God. For example, this parable brings to mind the age-old question of: Why does God allow suffering? Why doesn't God do something to save people in difficult or desperate situations?
We can ask those questions because of the obvious violence. Today's Gospel is another parable set in the vineyard. This one however is a tragedy. The landowner sends his slaves to the tenants to collect his produce from the vineyard that he had built and improved upon. The slaves in response are beaten, stoned, and killed. The landowner sends more slaves and the same thing happens. Finally, the landowner sends his own son, and he is killed as well. At this point we could wonder what the landowner will do next.
However, the landowner is patient and long-suffering, both qualities we admire, --- qualities that we admire in God. Why doesn't the landowner in the parable do something to stop the killing rather than letting the tenants off with a warning? In fact if this was not a parable from Jesus (often an excuse many of us use to not probe too deeply) we may even blame the landowner's long suffering patience and his self-control as stupidity in the face of the death of the slaves and the son. Why not call out the police or even his neighbors and if God is the landowner, why not some massive lighting strike to destroy these tenants.
I don't know about you, but the patience of the landowner makes me impatient. How can a landowner allow a group of tenants to run wild in their violence for so long? Those are questions we also have of God; why didn't and why doesn't God do something?
The answer would seem obvious, just as obvious then as now and comes near the end. We even it see it expressed in the parable. "'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.'" New tenants! According to Isaiah, the words from which Jesus draws in today's parable, the vineyard is a symbol for the people of Israel, God's chosen people. Today, we could imagine that the vineyard represents the world and we are God's chosen people who are the new tenants. So, we have been given the responsibility to care for this world and be a blessing to all people. Grapes for wine, which vineyards produce, are the biblical symbol for justice and righteousness. However, too often we not only forget to whom the world belongs, we also have not done a good job of caring for the world. We have often tried to keep the vineyard for ourselves and destroyed anyone who gets in our way.
If that is the case, is this lesson really challenging us to see ourselves as new tenants --- the true people of God --- who must seriously consider their responsibility to care for this world, so that the world would be a much better place and God's patience would not be so tried? If so, we would not be poised on the brink of ecological disasters. Starvation would not still be a global problem. The sidewalks of our communities would not be filled with homophobia, violence, poverty drug and alcohol abuse as well as homelessness. Children would not die for lack of food or medicine. People would not be killing each other in unthinkable numbers. And people in corporate offices would not be greedily amassing riches beyond belief. Is this parable calling for a revolution? Throw out the people in charge, the tenants with power, and let us who know better --- the chosen true tenants --- be in charge.
That may lead us to another portion of God's word to us today. The parable is a word of judgment like the other vineyard stories in the Bible. Just as surely as Jesus was judging the religious leaders of his day with the parable of the landowner and tenants, he is judging us, as we may be the tenants! And then, I am afraid the verdict is not good either.
Perhaps the whole point of the parable is that we want to be in charge. We want to be the good tenants … like the religious leaders who assumed that Jesus must be talking about them because they thought they must be the good tenants. As I mentioned this parable has been used to justify violence against Jews all based on the belief that we are the good tenants and the Jews were bad tenants. We would not kill the prophets or kill the son. We would be different!
Yet, the cycle starts all over again. The tenants, rebellious and illogical, new or been at for a while, we all make the same mistake. We think the vineyard belongs to us, whether we think we are in charge or not.
So how does this story end? Are we supposed to be the new tenants, all wonderful and nice, or are we supposed to continue to thank God for God's patience because we are the tenants? Or are we supposed sit around patiently desiring for God to quit being so patient?
There is more. Jesus reminds his listeners of a verse from the psalms: "The stone that the builders rejected has become the cornerstone; this was the Lord's doing, and it is amazing in our eyes." The rejected stone becomes the cornerstone on which everything else depends. Those gathered around Jesus who said that the rebellious tenants deserved to die are advocates for exclusion and violence. The best way to handle murderous rebels is, in their view, to make them taste their own medicine. This attitude is popular as well as both ancient and current and leads absolutely nowhere. It simply continues the cycle of new tenants rejecting old tenants who didn't do their job until the new tenants are no longer doing their job.
Rather, in this verse from the Psalms, Jesus suggests a different way, a way with no easy answers. Jesus tells us that it is precisely the rejected stone that is necessary, and must be the foundation for all the rest. The death and victory of Jesus is the prime example of this. Jesus is rejected, betrayed, and abused by those around him. Jesus becomes the cornerstone for a creation rebuilt from the ground up, not simply by bringing new tenants. The issue is no longer the old "vineyard," but rather a totally new structure of which Jesus himself is the "cornerstone." That structure is God's reign or empire, which Jesus has been proclaiming from the beginning of his ministry.
]Jesus leads us forward toward that future unknown but built on Christ, in which we will be both blessed … and judged, and about which we know only that it is to be anchored in Jesus Christ. Like I said this parable does not give me any good feelings… it is seems to have little good news and a lot of warning. But, perhaps that is what we need, aware of how much we have left to do and how much we depend on Christ--- because if you think about it --- we are in the uncomfortable state of being … both a sinner and saint. In other words we are old tenants and new. Amen.
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