33
“Listen to
another parable. There was a landowner who planted a vineyard, put a fence
around it, dug a wine press in it, and built a watchtower. Then he leased it to
tenants and went to another country. 34 When the harvest time had
come, he sent his slaves to the tenants to collect his produce. 35 But
the tenants seized his slaves and beat one, killed another, and stoned another.
36 Again he sent other slaves, more than the first; and they treated
them in the same way. 37 Finally he sent his son to them, saying,
‘They will respect my son.’ 38 But when the tenants saw the son,
they said to themselves, ‘This is the heir; come, let us kill him and get his
inheritance.’ 39 So they seized him, threw him out of the vineyard,
and killed him. 40 Now when the owner of the vineyard comes, what
will he do to those tenants?” 41 They said to him, “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.”
42
Jesus said to
them, “Have you never read in the scriptures:
‘The stone that the builders rejected
has become the cornerstone;
this was the Lord’s doing,
and it is amazing in our eyes’?
43 Therefore I tell you, the kingdom of God will be taken away from you and given to a people that produces the fruits of the kingdom. 44 The one who falls on this stone will be broken to pieces; and it will crush anyone on whom it falls.”
45
When the
chief priests and the Pharisees heard his parables, they realized that he was
speaking about them. 46 They wanted to arrest him, but they feared
the crowds, because they regarded him as a prophet.
Matthew 21:33-46
is the parable of the vineyard. The source is Mark. Matthew clearly
contextualizes this parable within Jesus’ string of conflicts with Jewish
authorities: the “chief priests,” “scribes” and “Pharisees,” in the surrounding
chapters (21:1–24:2). Here is a place where a version in the Gospel of Thomas
makes some scholars think it circulated in a shortened version among some
circles of the early church. I will consider that as I explore the parable. However,
the parable became popular in Christian tradition for its version in the
Synoptic Gospels. If we look at the context, Jesus could use “son” in a parable
without it referring to Jesus as the Son of God. I would like to start by
reading the parable without the traditional interpretation.
A rich landowner
plants a vineyard with a fence, winepress, and watchtower. He leased it to
tenants. They had a difficult life. Yet, they entered into a contract with the
rich landowner. Was it an unjust or unfair contract? We do not know. The rich
landowner went to another country. Like many absentee property owners, he may
have taken advantage of them. On the other hand, he may have been very
generous. We do not know. In any case, the rich landowner sent his servants to
the tenants to collect his produce. The tenants, surprisingly, killed each
servant the rich landowner sent. They act as if they are owners of the vineyard
rather than renters. Finally, the rich landowner sent the heir to the vineyard,
his son, but the tenants saw an opportunity to inherit the land for themselves,
so they killed him as well. They act resolutely to take possession of the
vineyard by getting rid of the only heir. The story ends with a crime. The story
disturbs. It contains tragedy. It leaves us with some discomfort. The question
scholars raise is whether Jesus actually stopped here, given the version of the
story we have in the Gospel of Thomas. If so, Jesus has related a sad and
tragic event for us to ponder. It reflects the disturbed conditions of the
time, partly due to the economic causes that existed in Palestine preceding the
revolt of 66 AD.
I share another
shocking and tragic story. A family living in India shared their hut with a
mongoose. One day, while very hot, the
mother placed the child outside.
Suddenly, she noticed the mongoose creeping into the hut toward its
accustomed bowl of water. Dust covered
the sleek rodent, and the mother was shocked to see its jaws stained with
blood. In a flash, she guessed that the
animal had attacked the sleeping baby.
In her horror, she snatched a heavy rice-pounder, and smashed the head
of the mongoose. Rushing outdoors to
minister to her child, she found the baby peacefully asleep, and beside him the
body of a cobra that the mongoose had fought and killed.
In any case, if we
continue with the parable in the Synoptic version, Jesus asks the crowd what
the rich landowner will do to these tenants. The crowd responds that he will
put the wretches to a miserable death and lease the vineyard to other tenants
who will give him the produce at harvest. As such, the story becomes a
prophetic attack on the behavior of certain Jewish leaders in the time of Jesus
who have not faithfully fulfilled their tenant responsibilities of tending the
spiritual life of Israel. At this point, we can connect the parable with Isaiah
5:1-7, where the Lord plants a vineyard that yields only wild grapes. The Lord
will remove its defenses and allow its destruction. It would have a level of
polemic similar to that of Jeremiah 7, where the prophet challenges the people
not to trust deceptive words of safety, but rather, repent and act justly. The Lord
will cast them out of sight, even though the Lord wants to dwell with them. They
provoke the Lord to their self-destruction. The Lord has persistently sent
prophets, but the people of Israel have resisted their message. They do not
accept the word or discipline from the Lord. The Lord promises the land of
Israel will become a wasteland. In Micah 3, the rulers of Israel should know
justice, but they treat the people wickedly. The prophets use words of peace,
but the Lord is bringing destruction. Jerusalem will become ruins due to the
rulers, who act unjustly and yet expect the Lord to hear their prayers. Thus, I
hope we can see that the parable illuminates the prophetic critique of
religious and political authority that we find in the Old Testament. Postexilic
Jerusalem Israel
At this point, we as
readers today might consider the story as an invitation to put ourselves into
the story. Good stories often have such an implied invitation. The landlord-tenant
relationship can be difficult. The tenant is a steward of property that belongs
to someone else. Ideally, they will care for the interests of each other. It
would be mutually beneficial for them to do so. Human life is like being a
tenant of this time and place in which God has placed us. God is the property
owner, but more than that, a partner, in caring for this time and place. It
just might be that human life and Christian life boils down to a simple
question: What kind of tenant have we become?
As readers today,
we might consider what this parable says about stewardship. Could Christianity
be as simple as learning to be a good tenant? The first step might be that we
need to realize that we are tenants. Everything we have is on loan from God.
God has entrusted us with the precious gospel message. God has entrusted us
with material possessions. We are tenants. Being a disciple of Jesus Christ to
transform the world might be that simple.
As readers today,
the story challenges us to consider that we are like the first tenants. We have
originally agreed to a contract. Greed for more overcame them, leading to
violence and murder. How are our lives like the actions of the first tenants? The
story challenges us to consider whether we are like the rich landowner. The initial
contract may have been unjust. Have we exploited others of lower power or
social standing? Do we see such practices in our time? What do we make of the
violent retaliation against the tenants? Why is he so vindictive? We can
identify with the rich landowner in the loss of his son. Yet, if the first
tenants are the enemy, Jesus has taught to love the enemy. He is not a good
example in that sense. If we put ourselves in the position of the new tenants,
the question for us becomes whether we will learn the lesson from the first
tenants. Will we faithfully return to the landowner what belongs to him? It raises
the question of whether the cycle of violence will ever end. The story invites
us to look at the tragedy and violence of our world, but not from the
standpoint of a distant observer. Rather, we are to look at such tragedy and
violence and ponder whether they have entered our lives. If we are to reflect
at this level, we will need some truthfulness with self and with God. I invite
you to give yourself some time and space for reflection and meditation on these
simple but insightful words.
“If a man has beheld evil, it was shown
to him in order that he learn his own guilt and repent. For what is shown to
him is also within him.” — Baal Shem Tov.
The only devils in this world are those
running around in our own hearts, and that is where all our battles should be
fought. — Mohandas Karamchand (Mahatma) Gandhi (1869-1948).
I have discovered that all human evil
comes from this, man’s being unable to sit still in a room. — Blaise Pascal,
philosopher and mathematician (1623-1662).
At the same time, I
find it quite understandable that the early church understood the story in
light of Easter and its belief in Jesus as the Son. Psalm 118:22, refers to the
stone the builders rejected becoming the cornerstone and that this is an amazing
thing because it is the action of the Lord. The early church would have quickly
viewed the son as Jesus, the first tenants as rabbis and chief priests, and the
new tenants as the leaders of the Christian movement. The rule of God is no
longer a possession of Israel or Judaism, but given to Jew and Gentile alike to
produce fruit for the rule of God. To fall on the stone the builders rejected
is self-destruction. Such rejection shows the danger of overestimating human judgment
in such matters. Divine judgment will always transcend human judgment.[1]
I would not be a
responsible reader of this parable if I refused to acknowledge the painful
history of this parable. It has had a role to play in the anti-Semitism of the
church. The standard allegorical interpretation also presents ethical problems
for Christians interested in their continued relationship with Judaism. In
short, it has generated and supported the central anti-Jewish opinions of
Christian history. Through allegorical interpretation, the parable becomes a
small, violent version of Christian “salvation history”: God first extends a
covenant to the Jews, which they continually violate, and so God takes away
their covenant and makes a covenant with a new people, the followers of the
crucified Jesus. This view is theological supersessionism, a worldview in which
Christians have superseded Jews in a unique covenantal relationship with God.
What is more, the allegorical interpretation of the parable of the tenants
supports all three aspects of the so-called “teaching of contempt,” which is
the classic encapsulation of Christian anti-Judaism.[2]
In the “teaching of contempt,” some Christians have understood the Judaism of
Jesus’ day as degenerate, here demonstrated by the tenants’ dishonesty and
their string of violent murders. Second, some Christians have represented the
Jews as the killers of the Son of God, as shown here by the tenants’ murder of
the landowner’s son. Finally, some Christians have understood the dispersion of
the Jews as divine punishment for their killing of Jesus, a painful teaching
that one can interpret here in God’s taking away of the vineyard. Many
Christians have worked to reject the “teaching of contempt,” and
reinterpretation of this parable is a crucial part of that task. Pannenberg
points out that that while the parable says that God will take the rule of God
away from Israel and give it to a people bringing forth its fruits, the idea of
a new people of God is only implicit here. Further, the passage does not contend
that Israel was once indeed the people of God.[3]
I have referred to
the version we find in The Gospel of Thomas. It has intrigued some scholars
because it reads like a simpler version of the parable, which suggests it might
be closer to what Jesus said.
Gospel of Thomas 65: A
... person owned a vineyard and rented it to some farmers, so they could work
it and he could collect its crop from them.
He sent his slave so the farmers would give him the vineyard’s
crop. They grabbed him, beat him, and
almost killed him, and the slave returned and told his master. His master said, “perhaps he didn’t know
them.” He sent another slave, and the
farmers beat that one as well. Then the
master sent his son and said, “Perhaps they’ll show my son some respect.” Because the farmers knew that he was the heir
to the vineyard, they grabbed him and killed him.
[1] Barth Church Dogmatics II.2 [38.1] 640.
[2] (Jules
Isaac, The Teaching of Contempt: Christian Roots of Anti-Semitism [New York:
Holt, Rinehart and Winston, 1964]).
[3] Pannenberg,
Systematic Theology Volume 3, 470.
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